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Antpile
United States213 Posts
Being forced to go the same BO every game to avoid cheese losses is not fun. the only problem I see with this suggestion is how to keep the roach and the hydra distinct. Nobody wants the hydra to just be a better roach that makes the roach obsolete. I think the fact that the roach can burrow walk and stuff makes up for some of this, but perhaps they should regain the ability to regen above ground with a t2 upgrade or something, so the could still be the frontline beef of your army later game. | ||
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[Leo]Se7en
United States50 Posts
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Half
United States2554 Posts
In short, the immortal is broken because it hardcounters heavy mech, not because it hardcounters "stuff". Focus on the effect, not the hardcounter. Claiming "hardcounters" ruin the game is a really vague statement. Many "hardcounters" can have a positive effect on the game. It doesn't explicate on the problem at all, instead, simply acknowledges you feel like their is a problem, which you cannot identify. The problem isn't the roach per se, but that all three races have hard counters to ground that are accessible at tier 1. I can say with certainty, that if I'm forced to build Marauders every game (which is currently the case) to win securely, I'm not going to buy Starcraft 2. It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking? This is kind of what we mean. Having to build marauders every game is literally the exact opposite of a hardcounter. People sofar in this stage of the beta have found the phrase "hardcounter" as a overarching catch-all to describe all their gripes with the current gameplay dynamics. When in fact, it isn't really the problem at all. You're forced to build a marauder because it is just overpowered within the traditional framework of the game. You don't need some fancy term to describe that. ---- A reaver could kill 200 marines without micro, unless you count the hitting scarabs key micro. That being said, its truely both assuring, and somewhat frightening, to see how many of SC2s current balance issues stem from the existence of the "trinity". Assuring because we know that while the problems are there, their not some incomprehensible result of the core structure of the game. For instance, a lot of people complain that buildings die too fast. Overall, units do ~20% more DPS, with few exceptions, like say the Battlecruiser (which needed that DPS buff anyway, 20 dps is dumb for a capital ship). Some other ones got nerfed dps. Stalkers and stimmed marines among them. Realize that this isn't really the causative of some underlying part of the core gameplay. In fact, it can be attributed wholly, literally, entirely among the shoulders of immortals and marauders. Thats pretty crazy :o. 20 dps and 34 dps respectively, both which would have no equivalent in BW, except in unmassable lategame units. And the 34 dps which just has no equal. Another one is a overall problem with AoE across the board, particularly mainfested through storm. Through the implementation of the marauder, we now have a discrepancy among unit health that was entirely unknown among units that closely complimented each other. The marine has, at best, 55 health, while the marauder has well over 2x this with 125 health. That is HUGELY problematic. Since their designed to cluster together, aoe designed to be effective against marauders will overkill marines, causing marines to suffer more underuse, while balancing to be effective against marines will result in an underpowered spell. That kind of HP discrepancy shouldn't exist among units, that are, figuratively and literally, "work shoulder to shoulder with each other" | ||
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Antpile
United States213 Posts
On April 06 2010 07:29 Half wrote: A reaver could kill 200 marines without micro, unless you count the hitting scarabs key micro. The reaver was WAY better designed though. It was slow so it required another unit to move it around, it was very vulnerable to attack, and there were nifty tricks that you could do to reduce scarab damage like baiting a shot a single unit and then dashing in to kill it before it could fire again or leading a scarab off away from the rest of your army. On the flip side, you got many of those "oooh, aaah" moments from the crowd because one good reaver hit did enough damage that it could lead to devastating results. The colossus is a very poor replacement from the interesting-to-watch standpoint. It requires no micro to use, is very mobile, and there's really no micro that you can use against it other than focus firing it or maybe trying to spread your units out a bit. It also doesn't have that "oomph" that the reaver had. Instead, it just has a very high and steady dps to many units at once. Boooorrring. | ||
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Chen
United States6344 Posts
On April 05 2010 21:30 Sinekyre14 wrote: It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking? can we all agree to not make bullshit hyperbole's to try to make our own arguments seem stronger? just please?.... especially since you posted something relevant in 1/2 of your post, then bsed the other half cause i really didnt know that the immortal did 150+ damage | ||
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FUTL
Vatican City State19 Posts
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Koffiegast
Netherlands346 Posts
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MeditationError
Australia60 Posts
On April 05 2010 11:05 bendez wrote: Can someone please summarize what the fuck op is trying to say? he is all over the place... Roach is not overpowered but immortals and marauders are...so take out the roach??? wtf I think the OP could be summarized as "tone down roaches, immortals, and marauders for more interesting and varied play". e.g. I play protoss, I like the idea of templar, I like the idea of air, but I have to build a robo bay first in case the opponent builds roaches or marauders, and getting caught without immortals is gg. | ||
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Dental Floss
United States1015 Posts
I think things went wrong when Blizzard moved the roach away from the micro-intensive harass unit it was designed to be and made it the foundation of the zerg army. | ||
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Bosko
United States155 Posts
This thread makes me sad though, it seems like over 50% of people playing the game/posting here are really stupid. Every other post is something like "Nerf Roach and Marauder but Immortals are fine." or "Nerf Marauders and Immortals but I don't see a problem with Roaches." Turds are totally missing the point the OP is making. | ||
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ExileStrife
United States170 Posts
First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air). In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head. (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though... In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units. Finally, if the Roach was removed: In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important. In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless). So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something! | ||
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hzhao
China75 Posts
On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote: I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter. First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: Finally, if the Roach was removed: So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something! Too simple, sometime naive.... I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach. How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage) It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit. | ||
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guitarizt
United States1492 Posts
On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote: First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” I'm one of the people you describe in the second paragraph, but because of the even distribution rates you write about in the first paragraph I doubt anything will change. | ||
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3FFA
United States3931 Posts
On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote: Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... Ur tier 1 and does it really matter? edit: seems more like this should've been a blog post instead of put in the forum since its a huge rant. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
However, other than that I agree with a lot of what is said. | ||
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Daerthalus
Canada73 Posts
PvZ when Z goes HydrasLing or MutaLing, I build maybe 1-2 Immortals (since I assume roaches are coming) then never build another one until I see roaches or ultras. PvT when Terran goes banshee or Mass Marine Medivac, I don't build Immortals, I build Colossi. Heck after ghosts are out I transistion to HTs or Colossi since Immortal with no shields suck. I think that Immortals are still a little too good vs Tanks and other Mech units for terrans so I'd probably still field some Immortals to crush bunkers and be ready for siege tanks. PvP Immortal are built, but not really massed. They exist to keep Stalker count low, kill some poorly placed or defended Colossi and breech Mass Cannons. Colossi are the far more linchpin unit out side of X Gate Proxy Rushing. I an not saying Immortals are fine, I'm saying that of all 3 "unholy trinty units" the immortal is least massed. It's simply a hard counter unit with much less use outside of that job. Immortals are very cost ineffective when used to kill Zealots, Zerglings, Hydras, Marines and other non-armored units. Marauders and to a lesser extent Roaches are massed regardless of what the opponent does. These are not "reactionary units". They are not built to counter X strategy, b.c if that was the case they wouldn't be massed so heavily. In all the platinum games win or lose I have seen many Zerg switch from mass roaches to something else when confronted by Immortals, I have never seen Terran change unit compositions. Sure they add 1-3 ghosts for emp but in the end they produce Marauders non-stop after they get those few ghosts. When I go heavy Immortal vs Zerg or Protoss, Roaches and Stalkers are barely produced and suddenly I'm hit by VoidRays, Colossi, Speedlots, Speed/Cracklings, Hydras, and Mutas. Versus Terran, besides a slight detour to Ghosts or VikingsI see pretty much the same unit comp. This issue is that both Roaches and Marauders effectively counter T1 units (Lings, Zealots), and in the case of TvP Marauders counter armored higher tier units also. The roach role is defined. It's there to stop Lings, Marines and Zealots. It is indeed far to massable, but it can be handled. The Immortal role is clearly defined and between all 3 units, it is the more "hard-counter" unit of all 3. It's job is to kill Roaches and Terran Mech / Marauders. Does it do it's job too well? Possibly, but it's kinda force to do that since it's 1 tier above the unit it counters. The Marauder's role is a bit all over the place, it's both a anti-armored (roach+late tier unit) and anti-Zealot/Zergling unit. Among the Unholy trinity of units, the Marauder is the least defined unit. I am all for nerfs/changes to all 3 units, but one must agree that the Marauder needs its role redefined. Want it to counter early game t1 units, make it slow, but reduce it's damage and/or remove stim. Want it to counter armored unit, remove the slow and let it shine vs roaches, etc. | ||
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Rucky
United States717 Posts
On April 06 2010 10:01 hzhao wrote: Too simple, sometime naive.... I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach. How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage) It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit. naive...what a naive usage of naive... i'm not saying to take out the roach, but it really does not play that big of a role as everyone seems to think. This empty hole that blizzard felt need to be fulfilled by the roach was never there. The game is now just big blob armies crashing into each other with one side winning. If you take out the roach of course the zerg army has nothing that is able to stop the ball of terran and protoss, and guess what, that's how it has always been. sorry to bring up SC1, but you can't say that SC2 is a whole new game because it really isn't. And if it is, people just won't play SC2. In SC1 zerg relied on backstab and aggressive expansion to keep the enemy from attacking them directly because in most cases a zerg would lose in a straight up head to head battle. So this backstab is an invention to fulfill this hole. Most people don't see this and decides, zerg army is weak so the roach will just fit right in there. Now zerg can also have a strong ball of its own to fight the other balls. to be honest and i'm sure a lot of people have this same feeling, we don't like BALL VS BALL battles in EVERY matchup. It has been said before, but one matchup of sc1 version pvp is enough. Zerg doesn't need it. zerg can find its own way. but no, people don't want to; they want to be spoon fed. first you say a high and mighty statement "too simple" and then you say some crybaby statement "how do you deal with hellions with zerg" Why don't you think about it? there are many dimensions of this game that people do not realize. It is not just unit vs unit, it's strategy vs strategy, and mind games. Let's just say there really is no UNIT that can take on the hellions. So what?? Have your army not engage the hellions. Avoid them. Spine crawlers will protect your bases. Find a good time and just destroy terran's whole base with speedlings when his hellions are right infront of yours. Hellions > Speedlings ....now that is "too simple, sometime naive" What can hellions do if they are half way across the map. So like I said there really is no need for the roach in one respect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped. There is room for a high regen, able to move while burrowed unit that zerg never had before. | ||
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lol.Froste
United States112 Posts
this thread needs to be send to blizzard | ||
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hzhao
China75 Posts
On April 06 2010 10:34 Rucky wrote: naive...what a naive usage of naive... i'm not saying to take out the roach, but it really does not play that big of a role as everyone seems to think. This empty hole that blizzard felt need to be fulfilled by the roach was never there. The game is now just big blob armies crashing into each other with one side winning. If you take out the roach of course the zerg army has nothing that is able to stop the ball of terran and protoss, and guess what, that's how it has always been. sorry to bring up SC1, but you can't say that SC2 is a whole new game because it really isn't. And if it is, people just won't play SC2. In SC1 zerg relied on backstab and aggressive expansion to keep the enemy from attacking them directly because in most cases a zerg would lose in a straight up head to head battle. So this backstab is an invention to fulfill this hole. Most people don't see this and decides, zerg army is weak so the roach will just fit right in there. Now zerg can also have a strong ball of its own to fight the other balls. to be honest and i'm sure a lot of people have this same feeling, we don't like BALL VS BALL battles in EVERY matchup. It has been said before, but one matchup of sc1 version pvp is enough. Zerg doesn't need it. zerg can find its own way. but no, people don't want to; they want to be spoon fed. first you say a high and mighty statement "too simple" and then you say some crybaby statement "how do you deal with hellions with zerg" Why don't you think about it? there are many dimensions of this game that people do not realize. It is not just unit vs unit, it's strategy vs strategy, and mind games. Let's just say there really is no UNIT that can take on the hellions. So what?? Have your army not engage the hellions. Avoid them. Spine crawlers will protect your bases. Find a good time and just destroy terran's whole base with speedlings when his hellions are right infront of yours. Hellions > Speedlings ....now that is "too simple, sometime naive" What can hellions do if they are half way across the map. So like I said there really is no need for the roach in one respect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped. There is room for a high regen, able to move while burrowed unit that zerg never had before. You did not answer any question I asked, yes, you can take all unit from zerg leave only zergling and mut, and zerg player can find their own way, but how can you stay FE with zerg now without roach? You really think you can use Speedlings to destroy Hellions terran? only 2-3 Hellions at home will destroy all your lings. and it is produced in pair with 200 min.... | ||
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Rucky
United States717 Posts
On April 06 2010 10:38 hzhao wrote: You did not answer any question I asked, yes, you can take all unit from zerg leave only zergling and mut, and zerg player can find their own way, but how can you stay FE with zerg now without roach? You really think you can use Speedlings to destroy Hellions terran? only 2-3 Hellions at home will destroy all your lings. and it is produced in pair with 200 min.... 1. Why do I have to answer your questions? 2. Your statement is contradictory. "Zerg can find their own way, but how can you FE?" If zerg can find their own way they'll find how to fast expand. Given only muta and lings, there's Muta harass to keep terran in base or mass ling back stab threat to keep terran army close to home. YADDA YADDA....damn i actually answered you a bit. 3. What if I really do think speedlings can destroy hellions terran? (situational) 4. 2-3 hellions at home will destroy all lings? (situational) 5. Hellions are produced in pair with 200 minerals. I give you that one. That is true. Oh, and you didn't answer my questions either. I bolded them for you. | ||
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