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On November 13 2012 04:55 summerloud wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 04:51 Patate wrote:
Actually, the reason why people turtle in this game is that 3 base mining is WAY enough for any production.. more than that is just:
1. more chances of getting dropped
2. more supply for workers, so less for units
Less income per base, and less worker/max supply (whatever the way), is the way to go. That alone will not break the deathball, but it will make up for a way more dynamic early to late-midgame.
I played the 6m1g mod a few months ago, and while the game is not balanced for this kind of gameplay, it rendered OBSOLETE any kind of non-cheesy 1 base play (1-1-1, 4gate, etc..). It also made the game way more dynamic: with less units, we tried harassing the numerous bases in order to gain an advantage in the long run.
This is the main thing that has to be changed. The income per base right now is way too high: there is absolutely no reason why I should be going for a 4th base as a protoss... in pvt for example, it would only make me vulnerable to drops.
Edit: I'd also like to add that the gas should be a limited ressource. Mass High Templar or Infestor play should not be available (without seriously affecting the whole army's composition) until a 5th base. You want to reward macro? do that. Right now, we don't really have macro.. we have sitting on 3 bases and waiting to be maxed. Very rarely did players get maxed in BW, because contains were common, and so were harassments.
i would love to see maps get bigger, have more bases, and decrease the amount of mineral patches however, instead of only having one gas, i would make gas mining slower. i like the strategic option of when to build your 1st and 2nd gas, adds depth to the game also, it would help to raise the supply cap a little or make certain units cost less supply hell, i ll even throw a crazy idea in there without thinking it through: what if workers only cost 1/2 supply each?
I thought of it.. it would totally break the very early game balance.. not sure it is a good thing.
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On November 13 2012 04:57 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 04:55 summerloud wrote:On November 13 2012 04:51 Patate wrote:
Actually, the reason why people turtle in this game is that 3 base mining is WAY enough for any production.. more than that is just:
1. more chances of getting dropped
2. more supply for workers, so less for units
Less income per base, and less worker/max supply (whatever the way), is the way to go. That alone will not break the deathball, but it will make up for a way more dynamic early to late-midgame.
I played the 6m1g mod a few months ago, and while the game is not balanced for this kind of gameplay, it rendered OBSOLETE any kind of non-cheesy 1 base play (1-1-1, 4gate, etc..). It also made the game way more dynamic: with less units, we tried harassing the numerous bases in order to gain an advantage in the long run.
This is the main thing that has to be changed. The income per base right now is way too high: there is absolutely no reason why I should be going for a 4th base as a protoss... in pvt for example, it would only make me vulnerable to drops.
Edit: I'd also like to add that the gas should be a limited ressource. Mass High Templar or Infestor play should not be available (without seriously affecting the whole army's composition) until a 5th base. You want to reward macro? do that. Right now, we don't really have macro.. we have sitting on 3 bases and waiting to be maxed. Very rarely did players get maxed in BW, because contains were common, and so were harassments.
i would love to see maps get bigger, have more bases, and decrease the amount of mineral patches however, instead of only having one gas, i would make gas mining slower. i like the strategic option of when to build your 1st and 2nd gas, adds depth to the game also, it would help to raise the supply cap a little or make certain units cost less supply hell, i ll even throw a crazy idea in there without thinking it through: what if workers only cost 1/2 supply each? I thought of it.. it would totally break the very early game balance.. not sure it is a good thing.
Hmm... We would be able to saturate our mineral line before making the first supply granting structure/overlord... Yeah, Idk about that.
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On November 13 2012 05:35 DuncanIdaho wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 04:57 Patate wrote:On November 13 2012 04:55 summerloud wrote:On November 13 2012 04:51 Patate wrote:
Actually, the reason why people turtle in this game is that 3 base mining is WAY enough for any production.. more than that is just:
1. more chances of getting dropped
2. more supply for workers, so less for units
Less income per base, and less worker/max supply (whatever the way), is the way to go. That alone will not break the deathball, but it will make up for a way more dynamic early to late-midgame.
I played the 6m1g mod a few months ago, and while the game is not balanced for this kind of gameplay, it rendered OBSOLETE any kind of non-cheesy 1 base play (1-1-1, 4gate, etc..). It also made the game way more dynamic: with less units, we tried harassing the numerous bases in order to gain an advantage in the long run.
This is the main thing that has to be changed. The income per base right now is way too high: there is absolutely no reason why I should be going for a 4th base as a protoss... in pvt for example, it would only make me vulnerable to drops.
Edit: I'd also like to add that the gas should be a limited ressource. Mass High Templar or Infestor play should not be available (without seriously affecting the whole army's composition) until a 5th base. You want to reward macro? do that. Right now, we don't really have macro.. we have sitting on 3 bases and waiting to be maxed. Very rarely did players get maxed in BW, because contains were common, and so were harassments.
i would love to see maps get bigger, have more bases, and decrease the amount of mineral patches however, instead of only having one gas, i would make gas mining slower. i like the strategic option of when to build your 1st and 2nd gas, adds depth to the game also, it would help to raise the supply cap a little or make certain units cost less supply hell, i ll even throw a crazy idea in there without thinking it through: what if workers only cost 1/2 supply each? I thought of it.. it would totally break the very early game balance.. not sure it is a good thing. Hmm... We would be able to saturate our mineral line before making the first supply granting structure/overlord... Yeah, Idk about that.
Not sure that's the best solution. Deathballs would just get even bigger and not less effective. Of course it would take longer to build up, and players would be more spread out, but I don't believe that it would necessarily lead to better gameplay. Longer buildup, but maybe more harassment.
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Lurker lurker lurker. Stronger siege tanks. High ground advantage. No brood lords. Plague instead of fungal.
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On November 13 2012 06:06 neptunusfisk wrote:
Lurker lurker lurker. Stronger siege tanks. High ground advantage. No brood lords. Plague instead of fungal.
I disagree with the BL part. It is a very interesting unit (way more than the guardian). Of course lurker vs swarm host is a no brainer: the swarm host is simply stupid and it's not original (its a burrowed Brood Lord).
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On November 13 2012 05:59 Ameisenmann wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 05:35 DuncanIdaho wrote:On November 13 2012 04:57 Patate wrote:On November 13 2012 04:55 summerloud wrote:On November 13 2012 04:51 Patate wrote:
Actually, the reason why people turtle in this game is that 3 base mining is WAY enough for any production.. more than that is just:
1. more chances of getting dropped
2. more supply for workers, so less for units
Less income per base, and less worker/max supply (whatever the way), is the way to go. That alone will not break the deathball, but it will make up for a way more dynamic early to late-midgame.
I played the 6m1g mod a few months ago, and while the game is not balanced for this kind of gameplay, it rendered OBSOLETE any kind of non-cheesy 1 base play (1-1-1, 4gate, etc..). It also made the game way more dynamic: with less units, we tried harassing the numerous bases in order to gain an advantage in the long run.
This is the main thing that has to be changed. The income per base right now is way too high: there is absolutely no reason why I should be going for a 4th base as a protoss... in pvt for example, it would only make me vulnerable to drops.
Edit: I'd also like to add that the gas should be a limited ressource. Mass High Templar or Infestor play should not be available (without seriously affecting the whole army's composition) until a 5th base. You want to reward macro? do that. Right now, we don't really have macro.. we have sitting on 3 bases and waiting to be maxed. Very rarely did players get maxed in BW, because contains were common, and so were harassments.
i would love to see maps get bigger, have more bases, and decrease the amount of mineral patches however, instead of only having one gas, i would make gas mining slower. i like the strategic option of when to build your 1st and 2nd gas, adds depth to the game also, it would help to raise the supply cap a little or make certain units cost less supply hell, i ll even throw a crazy idea in there without thinking it through: what if workers only cost 1/2 supply each? I thought of it.. it would totally break the very early game balance.. not sure it is a good thing. Hmm... We would be able to saturate our mineral line before making the first supply granting structure/overlord... Yeah, Idk about that. Not sure that's the best solution. Deathballs would just get even bigger and not less effective. Of course it would take longer to build up, and players would be more spread out, but I don't believe that it would necessarily lead to better gameplay. Longer buildup, but maybe more harassment.
Don't you think you contradict yourself?
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On November 13 2012 06:33 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 06:06 neptunusfisk wrote:
Lurker lurker lurker. Stronger siege tanks. High ground advantage. No brood lords. Plague instead of fungal. I disagree with the BL part. It is a very interesting unit (way more than the guardian). Of course lurker vs swarm host is a no brainer: the swarm host is simply stupid and it's not original (its a burrowed Brood Lord).
The Broodlord is not "interesting", it is "unfair", because it spawns free units which screen it from ground units that might be able to attack it otherwise. This is the reason why the BL is the only "capital ship" that can work in SC2 and it is a poor reason.
Any ability which makes a unit "invulnerable" to attacks of the opponents army is bad. Thus the Broodlords free units (and the Swarm Host as well, though to a lesser extent since their locusts arent spawned in machinegun rapidity as for the BL), Forcefield and Fungal Growth are pretty unfair or outright overpowered. It is the design concept that makes it so and not the implementation (a Forcefield of 2 second duration would be useless for example) and they usually are either useless or overpowered. Just because people have learned to deal with them doesnt make them less bad concepts.
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On November 13 2012 06:44 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 06:33 Patate wrote:On November 13 2012 06:06 neptunusfisk wrote:
Lurker lurker lurker. Stronger siege tanks. High ground advantage. No brood lords. Plague instead of fungal. I disagree with the BL part. It is a very interesting unit (way more than the guardian). Of course lurker vs swarm host is a no brainer: the swarm host is simply stupid and it's not original (its a burrowed Brood Lord). The Broodlord is not "interesting", it is "unfair", because it spawns free units which screen it from ground units that might be able to attack it otherwise. This is the reason why the BL is the only "capital ship" that can work in SC2 and it is a poor reason. Any ability which makes a unit "invulnerable" to attacks of the opponents army is bad. Thus the Broodlords free units (and the Swarm Host as well, though to a lesser extent since their locusts arent spawned in machinegun rapidity as for the BL), Forcefield and Fungal Growth are pretty unfair or outright overpowered. It is the design concept that makes it so and not the implementation (a Forcefield of 2 second duration would be useless for example) and they usually are either useless or overpowered. Just because people have learned to deal with them doesnt make them less bad concepts.
Oh yeah well the reasons why SC2 has been unpopular as of late (or less popular), was those frustrating design things. I can't remember how many times I've heard casters desperately trying to make a game exciting: "SICK FORCEFIELDS" "SICK FUNGLES" . How are they any good? any mid masters can pull those off, it's simply not impressing.
I want to go back to my comment concerning the bases with less income. Right now, a good zerg can get maxed at the 11 minutes mark. That leaves absolutely no time for any kinds of harassment or pressure (other than all-ins or designated pressure builds that land before 11 min). So in a way, you cannot really react fast enough to anything, which really makes , along with FF-FG-Vortex-Concussive (etc..) playing SC2 a pretty annoying experience at time.
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I have no problems with deathballs existing. It would be ridiculous to think that people should never fight with all of their forces in one place. Everything is on the shoulders of the players. If you don't want to run around the map with a deathball, then don't do it! Multitask more. Spread your army more. Don't put it on one control group.
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On November 13 2012 07:11 ineversmile wrote:
I have no problems with deathballs existing. It would be ridiculous to think that people should never fight with all of their forces in one place. Everything is on the shoulders of the players. If you don't want to run around the map with a deathball, then don't do it! Multitask more. Spread your army more. Don't put it on one control group.
Problem is that the Deathball has been proven too good. Very rarely will you see pros splitting their armies (other than for slight harassment, which is a minimal force). The problem with the deathball is how easy it is to move it and to control it. It makes up for very boring games, which is why BW was more popular than SC2 will probably ever be in Korea.
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i think it would be quite helpful to look at deathball issues in other games, what causes them, and what issues various games have taken to address them.
I used to play wc3 ladder alot, and got quite high even. From what I remember there was a strong tendency for players to have one main army, and few if any side armies; and in team games it was generally very important to have your armies together so they don't get taken out by the other side's armies; I don't recall people complaining about 'deathball' back then, though i didn't follow the forums so much; it does seem like there was the same trend towards highly focused forces; why would it seem less deathbally then? the emphasis on micro? the ability of high leveled heroes to take out armies well?
Heroes of might and magic 3 certainly had doomstacks. There were clear factors there; a) the more troops (of one type) in a stack, the tougher it was, there wasn't any penalty or disadvantage to stacking. b) high mobility; various movement tricks led to high mobility, so keeping yoru army together to defend a large area was quite feasible; especially once a hero got to the very high levels and picked up things like master level town portal or dimension door; then they coudl defend all their towns quite easily.
c) hero advantage; heroes gave boosts to the troops, so troops under your best hero were a lot toughter than troops under other heroes.
The later homm games did try to reduce doomstacking, though it was still pretty prominent; mostly they nerfed the uber mobility sources.
i'm sure there's a lot more to say about what other games have doomstacking issues and which don't; thoughts?
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On November 13 2012 07:16 zlefin wrote:
i think it would be quite helpful to look at deathball issues in other games, what causes them, and what issues various games have taken to address them.
I used to play wc3 ladder alot, and got quite high even. From what I remember there was a strong tendency for players to have one main army, and few if any side armies; and in team games it was generally very important to have your armies together so they don't get taken out by the other side's armies; I don't recall people complaining about 'deathball' back then, though i didn't follow the forums so much; it does seem like there was the same trend towards highly focused forces; why would it seem less deathbally then? the emphasis on micro? the ability of high leveled heroes to take out armies well?
Heroes of might and magic 3 certainly had doomstacks. There were clear factors there; a) the more troops (of one type) in a stack, the tougher it was, there wasn't any penalty or disadvantage to stacking. b) high mobility; various movement tricks led to high mobility, so keeping yoru army together to defend a large area was quite feasible; especially once a hero got to the very high levels and picked up things like master level town portal or dimension door; then they coudl defend all their towns quite easily.
c) hero advantage; heroes gave boosts to the troops, so troops under your best hero were a lot toughter than troops under other heroes.
The later homm games did try to reduce doomstacking, though it was still pretty prominent; mostly they nerfed the uber mobility sources.
i'm sure there's a lot more to say about what other games have doomstacking issues and which don't; thoughts?
You're comparing apples and oranges. Both of these games are really RPGs. WC3 is hardly a RTS like BroodWar.. it does control like it, but it's very different. The main part of the game is the big fight and the micro in it. WC3 games most of hte times finished on 1 base anyway, this is not macro.
I think you would be better off just comparing SC2 to BW. I do not see many more games that you could use to compare. Maybe Company of heroes ( which has no deathball whatsoever, but it is not as full-scale than Starcraft.) Deathballs were not really used in BW because the bad pathing and unit behavior (as well as the control group limit) made it easy for a way smaller defending army to hold, or at least give a decent trade, vs the attacking army.
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This would be imbalanced, especially for terran as we can lift our cc's and land them anywhere and consider it a base.
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United States4883 Posts
I've been arguing this for quite awhile. I honestly think the best thing that can happen to SC2 is a deeper look into space control and being able to zone out areas. Obviously this is quite a huge area, but we really should be looking into ways to make defense way stronger than offense; this allows for a balance not in your army composition or your micro but for balance in positioning and strategic thinking.
I agree that one of the specific things that needs to be addressed is a real highground advantage. It's far too easy to get highground vision in SC2 (in addition to the fact that things aren't as spread out); this makes things like tank wars fit on one screen and really be dependent on air advantage rather than highground advantage. Some suggestions have been a miss percentage on the low ground, a +1/2 range buff to highground units (my favourite), or a damage nerf to lowground units.
I wrote an article on this a while back, check it out if you have time: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=377941
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On November 13 2012 06:33 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 05:59 Ameisenmann wrote:On November 13 2012 05:35 DuncanIdaho wrote:On November 13 2012 04:57 Patate wrote:On November 13 2012 04:55 summerloud wrote:On November 13 2012 04:51 Patate wrote:
Actually, the reason why people turtle in this game is that 3 base mining is WAY enough for any production.. more than that is just:
1. more chances of getting dropped
2. more supply for workers, so less for units
Less income per base, and less worker/max supply (whatever the way), is the way to go. That alone will not break the deathball, but it will make up for a way more dynamic early to late-midgame.
I played the 6m1g mod a few months ago, and while the game is not balanced for this kind of gameplay, it rendered OBSOLETE any kind of non-cheesy 1 base play (1-1-1, 4gate, etc..). It also made the game way more dynamic: with less units, we tried harassing the numerous bases in order to gain an advantage in the long run.
This is the main thing that has to be changed. The income per base right now is way too high: there is absolutely no reason why I should be going for a 4th base as a protoss... in pvt for example, it would only make me vulnerable to drops.
Edit: I'd also like to add that the gas should be a limited ressource. Mass High Templar or Infestor play should not be available (without seriously affecting the whole army's composition) until a 5th base. You want to reward macro? do that. Right now, we don't really have macro.. we have sitting on 3 bases and waiting to be maxed. Very rarely did players get maxed in BW, because contains were common, and so were harassments.
i would love to see maps get bigger, have more bases, and decrease the amount of mineral patches however, instead of only having one gas, i would make gas mining slower. i like the strategic option of when to build your 1st and 2nd gas, adds depth to the game also, it would help to raise the supply cap a little or make certain units cost less supply hell, i ll even throw a crazy idea in there without thinking it through: what if workers only cost 1/2 supply each? I thought of it.. it would totally break the very early game balance.. not sure it is a good thing. Hmm... We would be able to saturate our mineral line before making the first supply granting structure/overlord... Yeah, Idk about that. Not sure that's the best solution. Deathballs would just get even bigger and not less effective. Of course it would take longer to build up, and players would be more spread out, but I don't believe that it would necessarily lead to better gameplay. Longer buildup, but maybe more harassment. Don't you think you contradict yourself?
Not really, why? Maybe it's just my english. I didn't say it would have no effect, just that it doesn't change how the armies work, and that there's no reason to split your army other than doing drops.
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What if you changed the size of units? One of the reasons deathballs are so good is because its easyto get a lot of units clumped up very close together. Marines are a very good deathball unit exactly because of this. They are actually quite fragile but they are among the smallest units in the game. Imagine that the size of the marine was increased to that of the... Thor (exaggeration to prove a point). It would be a terrible deathball unit because if you had more than 20 only half of them would be able to attack. The strength of a single marine would be completely untouched, but clumped in deathballs marines would be awful.
A nice examples of this mechanic in the game already is a brood lord vs ultralisk comparison. Looking at raw stats there is almost no reason whatsoever to get brood lords. They do single target damage as opposed to splash, they are slow as fuck and have both less armor and hp. However being an air unit they dont have a size and can be clumped together as tight as you want them to be. Ultralisk's on the other hand are massive (pun intended) and frequently stop each other from attacking, thus making them bad in large numbers. If we scaled the Ultralisk's size down to say that of a zergling i am sure it would be one of the best units in the game if not the best unit. 5 ultras or 5 brood lords? 20 ultras or 20 brood lords?
The point of all this should be quite clear. The size of the unit greatly affects a units ability to perform in deathball situations and really only that, so maybe this ought to be looked at.
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On November 13 2012 08:34 bananafone wrote:
What if you changed the size of units? One of the reasons deathballs are so good is because its easyto get a lot of units clumped up very close together. Marines are a very good deathball unit exactly because of this. They are actually quite fragile but they are among the smallest units in the game. Imagine that the size of the marine was increased to that of the... Thor (exaggeration to prove a point). It would be a terrible deathball unit because if you had more than 20 only half of them would be able to attack. The strength of a single marine would be completely untouched, but clumped in deathballs marines would be awful.
A nice examples of this mechanic in the game already is a brood lord vs ultralisk comparison. Looking at raw stats there is almost no reason whatsoever to get brood lords. They do single target damage as opposed to splash, they are slow as fuck and have both less armor and hp. However being an air unit they dont have a size and can be clumped together as tight as you want them to be. Ultralisk's on the other hand are massive (pun intended) and frequently stop each other from attacking, thus making them bad in large numbers. If we scaled the Ultralisk's size down to say that of a zergling i am sure it would be one of the best units in the game if not the best unit. 5 ultras or 5 brood lords? 20 ultras or 20 brood lords?
The point of all this should be quite clear. The size of the unit greatly affects a units ability to perform in deathball situations and really only that, so maybe this ought to be looked at.
hmm... so we could make literally every unit the size of a thor and... problem solved! But seriously, the reason we have deathballs is because of pathing and better AI.
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On November 13 2012 12:10 Inquisitor1323 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 08:34 bananafone wrote:
What if you changed the size of units? One of the reasons deathballs are so good is because its easyto get a lot of units clumped up very close together. Marines are a very good deathball unit exactly because of this. They are actually quite fragile but they are among the smallest units in the game. Imagine that the size of the marine was increased to that of the... Thor (exaggeration to prove a point). It would be a terrible deathball unit because if you had more than 20 only half of them would be able to attack. The strength of a single marine would be completely untouched, but clumped in deathballs marines would be awful.
A nice examples of this mechanic in the game already is a brood lord vs ultralisk comparison. Looking at raw stats there is almost no reason whatsoever to get brood lords. They do single target damage as opposed to splash, they are slow as fuck and have both less armor and hp. However being an air unit they dont have a size and can be clumped together as tight as you want them to be. Ultralisk's on the other hand are massive (pun intended) and frequently stop each other from attacking, thus making them bad in large numbers. If we scaled the Ultralisk's size down to say that of a zergling i am sure it would be one of the best units in the game if not the best unit. 5 ultras or 5 brood lords? 20 ultras or 20 brood lords?
The point of all this should be quite clear. The size of the unit greatly affects a units ability to perform in deathball situations and really only that, so maybe this ought to be looked at. hmm... so we could make literally every unit the size of a thor and... problem solved! But seriously, the reason we have deathballs is because of pathing and better AI.
Yes, but if units had more collision (take more space), the whole deathball would take more time to be able to have its maximum dps output. Right now if you take a stimmed bioball and send it to melee range with a building or whatever, it literally takes it less than a second from the first unit to be in firing range to the last unit of the deathball.. therefore the defender (the building in that case) has almost no advantage from standing there. Deathballs move too perfectly, and units clump up way too much.
1a (or 1a2a3a4a5a6a7a8a9a, in that case) an army in BW, and watch it move on the minimap.. it literally becomes a line. Therefore, a well placed defender could hold with half the supply, while this doesn't happen in SC2 (unless it is a hard counter situation). So if you feel like you're well defended, you can split your army and you will still do well.
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On October 13 2012 08:54 BoX wrote:
I don't understand how this would work? These defensive units would be 3x tougher than attacking forces.. How? Building placement?
Would they not be 3x stronger than enemy forces when used offensively?
I'm a little confused o.O
How about spider mines, lurkers, (2 supply, 70dmg) tanks, dark swarm, defensive reavers, stronger splash, high ground advantage...
The reason sc2 games are so passive until players max has a lot to do with map design. It's way too easy to get 3 bases saturated and you dont need more than 3 for a near optimal economy. Unfortunately, it lacks the positional units to deviate from the current designs. More open maps or maps with harder to take bases will favour only certain races because they are too hard to lock down presently.
Maps and units have to be changed simultaneously for this to work. Clumping/AI would have to be changed as well so that its harder to create high dps density on the move and while moving through chokes. I'm playing both bw and sc2 these days and can tell for sure it's these three things that are the difference between deathballs and skirmishes. A selection cap wouldn't have much of an impact for good players.
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On November 13 2012 12:10 Inquisitor1323 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 08:34 bananafone wrote:
What if you changed the size of units? One of the reasons deathballs are so good is because its easyto get a lot of units clumped up very close together. Marines are a very good deathball unit exactly because of this. They are actually quite fragile but they are among the smallest units in the game. Imagine that the size of the marine was increased to that of the... Thor (exaggeration to prove a point). It would be a terrible deathball unit because if you had more than 20 only half of them would be able to attack. The strength of a single marine would be completely untouched, but clumped in deathballs marines would be awful.
A nice examples of this mechanic in the game already is a brood lord vs ultralisk comparison. Looking at raw stats there is almost no reason whatsoever to get brood lords. They do single target damage as opposed to splash, they are slow as fuck and have both less armor and hp. However being an air unit they dont have a size and can be clumped together as tight as you want them to be. Ultralisk's on the other hand are massive (pun intended) and frequently stop each other from attacking, thus making them bad in large numbers. If we scaled the Ultralisk's size down to say that of a zergling i am sure it would be one of the best units in the game if not the best unit. 5 ultras or 5 brood lords? 20 ultras or 20 brood lords?
The point of all this should be quite clear. The size of the unit greatly affects a units ability to perform in deathball situations and really only that, so maybe this ought to be looked at. hmm... so we could make literally every unit the size of a thor and... problem solved! But seriously, the reason we have deathballs is because of pathing and better AI.
Did you miss the part where @bananafone wrote (exaggeration....) He just meant that if the marine for instance had a slightly larger collision radius/size the dps density of a deathball of marines would decrease. Hence, the effectiveness of a marine deathball vs groups of marine balls would be lower. You failed to actually give a real reason why you thought his reasoning was incorrect. Furthermore, there isn't only one reason we have deathballs (pathing and AI). Other reasons for the deathball include; map design (size and locations of naturals and thirds), deathball movement speeds, high deathball dps (due to clumping), hard-counter units (an army of one unit type is too easily countered in sc2), and some others that I probably haven't thought of.
I agree with @banafone.. Unit size/unit collision radius needs to be increased for the marine. The issue with the Protoss deathball is that even though collision radius is somewhat high for most of their units, the major dps dealer, the Collosus, has such a long range and can also walk on top of Zealots and the like. Collision radius thus makes very little difference to the Protoss when the Collosus is incorporated. This is one of the main reason why Protoss rely the Collosus; for its way superior dps and range. Moving on to Zerg, there is no rouch deathball because it isn't as effective due to the low range and their relatively high collision radius. However, the infestor/Lord deathball is so effective because of the Broodlords high dps and the infestor's ability to make up for all of the Broodlords' weaknesses (slow speed, inability to attack air).
I rate that the collosus' attack path needs to be changed (idea from another thread) so that it travels away from the collosus rather than sweep radially. This would allow it to keep its strength vs deathball, but lower its effectiveness slightly vs smaller groups or concaved armies. Secondly, I think the infestor needs to be a little less of the best unit in the game. I would like to see the infestor become less strong and the hydra made stronger.
I do not think that only one or two changes such as the ideas above will fix the deathball issue. Obviously the deathball technique will still be easier and more effective to use for lower level players. But for the top players to use positional play more, I think two more issues also need to be adressed. Firstly, moment speed of units like maurader, collosus, and infestor need to be somewhat reduced so that each of the deathballs are less mobile as a unit. Secondly, the naturals and thirds should not be as close as they are to the main base. This would make it harder to defend all of your bases with one army.
Lastly, I do agree that changing pathing and AI would help too, but Blizzard and a number of players have already tested it and deemed it ineffective at reducing the dsathballs' effectiveness. Blizzard have said already that they won't change pathing. To be honest, it makes sense that blizzard want the deathball to be easy to maintain and useful, so that the game is easier for lower level players. However they do seem to want to make positional play more effective for use by top players. I think Blizzard are on the right track, but need to make some changes to some underlying issues with the game rather than only adding new units and abilities that do not seem to be breaking up the deathball.
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EPT
