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First off, i'm sorry if there's already been a thread on this, but i couldn't find it due to the terms being too general...
It's a fairly simple point: Since HotS is adding more units, i feel that ultimately (nerfs are bound to be inbound) Terran will draw the short stick in this contest more and more as Z and P can tech switch much more easily.
Firstly, Terrans have to worry about 6 configurations of production buildings: Barracks, factories and starports with or without tech labs. Protoss only have 3 'configurations', Zerg have one. Given the fact that there's more units to build now, won't it become harder and harder for Terrans to keep up with anything the other races can do once the game goes into lategame? This is not helped by the warpin mechanic by Protoss and larvae by Zerg.
While very difficult to execute properly, it's possible for a Zerg to remax on ultras after having lost all their brood lords - Basically instawinning the game due to how Terrans have to deal with BL.
In a similar vein, Protoss can lose all their air and then remax fairly quickly on gateway units, especially since their production is front-loaded and may not have to deal with significant rally delays.
This puts a significant strain on Terrans, more than the other 2 races, to get their stuff done right before the match even begins. If things go wrong for the Terran and he gets thrown off just a little bit, this advantage for the other races increases exponentially.
So far i've been able to do fine with hellbat/tank/thor in all 3 matchups, though i'm thinking this is more because i rarely, if ever, see a protoss going air or a zerg building any vipers or swarm hosts. It's still a point of contention since this was (and still is) an issue in WoL aswell, and i believe this to be the cause of the 'Terran lategame sucks' issue in the first place.
I'd suggest making tech reactors a fusion core upgrade of 170 seconds and 200/200 cost, but i'm not sure what effect this would have on earlier game antics - Though it might be the trick to 'fixing' Terran lategame without having to resort to nerfing or buffing any units unnecessarily. Terran 'tech lab' units are already very resource heavy anyway so i don't think this would be a problem in the early or midgame (given how much resources you need to get to a fusion core plus the upgrade).
Is a solution even needed for the production differences between races? Tournament participation numbers when looking at races seem to suggest 'no', but i have a gut feeling that Terrans can still compete only because the skill ceiling is higher, though given the new units maybe that ceiling will be raised for protoss and zerg aswell leading to an eventually higher inequality.
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I like the idea but I suck at this game so my opinion doesnt matter
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This problem is made even worse by the fact that protoss and zerg have more "forcing" units. By this I mean they can build units that immediately win the game unless terran responds properly (i.e. collossi/vikings, templar/archon/ghost, ultralisk/marauder, brood lord/vikings), whereas terran doesn't really have similar units. If this situation were reversed, P and Z would be fine. For instance a zerg could scout what a terran is transitioning to, and THEN use 30 larva to make the proper response.
So I would agree that the production situation contributes greatly to terran late game woes. Another factor is that terrans need more space to put buildings than the other races, and this often leads to terran being forced to put production facilities in more vulnerable areas.
Tech reactors would help a lot really. Terran would be able to make a lot more of their very strong units (tanks/thors/ghosts/bcs etc.) in a remax scenario where both players have tons of resources. This would be a strong improvement over the current situation where Terran remaxed armies tend to have a lot of marines, which fare poorly in these situations.
I can't answer if this would be too strong. I don't think it would contribute much to cheese or even 2-base timings, because if you're spending 300 gas on fusion core+upgrade, I don't think you really have the gas to be making a ton of high-tech units. In fact, for anything like a 2-base timing, it would be cheaper just to make the extra factory/starports probably. It would be interesting to see if this makes late game Terran competitive with Zerg and Protoss in terms of getting really strong armies.
Regardless, I don't see this getting into HotS. If there's a similar late game situation in HotS, it might find its way into LotV, but I think with 2 months to release Blizzard is far more concerned about getting the units they have right rather than completely throwing late game stuff into the air.
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imo, it's true for WoL but not sure about hots.
@pro level, the tech switch problem comes mainly from the broodlord infestor ball into ultra then into broodlords again. Not so in TvP where terran usually ended into a mix of everything, same with protoss (Hts, gateways and colossus).
The reason these two matchup differ is because broodlord infestors is much harder to deal with, too much vikings and you would lose to ultra remax, but you need so much vikings to kill that ball.
TvP however, if protoss went for pure chargelot archon HTs (similar to the one dimensional Zerg bl infestor ball), then terran with good emps and kiting would make the trade fairly ahead if not way ahead. Then even if protoss managed to go double colossus production, Terran could very well snipe off an expansion and get a all rounder unit mix, with emps and some vikings (even if vikings number ain't ideal) and push out and by having more of everything.
TvZ on the other hand, if the broodlord infestor ball won by Terran side but marginally due to how difficult it is. A counter remax into ultras are good only because terran barely has the production speed to get into the unit mix it wants.
If the ball can be defeated by less vikings, terran will have more tanks (if any), marine and medivac and remaxing into a big ball again sooner can help dealing with any zerg remax.
This problem should be solved in hots by making fungal significantly weaker than before, you won't need so much vikings anymore, you can afford to have more marines and tanks.
Adding the thor buff which can kill broodlords easier, it makes terran not so vulnerable to a remax ultra anymore.
But then again, it's from my observation and own experience and analysis as diamond, can be wrong.
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Fungal is already less of a problem now that it's a projectile (possible to counter with pdd's, though i'm not sure) - I'd still be more interested in discussing how lategame could be changed in such a way that unit balance is not involved. I don't think every game change should be in changing units and abilities around, maybe some could be more basic, such as giving Terrans tech reactors on a fusion core.
You could actually argue that making tech reactors available might make cattlebruisers an actual option depending on the situation. Currently they're made pretty much only if you want to make them and possibly the caduceus reactor upgrade.
Currently zerg are far too dependant on fungals being there at all that changing the ability is a bad thing imho - Hence there need to be other ways to do this.
Having 'something of everything' i usually found to be really bad, since the other races can usually focus a lot more while remaxing and thus counter your army. However, this is from my limited experience in plat and watching some pro streams, mostly...
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Well for units that come out of barracks this change will do not a lot.
That is because of the high cost of this upgradearracks anyway and the fact that you add a lot of bs and the problem with terran remaxes is less the amount ofh produced units in my opinion and more the time they need to produce and come together.
It might change something but adding on barracks etc. is almost the same.
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Blizzard can bring in some of the campaign upgrades to help with terran lategame macro. Im thinking of tech reactors and the ability to orbital drop barrack units anywhere on the map.
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Terran does need something as it is currently the race with the worst production, tech switch capabilities, while being the most reactive race late game. This will only get worse as the other races get more late game toys in HotS. However, this change will never happen due to the huge whining from zerg/toss players after having easy games vs terran for over half a year.
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Russian Federation216 Posts
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That thread was made at a time when:
Snipe was very strong, so ghost-mech was extremely strong against any lategame zerg comp, thus terran didn't need to react nearly as much.
EMP may have had a larger radius...I forget when this change was made. This made terran much better late game vs. Protoss.
Queen range was shorter and overlords were slower, so zerg couldn't reach late game nearly as easily.
In short, the idea got negative reviews in that thread because terran late game didn't need as much fixing then.
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Surely though, reactor is not a specific kind of production? I mean, it does not enable you to do something you cannot do with a techlab. Essentially it is a deliberate restriction in tech in order to save money on the extra production you otherwise would need to build.
I do not disagree that protoss and zerg has faster remaking speeds in the late game, but I do disagree that it is as much of an issue as you say. If two large armies engage and there is a winner of that engagement, this winner will have the advantage for the forseeable future. The only time when this may have an effect is when two armies engage and there is no clear winner. This can be considered a weakness for terran, but is this necessarily a bad thing? I mean, sure it might lose you games but there are plenty of places where your race can lose you a game like that. A great example is zerg injects.
There is no proof of "imbalance" just because there is a noticable difference in how races play. In my oppinion a better way to adress this is to ask the question "Is it good that terrans have not the same ability as the other races to remake units after a 200/200 engagement?". Personally I would be inclined to say "no" to that question, but more importantly the question is "How important should maxed out army battles really be in sc2?". If you play a game for 40 mins and never max out, this whole thing is a non issue and that would imo be the best of both worlds.
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It's not only true about tech switches, it's also true about getting your infrastructure working, particularly when playing heavy bio styles.
Reactors on Barracks take forever to build, and I really believe it's also a bit part of terran's weakness in current TvZ metagame. It opens big windows of vulnerability in several points in the game, and as in the current metagame your midgame is where you are supposed to get an edge, it makes it even more difficult.
Against 3 hatches builds, zerg 3 base productions kicks in so much sooner than terran, that zerg can sometimes win with just floods of lings, as in recent U&D game between Symbol and ByuN. It was already seen with DRG's muta/ling/bling timing, but this time symbol didn't even bothered with mutas, and gathered an enormous army in no time, remaxing ridiculously fast then.
I feel like you shouldn't have to wait double the time or spend double the money of a gateway for an equal production capability (100mins/2supply, compared to a zealot), + the travel time. I like addons as a specificity of the race, but I believe it's part of the struggle terran currently has, and has to be tuned a bit to be less of a weakness, as all races now figured how to counter our previously super-cost-effective-imba units.
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Terran should actually build additional barrackses instead of reactors because 150 minerals is cheaper than 50/50
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Fenris, the point is that you can make many more high tech unit (tech lab units) with a lower infrastructure cost.
And Mongol, the point of the tech reactor isn't as much for barracks as for factories and reactors, which would otherwise require an additional 125 gas to get tech lab units.
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Very true. To beat a Terran, assuming he isn't outplaying you and you're not playing Terran yourself, all you have to do is force Vikings and then use your superior production mechanics to tech-switch.
I think this is a major design flaw, as it allows for no counter-play, and doesn't take any skill or strategy.
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On January 17 2013 04:56 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
Terran should actually build additional barrackses instead of reactors because 150 minerals is cheaper than 50/50
Well you're ignoring other issues such as space consumed (rax are big), scv building time (no mining while building/in the lategame you can sacrifice scv's and still build reactors), and building time (50s for reactors vs 65s for rax), though overal I do agree with you. It seems more beneficial to flood with rax and swap reactors onto facts/starports if you want to.
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This is a problem that shows you how unbalanced protoss and zerg are. Terran has the highest skill ceiling and requires units from each structure in a majority of compositions that you use. Terran will never remax instantly and it makes it more exciting if the opponent has defending units since the Terran just can't 1-a into the opponent's force and expect to be fine.
I think terran right now has the ideal dynamic. I think it's the protoss' warpgate mechanic and the zerg's inject larvae that are pushing the game in wrong 1-a directions.
The warpgate mechanic shouldn't be removed but there should be a higher penalty for being able to just make units appear away from your base. Longer cooldowns or warp ins could be the best fix. there are some who have advocated "connected" and "disconnected" pylons, some for warp ins others just for power kind of deal but i think that's too complex for a structure that is supply oriented. Punishing warpgate but not removing makes Protoss players still research warpgate for harrass purposes or for a quick remax for the final blow or defense but the cooldown penalty would ensure that using 2 warp ins in a row aren't the reason players are losing to protoss. This then would make the protoss change their warpgates into gateways and operate a better reinforcing scheme. It doesn't do much to improve micro but it does raise the skill ceiling a bit.
zergs are trickier to mess with because the very design of the race it to basically throw away units. Maybe decreasing inject larvae by 2 larvae would have the desired effect but the over all desire is to hold off hordes of zerg. When I started playing I chose zerg because I wanted to command an almost never ending onslaught attacking forifications. (this is not advocating weaking zerg hitpoints) Ultimately zerg's tech switch and instant remax is a little harder to deal with. You could already kinda deal with it by constant drops and targetting Queens to prevent Injects. I also believe Nukes kill all larvae in the target area. so Igniting Afterburnners, dropping off a cloaked ghost and nuking a hatchery is still strong in that case. It is resource and apm expensive. If someone has thoughts on killing the zerg instant max without killing how we all know and love" zerg play please reply.
The other side of this is to give terran an instant remax and the only reasonable thing for that I see is using Orbital drops that only land at the barracks they are summoned from. So basically turning the barracks into a signal tower for reinforcements or add another tower like the sensor tower that is for calling reinforcements but you still have to research Orbital drops. But that feels too Protossy right now with warpgate and Orbital dropping to whereever is Over Powered. Right now other than killing the other races instant remaxing all the time abilities the only step in the right direction i can see is the tech reactor at fusion core.
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welcome to the world of starcraft, where some races have distinct advantages and disadvantages
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ever got your Barracks or Factory or Stargate unpowered because a nearby supply depot was killed?
i guess not.
Those addons add huge flexibility
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On January 17 2013 06:16 Soular wrote:
The warpgate mechanic shouldn't be removed but there should be a higher penalty for being able to just make units appear away from your base. Longer cooldowns or warp ins could be the best fix. there are some who have advocated "connected" and "disconnected" pylons, some for warp ins others just for power kind of deal but i think that's too complex for a structure that is supply oriented. Punishing warpgate but not removing makes Protoss players still research warpgate for harrass purposes or for a quick remax for the final blow or defense but the cooldown penalty would ensure that using 2 warp ins in a row aren't the reason players are losing to protoss. This then would make the protoss change their warpgates into gateways and operate a better reinforcing scheme. It doesn't do much to improve micro but it does raise the skill ceiling a bit.
zergs are trickier to mess with because the very design of the race it to basically throw away units. Maybe decreasing inject larvae by 2 larvae would have the desired effect but the over all desire is to hold off hordes of zerg. When I started playing I chose zerg because I wanted to command an almost never ending onslaught attacking forifications. (this is not advocating weaking zerg hitpoints) Ultimately zerg's tech switch and instant remax is a little harder to deal with. You could already kinda deal with it by constant drops and targetting Queens to prevent Injects. I also believe Nukes kill all larvae in the target area. so Igniting Afterburnners, dropping off a cloaked ghost and nuking a hatchery is still strong in that case. It is resource and apm expensive. If someone has thoughts on killing the zerg instant max without killing how we all know and love" zerg play please reply.
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I think it does make sense as an alternative to make warp gate cooldown longer so that Protoss players actually have to make a choice between gateways and warp gates, rather than have warp gates be better in every way except that you have to look at the power field to make units.
As for zerg, I don't think messing with injects is the right way to go. Zerg should have a lot of units. The fundamental problem is that their late game compositions are too cost efficient. This should be fixed by looking at infestors, not the larva mechanic. It doesn't make sense that zerg is the mobile race that can take lots of expansions AND has the most cost effective and difficult to kill late game army. The price for being to take more bases should be cost inefficiency.
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EPT
