The Warhound: Did We Make a Mistake? - Page 4

On January 05 2013 13:23 IndyO wrote:


Not apart of the BW community but even I can see the value in tanks. Other units are so easily turned into a death ball style play that we already see. Looks at how match ups play where the tank doesn't exist and compare it to TvT, which is incredibly positional. What other styles are just as positional as tanks that offer as much? Tanks can not only be caught out of position. If Tanks are caugh unsieged it's bad, but even then you have to siege them up in a good position and spread, you cant clump them all up to much, but you cant leave a single siege tank all out on its own. No other unit offers positional play in such or as many ways, that a single unit is strong but only when its in such an area. Yes positional play can exist without it, but not on the same level. It's not just mech players are after, its how it plays.

And even if you get positional play, another part of what has made Mech dynamics is the idea of an army that can't be beat head to head. You have to engage around it or fight a timer for a higher tech to beat it (using your own skills to buy time). Tanks also encourage this as you can force sieges and slow there push dramatically. Without siege tanks there is less options you have to slow them down, or they are weaker. Mech is fun as it is getting an unbeatable army and crushing your opponent with it. It's that kind of feeling that mech players want as well, and even past SC2 games have shown that it can be fun to watch when executed properly

On January 05 2013 15:08 naastyOne wrote:
Oh and by the way, fresh from the Rock.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6572359151#7

"I should also say that an improved mech in TvP was a goal many months ago. This may not be the goal in the future if we find that improved mech in TvP makes the game less diverse or is not fun for some other reason. We reserve the right to abandon this goal at any time if it proves to be destructive to the game."

//I guess the translation is, tank lines are boring.

On January 05 2013 11:24 Loccstana wrote:
Possible Stats for New Warhound:

I am thinking of a goliath type units with a slight increase in stats to account for its increased cost.

Price: 150/75
Supply: 2
Buildtime: 40 seconds
Life: 220 hp / 1 armor
Ground Attack: 16(+2) with cooldown of 1 sec
Air Attack: 16(+2) x 2 with cooldown of 1.5 sec
Ground Attack Range: 6
Air Attack Range: 9.5
Movespeed: 2.81

Lategame Upgrade: Ability to target ground and air simutaneously?

On January 05 2013 10:39 rysecake wrote:
no it wasn't a mistake.

the core of terran mech must be centered around the siege tank. not a marauder in a gundam suit.

@Indyo
Because your post is too long to really cite specifically, I'll just address it in a general manner: Quite honestly, if they were to be made somewhat like goliaths...well, if they were to BE goliaths with some kind of additional anti-mech ability, they would work well without becoming too versatile or overpowered. Essentially, I think that some kind of tweak with the warhound could have gone well rather than simply removing it from the game. As for the role overlap with the marauder and how it plays, it may be that they play fairly similarly. However, in conjunction with completely different units, I would argue that they feel rather differently. Honestly, the richness of strategy in SC2 has come to resemble how you build your composition and skew your opponent's (i.e. the colossus->viking->HT->ghost circle), and some form of the warhound would add a certain richness to terran armies.

On January 05 2013 14:37 MasterCynical wrote:


I think he would have grown to hate the unit. He did despise marauders after all. If you read his blog on his reaction to the whole destiny/warhound being cut episode, he was just ecstatic that TvP was vastly different in Hots. He just wanted a change not caring if it would be a good change or not.

Oh, so you say that deathball is bad, but a slow, unbeatable deathball is actually good, right?

You know what make SC2 TvT very dynamic and SC:BW a boring siege-line on siege line? The relativly weaker tanks.

Now, curiously, the SC tank and marine are pretty similar to SC2 tank and marine, the reactors, UI and pathing making all the difference.

In SC:BW you only needed a few scouts for warning, and you could move your siege tank deathball pretty much without problem.

In SC2, doe to pathing, and tightly package marines can actually move in and rape siege tanks before they do a lot of damage.

On January 05 2013 15:08 naastyOne wrote:
Oh and by the way, fresh from the Rock.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6572359151#7

"I should also say that an improved mech in TvP was a goal many months ago. This may not be the goal in the future if we find that improved mech in TvP makes the game less diverse or is not fun for some other reason. We reserve the right to abandon this goal at any time if it proves to be destructive to the game."

//I guess the translation is, tank lines are boring.

On January 05 2013 15:47 Xequecal wrote:
The Warhound is almost impossible to balance, unfortunately, without completely changing it into a different unit that doesn't resemble the Warhound at all.

First off, the Warhound has to require a tech lab. You cannot give Terran a reactorable Factory unit that is good against armored, or allin rushes of Marines/Warhound/all your workers are simply impossible for Protoss to beat. Why do you think Marauders need a tech lab, have the worst cost/build time ratio in the game, and have concussive shells as a seperate upgrade? It's because if you could reactor them out, Protoss could never ever win a game against early game allins with all your SCVs.

Even if they require a tech lab I'm still skeptical if the allin rushes would be realistically defeatable. Siege Tanks in tank mode are expensive and horrible, but the fact that they have 7 range and deterred Stalker kiting enabled a build (1/1/1) that completely dominated Protoss from the top level of competition down for like a year. Now you want to give Terran a unit that's good against stalkers/immortals naturally? With a tech lab requirement, Photon Overcharge might enable Protoss to hold such rushes but that's by no means assured. Without that requirement, there's no way Protoss can ever survive.

After that, once you make everything in mech require tech labs, the viability of mech becomes very questionable. You simply need far too many resources wasted on production structures to get units out in a timely manner.

On January 05 2013 15:39 IndyO wrote:
Maybe after a tank buff I would see if the problem still exists as much. A mobile unit to support tanks could definitely exist, but all iterations of the Warhound seems to go against it. And at what point does it no longer become tweaking and a completely redesigned unit? If Blizzard did bring one in, using the Warhound model even holds issues due to the stigma it has. Companies will relaunch products under a different name or campaign if there is stigma on there old one, and I think Blizzard would have to do the same.



The biggest issue is that for the Warhound to be good against what it needs to be, it would easily overshadow the tank as it becomes a very general unit, compared to the tank which is already not that great. You could of course buff the tank, but then we wouldn't be needing the Warhound to move out onto the map in the first place. And what about the Thor? We also still have the original Helion, Hellbat and Widow mine around. Not to mention Terran air units still exist, things like landed vikings could easily fill this role.

I would have said that the Colossi > Viking > HT > Ghost circle is one of the least interesting examples of strategy, simply because it's so predictable. He builds colossi, I build vikings. He has HT, I make ghost. It's very straightforward mostly as you don't feel like your adding to your composition your just responding to what they have. I'd say that things like using Ultralisk to soak up damage while your hydralisk are left alive at the back is a much more interesting example of strategy. Your thinking strategically with how to use your units, you'renot just using a pre-recorded response to pump out a counter.

Still, in the sense that you have to dance around the numbers and force switches etc it can be interesting. But with such a generally good unit, that also can be ready for air, when will it be bad to make them? Is there a bad time to make Warhounds? And even then, what will counter them? Will you even bother? Because in ZvT if Terran adds Marauders against Ling / Bling / Muta.... The zerg player doesn't really respond. He just has to micro better. Marauders just do stuff, there isn't a strategical response as far as units go, just in how you should engage.

And the units you are working with would generally feel the same. You have the Hellbat which is another unit that plays similar to bio. You have the tank to give positional play, but your unit still moves like bio (Just like in marine tank). But even worse is the interactions the Warhound has are still similar. The units it wants to deal with are even the same you would make marauders for if you could fit them into mech (which you can't due to stim / different upgrades / no medivacs / less factories)

TL;DR Problem can be solved without having to bring back the unit with existing units, since to keep the heavy positional play Tanks are pretty crucial. Pre-recorded responses to composition are less interesting that thinking strategically how you can use your units with each other. If the Warhound hits air and is a good general ground unit, if there ever going to be a bad time to make them, since they respond to everything. Having a unit exist just to solve a single problem in a single matchup as already said by MasterCynical is excessive when we have existing units that can do it. Mostly though it's just tanks are too weak as is and adding a new unit to counter what protoss has to beat them just seems to compound the problem.



Agree with this, actually having change was just more important to him than what it was. If mech ended up being just a mechanical bio I doubt he would have enjoyed it.



Edit:

Yes, because a regular deathball just clashes head onto into another. Its all about winning that engagement there. With the unstoppable deathball, yes a single engagement would lose you the game, but you have the entire build up of the game to prepare for it and delay it. It makes the game more than a "army vs army", it almost gives it an objective. Delay the army the enemy is making while you get out an alternative force you usually couldn't get out in time to deal with it. And it still has the option to be caught out of position, which encourages the oppposing player to attack into you and to try and find winning engagements, like in TvT Bio vs Mech where the terran will stim in then run back, forcing both players to be active with there units.

While true that weaker tanks help, it's not the only thing, don't forget things like the marauder helping, even things like the Medivac help out as a single unit doesn't just kill the unit that heals the Marines and Marauders. But your point on SC2 pathing is actually pro bio. Yes they clump up, but the current damage / area was designed for it. It's harder to just move your "Unstoppable Deathball" without problem, which is if anything a good thing as it gives the enemy more ways to delay / potentially catch it out of position so it is requires more skill from the mech player, not the mention that SC2 is generally a faster paced game, map vision is already a commodity. And like you said you can run in with tightly packed units. As is, we already see Marines & Marauders stim and run into tanks while splitting to minimize the damage, beating them.

On January 05 2013 16:56 GolemMadness wrote:
None of those things would make it a more interesting unit. It just had no place in the mech composition. Why is it necessary when tanks and thors already exist? Just to counter immortals and other tanks? That is just lame.

On January 05 2013 16:56 GolemMadness wrote:
None of those things would make it a more interesting unit. It just had no place in the mech composition. Why is it necessary when tanks and thors already exist? Just to counter immortals and other tanks? That is just lame.

On January 05 2013 17:04 SC2John wrote:


And yet, the problem exists. Hard to say that it's better to leave a hole in the game design than to fill it with a unit (that terran deserves). To be more specific, there is a hole in midgame mech armies; you can't quite afford to make thors and you can't quite afford to make ghosts, and you can't quite afford to move out of your base ever. So you just sit there in fetal position and try to score a lot of worker kills while turtling to 200/200.

On January 05 2013 12:32 ejozl wrote:
In defense of the removal, I honestly think everyone was expecting a substitution, another unit that didn't fail in design.
I still believe Terran lack an extra Factory unit, either a Spell Caster or some kind of Goliath(but not Goliath.)
If Warhound should have a return, my suggestion would be to make it melee and give it an anti-armoured attack vs air.
Currently in my opinion there's a lack of melee units in the game and fits perfectly for a buffer for Mech to keep enemies from the Siege Tanks. The Anti Air vs Armoured is because Mech has a severe lack of anti air, Thor takes care of light armoured aerial foes, Warhound can now take the rest.