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On November 01 2012 14:42 TGalore wrote:
I agree with a good amount of it. I wrote a thread a long while ago that talks about how silly late game PvZ is right now - either infestors or Corruptors need to change in order to make it an even field again.
As far as mech goes, though, I really do think that either one of buffing tanks or nerfing marines is the way to go in order to fix things. If we're going to be given these enormous maps, then the slow, position based units that are supposed to say "get the f*ck off my lawn" really need to have the firepower to make shit melt when they get in range. I barf a little whenever I see a pack of marines run up to a few tanks and focus fire them down. I include Tempests and Carriers as well as Siege Tanks in this statement.
At the same time, we can't have the cheapest and most basic units like marines having the insane DPS that they do along with ridiculous mobility. It makes it worse that you don't have to choose between allocating supply to make your units durable versus adding extra punch to your drops - having dropships heal lets you have your cake and eat it too.
Have you ever wondered WHY the Marines have such high dps? They do so because they are packed tightly together and this maximises the dps. 3-4 Marines arent going to do much, but if you have 20+ of them in a tight clump they can be awesome ... especially against anything in the air. Blizzard noticed this and then invented hard-counters of Banelings and Forcefield to make their game work at all (Terrans didnt really get any hard-counter at all since the Siege Tank had been watered down to "ohh I dont even kill a Marine in one shot anymore" status because it got "balanced" on Steppes of War). Sadly hard-counters are the wrong way to do it.
So the Marine is FINE as a unit, but the clumping up screws up the whole thing because you can have a MUCH higher concentration of Marines in an area to attack with ... and this is valid for all units. A fix for this problem is easy:
- just stop the auto-clumping and replace it with auto-spreading instead, but add a way to force units into tight formations AND
- limit the number of units selected to 12 AND
- increase the area and damage of AoE attacks (with the exception of Fungal Growth, which is already far too powerful).
This way there would be a clear defenders advantage again, because they could have tight formations while waiting for the attack and the ridiculous importance of mobility (which is another reason why mech isnt viable) would be gone.
Basically the problem all boils down to what Paracelsus said 500 years ago:
"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
Units in SC2 are simply too concentrated [the definition of the deathball ... which we dont like to see as the only viable tactic] to be good for the game. This concentration was probably added to the game without thinking about the consequences and because they could AND because they thought that "more bigger battles" would be "better battles"; they were totally wrong there.
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That's just stupid...
Who matches into a battlefield single file?!
This is a strategy game set in the future...
Clumps are efficient to a point, I do like have either single file and "clump" formation available.
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On November 03 2012 19:12 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
That's just stupid...
Who matches into a battlefield single file?!
This is a strategy game set in the future...
Clumps are efficient to a point, I do like have either single file and "clump" formation available.
"Automatic" formations are stupid, because they are not in the style of Starcraft and fit more to games like Total War or such ... and if you are honest the armies nowadays rush into battle in "3-5 file" already. Just watch a horde of Zerglings rush into battle and you will see it.
Btw. ... I am just assuming that you are commenting on my proposal to reduce the density of units ... which is NOT the same as "marching into battle single file". The big problem is the "density of units", which requires for AoE to be nerfed while maximising the dps of that clump. No one has argued with this mathematical fact and I believe this causes huge problems.
The whole point is that clumps are TOO EFFICIENT for their own dps and require that any AoE used against them has to be nerfed or it will make the clump totally useless.
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Great post, OP.
The only part I disagree with is the Medic. We can't fix SC2 by using what worked in SC1.
Medivacs are fine as they are, and the fact that their energy allows more units to counter them is a good thing.
I'd rather adjust Marines a different way:
Reduce damage by 1, HP by 5.
All terran buildings are bunkers with 1 slot, for marines only.
This will allow terran players to safely - albeit slowly - defend against Zerglings in Zealots that need to have better stats because they are melee. The extended possibility of playing "musical chairs" with your Marines further raises the APM limit.
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Bronzeknee, this is probably the best written suggestion I have read on sc2 forums. You make sense and Its easy to follow your reasoning.
The suggestions themselves are also sound, although there is a lot of changes you propose its obviously they all is meant to achieve a better positional game play. I agree that you can´t just change one thing without thinking on how that affect other matchups and army compositions therefore all these changes are connected
I also want to commend you on your reasoning skills where you keep a cool head and listen to peoples opinions and answer in a proper manner. It really makes this thread stand out from a lot of other threads witch involves more bashing and biased trash talking.
As for the suggestions themselves, I would also love a more position based gameplay and with that in mind I have always been a bit worried about the tempest, the long range forces Terran tank play to engage protoss witch basically removes all form a position play from tanks. You mention a ground attack on the "new" tempest, what range do you suggest on that ground attack?
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Just wanna say Great OP!!!
Some things I already debate for a long time (Colossus too mobile; Siegetank lines can be overwhelmed way too easy; Marines have too high dps, but are needed that way atm or Terrans will crumble). Noone ever listened tome though. I hope this well written post will get a lot of attention, which it deserves!
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Or why don't you just go play BW?
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A for effort, but the changes are too radical. You have now proposed an alpha build. How long do you think Blizzard would need to tweak this in order to make it into the beta? 2 months? 3? In the meantime the beta had to stop of course. Then we would need to beta test it to at least get to the state which we are now. How many months? 1? 2?
Sorry to tell this, but it is just too unrealistic. The scope is too big and Blizzard will definitely not throw their careful testing of the current SC2 Ecosystem overboard to make your proposed changes.
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increasing siege tank dmg is stupid, they wont just deal too much dmg to lings also to roaches.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Use marauders to kill Immortals, stop play with one tech-path, it's very boring
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On November 04 2012 01:16 D4V3Z02 wrote:
increasing siege tank dmg is stupid, they wont just deal too much dmg to lings also to roaches.
So if increasing the damage is stupid, why wont they deal too much damage to lings and roaches?
The point is that the tight clumping maximizes the damage of "infantry" and because of that formation the damage of the siege tank has been nerfed to a point where it is just a minor nuisance instead of a serious threat. With some proper micro you could probably take out a lone sieged tank with 4 Marines, because he doesnt even kill a Marine in one shot and has the immobility/transformation to deal with.
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On November 04 2012 01:25 Existor wrote:
Use marauders to kill Immortals, stop play with one tech-path, it's very boring
Marauders aren't cost efficient versus my Immortal, I already showed the math to someone. One Immortal kills 2 stimmed Marauders (costs are 175/75 for the Immortal versus 200/50 for the Marauders) with 18 HP left.
Compare that to the old Immortal, who loses to three stimmed Marauders (costs are 250/100 vs 300/75).
Even still, the Immortal isn't the answer to a Bio player because Marines are very strong vs the Immortal. Archon/High Templar/Zealot/Colossus is still the answer.
And there is no reason for a Mech player to switch over to Marauders when Tanks handle Immortals in Siege Mode just fine, and then the Terran won't have to commit gas to a new set of upgrades or Medics. Upgraded Immortals would mince unupgraded Marauders if a Terran player tried to switch over...
On November 03 2012 20:47 Beppe wrote:
As for the suggestions themselves, I would also love a more position based gameplay and with that in mind I have always been a bit worried about the tempest, the long range forces Terran tank play to engage protoss witch basically removes all form a position play from tanks. You mention a ground attack on the "new" tempest, what range do you suggest on that ground attack?
6 range for the ground attack on the Tempest. Since it deals AOE damage to air units, it would be a specialized unit to deal specifically with mass Muta, Phoenix, Voids, Banshee, and Corrupters, and you'd only transform 3-4 of them from Phoenixes. Without something to handle mass Corrupters in late game PvZ, you can't remove Vortex.
With the Carrier buffs, it becomes the long range answer to Mech play, and can be handled by Warhounds or Marines in combination with Vikings.
On November 04 2012 00:28 kochujang wrote:
Sorry to tell this, but it is just too unrealistic. The scope is too big and Blizzard will definitely not throw their careful testing of the current SC2 Ecosystem overboard to make your proposed changes.
To honest, I don't think this needs as much testing as you think it would.
Good ideas work. Bad ideas don't. It doesn't matter how much balancing you do. The original Warhound was never going to work.
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On November 03 2012 20:18 anon734912 wrote:
Great post, OP.
The only part I disagree with is the Medic. We can't fix SC2 by using what worked in SC1.
Medivacs are fine as they are, and the fact that their energy allows more units to counter them is a good thing.
I'd rather adjust Marines a different way:
Reduce damage by 1, HP by 5.
All terran buildings are bunkers with 1 slot, for marines only.
This will allow terran players to safely - albeit slowly - defend against Zerglings in Zealots that need to have better stats because they are melee. The extended possibility of playing "musical chairs" with your Marines further raises the APM limit.
I dont think changing the combat values for Marines will solve anything, because the true problem is the "critical mass" of them. The speed in which units are dying is MUCH higher if you have 20 Marines shooting an opponents forces compared to having only 5-6 shoot something. With a lower amount of units fighting each other you might be able to react in time and/or targetfire opposing units.
Sadly the "proponents of unit clumping and unlimited unit selection" dont seem to understand this problem and how "less is more" [microability and control] in this case.
So to solve the "mass Marines problem" [you can replace Marine with basically any Infantry unit IMO] you can tackle it from two sides:
1. You can force the infantry to spread out as the "standard positioning" and only allow clumping through micro, plus limiting the number of units per control group.
2. You can take out the economy and production speed boosts, which will result in more expensive units becoming worth more, because "production cycles" would become a sort of resource as well.
Fiddling with the unit values of specific units wont work, because ALL infantry units have that same problem and to deter clumping there needs to be a "penalty" in the form of dangerous AoE damage.
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On November 04 2012 02:19 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 20:18 anon734912 wrote:
Great post, OP.
The only part I disagree with is the Medic. We can't fix SC2 by using what worked in SC1.
Medivacs are fine as they are, and the fact that their energy allows more units to counter them is a good thing.
I'd rather adjust Marines a different way:
Reduce damage by 1, HP by 5.
All terran buildings are bunkers with 1 slot, for marines only.
This will allow terran players to safely - albeit slowly - defend against Zerglings in Zealots that need to have better stats because they are melee. The extended possibility of playing "musical chairs" with your Marines further raises the APM limit. I dont think changing the combat values for Marines will solve anything, because the true problem is the "critical mass" of them. The speed in which units are dying is MUCH higher if you have 20 Marines shooting an opponents forces compared to having only 5-6 shoot something. With a lower amount of units fighting each other you might be able to react in time and/or targetfire opposing units. Sadly the "proponents of unit clumping and unlimited unit selection" dont seem to understand this problem and how "less is more" [microability and control] in this case. So to solve the "mass Marines problem" [you can replace Marine with basically any Infantry unit IMO] you can tackle it from two sides: 1. You can force the infantry to spread out as the "standard positioning" and only allow clumping through micro, plus limiting the number of units per control group. 2. You can take out the economy and production speed boosts, which will result in more expensive units becoming worth more, because "production cycles" would become a sort of resource as well. Fiddling with the unit values of specific units wont work, because ALL infantry units have that same problem and to deter clumping there needs to be a "penalty" in the form of dangerous AoE damage.
The proposed changes here aren't supposed to "fix" this "problem" you have with unit clumping. Reducing their HP by 5, allow Terran to build Medics with slow heal to compensate early, and then returning the HP with Combat Shields mean that unupgraded Marines from a Reactor mixed into the 1-1-1 or 1-1-2 are less powerful, allowing us to buff Tanks. So Bio isn't losing anything, and Mech is gaining.
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On November 04 2012 03:43 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 02:19 Rabiator wrote:On November 03 2012 20:18 anon734912 wrote:
Great post, OP.
The only part I disagree with is the Medic. We can't fix SC2 by using what worked in SC1.
Medivacs are fine as they are, and the fact that their energy allows more units to counter them is a good thing.
I'd rather adjust Marines a different way:
Reduce damage by 1, HP by 5.
All terran buildings are bunkers with 1 slot, for marines only.
This will allow terran players to safely - albeit slowly - defend against Zerglings in Zealots that need to have better stats because they are melee. The extended possibility of playing "musical chairs" with your Marines further raises the APM limit. I dont think changing the combat values for Marines will solve anything, because the true problem is the "critical mass" of them. The speed in which units are dying is MUCH higher if you have 20 Marines shooting an opponents forces compared to having only 5-6 shoot something. With a lower amount of units fighting each other you might be able to react in time and/or targetfire opposing units. Sadly the "proponents of unit clumping and unlimited unit selection" dont seem to understand this problem and how "less is more" [microability and control] in this case. So to solve the "mass Marines problem" [you can replace Marine with basically any Infantry unit IMO] you can tackle it from two sides: 1. You can force the infantry to spread out as the "standard positioning" and only allow clumping through micro, plus limiting the number of units per control group. 2. You can take out the economy and production speed boosts, which will result in more expensive units becoming worth more, because "production cycles" would become a sort of resource as well. Fiddling with the unit values of specific units wont work, because ALL infantry units have that same problem and to deter clumping there needs to be a "penalty" in the form of dangerous AoE damage. The proposed changes here aren't supposed to "fix" this "problem" you have with unit clumping. Reducing their HP by 5, allow Terran to build Medics with slow heal to compensate early, and then returning the HP with Combat Shields mean that unupgraded Marines from a Reactor mixed into the 1-1-1 or 1-1-2 are less powerful, allowing us to buff Tanks. So Bio isn't losing anything, and Mech is gaining.
Your proposed fixes wont solve anything, because the clumping remains. I just watched Leenock vs Rain (game 1) and there was "a clump of Roaches" vs "a clump of Stalkers" and the Stalkers were easily nibbled to death over time by the "superior mobility" of the Roaches (burrow) and managed to 1-shot one or two Stalkers every few seconds while running backwards and forwards. That totally looked wrong, because Stalkers shouldnt die that easily to Roaches. Shields are basically useless in such a 1-shot-situation and again it boils down to the concentration of the units.
So - while I think your effort might bring *some* good - I do believe you are focusing on the wrong target for the effort of fixing the uselessness of mech. Mech did work in BW, so that should be the baseline to start from. Sadly Blizzard didnt do that and rather started with a clean sheet and simply imported some units from BW.
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On November 04 2012 05:18 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:43 BronzeKnee wrote:On November 04 2012 02:19 Rabiator wrote:On November 03 2012 20:18 anon734912 wrote:
Great post, OP.
The only part I disagree with is the Medic. We can't fix SC2 by using what worked in SC1.
Medivacs are fine as they are, and the fact that their energy allows more units to counter them is a good thing.
I'd rather adjust Marines a different way:
Reduce damage by 1, HP by 5.
All terran buildings are bunkers with 1 slot, for marines only.
This will allow terran players to safely - albeit slowly - defend against Zerglings in Zealots that need to have better stats because they are melee. The extended possibility of playing "musical chairs" with your Marines further raises the APM limit. I dont think changing the combat values for Marines will solve anything, because the true problem is the "critical mass" of them. The speed in which units are dying is MUCH higher if you have 20 Marines shooting an opponents forces compared to having only 5-6 shoot something. With a lower amount of units fighting each other you might be able to react in time and/or targetfire opposing units. Sadly the "proponents of unit clumping and unlimited unit selection" dont seem to understand this problem and how "less is more" [microability and control] in this case. So to solve the "mass Marines problem" [you can replace Marine with basically any Infantry unit IMO] you can tackle it from two sides: 1. You can force the infantry to spread out as the "standard positioning" and only allow clumping through micro, plus limiting the number of units per control group. 2. You can take out the economy and production speed boosts, which will result in more expensive units becoming worth more, because "production cycles" would become a sort of resource as well. Fiddling with the unit values of specific units wont work, because ALL infantry units have that same problem and to deter clumping there needs to be a "penalty" in the form of dangerous AoE damage. The proposed changes here aren't supposed to "fix" this "problem" you have with unit clumping. Reducing their HP by 5, allow Terran to build Medics with slow heal to compensate early, and then returning the HP with Combat Shields mean that unupgraded Marines from a Reactor mixed into the 1-1-1 or 1-1-2 are less powerful, allowing us to buff Tanks. So Bio isn't losing anything, and Mech is gaining. Your proposed fixes wont solve anything, because the clumping remains. I just watched Leenock vs Rain (game 1) and there was "a clump of Roaches" vs "a clump of Stalkers" and the Stalkers were easily nibbled to death over time by the "superior mobility" of the Roaches (burrow) and managed to 1-shot one or two Stalkers every few seconds while running backwards and forwards. That totally looked wrong, because Stalkers shouldnt die that easily to Roaches. Shields are basically useless in such a 1-shot-situation and again it boils down to the concentration of the units.
I don't disagree that this is a problem. The solution is better AOE damage in my opinion, and increasing the DPS Tanks provides that. Also we need to slow down the Colossus, so you can't make a clump of relatively fast moving, high damage, AOE damage dealers. That encourages deathball play.
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Some interesting suggestion I agree with, but also some that sound horrible. But everyone lets their tastes and preferences flow into their suggestions. Just like the Tempest vs Widow Mine, you describe as anti-climatic. I don't know I always was pretty hyped when 6 ghosts intercepted a group of carriers. Which is basically what happened there. Just way easier to avoid for the Protoss player.
And they put a weakness into Immortals, but they made a few mistakes in their design and at the end there was a high attack speed unit missing for mech to work on the Immortal shields (Vikings would work if Immortals wouldn't massacre them). Which was not a problem, but then they did this fatal mistake of catering to the communities inability to use Immortals and upping the range, which resulted in destroying the Hellion Immortal dynamic, where Hellions could keep Immortals away from the Siege Tanks without exposing themself to the AoE units of Toss. And of course that was after TvT destroyed the Siege tanks ability to deal with Archons. The Hellbat fixes the Immortal range 6 issue to some extend, because they survive AoE damage better and also deal with Chargelots fairly well. But there is still no high aspd unit that deals with the Immortals shield, so you have to rely on Ghosts. (Works fairly well with mech since their cost rework)
But you shouldn't forget that 250mm was basically a soft conter to Immortals. (now an Immortal can easily avoid 250mm though, thanks to range 6) It is pretty easy to rework it into a way to get rid of the Immortal shields if the toss isn't careful. And of course Feedback would be the way to deal with careless Terrans.
for the Marine and clumping discussion. It is easier to clump then to unclump. If you make units unclump by default you will just make the game easier, so yes encourage people to don't be lazy and unclump their units. The Marine is actually the best example on how to encourage unclumping lol. Atleast I head an easier time in BW with my marine control, because they spread out so nicely by default and clumping them up was easy as pie. Of course the duck line forming was something horrible unless you abused it to form a perfect attack line.
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I don't understand, why "mech" as a standalone should ever need to work. Protoss all-Robotics armies also don't work.
Furthermore, I don't think it is fair or interesting, if one race can just turtle up and force the other player to be much better than him to win. Saying a mech army should be unbeatable head on is saying exacly that. It is already quite hard to do so, as you can see on protoss trying to beat back a good 111.
Bottom line: Terran is one race, not two.
About your protoss "suggestions" I wonder why you want to kill the immortal so much. If is already very vulnerable to EMP. Immortals are very expensive and can be easily killed by any race cost-effetive.
Then your comment about being able to force an opponent to build something different is bad, isn't well thought out.
Do you really enjoy zergs just massing roaches? Immortals are an option to reduce single-unit armys. Immortals don't mean you can't build roaches. It means you must add zerglings to buffer.
Basically: The game without your changes sounds alot better than your version.
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Testthewest, you simply have no bloody idea what you are talking about. Install Brood War, and just TRY to go mech. It is HARD. Bio is much easier. Saying that "one race can just turtle and force the other player to be much better than him to win" is mind-blowingly ignorant. There is a strong case to be made that mech is the most difficult composition to use effectively in the entire game.
Furthermore, Terran's upgrade structure forces specialization. Bio upgrades do not apply to mech, and vice versa. So unless you want to spend twice as much on upgrades as zerg or protoss, you are going to have to lean heavily on one or the other. This is intentional.
Protoss Robotics never was a complete structure. Observer, Shuttle, and Reaver? Only one of those units can actually attack. Protoss Robotics is a supporting tech path for strong Gateway units. Totally different from the Factory, which has its own complete line of upgrades from the Armory.
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Great write up.
I think the immortal/colossus suggestions, ultralisk suggestions, and the flaming betty/perdition turret idea are fantastic ideas that would really open up more possibilities than the game currently has.
Its funny that you started to write about making mech viable, and in the process also laid out a really solid solution to the stagnating meta game issues of PvZ/ZvP.
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EPT
