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On April 05 2010 15:09 Doc Daneeka wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:00 0neder wrote:
This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go. yeah but this is down the road from sc/bw. those 3 races were originally pitted against each other with what they already had. now they've had time to respond to their opponents' strengths. roach makes sense in that context cos there was a desperate need for the zerg to evolve a strain that could take hard hits without investing in a ton of ultralisks. not saying that excuses boring gameplay. just saying it'd be ridiculous in real life to cling to flimsy spacesuits just because "hey, i'm a human and therefore i wear flimsy spacesuits."
It isn't a lore concern, its a gameplay concern. Each race felt different, and differences among basic unit HP contributed to that.
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On April 05 2010 15:11 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:09 Doc Daneeka wrote:On April 05 2010 15:00 0neder wrote:
This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go. yeah but this is down the road from sc/bw. those 3 races were originally pitted against each other with what they already had. now they've had time to respond to their opponents' strengths. roach makes sense in that context cos there was a desperate need for the zerg to evolve a strain that could take hard hits without investing in a ton of ultralisks. not saying that excuses boring gameplay. just saying it'd be ridiculous in real life to cling to flimsy spacesuits just because "hey, i'm a human and therefore i wear flimsy spacesuits." It isn't a lore concern, its a gameplay concern. Each race felt different, and differences among basic unit HP contributed to that.
yeah i was just responding to that post in particular. this thread has really made me rethink what these units might do to the longevity of this game.
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-lower roach life so they'll die faster with target fire and will take more micro to quickly burrow, run away, regen ,and tank again when ready (fit into its role better)
-lower life of roach means we can decrease attack of both marauder and immortals so they are not so incredibly powerful in other encounters (e.g. immortals against armored units)
-marauders will fit its role better as a slow supporter rather than for damage output
-immortals will fit its role better as a heavy assault tanker rather than for its damage output
and by the way, on paper this will work if roach life goes down and marauder/immortal damage goes down:
tvz = zerglings > marauders > roaches > marines > zerglings
tvp = marines > immortals > marauders > zealots > marines
pvz = zealots > zerglings > immortals > roaches > zealots
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interesting thoughts, although i do not really agree, and i think the game is balancable
And btw i rarely use roaches in ZvT and ZvP and i'm relatively high in platinum.
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On April 05 2010 14:51 Doc Daneeka wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 14:43 Half wrote:
My previous negative stance on the fallacy that is "hardcounters" being said, I do feel like that SC2 early game is just going to be more dynamic. Simply because you have more units (medics didn't really count, considering their was no reason you'd go bio without them and no real reason to get them if you weren't).
With 3 units open in T1, early game play is going to be a lot more fluid, and a lot more varied. I doubt we'll ever get the hard "safe openings", but I don't think its enough to cause "lucking" a hardcounter.
Overall, thats probably a good thing. Though it makes it much harder to balance. yeah. plus i keep reading that sc1 was pretty much broken until bw came out. i wasn't playing much online and definitely not watching vods back then so i can't confirm that but maybe you can. i'm trying to stay optimistic that if a year plus change after retail release the balance has got into a rut, the expansion will have units and upgrades designed to fix that. then the next expansion after that. that's two major content revisions after retail release. stuff like walls of roaches are frustrating now, but i think blizzard is aiming for the long haul here. it IS the follow-up to a game that lasted 12 years.
That's an excellent point and a good reason not to abandon hope (not that any reasonable person would until at least a year from now). I just hope blizzard isn't tempted to take it as an excuse for inaction.
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Make the Hydralisk into a high powered melee unit like the Amerigo cinematic in the first BW experience and make it only an AtA unit so its ranged attack only works vs. air units. that way the roach can keep its ranged attack vs. ground only. It would make zerg waayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more interesting.
At the moment the Hydralisk doesnt give me any sort of worry. It just makes me say "well Zerg has AtA, it doesnt matter anyway I have tanks and Marauders; what the fuck can they do?!?!?"
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This thread makes a really good point. I'd enjoy the game a lot more if they changed these three units around and lowered them all a fair amount. As a terran player, I hate the whole "8 raxx with 7 tech labs spam marauders" bullshit.
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On April 05 2010 15:18 Rucky wrote:
-lower roach life so they'll die faster with target fire and will take more micro to quickly burrow, run away, regen ,and tank again when ready (fit into its role better)
-lower life of roach means we can decrease attack of both marauder and immortals so they are not so incredibly powerful in other encounters (e.g. immortals against armored units)
-marauders will fit its role better as a slow supporter rather than for damage output
-immortals will fit its role better as a heavy assault tanker rather than for its damage output
and by the way, on paper this will work if roach life goes down and marauder/immortal damage goes down:
tvz = zerglings > marauders > roaches > marines > zerglings
tvp = marines > immortals > marauders > zealots > marines
pvz = zealots > zerglings > immortals > roaches > zealots
is someone here posting the ideas that come up on this messageboard over on bnet's messageboard? it's topics like this that bring to mind that little phrase, 'bubbling up'.
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Would love to see the 3 units nerfed.
Right now it just feels that some matches are bad from a balance point of view. ZvP is just silly, Immortal Pushes are too strong and against players around my skill level I'll simply lose unless it's a real big map...
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On April 05 2010 15:21 USn wrote:That's an excellent point and a good reason not to abandon hope (not that any reasonable person would until at least a year from now). I just hope blizzard isn't tempted to take it as an excuse for inaction.
it's possible. you'd think the goal would be to just have it not be broken in the first place. but there's at least a couple months left of beta. even if issues like this aren't totally fixed by then i want to hope it'll at least be less severe.
On April 05 2010 15:21 NastyMarine wrote:
Make the Hydralisk into a high powered melee unit like the Amerigo cinematic in the first BW experience and make it only an AtA unit so its ranged attack only works vs. air units. that way the roach can keep its ranged attack vs. ground only. It would make zerg waayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more interesting.
that is pretty interesting, actually. sort of the tier 2 link between lings and hydras. but that ranged needle thingy attack is so much a part of the flavor of the unit, i dunno how the community would feel about it being altered that much.
edit: and sorry if it seems like i'm spamming, guys. this is just the first thread here that's really gotten my attention and i'm way into it.
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Anyways, to continue with the discussion, if I were to add something to the OP's post, it would be this:
If we establish that the root of the problem is that Roaches are overpowered, then we might ask ourselves, "why were Roaches overpowered to begin with?" My response to this is that Roaches are overpowered because of a systemic vulnerability in Zerg's line-up.
Zerg is the only race who has 2/3 fragile melee units in Tier 1. Zerglings are too weak vs. Zealots & Proxy Contain. Banelings are a situational unit that require the element of surprise and really, they need the speed upgrade. Thus, Zerg lacks a solid frontline unit, which has to have the following properties: it has to counter Zealots because Zerglings don't, it has to be able to stop Reaper harass because Zerglings don't, and it has to be able to fight stimmed Medivac Marines, because not only can't Zerglings do this, but neither can Hydras or Mutas, the next tier units. The ONLY unit capable of all of these things is a ranged unit with bonus damage against light, and high armor & hp. Voila, the Roach.
The Roach was thus created as a "catch-all" unit to cover ALL of Zerg's weaknesses. The problem is that in covering ALL of Zerg's weaknesses, they created a monster unit that then required counters on the other two sides, at which point things spiraled out of control.
But isn't the root of this problem the fact that Zerglings are too weak? A ranged Tier 1 Zerg unit is necessary because of Reapers, Marauder Kiting, and Cannon Rush, so we can't fully blame Zerglings for this, but isn't the fact that Zerglings just aren't very good against other factions' tier 1 units (unless they build the wrong units) a critical factor in all this?
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Good read. Not sure exactly how i feel about it, but good read. The roach/black guy/immo trifecta certainly does have a very large role / influence in the game in general, and a moderate tweaking of those units would definitely be interesting.
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Very good point made by the OP, something I had been thinking about quite a bit.
And really the point about race identiry is very valid aswell, zerg used to have one, only one tank unit in BW and it was the ultralisk at tier 3. Why do they now get a better tank at tier 1.5? Arent they supposed to be the mass weak units race?
Terran having a infantry biological unit as strong as a dragoon also goes against their identity shown in BW. They had to use mechanical units, goliaths and tanks to have more HP.
The Immortal is the exception ofcourse, it fits right in there in Protoss. Ofcourse it might still need tweaking.
I realize this is a different game then BW, but still the distict differences between the races are what made BW what it is. Now all the races have a zealot strength unit at tier 1/tier1.5, you cannot have that and keep the races feeling as different as in BW.
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Well, lurkers were pretty beefy (200 hp, 1 armor) in BW. I think roaches are at least partly based on lurkers, but they have a very different dynamic: they're a tier 1 rush unit, whereas lurkers are a tier 2 stealth aoe unit.
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On April 05 2010 15:31 Azarkon wrote:
Anyways, to continue with the discussion, if I were to add something to the OP's post, it would be this:
If we establish that the root of the problem is that Roaches are overpowered, then we might ask ourselves, "why were Roaches overpowered to begin with?" My response to this is that Roaches are overpowered because of a systemic vulnerability in Zerg's line-up.
Zerg is the only race who has 2/3 fragile melee units in Tier 1. Zerglings are too weak vs. Zealots & Proxy Contain. Banelings are a situational unit that require the element of surprise and really, they need the speed upgrade. Thus, Zerg lacks a solid frontline unit, which has to have the following properties: it has to counter Zealots because Zerglings don't, it has to be able to stop Reaper harass because Zerglings don't, and it has to be able to fight stimmed Medivac Marines, because not only can't Zerglings do this, but neither can Hydras or Mutas, the next tier units. The ONLY unit capable of all of these things is a ranged unit with bonus damage against light, and high armor & hp. Voila, the Roach.
The Roach was thus created as a "catch-all" unit to cover ALL of Zerg's weaknesses. The problem is that in covering ALL of Zerg's weaknesses, they created a monster unit that then required counters on the other two sides, at which point things spiraled out of control.
But isn't the root of this problem the fact that Zerglings are too weak? A ranged Tier 1 Zerg unit is necessary because of Reapers, Marauder Kiting, and Cannon Rush, so we can't fully blame Zerglings for this, but isn't the fact that Zerglings just aren't very good against other factions' tier 1 units (unless they build the wrong units) a critical factor in all this?
Roaches don't have bonus damage versus light. But yeah, I would agree with this analysis. At the same time, I have a hard time believing that a T1 hydralisk, with banelings, would be underpowered against anything short of collosus and siege tanks, which are both considerably later, and other counters can be formulated for that.
I'm not saying I'd like a hydra back at hatchtech. I really don't want Sc1.5. But at the same time, I feel like the hydra could easily fulfill that role. I don't think a monster unit is the only way to do it, though zergling could certainly use a slight buff. You may be entirely right now. I'm pretty convinced the Roach is problematic, and I think blizzard is leaning that way, though not entirely committed. I think what were all pondering is how to fix it, and I have no idea  .
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On April 05 2010 15:39 Azarkon wrote:
Well, lurkers were pretty beefy (200 hp, 1 armor) in BW. I think roaches are at least partly based on lurkers, but they have a very different dynamic: they're a tier 1 rush unit, whereas lurkers are a tier 2 stealth aoe unit.
They had 125 hp and were useless without Zergling back-up. They also costed large amounts of gas. The dynamic was much more interesting than anything we have right now.
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Yeah, sorry about that. I have no idea why I thought they were 200.
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On April 05 2010 15:46 Azarkon wrote:
Yeah, sorry about that. I have no idea why I thought they were 200. Even still, lurkers were definitely a buff unit in the Zerg line-up, considering that zerglings were 35 and hydras 75.
Except they were useless without a cheap wall of Zerglings to tank the hits while Lurkers moved into position. And they costed a total of 125 min, 125 gas, and 3 supply.
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I've seen alot of smack talk about roaches on this forum and I think its pretty ridiculous. I don't think they should be removed to rid the world of immortals and marauders. How about instead of getting rid of marauders and immortals they sh,uld decrease there power against tier one units. If starcraft is so keen on having hard counters they should have units that are supposed to counter immortals and marauders work better. The fact marauders are starting to look like terrans main attack units should get blizzard to realize they shouldn't create units that are so effective against everything. I don't have as much problems with immortals as they are harder to mass, since they are high tech and expensive. however I think George Lucas has a legitamate grievance with starcraft copying the droid from the new star wars movie that rolls around and puts up its shields to fight. Huge rip off..
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EPT
