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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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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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On January 17 2013 22:05 Alex1Sun wrote:
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.
What about the all-round cannons for Protoss and, more to the point, spine/spore forests for Zerg?
Bunkers need supply so they can't be compared to this, turrets only hit air and planetaries are far too big to be useful in the same way spines/cannons are.
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Terran basically can decide on 2 techs and has to stick with it. Getting the third tech forces a long transition time, because of the upgrades starting at 0/0 (0/3). The game is pretty depended on fighting 3/3 vs 3/3 or you won't stand a chance with those 0 attack units. In addition the cost for production structures is way to high. In a passive game it is possible, but other then that, it won't work.
As a result Terran has to be able to deal with everything the other races have from 2 production facilities. But with HotS Terrans will have it slightly better, with the shared armor upgrade. So they are a bit closer to the other races who also just have 5 upgrades.
The issue about Mech is Imo the need for Techlabs. Starport and Raks do fine with Reactors, but for proper Factory use you need a ton of techlabed ones. Which is quiet costly, compared to the cheap production facility costs everything else has. Hellbats and Widow mines solved this issue abit though.
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Are we talking about design or balance here? Those two are very different when it comes to production as terrans have been doing great during WoL with out "bad" production mechanics. I'd agree on talking about general design but half this thread is terrans requesting nerfs for zerg and protoss without actual compensation which makes, at least in my opinion, for a really shitty conversation.
Just an example:
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.
Is this about balance or is it about design? This, to me, sounds more like balance whine instead of a design suggestion. When changing design one has to consider balance aswell. Seeing that protoss was the weakest race during WoL it's questionable if pure nerfs are justified. Balance compensation would be something like:
1. warp gate research later, faster basic production without
2. cheaper gateways, added cost for transforming them
Some suggested nerfing the cooldown on warpins to be longer than usual production. It should rather be swapping production time with warpin cooldown.
This game is balanced with protoss getting warp gate tech and building units at that speed. It is balanced balanced with protoss having warpin reinforcements during fights.
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This is going off a tangent from OP's post. I'd like to see changes to P and Z rather than the design of Terran be changed, since I like how terran works.
Honestly, I'd rather see warpgates vs gateways be a decision, rather than just a mindless 'okay gateway's done, time to turn into warpgate.'
Gateway production should be faster than warpgate production, but warpgate gives you the advantage of faster reinforcements at the cost of a cooldown much longer than gateway production. Maybe like 20-40% longer between units from a warpgate than from a gateway is what I'm thinking. On the other hand you'd probably have to give some (minor) flat damage/health buffs to zealot/stalker in this situation, because gateway units are weak based off the design of warpgate.
Also you'd probably have to adjust transformation time. Maybe 10 seconds from gateway->warpgate, but 20 seconds from warpgate->gateway.
I can't say much about Z, but more abilities to 'snipe' larva are a good idea imo. Oracles can 1-shot them, and fungal/storms can kill them easily. It would be interesting to see what other ideas people can come up with killing larva as a harass technique, particularly for terran.
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+ Show Spoiler +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
The mistake you're making here is that this isn't just a way to help terrans with "bad macro." One of the key problems (as other people have mentioned) is space. You often don't have enough room in main and natural for all the buildings you need. This means that in a late game situation where you and opponent are both harassing different sides of the map, they only stand to lose a mining base (and a nominal amount of production if zerg) while you stand to lose a mining base AND a lot of production. It massively increases the amount of stuff you have to defend.
Another problem is scale. Yes, in late game situations I build 4 or 5 more factories and starports and I can get 5 tanks building at once. The problem is that zerg can be making 20 ultralisks or 20 brood lords at once.
Lastly, in situations a little before the maxed out, huge resource bank scenario, gas efficiency can be a problem for Terran. In order to make a lot of gas-intensive (i.e. strong, supply efficient) units, you need to sink a lot of gas into production, whereas if you stick to mineral intensive barracks units, you always have way too much gas. Zerg infrastructure requires no gas at all besides tech buildings, while protoss can have a ton of gateways (only minerals) and get HT/DTs (gas intensive).
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Adding tech reactor is unnecessary to be honest. Terrans can build more structures with the extra resources they get from mules and have reactors for low tech units. Mules can help them cut scvs and have bigger armies which is even better when it comes to engagement. They just need to handle stuff like protoss do with their robo and stargate which can only produce one unit at a time. If production speed proves to be a problem, a simple reduction of unit production time can be made to some units ( I wish they do that to the carrier). Generally speaking, production times should be tweaked if it proves to be a problem not to have similar production capabilities for all races. There is nothing to justify a reactor/techlab.
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Seriously, guys. "Warp gate removes defender's advantage"? What are you people on? 3/3 bio with medivacs will annihilate four times its supply count of Protoss units not containing templar or colossi. You can trade your entire ground army for their AoE units, and one round of barracks production will easily solo everything they have left + everything they can warp in for the next minute.
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On January 18 2013 04:32 Xequecal wrote:
Seriously, guys. "Warp gate removes defender's advantage"? What are you people on? 3/3 bio with medivacs will annihilate four times its supply count of Protoss units not containing templar or colossi. You can trade your entire ground army for their AoE units, and one round of barracks production will easily solo everything they have left + everything they can warp in for the next minute.
How often have you seen a protoss not going for colossus and/or HT against T?
HT are fantastic zone control units. A protoss will never opt to not use them against terran unless they manage to cripple him with colossus first. Terrans need ghosts to be able to deal with any protoss army right now aswell, but one wrong move and your ghosts are toast - And you wont be able to resupply all that quickly.
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On January 18 2013 04:32 Xequecal wrote:
Seriously, guys. "Warp gate removes defender's advantage"? What are you people on? 3/3 bio with medivacs will annihilate four times its supply count of Protoss units not containing templar or colossi. You can trade your entire ground army for their AoE units, and one round of barracks production will easily solo everything they have left + everything they can warp in for the next minute.
So we're discussing Late Game Reinforcing, you provide an excellent point for midgame 2/2 timings but usually protoss unless they are going for Skytoss will usually be headed for collossus or blink stalkers on some maps. If Terrans were always fighting pure blink stalkers then I think this thread wouldn't exist. Templar are usually an additional response to bio play just due to how badly the clumping of bio units are. In the Late game scenario more people posting to this thread have in mind that protoss has a ground army with either collossi or templar or both.
The issue I think could also be solved if protoss wasn't to seige tank sniping. (blink stalkers, chargelots) because then the remax wouldn't feel so bad since the terran would have the means to survive wave after wave and still push after. This I feel however would be a harder adjustment than just increasing the cooldown/warpin time on warpgates with a slight decrease in build times on the regular gateway. This might also increase the feel for viability of the BattleCruiser, since right now in TvP it is sometimes gotten late late game but has the overall fear that once quick warp in of templar can cripple a fleet in seconds. This way a terran can move forward with his main army while transitioning to his BattleCruisers, try to force the warpin and then hopefully have the protoss warpin before seeing a BattleCruiser and then the BC will have a little while of superiority but not so much in a game breaking fashion since terran will only be able to build from the small number of starports so in this imaginary scenario I see max 3-4 BC's being produced one at a time. In the higher leagues it would probably only be 2 max to try the smoothest transition while keeping pressure.
For Zerg I read an interesting Idea that I lost track off (claim your credit friend) that depending on whether it is a hatchery, lair, or Hive then allows for higher larvae storage capabilities. that at a hatchery you can have max 16 larvae, a lair 24 larvae, and at a Hive the regular 32(?) larvae. Early game injects become more crucial and so does scouting but in the late game case this makes zerg players take the time to upgrade all their hatcheries to hold more larvae and makes bases more important to take and more importantly defend. So in the case of an enemy push out toward your 4th expo and a split force going after a higher tech lair at your 3rd you have to make the choice of how you're going to deal with it. if you need the larvae or the resources more. So Zerg will have that massive remax potential at the late game with 5 Hives, otherwise they need to plan out their larvae use more. This I also feel leaves the Zerg feeling swarm-ish, I mean what happens when you let wasps stay too long in your backyard?
And on the note of Terran ways to kill larvae the Nuke right now is the best option, especially if it also kills workers and hits the larvae of a nearby macro hatch. but simcity can fix most of that for zergs.
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On January 18 2013 04:32 Xequecal wrote:
Seriously, guys. "Warp gate removes defender's advantage"? What are you people on? 3/3 bio with medivacs will annihilate four times its supply count of Protoss units not containing templar or colossi. You can trade your entire ground army for their AoE units, and one round of barracks production will easily solo everything they have left + everything they can warp in for the next minute.
Have you heard of these things called 3/3 zealots? They're pretty good at delaying bio until you have storms ready. FF can also delay. In a late game situation, several cannons at expos, especially combined with the above are very good.
Also what do you mean by trading protoss ground army for terran AOE units? When has that ever happened? If anything the reverse happens. T manages to kill the collossi but loses everything he has.
I hate to seem like a jerk, but you honestly seem like you have no idea how this matchup works.
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On January 18 2013 00:00 FeyFey wrote:
Terran basically can decide on 2 techs and has to stick with it. Getting the third tech forces a long transition time, because of the upgrades starting at 0/0 (0/3). The game is pretty depended on fighting 3/3 vs 3/3 or you won't stand a chance with those 0 attack units. In addition the cost for production structures is way to high. In a passive game it is possible, but other then that, it won't work.
you realize that both zerg and protoss also have seperate upgrades for Air are you?
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On January 17 2013 23:47 ChromeBallz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 22:05 Alex1Sun wrote:
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. What about the all-round cannons for Protoss and, more to the point, spine/spore forests for Zerg? Bunkers need supply so they can't be compared to this, turrets only hit air and planetaries are far too big to be useful in the same way spines/cannons are.
What about MULES, flying buildings, Scans, wall ins early to deny scouting, Drop Ships that also heal, etc, etc,etc?
All races have different strengths and weaknesses.
Also Terran has map control at least vs P so no anti ground static defense is needed and Missile Turrets are way better than spores/Cannons vs air
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Posting this production incapabilities seems true at the very initial core of it. (I'm Protoss and will be talking TvP exclusively)
Overall though many facts of that production isn't exactly the fact. Looking blanky at the production capabilities is hiding much of the power coming from what lies behind it. Especially TvP the terran's production may seem less powerful because of the warp gate function but that simply is not true.
Why is that? Well, Terran production on equal bases is running at roughly a 30% higher capacity than that of its counter part races. THEREFORE you have about 300 minerals per minute that you are using. Now of course things come into play such as upgrades and whatnot. But the core of the matter is money you are spending on units is more per minute than your opponent if on equal setting.
SECONDLY. Protoss production capabilities are different for its tiers of units. The way protoss power works is from its beefy units. ESPECIALLY in HOTS. Long gone are the days where protoss could get by with gateway units only. Therefore to supplement the power of this protoss has been forced to make high tier units more. This means, stargate robo is a 2/3 base build. Double robo and double stargate are all viable. This means that we highly rely upon these units. Now thinking about this...Protoss production facilities generally cost more than anyone else's. So we are spending more just to get these units out. So while terran is running at 130% Production off of 1 mineral line. Protoss run below 100% until our production is up and going.
Even relying upon this more. Protoss's reliance upon these units is super high. With the death of these units our ability to attack are nearly gone. (exception to warp prisms and harrassing things) Simply put if we can't produce and get up to our 100% ideal productivity we simply cannot attack and win the game vs T. So keeping that in mind below I will post some key facts for terran in TvP.
1) Terran mules allow the terran to run on a higher Mineral per minute rate and therefore can produce only units for effectively than other races on equal number of bases.
2) Terran reliance upon higher tier units allows for there army to be more flexible (even though the production buildings don't seem flexible) than the other races. (I believe to win any game a terran should just master production facility numbers and combinations)
3) Protoss's relance upon high tier units to win at any given point in time make the flexibilty of protoss production facilities to be more streamlined and important.
TLDR: You drop 2 medivacs in my base full of bio and quickly take out robo pylon before collosus tech. We lose with our gateway units almost always.
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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.
zerg does not have the most cost effective late game army, if anything in HotS they have the least. try going up against skytoss with zerg and tell me you're units are cost effective. you can literally throw 3 maxed armies at the protoss and he'll beat them all with MINIMAL reinforcments....and if he focus' your overseers you auto lose. you can't keep making mass overseer as zerg while remaxing on gas intensive anti air units
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Personally I think what's really ruining the game are Zerglings. They give the Zerg a fast mobile unit that can easily control the map in the early game and ruin your economy with one lucky run by. As a result, Zerg is almost always a base ahead of their opponent because they don't have to build any units until you move out to attack, which they'll see because they only have to build a couple Zerglings and can have control of all the watchtowers. Meanwhile the other races are stuck worrying about their wall-off, and have no idea what's going on. It's a silly a-move unit that requires no skill whatsoever. All of these problems could be solved if Blizzard just got rid of the stupid unit. While we're at it, let's get rid of those pesky Corruptors. Mutalisks are good enough against Vikings to protect the OP Brood Lords anyways.
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United States7483 Posts
I would be okay with an upgrade on the Fusion Core that makes reactors decrease the building time required to produce units in the building it is attached to.
To be frank though, I feel like terran players don't add on enough production in the late game. It's not unusual to see a protoss player go up to 30 gateways in the lategame, but you rarely see a terran with more than 15 barracks regardless of how long the game goes.
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2164 Posts
You are essentially complaining about what makes different races, well, different. Yeah T has the least explosive reinforcement capability in the SC2 universe. So? You get strong buildings, cheap and fast-building defensive structures, emergency map hack, and mules. Add-on swapping is also an obvious help, which can be used strategically as well as to boost production for certain units.
So you feel like those are not enough? Guess what. Other races feel the same. P would love to give T zealot charge in exchange of stimpack. Z would gladly trade roaches for marauders. Deal?
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On January 19 2013 12:51 usethis2 wrote:
You are essentially complaining about what makes different races, well, different. Yeah T has the least explosive reinforcement capability in the SC2 universe. So? You get strong buildings, cheap and fast-building defensive structures, emergency map hack, and mules. Add-on swapping is also an obvious help, which can be used strategically as well as to boost production for certain units.
So you feel like those are not enough? Guess what. Other races feel the same. P would love to give T zealot charge in exchange of stimpack. Z would gladly trade roaches for marauders. Deal?
He is essentially complaining about having to assume the reactionary role with the least flexible race in the game. Asymmetry is not justified without balance. How many games do you see ending with marauders rolling over roaches and how many are won by instant remaxes and tech switches?
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