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On January 17 2013 04:23 Fenris420 wrote:
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.
THIS.
If we just want to solve Terran's lategame, then yeah I would say Tech Reactors would be.... a step forward.
That would just be putting a bandaid on a broken arm for all intensive purposes. There is a bigger economic issue with Protoss and Zerg that make Terran's weaker in the late game.
Terrans essentially MUST win every engagement, decisively, in order to maintain and add to an army that can somewhat handle the hyper fast reinforcements from protoss and zerg. If they dont, then the "defenders advantage" Terrans are supposed to enjoy is worthless, as Zerg can make a bajillion of whatever instantly and protoss can put there reinforcements at your base, before terran units even come out of the barracks. If toss REALLY wants too, he could even be chronoing the warp gates, further throwing Terrans into a hole.
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i never understood why not make a techreactor upgrade at the fusion core at a decent cost to help the terran late late game production cycles aswell as the space problem
i think no zerg or protoss would find that op, since they are costly and would provide excellent sniping targets for lategame harass
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I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar.
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Bio in PvT has changed the least, so if it's significantly imbalanced then so is WoL. The Mothership Core allows Protoss to tech and expand earlier and the faster medivacs allow Terran to harass more effectively.
With Mech, the only thing Protoss can remax quickly on are Zealots, Sentries, Stalkers, and DTs. Zealots get crushed by hellbats easily. DTs are fine as long as you have Ravens, which a meching player should. Sentries aren't very useful at attacking and Stalkers are only good for harass.
So the only thing really worth talking about here is Zerg v Terran which might be imbalanced because the match up has changed so much. You're also talking about an unusual late game situation, which doesn't come up very often, and it's only a possible issue because of the changes to ultras.
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You cannot deny a Terran his scouting information. He, in advance to a fight, can scan your army or tech structures. There is certainly room for huge debate as to how unreliable this could be, but you can deny both Zerg and Protoss scouting. I am a little surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
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On January 17 2013 07:06 IamTheArchitect wrote:Show nested quote +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.
. 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.
If you nerf inject then zerg simply has to add more hatcheries, it doesn't change much otherwise. The ability to save up larva is what gives zerg their swarming power.
Drones are larva inefficient, building drones increases your income and creates an even greater need for larva. At the same time zerg is hardly larva deficient, so I think there is a problem with how plentiful larva is. I would advocate for a nerf to inject. A nerf to how much larva you can store per hatchery could address the ability to tech switch (but hardly), and can tune the strength of the swarming ability.
Terran production will always be behind on the other races. I think there are only two real solutions, if one intends to see it as a problem that needs to be addressed: 1. make sure that terran can utilize all production facilities well, so that they aren't wasted by a need to, say, only make marines, but that you can supplement them with tanks and medivacs. 2. some sort of production boost mechanic, such as the tech reactor.
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On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar.
1. Researching tech reactors (which at the fusion core would represent a gas investment of 300) WOULD BE a decision that Terran has to make. I think it's hypocritical to argue that Terran should remain with limiting choices while arguing that Protoss shouldn't have to make any choices regarding warp gates.
2. As far as gateway units affecting late game...have you ever done warp prism zealot/dt harass? It's really, really good, especially against mech. And the fact that warp prism is t2 is irrelevant. This whole thread is about late game.
3. Also your description of what happens after a bio TvP engagement is silly. I don't think you've gone through enough of these. If Protoss wins the fight, warp ins come and Protoss just rolls over the terran base no problem. If the fight is even or terran has a little stuff left over, Protoss warps in zealots and runs over whatever was left. If terran wins fairly decisively, protoss still warps in zealots and a few HTs. The zealots slow the push long enough for HTs to get storm energy to stop the push. Protoss stabilizes.
Terran must either win really decisively, or have beastly multitasking, or just win fights over and over again to win.
4. Protoss players could macro without looking away from battle if they were imaginative and used gateways instead of warp gates, accepting a small time penalty in getting stuff out in exchange for being able to micro more easily.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 17 2013 11:39 IamTheArchitect wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar. 1. Researching tech reactors (which at the fusion core would represent a gas investment of 300) WOULD BE a decision that Terran has to make. I think it's hypocritical to argue that Terran should remain with limiting choices while arguing that Protoss shouldn't have to make any choices regarding warp gates. 2. As far as gateway units affecting late game...have you ever done warp prism zealot/dt harass? It's really, really good, especially against mech. And the fact that warp prism is t2 is irrelevant. This whole thread is about late game. 3. Also your description of what happens after a bio TvP engagement is silly. I don't think you've gone through enough of these. If Protoss wins the fight, warp ins come and Protoss just rolls over the terran base no problem. If the fight is even or terran has a little stuff left over, Protoss warps in zealots and runs over whatever was left. If terran wins fairly decisively, protoss still warps in zealots and a few HTs. The zealots slow the push long enough for HTs to get storm energy to stop the push. Protoss stabilizes. Terran must either win really decisively, or have beastly multitasking, or just win fights over and over again to win. 4. Protoss players could macro without looking away from battle if they were imaginative and used gateways instead of warp gates, accepting a small time penalty in getting stuff out in exchange for being able to micro more easily.
1. I just want to say that that's essentially akin to saying protoss HAS a decision to make warp gate. It's something that would be so necessary and so cheap (in the lategame) that there would literally be no actual choice attached to it.
2 +3. Gonna have to agree with you there. Apparently the OP hasn't watched the more recent TvPs where protoss won the game, got 5 bases up, then just remaxed 3 times on archon/zealot with 30 gateways FTW (I'm talking about THORZAIN, one of the best lategame TvP players out there, getting crushed by MC warping in huge rounds of units). Terran has to be way ahead by the lategame to stand a chance, really.
4. Well, I'm sure that's a real suggestion. There's absolutely no benefit to having gateways (which is a bit of a problem, I agree), even to spend 3-4 more seconds microing.
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I've been thinking about this too and couldn't you give terran a late game upgrade that allows them to instantly call down a barracks unit AT their barracks at an additional cost? Like 50% more for a marine or 100% more for a ghost. This wouldn't break early game and late game terrans can choose to either use their bank to remax if they are in trouble of getting swarmed over or just rebuild normally.
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I'd say T's production is fine. To use some rough numbers to make things more concrete, T's add-ons increase "production quality" by something like 10% to 30%. The problem with Z and P is that larva inject and warp gate increases "production quality" by something like 10x (i.e. you'd ALWAYS choose warp gates over gateways and ALWAYS choose queens over more hatcheries [in the absence of queens]). That's probably overboard since Z and P is getting this production capability for essentially no cost. Here are some suggestions to bring production of P and Z to reasonable levels.
P:
Like many have said, warp gate removes defender's advantage. To address this early and mid-game, we could
1. make the warp gate research happen later and more expensive, or
2. have a cost for converting each gateway into a warp gate.
However, this may not affect late game enough. To address late game, it may be necessary to increase cool down or even increase cost of warping in units. If P were to be allowed to have such great production capabilities, P should need to pay for this advantage.
Z:
Spawning 4 larva per inject is a little overboard, perhaps this needs to be nerfed to 3 larva per inject. This would make zerg macro less forgiving. The other problem is larva stockpiling. I'm not sure why the larva cap per hatchery is so high. If inject gives 4 larva, why not just cap the # of larva per hatchery at 7? 4 hatcheries with full larva in late game is still roughly equivalent to having 28 warp gates for 4*300+4*150 = 1800 minerals. One interesting change would be to make larva inject effectiveness scale with the tier of the production building, something like
Hatchery - 2 larvae per inject, max 7 larvae
Lair - 3 larvae per inject, max 9 larvae
Hive - 4 larvae per inject, max 11 larvae
This would make Z pay for their production advantage, not getting it for free (free now, because no further investment is needed in late game to stockpile larva).
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EDIT: Side note. There are other problems in the game (other than production) that comes from efficiencies that are way too high. For example, battles involving armies of roughly the same cost can turn out WAY in favor of one player, with one side having like 10x the cost effectiveness (eg. TvP battles, infestors/bl battles, immortal sentry all-in, in fact most battles from midgame on). I don't think this makes a fun game. I think given favorable unit compositions and better micro, the cost efficiency of any one side should not be more than 2x or 3x, and cost efficiency should scale roughly linear with skill.
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On January 17 2013 04:23 Fenris420 wrote:
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.
Protoss warp-in virtually eliminates the defender's advantage for the other 2 races while significantly boosting their own due to the front-loaded mechanic.
Zerg instant remax due to saving up larvae, combined with speed on creep reduces the defender's advantage significantly for the other races while still keeping their own.
Terrans have nothing comparable to either - Once their armies are down, they cannot push further. Once their defenders are down in numbers, they're dead.
Also, Terran production needs a LOT more space than the other 2 races due to the requirement of addons and space to have the units move through (especially the larger ones). This means that production facilities may often be required to be built in unsafe locations, further complicating logistics of reinforcement and rallying.
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
See above - You should not underestimate the amount of space a Terran needs in such a situation.
On January 17 2013 12:31 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 11:39 IamTheArchitect wrote:On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar. 1. Researching tech reactors (which at the fusion core would represent a gas investment of 300) WOULD BE a decision that Terran has to make. I think it's hypocritical to argue that Terran should remain with limiting choices while arguing that Protoss shouldn't have to make any choices regarding warp gates. 2. As far as gateway units affecting late game...have you ever done warp prism zealot/dt harass? It's really, really good, especially against mech. And the fact that warp prism is t2 is irrelevant. This whole thread is about late game. 3. Also your description of what happens after a bio TvP engagement is silly. I don't think you've gone through enough of these. If Protoss wins the fight, warp ins come and Protoss just rolls over the terran base no problem. If the fight is even or terran has a little stuff left over, Protoss warps in zealots and runs over whatever was left. If terran wins fairly decisively, protoss still warps in zealots and a few HTs. The zealots slow the push long enough for HTs to get storm energy to stop the push. Protoss stabilizes. Terran must either win really decisively, or have beastly multitasking, or just win fights over and over again to win. 4. Protoss players could macro without looking away from battle if they were imaginative and used gateways instead of warp gates, accepting a small time penalty in getting stuff out in exchange for being able to micro more easily. 1. I just want to say that that's essentially akin to saying protoss HAS a decision to make warp gate. It's something that would be so necessary and so cheap (in the lategame) that there would literally be no actual choice attached to it. 2 +3. Gonna have to agree with you there. Apparently the OP hasn't watched the more recent TvPs where protoss won the game, got 5 bases up, then just remaxed 3 times on archon/zealot with 30 gateways FTW (I'm talking about THORZAIN, one of the best lategame TvP players out there, getting crushed by MC warping in huge rounds of units). Terran has to be way ahead by the lategame to stand a chance, really. 4. Well, I'm sure that's a real suggestion. There's absolutely no benefit to having gateways (which is a bit of a problem, I agree), even to spend 3-4 more seconds microing.
1: There is no decision to warp gate or no warp gate. A protoss always does it as it's a minimal investment that costs you 50/50 once and counts for all gateways - And it cannot be destroyed. There is no comparison to addons which require space for EVERY building, which CAN be destroyed and which cost 50/50 or 50/25 for EVERY building you attach them to.
Reactors or lab would still be a choice up untill the 15-20 minute mark, when you can actually afford to get a fusion core and spend the time and resources on the research for tech reactors. It still forces a terran to make some difficult choices untill the lategame. I don't see how you can feasibly 'rush' to tech reactors on one or even two bases without severely gimping yourself.
2+3+4: Actually, that's one of the reasons for the post, though it's also an older one - Warpin OP  Someone suggested that instead of shortening production times, warpins would make them longer, which i don't think is a bad idea... It turns warpgates into an actual choice for Protoss like you suggest they already are.
On January 17 2013 12:57 ultratorr wrote:
I'd say T's production is fine. To use some rough numbers to make things more concrete, T's add-ons increase "production quality" by something like 10% to 30%. The problem with Z and P is that larva inject and warp gate increases "production quality" by something like 10x (i.e. you'd ALWAYS choose warp gates over gateways and ALWAYS choose queens over more hatcheries [in the absence of queens]). That's probably overboard since Z and P is getting this production capability for essentially no cost. Here are some suggestions to bring production of P and Z to reasonable levels.
P:
Like many have said, warp gate removes defender's advantage. To address this early and mid-game, we could
1. make the warp gate research happen later and more expensive, or
2. have a cost for converting each gateway into a warp gate.
However, this may not affect late game enough. To address late game, it may be necessary to increase cool down or even increase cost of warping in units. If P were to be allowed to have such great production capabilities, P should need to pay for this advantage.
Z:
Spawning 4 larva per inject is a little overboard, perhaps this needs to be nerfed to 3 larva per inject. This would make zerg macro less forgiving. The other problem is larva stockpiling. I'm not sure why the larva cap per hatchery is so high. If inject gives 4 larva, why not just cap the # of larva per hatchery at 7? 4 hatcheries with full larva in late game is still roughly equivalent to having 28 warp gates for 4*300+4*150 = 1800 minerals. One interesting change would be to make larva inject effectiveness scale with the tier of the production building, something like
Hatchery - 2 larvae per inject, max 7 larvae
Lair - 3 larvae per inject, max 9 larvae
Hive - 4 larvae per inject, max 11 larvae
This would make Z pay for their production advantage, not getting it for free (free now, because no further investment is needed in late game to stockpile larva).
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EDIT: Side note. There are other problems in the game (other than production) that comes from efficiencies that are way too high. For example, battles involving armies of roughly the same cost can turn out WAY in favor of one player, with one side having like 10x the cost effectiveness (eg. TvP battles, infestors/bl battles, immortal sentry all-in, in fact most battles from midgame on). I don't think this makes a fun game. I think given favorable unit compositions and better micro, the cost efficiency of any one side should not be more than 2x or 3x, and cost efficiency should scale roughly linear with skill.
These are some pretty good suggestions imho...
The Terran production style is fine - The only problem it has are the styles of P and Z. The question here then is whether to adjust T or P and Z.
You also bring up the issue of hard counters, which is a 'hidden' reason for the discussion.
Your suggestions would only be effective if they are done at the same time though - Can't do the protoss one without the zerg one and vice versa, since it would make PvZ fairly volatile at the very least, giving P a distinct edge imho.
The zerg suggestion of limiting injects and larvae stockpiles is good imho, but maybe a little too much - This would make early game zerg VERY difficult to play, if it's even possible.
Would have to do some theorycrafting on that. Just adding tech reactors is a much simpler thing to imagine the consequences for than what you are suggesting, interesting though as it is 
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On January 17 2013 11:39 IamTheArchitect wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar. 1. Researching tech reactors (which at the fusion core would represent a gas investment of 300) WOULD BE a decision that Terran has to make. I think it's hypocritical to argue that Terran should remain with limiting choices while arguing that Protoss shouldn't have to make any choices regarding warp gates.
Instead of putting that research into lategame, why not just build more production buildings earlier? You'd still have to pay, there are no balance problems, and the best thing:
you can already do that and there's no need to hope for blizzard to implement it.
The idea behind the techreactor just seems like an easy way out for terrans with bad macro. Look at all those other terrans spamming barracks and factories all over the place, making 12 marines, 4 medivacs and 5 tanks at a time. If I watch them play, I don't see many of the issues people state here. So it can't be that bad!
Also, the discussion is really biased. Yeah, Zerg can produce out of every base every unit. But you kill one building and he can't anymore. And with drops, Terrans have a really good option to do that. Whats zerg answer? Build multiple tech buildings. Not an "infestation poolwarren".
And Protoss have their issues with macro, too. But the answer shouldn't be a new building to solve it all, thats not the way this game works. The first question should always be "How can I play differently to solve this issue?" and not "How can blizzard solve this?", because if we always ask the latter, we will have WoW-style of patching. And we do have that too much already.
I agree that Terran has some great issues in hots, but their way of producing stuff isn't one of them from my POV.
EDIT: Made many mistakes there, lol
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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.
Agree with this very much. Removing defenders advantage and giving Protoss mobility on Zerg levels is just terrible design. What is the justification behind that? What happened to advantages having appropriate drawbacks to create interesting dynamics? What happened to Starcraft race distinction?
(The year is 2007)
"hey what should we do to make SC2 really cool and profitable?"
"well you know... protoss uses warp technology in BW. what if they could warp in units ANYWHERE?"
"that's so COOL. does everything think so? show of hands"
(20 computer science graduates who have never played BW who work at Blizzard because of connections + a degree raise their hands)
"great implement it, and we'll test a build in a few days. justify it later. appearances first! need lazers and cool! it's 2007 gentlemen!"
Warpgate definitely should be removed or nerfed, but of course this isn't going to happen according to DB's statements on Twitter.
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With all due respect, I like terran because its terran. I like how you have to approach it and strategize differently, and that the race has different pros and cons.
All this talk about merging upgrades, now changing production to be more like zerg or protoss. There are other races that already do this better. If you want to not think about these things when you play, play another race. Want to just make upgrades that apply to everything, go play protoss. Want easier production? go play zerg.
The Races in sc2 should be fundamentally different on almost all levels, down to the core mechanics, otherwise it is redundant to maintain 3 different races. When something isn't fair, that isn't a sound argument to justify wiping out areas that keep the races different. Whats the point in making all 3 races have the exact same pros and cons? the same strengths and weaknesses?
I feel it is completely reasonable for terrans macroing/ production to not be as streamlined as zergs. And it should not change at all. This offsets how versatile and rewarding microing a terran army is compared to other races. Starcraft is not a "I should be able to do that exact same thing as the other race and if not its not fair" game.
Sorry for a negative sounding post. But seeing the community feel this way and requesting these changes to terran is extremely frustrating. Depending on how you problem solve, what your strengths or weaknesses are, are key factors in what defines what race is best suited for you to use. Not the other way around, in-where the race is changed to suit your needs.
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I really like the idea of tech reactors for terran in late game, but rather than a single upgrade at cost of 200/200 I think it should be an upgrade available in every reactor / tech lab for a cheap 50/50 that unlocks when armory is created.
IE: build a barracs, build a tech lab, select tech lab and upgrade that tech lab only for 50/50.
This way the T player can choose where to invest in tech-reactors and the T keeps the basics of making tech labs and reactors.
Edit: also sniping the tech-reactors could be a more interesting strategy for the enemy.
I dont like nerf things in SC2 but I suggest a couple of things:
- Warpgate needs more cooldown, so P gain something (movility) in exchange of something (time) or they can choose to remax faster but using the basic gategays.
- Larba lifespan I think that larba needs a lifespam like infested marines or turrets, if Z player doesnt use it, the larba dies, this way Z players cant stack a huge amount of larbas ready to remax too fast and forces better macro.
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On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar.
About your points:
1) in TvP the decision for T is pretty quick, 2 reactor early game, and then only tech lab (because marauders and ghost are better late game than marines anyway). So there is no real choice there, you just make lab for every single rax late game. Thus, making tech/reactor would just be a buff to terran production, not a removing choice patch.
2) Warpgate reinforcement require proxy or warp prism. Ok, yeah, it take a tiny bit APM to make a pylon. Is that a risk late game? Rlly? Late game, toss has pylon everywhere, and just make offensive ones behind his army/deathball. There is absolutly 0 risk making pylons, and reinforcing through warpgate.
During the fight, toss and terran both loose supply. Terran queue units in rax, toss warp in front. So in 2 sec, during the fight (not even ended yet) toss already replaced around 20 supply. Then the 2nd round or warpin come right when rax unit are out. So basically toss can remax during/and right after the engage. When T can only try to remax once and face 2x remaxing on maybe high tier units (since HT are warped, and after lauching storm they convert into a nice ball of pure energy that deal splash damage).
Basic gate unit DO threaten terran late game. 40 zealots (costing only minerals) force you to kite, tank an absurd amount of damage and are pretty much just A moving on their part.
3) Toss tech switch is really brutal aswell. gettin caught with only ghost and you're pretty much done. Not having enough minerals and ghost is light out aswell. Whereas for toss colossus will never be a bad choice (except the terran has 14 vikings left over) and templar can convert into archon, which make them double use (storm + archon (nice buff of life doing so). Even EMPed templars can go into archon mode, which is kinda fun cause the terran already used his EMP to remove the storm energy and face new 350 shield energy (that do require EMP to get rid of fast) and have none/few left over due the need of using them before. pretty fun fact no?
Terrans win rate late game just speak by themselves. It's not a secret the production mechanics from races are differents and have their own strenghts/weakness. But whereas the timing of weakness of gateway.warpgate end around 5;30/7 depending on how much you chrono, the weakness of terran goes from 10-X. Which sounds pretty unfair.
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On January 17 2013 19:06 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 11:39 IamTheArchitect wrote:On January 17 2013 08:17 Nezgar wrote:
I have to disagree on tech reactors. The techlab/reactor situation makes sure that there are decisions involved and taking away even more decisions from terrans makes for a terrible game imho. Those last few patches already got rid of siege tank upgrade, speed upgrade for reaper, techlab for reaper and, previously, armory for widow mines. It get's dangerously close to just building barracks/factory/starport and getting everything without adding more buildings or upgrades. Everything you do should be a decision carefully made, with benefits and drawbacks.
Warpgate reinforcements for example require either proxy pylon or a warp prism from a t2 building. Both require an investment and have risks to them. The game is balanced around protoss having warpins available and you shouldn't really complain that basic gateway units are a thing that threatens a terrans in the lategame. After the main armies have crashed into each other and their number is reduced to only a few, terran bio units with medivac support grow exponentially stronger. You can often watch that after the big battle when there is still a little bit of bio standing with just gateway units, it's almost always the terran who comes out ahead.
Besides, not having to look away during a fight in order to build new units is a huge benefit for non-professional gamers that should be taken into consideration aswell.
The risk of late late game techswitches is most prevalent in a TvZ game where both player are circling each other, too afraid to engage and sitting on a huge bank of ressources. It's the nature of the blord/infestor combination that causes those issues as they require very specific units to deal with them. You don't see this problem much in games where the zerg is playing muta/ling/bling or something similar. 1. Researching tech reactors (which at the fusion core would represent a gas investment of 300) WOULD BE a decision that Terran has to make. I think it's hypocritical to argue that Terran should remain with limiting choices while arguing that Protoss shouldn't have to make any choices regarding warp gates. Instead of putting that research into lategame, why not just build more production buildings earlier? You'd still have to pay, there are no balance problems, and the best thing: you can already do that and there's no need to hope for blizzard to implement it. The idea behind the techreactor just seems like an easy way out for terrans with bad macro. Look at all those other terrans spamming barracks and factories all over the place, making 12 marines, 4 medivacs and 5 tanks at a time. If I watch them play, I don't see many of the issues people state here. So it can't be that bad! Also, the discussion is really biased. Yeah, Zerg can produce out of every base every unit. But you kill one building and he can't anymore. And with drops, Terrans have a really good option to do that. Whats zerg answer? Build multiple tech buildings. Not an "infestation poolwarren". And Protoss have their issues with macro, too. But the answer shouldn't be a new building to solve it all, thats not the way this game works. The first question should always be "How can I play differently to solve this issue?" and not "How can blizzard solve this?", because if we always ask the latter, we will have WoW-style of patching. And we do have that too much already. I agree that Terran has some great issues in hots, but their way of producing stuff isn't one of them from my POV. EDIT: Made many mistakes there, lol
Armory and fusion core are also buildings you don't tend to make many of, if destroyed they will pretty much kill your ability to produce (or use) certain units that could give you an edge.
Same with protoss and cybercore/robo/twilight/shrine.
Building more production is an option, but a pretty bad one considering it's susceptability to run bys and it's massive sprawl, making it VERY hard to defend. A smaller army could also run by and simply snipe the addons, they cannot fly and run away and have a pitiful amount of hitpoints.
A massive buildingsprawl will hamper any defender to move through them, mind you.
Bad macro also won't help with tech reactors - If you can't make 2 factories with tech labs before, you can't make 2 tanks at the same time after aswell due to a general lack of resources. Tech reactors only really come into play AFTER a 200/200 situation has already likely happened, they are a solution to the current lack of defender's advantage Terrans have, aswell as a lack of ability to tech switch. They need less space and are thus more managable to defend, more than anything else.
Also, a lot of Zergs seem to ignore the drop potential they have - Overlord speed and drop are two one-time upgrades, afer which you have fairly fast, 100-mineral flying dropships. I don't know why more zergs use these and i expect zerg droppings (muhahaha) to become more and more popular in the future once people figure this out properly.
Warp prism drops and warpins are already very hard hitting...
The only advantage Terran drops have is that bio drops are healed by the dropships. That's all. It is a pretty big one, but then again medivacs also cost 100/100 instead of the just 100 for overlords and 200 for warp prims, which are also quicker to make! I'd even have to argue that terran has the worst drop potential of the 2 races going by this - Protoss can even PRODUCE units with their dropshop for crying out loud
And lets not forget: Making medivacs means not making vikings or ravens... Only protoss have a similar situation here with a tied up robo but this might be "balanced out" by the fact that prims take less time to make.
On January 17 2013 19:56 Armada Vega wrote:
With all due respect, I like terran because its terran. I like how you have to approach it and strategize differently, and that the race has different pros and cons.
All this talk about merging upgrades, now changing production to be more like zerg or protoss. There are other races that already do this better. If you want to not think about these things when you play, play another race. Want to just make upgrades that apply to everything, go play protoss. Want easier production? go play zerg.
The Races in sc2 should be fundamentally different on almost all levels, down to the core mechanics, otherwise it is redundant to maintain 3 different races. When something isn't fair, that isn't a sound argument to justify wiping out areas that keep the races different. Whats the point in making all 3 races have the exact same pros and cons? the same strengths and weaknesses?
I feel it is completely reasonable for terrans macroing/ production to not be as streamlined as zergs. And it should not change at all. This offsets how versatile and rewarding microing a terran army is compared to other races. Starcraft is not a "I should be able to do that exact same thing as the other race and if not its not fair" game.
Sorry for a negative sounding post. But seeing the community feel this way and requesting these changes to terran is extremely frustrating. Depending on how you problem solve, what your strengths or weaknesses are, are key factors in what defines what race is best suited for you to use. Not the other way around, in-where the race is changed to suit your needs.
That is why i only suggested a tech reactor since it's a managable upgrade that doesn't change fundamental terran production, only coming into play in the lategame where protoss and zerg production does have an arguably massive advantage over terrans. I am not suggesting to change T production into something more like Z and P.
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it's a silly conclusion that more units automatically leads to more tech switches being difficult to handle.
First of all, most new units are quite niche units. Secondly terran is getting more rounded off to beat different units, widow mines hit air and ground, mech and air share upgrades and ravens got buffed.
Besides that all new protoss units are not for the gateway anyway so nothing matters there. In TvZ the ultra <--> BL switching was always difficult to handle but with new tools like vikings with 'free' armor upgrades or ravens being decent against both there are enough options. Thors for example are okish against both now. Besides that ultra bl tech switches are really slow anyway given both units build really slowly, what good is it building all new units at the same time if it still takes 70 seconds.
Only thing that I could agree would be good would be an actual factory AA unit so investing into a ton of factories isn't completely dead when the opponent plays full air. One of the reasons mech works in BW TvP and not in SC2 TvP is that air switches are even deadlier in sc2. Imo either the viking in ground mode should be available from factory or the thor should be replaced by a faster goliath like unit, perhaps using the warhound model.
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Terrans have crippled production simply because they have Marines, which are far, FAR stronger than all other early tier units. If Terran could convert minerals to Marines at the efficiency Protoss converts minerals into Zealots, Terran could easily and uncounterably just Marine allin their opponents out of the game, every game. This is why the Reactor costs what it does and takes so long to build, it's there to un-cripple Terran production in the mid and late game. It's also why units like Marauders have such an awful cost/build time ratio, it's to stop unbeatable allins with these units.
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I am not sure Terrans are at that much disadvantage. They can make additional units by replacing SVC with mules, freeing supply and simply building a bigger force. IMHO depending on the situation Terrans can balance Zerg and Protoss post-battle-production by mule-facilitated pre-battle-production and bigger army. I however agree that it depends on particular circumstances.
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EPT
