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I have been thinking of writing something similar for a long time.
Its been almost 6 months since I last watched SC2, because in the end the game has just ended up being boring.
But seeing some of the problems with the Warhound I realised the biggest reason why BW had such engaging and interesting units, while WoL is more or less a 1a slugfest.
Its a simple concept: Unit Tradeoffs
Why is the BW tank, Defiler, Reaver, Arbiter or even vultures such fun units to watch and use - Well its because these units are both massively powerful and horribly awful at the same time. Here are a few examples:
Tanks: The epitome of immobility, with so many problems in hitting allied units, slow siege time and overkill that this unit needed the massive damage and splash to actually be balanced.
Zerglings: Small, fast with incredible damage and quick attacks - yeah these things were OP like nothing you could possibly imagine. But then they were super fragile and died in seconds to decent AOE, add to this the clumsy pathfinding, and you see why poeple didn't just mass zerglings for free wins (well they did when spawning pool were 150). A large tradeoff that really made this unit interesting and a staple of Zerg play.
Reavers: THE best single attack in the game. THE longest range of any ground unit (believe it is tied with the Tank). Tough armor and a not horrible attack speed. In short these guys were beasts, and they had to be in order to not be utterly worthless. Everyone knows how stupid scarabs are, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Reavers are the slowest unit in the game. They require money for each shot. They move slower than a Sloth in a tarpit. The Reaver is a dead end tech choise. You would die of old age before a reaver could move to the other side of the map. Reavers are big and clumsy target, and can be picked of with ease if even a pixel out of position. They make a tortoise seem athletic. They cost a fortune to make. Did I mention that they are just really slow?
In short this unit exemplifies how much power a unit can be given if it has enough tradeoffs. Its massive power is balanced by its huge disadvantages, and as such stands as an interesting unit that require a lot of thought and strategy to use.
Now for some counter examples:
Marauders: A solid unit with above average damage, survivability, range and mobility. They are easily massed and have no real counters in the game. So whats wrong with it? It is basically a flawless unit, thats whats wrong. Its not fragile or vulnerable like Hydras or Dragoons (BW comparative units), they don't have short range like the Zealots, and they don't suffer as much from stimming as Marines, while arguably gaining even more from stim. Its a unit with no drawbacks, no weaknesses for the opponent to exploit or the terran to work around (can't shoot up is only a minor weakness for such a tough unit). This is why Marauders are boring to have in the game - they have no weakness and no really interesting interactions.
Colosus: DB: "HEY here is a great idea, lets take the Reaver, remove all of its weaknesses and then let the players enjoy what a true Protoss mech can do" - /Facepalm. The Colossus is a mere shadow of the mighty Reaver now, and with good reason. A unit that is SO MOBILE and SO FAST and SO TOUGH and have range, aoe and undodgable attacks to boot will need to have a much weaker attack to even resemble being balanced. This is why having disadvantages is good for a unit - otherwise it ends as a boring 1a unit of horrid boredom while being dull. Its the same story with the Tank, the Zergling or the HT. They removed the weaknesses and had to nerf the strengths, dulling down the units.
To summerize: In order for ANY RTS to be interesting as a spectator sport, or even just as a playing experience, it needs units with real tradeoffs. The Warhound is just the latest in a line of units that have no weaknesses to keep its strengths in line, and will in all propability end up as a boring 1a unit. Give it some glaring flaws and you can make it surprisingly powerfull without ruining balance.
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The Warhound is a troll unit, plain and simple.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
Orb I would love a personal respone for this since it's after all your argument (though not an uncommon one) and I think it needs clarification:
The one thing I don't understand is the game already has quite a few units who require just as little or less micro than the Warhound. So okay, you don't think there should be any "1-a" units in the game. But Brood War had units that were less micro oriented than the Warhound. The Goliath for example, this unit is just as un-micro-able as the Warhound, even less so in that the Warhound allows manual target fire with the Haywire Missile as to focus down Hardened Shields and not 'waste' shots on Stalkers/Sentries, or to focus down Siege Tanks and not 'waste' shots on Hellions (Note: I am not saying you can't micro Goliaths, just like nobody would ever say you can't micro Warhounds).
Brood War Zealots and Hydralisks were also "1-a" units but nobody in their right mind would say you didn't have to micro these units.
I can understand the argument that high tech, ultra powerful units like the Colossus should be more micro oriented. But even in BW low tier units weren't crazy micro oriented. You can always micro to get more out of a unit though, in BW or SC2.
Are you implying that the skill ceiling was in fact too low in BW? I have never heard someone argue that before. Or areyou implying that since we took APM away from Macro, more APM should be required in SC2's armies than BW armies to balance this out?
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On September 10 2012 23:13 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 23:03 i)awn wrote:
I totally agree; I was watching this PvT game and God it was so fucking boring; there was no drops, no force fields no emps or snipes; not one fucking intense moment. a week in to the beta.... a week in to the WoL beta I bet it looked like WoL was gonna be all a-moving, 5 mins games. Ofc everyone is useing the warhound right now, its SHINY AND NEW. Once it gets balanced things will change, once people get bored of messing around with it etc. It might be a broken unit, it might need to go or be changed, but a week in to the beta isn't anywhere near enough time to make any clear conclusions. Obviously none of you have ever worked in science or technology or the arts, the piece of music you hear on the radio that you love so much didn't sound anything like that when it was first written, that film you loved was 3 hours long when it was written, had plot holes galore and terrible dialogue. These things take time to become the final product that everyone loves, that is the whole point of a FUCKING BETA
Yes, and that is why he is discussing his concern for the game, instead of beeing quiet about it. If you want to refine something you have to address the issue you can not hope everything will be allright.
If noone ever spoke up during the beta then blizzard would leave it as it is, because they didn't hear any big complaints.
Blizzard doesn't see it like us spectators do either, we are more thinking in the view of is this funny to watch or not. Many people thinks warhound terrible because it lack interesting mechanics and skill to use it. Blizzard is thinking in terms of is this unit balanced which totally different from being enjoyable to watch.
Colossus as it is now is balanced in some regard but is it enjoyable to mass up units in a ball and attack at 180 food? Mostly no. Same thing goes for brood lords where you just sit passive and mass them up while building spines everywhere. You get into the fight and either win or lose. That game isn't even funny to play.
When it comes to warhound it has no drawbacks, it doesn't have to be microed against vikings like the colossus. It deals decent amount of damage with its regular attack and automatically cast its spell/ability on a specific unit type. In blizzard sc2 terms is has no counter except air. In the mid game,Air for toss is phoenix or void ray which marines kills, for zerg only mutas which either marines or thors kills. You basically have to fight them with a ground army.
You have to agree with the op that is it dumbing for a game that is trying to be a legit esports to add such unit. I am okay with it being strong but remove the haywire missile at least or make haywire an air attack ability with short range where you have to target the units you are attacking or something. Or charges that you need to buy like the reaver had, and takes some seconds to channel if the 'target' moves out of range the ability is canceled. Something that would give a "omg will that really happen" type of scenario.
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Great post! Apart from not not having any drawbacks the warhound is just a mech marauder. Kinda seems like blizz have run out of ideas.
Even though I feel blizzard won't do anything it may still be worthwhile to keep pursuing this. I urge you to post this in b.net forums as well.
If nothing works out the only other way is for everyone to rally behind a 3rd party mod. But with lack of a ladder on it I doubt if that will ever pan out. So not encouraging at all.
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Target firing and pulling back hurt warhounds is literally the ONLY form of micro you can possibly do to increase their effectiveness, and this can be said to be true for literally any possible ranged unit design (even marines). Why is this bad? Well to understand it in the first place let's look at why this is good, and the design philosophy Blizzard seems to be approaching the game with.
This isn't anywhere close to true. You can kite, you can spread units against AOE damage, you can flank, you can position for concave, you can drop, you can hit multiple fronts, etc etc.
If a unit doesn't have a user-cast spell and doesn't fly, people on TL want to act like you can't micro it. I'm not thrilled with the warhound design, but let's not pretend that you can't micro it. Its speed is one of the big reasons that it doesn't feel like mech, but that speed also allows warhound opening harass against Protoss where you kite zealots while you focus down stalkers and sentries.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On September 11 2012 00:14 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +Target firing and pulling back hurt warhounds is literally the ONLY form of micro you can possibly do to increase their effectiveness, and this can be said to be true for literally any possible ranged unit design (even marines). Why is this bad? Well to understand it in the first place let's look at why this is good, and the design philosophy Blizzard seems to be approaching the game with. This isn't anywhere close to true. You can kite, you can spread units against AOE damage, you can flank, you can position for concave, you can drop, you can hit multiple fronts, etc etc. If a unit doesn't have a user-cast spell and doesn't fly, people on TL want to act like you can't micro it. I'm not thrilled with the warhound design, but let's not pretend that you can't micro it. Its speed is one of the big reasons that it doesn't feel like mech, but that speed also allows warhound opening harass against Protoss where you kite zealots while you focus down stalkers and sentries.
To add on to that, Haywire Missile is a user-cast spell if you want it to be (right click the icon). Focusing Haywire Missile on key units like Immortals or Siege Tanks instead of them hitting Stalkers/Sentries/Hellions is a micro-oriented ability built right into the unit. How does that not require micro? Any player who has the APM to manually use this ability will have an advantage over a player who does not. Isn't that what Micro is all about?
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Thanks Orb for making this thread, it made me re evaluate the way i view the Warhound and how new units, for a lack of better word, 'should' be implemended. Even tho i think you focus on the negative aspect of things a lot, it also gives you, and in return us, a clear and indept understanding of things work.
Before i forget, thanks for the TvP 'how to engage lategame army' advice you gave me 1 month ago while streaming, it helped me greatly. I felt that it was much better than all the general advice i've heard over the years and my results are much better now. The thing that stuck most to me was when you said: 'there is nothing the Protoss can do when a Terran play's perfect' or something along those lines. That motivated me to get my stuff together and really handle the problem, because it was all me and i just needed a push in the right direction with some practice combined. I'm going way off-topic here, sorry.
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does somebody remember how often dustin said "if you want to stick with wol do that we will not stop the support for it" i think he knew what was coming and that some design decisions are made above him. or maybe im just reading to much into that and he is rly that stupid.
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Canada13379 Posts
I completely agree. I for one would love to see some changes to the warhound.
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Orb this is an incredibly well and thought out post. Please repost this in the Blizzard HotS Forums too. Dustin Browder and David Kim have been reading and posting in there, so hopefully they will see it too. I'd modify or change the subject line completely though to make it sound more urgent than just another "Warhound thread."
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I don't get it. If broodwar was the pinnacle of RTS why did good old Blizzard allowed the dragons? You stated;
an attack move unit. What I mean by this is that you do not need any fancy micro (nor is any possible) to make the warhound effective. You attack move into your opponent and you're set. but does this not apply to the dragons too? It seems to me that broodwar had many of easy to use units and some hard to use. Maybe a nice mixture is the way to go.
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I feel like this post just sums up the sc2 versus brood war relation.
On September 11 2012 00:37 archonOOid wrote:I don't get it. If broodwar was the pinnacle of RTS why did good old Blizzard allowed the dragons? You stated; Show nested quote +an attack move unit. What I mean by this is that you do not need any fancy micro (nor is any possible) to make the warhound effective. You attack move into your opponent and you're set. but does this not apply to the dragons too? It seems to me that broodwar had many of easy to use units and some hard to use. Maybe a nice mixture is the way to go.
There's a lot of potential in micro'ing goons, but if you start microing a large pack of war hounds, it's probably even detrimental for the actual fight.
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I agree with pretty much everything you said. But Blizz ain't fixing that shit anyway...
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On September 11 2012 00:44 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 23:40 Velr wrote:On September 10 2012 23:29 marshmallow wrote:On September 10 2012 23:13 emythrel wrote:
a week in to the WoL beta I bet it looked like WoL was gonna be all a-moving, 5 mins games. Yeah, it's really all a-moving 15 minute games. And all the stuff people didn't like was kept in... Seems like the same thing is happening in this Beta... I really don't get the Warhound. No one wanted that thing, yet for some reason Blizzard seems to think that it's totally necessary and people will come to like it... Because.. That has worked for the Colossus? (lol). Although people dislike the Colossus, they serve a role in the Protoss army that no other unit serves. The Warhound, on the other hand, is a Marauder that comes out of a Factory. Terran already have Marauders, they don't need the Warhound (or Marauders should be removed). Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 00:41 wcr.4fun wrote:I feel like this post just sums up the sc2 versus brood war relation. On September 11 2012 00:37 archonOOid wrote:I don't get it. If broodwar was the pinnacle of RTS why did good old Blizzard allowed the dragons? You stated; an attack move unit. What I mean by this is that you do not need any fancy micro (nor is any possible) to make the warhound effective. You attack move into your opponent and you're set. but does this not apply to the dragons too? It seems to me that broodwar had many of easy to use units and some hard to use. Maybe a nice mixture is the way to go. There's a lot of potential in micro'ing goons, but if you start microing a large pack of war hounds, it's probably even detrimental for the actual fight. The only reason Dragoons have micro potential is because BW pathing is buggy as fuck. That was not an intentional unit design.
That's my point that seemingly easy to use units can be utilized more efficiently with micro and maybe it's not the case with the warhound right now but with balance changes it can be. Therefore it's not absolutely necessary to remove it from the game.
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I agree. My buddy and I were having the same discussion. Everything is turning into this big 1A deathball engagements, but more so for Terran than any other race. Zerg and Protoss still have some remnants of micro (not in the true sense), because of all the casters that both of the races have. Terran doesn't really have any casting units. Yes, you can play with Tanks and Ravens, but now with the addition of battlehellions and warhounds and no casting units, they are the true definition of a 1A Deathball, and I don't think that's the direction we need to go.
One of the reasons there are so many viewers watching SC2 is because of the complexity involved. You know it exists, but you don't have the skill set to pull it off, which is why you watch in awe when the pros do it.
So not only does it remove the incentive to repeat play as pointed out, but it removes the desire to watch tournament after tournament.
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You indeed wrote that perfectly and I completely share your opinion.
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I think when it comes down it, Activision/Blizz do not see a big ROI from esports. Sure they will balance the game and promote the pro-scene, but it's more about "building the community", branding and marketing than anything else. If their #1 goal is short-term sales then they want it to be accessible/fun to as many people as possible (doesn't matter if they just play it 3 times). This is evidenced by nearly every other game they release (COD, WoW expos, etc.) so I'm really not surprised if they have the same mentality to SC2 as well.
I really hope I'm wrong, and maybe KESPA and other international esports orgs. rising up will motivate Blizz to step it up in the game design department.
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aye aye.
The bronze leaguers have to group together and support this thread! I really do think they agree!!
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EPT
