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in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different
Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW.
In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker.
Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy.
In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters" in regular play. (yes I know bio isnt 'viable' TvP, but regular player consisted of mech, not bio) Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet.
The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force collosi, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless.
Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then, in relation, BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types.
Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: my fundamental theorem of RTS balance
1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack.
2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent.
3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games
4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches.
4b) (corollary to axiom 4) Axiom 4 implies that each unit should have some sort of influence and skill required from the gamer in order for it to be used to their potential. IE. Marine micro vs. lurker takes skill and time to perfect. Maurader micro is extremely easy, as there is no other unit which allows for the same level of skill needed as marine vs lurker. Maurader vs Collosi? Not the same.
5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2.
note: i do not endorse the idea that the roach is the bane of SC2's problems, but that SC2 has problems (when compared to BW) based on their units as a collective whole. Further, I do not rule out the likely possibility that we just do not have the scope required to analyze SC2 yet, and with time, these issues will degenerate
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On April 05 2010 13:05 wayreth wrote:
How would I stop a zealot rush without roaches? Or hellion rush? Can't block my ramp with buildings like T or P, certainly not with zerglings. I could make two queens right away, or get spine crawlers, but thats just kind of silly. The roach is an entirely necessary unit. I feel like the roach has been made into this scapegoat for no reason. This game has lots of balance tweaks to go, and lots of strategy to be discovered. Removing units is only going to make the game LESS balanced.
In a similar way to how you would have in SC1, I would imagine.
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On April 05 2010 13:11 Ideas wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them. let's compare roaches to hydras from SC1 90% of the time you will make hydras en masse vs protoss. Hydras are fast are a safe unit that are useful in just about every situation ZvP. VS a evenly skilled Protoss player you will need to outmicro his ground army to win. You must dodge storms, and snipe reavers. You can turn weakened hydras into lurkers. Controlling 50+ hydras correctly was HARD (with limited control), and extremely rewarding when done properly. They arent the FUNNEST unit in the game (a title reserved for mutalisks) but they are fun, at least in my opinion. Roaches are slow. They have a lot of health. Reavers no longer exist and thus cannot kill roaches in 1 hit. Storm does not kill roaches in 1 hit either. Coupled with how slow roaches are and how short storm lasts, it's not NEARLY as pressing an issue to dodge storms in SC2 with roaches as it was in SC1 with hydras. Basically controlling roaches in SC2 is like controlling a big hydra ball in SC1 after you successfully sniped all the templar on the map (which was the fun part). They tried to spice them up with burrow and healing mechanics but it's just really not that interesting or useful in battle (especially when you have like 40 roaches lol). A lot of the things that make roaches boring also make Hydras much more boring in SC2 than they were in SC1 (namely they are slower and dont really need to be micro'd at all, especially when you can control your entire army at once). If you look at the main meat of each of the races' typical basic armies: MMM vs roach/hydra vs zeal/sentry/stalker, Zerg requires the absolute least micro. MMM you have medivac control which opens up cute micro option, you have stim and since at least marines are pretty fast you have options for dodging spells and sniping units much better. Protoss has the most micro with stalkers having blink and being fast with good range and ofc sentries being THE micro unit of the race. Zerg is basically just a-moving a giant ball which is in 1 control group.
This is exactly what I have been thinking. I have no problem with the roach being a massable unit for zerg, in fact, I agree that they should be just such a unit. The problem that i see with them is that they are a little too hard to kill. They need to have a slight health drop and maybe an armor drop. Nothing too significant, but enough to where having 2-3 roaches against a helion can be won by the helion with good micro, or having a couple of nicely placed tanks could deal serious hurt to a pack of roaches.
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First off, nice OP. I do agree there is a problem with the units when they become too prevalent and the OP presents quite a good argument of why this occurs.
The primary issue here is the lack of unit diversity, i.e. the massing of roaches & marauders. I like a few ideas posted in this thread to address this issue.
Adding research requirements to indirectly nerf the units is a good start.
On April 05 2010 11:32 imBLIND wrote:
Honestly, their inherent abilities should be expensive and time consuming upgrades...
This makes fast teching, rushing, and tier 1.5 massing unique strategies that have their pros and cons.
That way, one promotes more timing windows, increasing strategic gameplay and allows a greater variety of T1 units to come into play. Of course, there may be balance issues with other units, but I do like the idea of moving the abilities to research instead of outright nerfing them.
Another good point brought out is the overall un-fun-ess of roaches.
On April 05 2010 13:02 ZergZergling wrote:
I would say fun units are ones that have to be microed to be effective..Hydras have to be microed to dodge storms while you can just attack move roaches and they never die.
Reducing the health and adding faster Regen amongst other suggestions seem like a good idea to me, to promote micro, which will add more depth to the roaches.
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United States1865 Posts
whether or not roach, marauder, or immortal are balanced doesnt even matter to me
personally i think SC2 is not half bad balance wise right now
i simply think that these units are too well rounded and too boring for spectators and for players (not as much the immortal as it is T2 and expensive, but could be better)
imagine if the marauder was a weak hp unit with AoE slow that required clever micro to try and snipe
or if the roach had less armor but active HP regen so they would rape attack moving marines but lose to focus fire
things like that add excitement and skill differentiation and i hope its something blizz would consider trying
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I think the problem with Zerg in SC 2 is that they're too much of a brute force faction. They lack the unit variety they had in BW. In particular, they lost the awesome line attacking lurker, and instead received an all-around ground unit that gets hard countered by marauders/immortals but destroys everything else. Combine this with how bad the ultralisk is and how situational the infestor is, and you really don't see the same variety & dynamism that you saw in BW.
But, removing roaches wouldn't help. Zerg only has one tier 1 unit, then, in which case it'll just be zergling all-in every game.
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Half has written a post I could not possibly have said better myself. He has completely nailed what is wrong with SC2. I don't care how good you are, how famous you are, his post is completely accurate. Roach is ruining this game. And I completely agree, Zerg is not OP, its just this one stupid unit throwing the entire game out of whack.
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On April 05 2010 13:24 Atrioc wrote:
whether or not roach, marauder, or immortal are balanced doesnt even matter to me
personally i think SC2 is not half bad balance wise right now
i simply think that these units are too well rounded and too boring for spectators and for players (not as much the immortal as it is T2 and expensive, but could be better)
imagine if the marauder was a weak hp unit with AoE slow that required clever micro to try and snipe
or if the roach had less armor but active HP regen so they would rape attack moving marines but lose to focus fire
things like that add excitement and skill differentiation and i hope its something blizz would consider trying
I agree, and I kind of explicated on that in my original post, though not in depth.
Originally, the units of SC2 had much more distinctive roles. Reapers threw beeping C4s of death, Roaches got 15 regen, I kid you not, in t1.5. Everything was pretty crazy off kilter, but everything was utterly unique and fun. Obviously, roaches with 15 regen in t1.5 (think they were costlier in terms of gas) is sheer absurdity. But at the same time, they were a distinct unit. Same with masable cheap units spamming 200 damage AoE grenades.
Blizzard, in an effort to balance them, standardized them. Their intended, original, roles were intrinsically unbalanceable. Obviously, a T1 unit with 15 regen is pretty ridiculous. Now, the roach CONTINUES to lose it identity, its T3 regen upgrade getting first nerfed by 50%, THEN getting reworked to only work while burrowed. Grats, we have a unit that gets a meager 15 regen burrowed at t3 with upgrades when it originally got 15 flat t1.
When blizzard realized roaches didn't work, they should have scrapped it instead of continue to dumb it down into tedium. Same with reapers, same with whatever other units that are pretty bland in this game.
Thats why I 100% hate anyone suggesting to remove reaper slow without adding something cool like you suggested. no no no no.
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW. In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker. Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy. In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet. The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force immortals, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless. Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types. Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: 1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack. 2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent. 3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games 4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches. 5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2.
QFT
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
TL icon =/= intelligence
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By the way, I feel that this problem is most limited to the Zerg faction. While Terran and Protoss have their own issues (the hard counter issue is particularly annoying), it's the Zerg that I find least interesting to watch and play - simply because they have no unit where good micro makes you go "wow." Watching Idra defeat every opponent by roach surround isn't very fun. I'd much rather watch a BW Terran slowly crawl across the map with siege tanks while the other player tried to break him, as ironic as that might sound.
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I think a series of extremely precise and delicate balance changes need to take place. Let's look at the problem as a whole, part by part.
1. Roach sets the standard for 1.5 and 2.0 tier units as far as power goes.
2. Marauders and immortals are given to the other races so they have a unit that can go toe to toe with the roach.
Side effect A) marauders throw off TvP balance by having a highly abusable abilty, in combination with those ridiculously cost effective stats that we know all too well from the roach.
B) Immortals further narrow the TvP strategical scope by ruling out mech.
Simply put, Z vs all races needs to be fixed by reworking/balancing the roach. Then TvP needs to be fixed separately which can be done a few different ways.
First we have to fix the roach, it has too much HP and does too much damage. Hp needs to be 125, damage needs to be 14. If this isn't good enough we'll come back to it in a later patch but these should be small steps, not giant leaps.
Next step is fixing the marauder. For it's cost it has too much hp and does too much damage to have such a useful, exploitable ability. Make slow down a 100/100 ability at the tech lab. Opens up new timings between when you get your second tech lab, and when you start stim and slow down. Also gives protoss a few extra seconds to prepare for that 2 rax marauder push where the first marauder is rallied to your base (every second counts). Maybe giving it 10 to 15 less hp wouldn't hurt either.
I also don't like how tech labs are the more obvious choice over reactors early, I think this could be tweaked a bit more. Something to promote mixing marines into army composition over the endless marauder spam. I still say a happy medium is yet to be achieved between the two. I know a number is out there to make reactor viable over extra barracks sometimes but not always (obviously, talking about build times and costs here).
Then, from there on out, we take a deep look at how immortals vs terran mech plays out. We need to slow down at this point and see what starcraft 2 looks like without roaches and maurders spammed in giant armies and instead utilized to certain extents in certain situations, more or less. Once this is done we can address whatever issues remain with terran mech getting raped by immortals. We need to look at how all the match ups are affected by these changes before we make a solid conclusion on what needs to be done. My guess is either terran mech will need a buff, or immortal will need a nerf, after its all said and done. We need to see if zerg's army is significantly weakened by the roach nerf, and take that into consideration as well.
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On April 05 2010 13:25 milly9 wrote:
Half has written a post I could not possibly have said better myself. He has completely nailed what is wrong with SC2. I don't care how good you are, how famous you are, his post is completely accurate. Roach is ruining this game. And I completely agree, Zerg is not OP, its just this one stupid unit throwing the entire game out of whack.
I don't know if this is sarcasm or not, but I don't care it made me feel happy inside
^_^
lol.
Man I shoulda posted this earlier lol, I had this Idea formulating for like 2 weeks and I never got the time to post it.
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This thread delivers! I really like roaches when they were those regening units. Now they r kinda lame. I hope people use burrow more effectively with them.
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On April 05 2010 13:37 Spenguin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... TL icon = experience in the harsh TL environment
fixed
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On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:
1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack.
this was a really good post and i think you're right, to an extent. but i don't necessarily think there shouldn't be redundancy. i think it could have a lot of potential. it's just tough to tell if it's TOO redundant right now, or if people just haven't figured out how to deal with it yet.
actually, i dunno. you've made me reconsider this. i've been thinking that the overlap in unit functions would encourage balanced army composition and/or cause more complex strategies and transitions to develop, but maybe you're right. i do think the overlap between the roach and hydra is too extreme. maybe they should give hydras back their bonus against armored or something. and roaches should not do so much base damage but maybe compensate with a bonus against light so they still melt away lings and marines.
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On April 05 2010 13:37 Spenguin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... TL icon =/= intelligence
In all honestly I'm sure theirs a correlation.
BUT I IZ REAL SMRT SRSLY. IM LIEK A VETERAN TO TEH INTARNET
On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:+ Show Spoiler +in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW. In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker. Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy. In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet. The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force immortals, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless. Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then, in relation, BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types. Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: my fundamental theorem of RTS balance 1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack. 2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent. 3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games 4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches. 4b) (corollary to axiom 4) Axiom 4 implies that each unit should have some sort of influence and skill required from the gamer in order for it to be used to their potential. IE. Marine micro vs. lurker takes skill and time to perfect. Maurader micro is extremely easy, as there is no other unit which allows for the same level of skill needed as marine vs lurker. Maurader vs Collosi? Not the same. 5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2. note: i do not endorse the idea that the roach is the bane of SC2's problems, but that SC2 has problems (when compared to BW) based on their units as a collective whole. Further, I do not rule out the likely possibility that we just do not have the scope required to analyze SC2 yet, and with time, these issues will degenerate
Isn't it ironic that this would almost not be the case if immortal/marauder were reworked? lol. All of a sudden, the races are so much more different. The current problem is the slight resort to WC tactics of differentiating similar roles through abilities, instead of just making different roles.
Stalkers and marauder are basically the same unit with different abilities. Incidentily, this would be so much better if marauders, as I suggested, were reworked (along with roaches ofc).
It isn't to say that BW had none of this problem though. Hydras were dangerously close to marines, and all the expansion air were literally variations on the same concept.
I think my favorite achievement on blizzards behalf is the creation of stalkers. I love that unit so much. Its useful, yet sufficiently different from the dragoon, feels protossy, with a neat dark templar lorenerd twist. Its blink feels completely different from the other t1.5 mobility ability, reapers cliffjumps. It just feels so right, and yet so different. Can't say the same for the marauder and roach.
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I think the macro mechanics are the source of all imbalance in this game - queen > chrono > mule
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hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored
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On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored
really? i'm pretty sure i read or heard that somewhere but maybe it's false memory syndrome cos it sounds like a good idea, lol.
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EPT
