EPTManifesto of Game Design: Positional Balance - Page 2
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benzcity07
United States79 Posts
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Zariel
Australia1285 Posts
Try multiplying the size of the marine to 1.3 of it's original size, then apply it to zerglings, roaches, zealots, stalkers, marauders. What you will realise: - Blocking ramps would be easier for protoss zealots (less zealots needed) - Holding ramps would be easier (less attacking units can run up at once) - 90 marines suddenly take up much more physical space | ||
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TopRamen
United States96 Posts
We'll use the marine and standard ramps for an example. You can effectively fit 5-6 marines on a ramp in SC2 with no problem. While in BW you could fit 3-4. Also, it feels like BW terrain has more obstacles than SC2 terrain does. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Why can't people simply accept it's mostly the specific units that are in the game that discourage hyperaggresive play. The play at the top level which we see in streams is simply dictated by what is most effective. In WoL many units and abilities simply punish harassment and back and forth play very hard making it very risky to do. Most of these are related to protoss, for example every time you move through a choke there is a risk you get FF'ed and instantly lose your army. Every time you drop a protoss there is a chance they blink under your dropship(s) and instantly kill them. Every time you move in against a zerg there is a chance you get chain fungaled and die without doing damage. Abilities like these skew the risk/reward balance towards passive play. Why would you attack and split up your army if there is a small chance you do damage and a large chance you get denied and lose your investment. Why would you send zealots into his mineral line if they kill a few workers at most and easily get killed, why go muta these days when the counters are too easy. Passive play is just a result of harassment options being too weak. Especially those abilities which punish you to hard for retreating (stim+concussive, fungal and FF) force players to play an all-in style. If you can't retreat with minimal losses you're forced to go all-in or not attack at all. The reason sc2 is too passive is simply aggresive play outside of all-ins not being good enough, ie harassment or retreating should be easier which is already being done a little bit with the introduction of some harass units, retreat options etc. Space control is already present quite a bit in WoL with sentries, planetaries etc. It's not really a neccesary component to facilitate harass per se, for example map control by having the faster units should also open up avenues for harass but they are discouraged by the earlier mentioned abilities. The deathball of course also plays a huge role in that many good combinations rely on the strength of synergy of the units, you will always have that a bit though when you have support units in the game. Terran in BW was also a lot about 'deathballing' by building up a critical mech force before attacking. The difference was just that a) your units didn't clump as much because of different pathing and b) more abilities/tricks forced you to spread. Some situations in the game favor your units balling up (ranged units vs melee for example, reducing surface area) and many others force you to split up (aoe effects mostly). In WoL the balance is most towards balling up just because lowering surface area tends to be more important than avoiding aoe, for example protoss suffers a bit more from EMP and fungal if they are balled up but using forcefield, protecting your colossi and lowering surface area for them get's better with the ball hence the ball tends to be used so much. Given that pathing will never be changed they just have to (re)design the units so that aggresiveness is rewarded more, especially harassment, and that balling up your army is less important. | ||
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