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On October 23 2012 09:03 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote:
Warpgates are the cause of toss deathballs... Since everything is reinforced straight into the army sooo there's never a point where the army units are split up...
Zerg death balls are currently caused by infestors whose spells allow z to defend until they get blords, and plus the 12 infestors they already made.
These things are further amplified by every map being easy 3 base. I mean you can max out on two bases if you wanted.
Get rid of fungal and warpgates, (keep warp prism though) and I think lots of death to death ball engagements with decrease. Hopefully in HOTS the 200 army will be a hard point to reach
What about the bioball? I disagree. There are a lot of reasons why the balling up is the strongest way to play most of the time for all races, not just one. Do you think that if you only took warpgates away Protoss would not make the powerful deathball?
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I like the idea of that change to pathing. However, the potential still remains for players to still create the ball, as it says in the ball. Therefore good players will still create the ball any way they can, with a few more clicks, if it is the optimal way to play. Therefore by itself, I do not think it will stop deathball play at the high level. Maybe just for noobs!? This is why I think a slight unit collision radius increase to certain/most units is also necessary.
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On October 23 2012 11:07 adacan wrote:
Clumping is a big problem but infinite control groups contribute as well. Even with spacing the deathball will still exist if infinite control groups are kept in.
How so, do you think that high level players/pros will be unable to make a ball with small control groups? I doubt it..
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The problem is Dustin to keep it simple
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The problem is Dustin to keep it simple
Hahaha Fact... he is biggest problem in SC2 now.. :D
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On October 23 2012 23:56 bole wrote:Hahaha Fact... he is biggest problem in SC2 now.. :D
I'm not sure. Dustin is not the only one making the decisions in Blizzard, and in Blizzard they do listen to pros. Get enough pro support, and the change might go through. It worked with removing a Warhound after pros contacted Blizzard and explained why this unit does not fit SC2.
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On October 23 2012 20:54 winsonsonho wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 11:07 adacan wrote:
Clumping is a big problem but infinite control groups contribute as well. Even with spacing the deathball will still exist if infinite control groups are kept in. How so, do you think that high level players/pros will be unable to make a ball with small control groups? I doubt it..
I dont think they will, at least not as easily. Think of moving around a group of 120 lings as a ball. No way even a pro could move it back and forth like they can now. Then you add on macro and moving around other units it becomes that much more difficult.
To go a little more in depth on moving 120 lings as a ball. With infinite control groups u can acomplish this with one click. With 12 group limit it takes 10 clicks. Unless the clicks are perfectly timed, the lings will move more like a line, or 12 small balls. Also it is extremely difficult to make 10 control groups of just lings, so more likely people will just be boxing lings to move them, making it that much more difficult to move as a ball.
So what does this do? It makes aoe indirectly stronger. If 12 lings are coming at a time through a choke its a lot easier for a tank to deal with them then it is for the tank to deal with 120 coming at a time.
Control groups limits aren't a popular idea on tl, but I wish people would consider it a bit more. Remember reading somewhere that control groups were put in specifically as a design choice in warcraft 2, not because of technological limits. In my opinion the designers were on to something.
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Giving more AoE to races other than toss would work, but that would keep armies too small. I would say nerf AoE, so that death ball armies act as larger normal armies, but do not get that death-ball stopping power. Nerf collossus, nerf fungal, nerf tank damage a bit. So even if armies get big, they behave as they should. Buffing AoE for everything will cause everything to just be smaller. It would also encourage timing/all in play instead of macro, while nerfing AoE doesn't.
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I actually think Protoss is currently heading in a somewhat better direction in this regard. Neither Oracles nor Tempests are units you want hotkeyed with your main army--Tempests are best left somewhat behind so they can take advantage of their superior tange, and Oracles are so fast and fragile that if you keep them hotkeyed with your army they'll fly out ahead and get killed basically instantly by any enemy army of halfway decent sized.
If they are balanced properly (and I think they're getting closer, but aren't quite there yet) such that you want like 3-5 Oracles and 3-6 Tempests, thats about 20-40 supply that will not generally be clumped with your main army--you'll want Oracles popping in for a moment for a Timewarp or two, but otherwise out harassing all over the map, and Tempests should form a second line in the back with a bit of space from the main army. If you consider that factoring out workers most "200/200" armies are actually closer to 130 supply, taking out about 20-30% of that and putting it in other places on the map isn't a bad thing.
Simultaneously, they also help break up deathball play on the other side: Oracles are fast and destroy buildings very well, and static defense isn't great against them--but since they can't hit units, there is a strong incentive for player to actually use up supply to help defend expansions rather than relying on static defense and keeping all their supply in the deathball. And Tempests can force engagements with the Infestor-BL deathball before it hits crazy critical mass.
Like I said I'm not sure all the specific stats are completely correct right now, but I think the impulse to create anti-deathball units, and units that incentivize splitting up supply in more control groups and in more places, is very much a good one.
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Time warp looks like it might help in breaking up balls ;-) You definitely don't want your whole ball in a time warp at once...
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But you do want small chunks in the time warp so the protoss can easily mop up your army one group at a time?
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On October 25 2012 11:23 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 23:56 bole wrote:The problem is Dustin to keep it simple Hahaha Fact... he is biggest problem in SC2 now.. :D I'm not sure. Dustin is not the only one making the decisions in Blizzard, and in Blizzard they do listen to pros. Get enough pro support, and the change might go through. It worked with removing a Warhound after pros contacted Blizzard and explained why this unit does not fit SC2.
The thing is that you need an OBJECTIVE look at the game and for people who are "too involved" in it that can be hard. Progamers are looking at it from their own race most likely and that is the same view that Blizzard has. The sad part is that it is the general mechanics (tight formations and unlimited unit selection) which are the real culprits. No one is looking at that or trying to change it ... as was seen by the rather depressing remarks from Blizzard about the modified movement.
So - for a truly objective view - you sometimes need people who are from the OUTSIDE, i.e. not playing, but with a good knowledge of the game and its problems ... ex.-players who hopefully know BW to be able to compare to another game.
On October 29 2012 16:10 winsonsonho wrote:
Time warp looks like it might help in breaking up balls ;-) You definitely don't want your whole ball in a time warp at once...
Time Warp is VERY problematic, because you can easily negate the advantage of a choke point with it; just cast it in front of your opponents army to "push him back" and then move through the choke. It is super useful due to the duration and its size.
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On October 29 2012 16:14 Sissors wrote:
But you do want small chunks in the time warp so the protoss can easily mop up your army one group at a time?
Nope, wasn't saying it was not op, just saying it is more destructive to a larger ball. It takes more energy to use it a few times on smaller squads all over the map than a few times on one big ball..!? I'm sure Blizzard has just made it strong for testing and it'll be nerfed somewhat. Maybe it won't even make it through. I still think it's interesting and better used against a big ball as opposed to a few smaller ones..
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On October 29 2012 19:32 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2012 11:23 Alex1Sun wrote:On October 23 2012 23:56 bole wrote:The problem is Dustin to keep it simple Hahaha Fact... he is biggest problem in SC2 now.. :D I'm not sure. Dustin is not the only one making the decisions in Blizzard, and in Blizzard they do listen to pros. Get enough pro support, and the change might go through. It worked with removing a Warhound after pros contacted Blizzard and explained why this unit does not fit SC2. The thing is that you need an OBJECTIVE look at the game and for people who are "too involved" in it that can be hard. Progamers are looking at it from their own race most likely and that is the same view that Blizzard has. The sad part is that it is the general mechanics (tight formations and unlimited unit selection) which are the real culprits. No one is looking at that or trying to change it ... as was seen by the rather depressing remarks from Blizzard about the modified movement. So - for a truly objective view - you sometimes need people who are from the OUTSIDE, i.e. not playing, but with a good knowledge of the game and its problems ... ex.-players who hopefully know BW to be able to compare to another game. Show nested quote +On October 29 2012 16:10 winsonsonho wrote:
Time warp looks like it might help in breaking up balls ;-) You definitely don't want your whole ball in a time warp at once... Time Warp is VERY problematic, because you can easily negate the advantage of a choke point with it; just cast it in front of your opponents army to "push him back" and then move through the choke. It is super useful due to the duration and its size.
Everyone has a bias, non-players still have favourite races and people who know BW might be biased to BW mechanics.. And you seem to be biased against Blizzard. Just chill, nothing is perfect, but I'm sure they're working on it.
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Keeping it simple, yet not even considering the simplest solution?
Reduce the range of all ranged units and turrents by 1.
That reduces the size of critical mass of units, and maximum dps of death balls in a fight significantly.
Edit: oh, did I mention this change buffs mid/late game battle hellions, early gateway units and medivacs?
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On October 29 2012 21:49 Prodigal wrote:
Keeping it simple, yet not even considering the simplest solution?
Reduce the range of all ranged units and turrents by 1.
That reduces the size of critical mass of units, and maximum dps of death balls in a fight significantly.
Edit: oh, did I mention this change buffs mid/late game battle hellions, early gateway units and medivacs?
A good idea.. That does simplify things :-) I still don't really like the way some units look squished together in a ball though. But I'm starting to think these kind of changes are too hectic for Blizzard to implement :-/
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Death balls have never been visually appealing to anyone with a sense of strategy. In some games like civ, it looks nasty. But I've seen hundreds of anti death ball ideas, ranging from increased AOE, formations, pathing, number buffs/nerfs... But I've NEVER seen anything that would hint to messing with range.
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The range idea actually might help, but it would mostly buff melee units and the force deathballs and clumps of units to move in closer to each other. Not sure if that is really good.
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Which in turn buffs AOE... Though with smaller groups of units, we can start to change map conventions and make starting areas more wide and diverse.
All of Ps death balls clash at melee, hellbats will clash at near melee, everything except late game Z will clash at melee. Forcing death balls even closer gives opportunity for additional strategy in a death ball type scenario. Players will be forced to use additional space because not all of their units can attack at once in a death ball scenario. We'll see more flanks, AOE, air units (because they can stack)...
Don't forget that the strength of forcefield is dependent on the maps it's played on..
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A much easier fix would be to have only 1 geyser per base. This limits tech. At the moment you can have Banelings into infestors, Colossi into Archons, Cloaked Banshees into Marine Tank. Less gas would force players to make careful decisions about what tech they are going in. Also slower tech = more vulnerable to turtle and tech up and max out. This would drag out the early/midgame and have more skirmishes.
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EPT
