EPTThis guy understands balance better than anyone who works at Blizz.
Oh Micro, Where Art Thou? - Page 20
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ttsp
United States6 Posts
This guy understands balance better than anyone who works at Blizz. | ||
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teekesselchen
Germany886 Posts
QUOTE]On April 27 2010 13:13 Tin_Foil wrote: How has anyone agreed with this article??? The OP shows such ridiculous favoritism and elitism, not to mention bases his arguments on falsehoods. This whole article and many people's responses to it just got me soo frustrated I had to post some points... My main problem with the OP's point is that his analysis of Move/shoot being more difficult is complete wrong. Its not an engine issue. It's attack animations, or attack times, or whatever you want to call it. The corsair had an instant attack, this allowed it to continue moving. The phoenix has a slow attack, this makes it not able to move/shot as well. The banshee has a much faster attack, and magically, it can move/shot much better. Its slowish move speed is the main thing slowing it down. Therefore, if you want more micro for Phoenix then crusade for a reduced attack time, don't moan about SC2 failing... 1st-- SC:BW had a perfect engine?? That whole rant was so much BS... What made micro in SC"BW so hard was the crappy, outdated engine...It did make the game enjoyable to watch, so it worked out, but personally I enjoy being able to control my units in SC2, and find the engine to be great, with multitudes of micro opportunities... 2nd-- Corsairs vs Phoenix -- Again... SOO much BS... Corsairs are better vs muta because of splash...the move attack does help, sure, but splash is the important part. A corsair doesn't do 5 damage like you claim, against stacked mutas it does much, much more since it hits all, making it excellent against stacked mutas. Thats why the sairs did so much better...Also. Its not the engine that makes the phoenix not move shoot as well, its a longer attack time, if you were to give the phoenix an instant attack, I'll bet move-shoot would appear instantly. So you don't need to go off on ridiculous tangents about engines...You just should have said that the phoenix should have an instant attack, allowing it to move shoot. Banshee's and vikings move shoot very well, and I've seen them microed poorly and die, or well and do mass damage in many games. 3rd-- The whole anti-Corruptor thing was truly, truly ridiculous!!! Are you kidding me!! You basically said, "I DON'T LIKE THIS UNIT CHANGE IT NOW!" Just because you don't realize that stopping building from functioning is useful doesn't mean the unit should be removed... Corrupt can be used to shut down defenses(ie. limited disruption web), which is good, but yah, not just the coolest thing, but you know what is cool---Denying your enemy from making units...Just because people aren't using it now does not mean its useless. 4th-- There is plenty of worker micro, and I've yet to see a game where someone was able to permanently stop an expo, the zerg is able to micro well enough to drop it(sometimes delayed) every time, but if they could, why don't you see that as,"Oh wow, with a some mirco I can stop expo's!" Isn't that an nice micro opportunity? I've won or lost numerous games from poor or good probe micro and abusing mining pathing. I probe drilled a toss just today to break a ramp for a zealot rush and then cornered and mostly killed his stalkers, much better than I could have done with SC:BW probes. 5th- I've seen awesome, and entertaining hellion micro. Its just not vulture micro. You have to be more careful about when you take a shot, and work better angled shots, but the results can be devastating. 6th- Valks are bad against scourge because they have gradual damage. This gives time for the scourge to close. Before you have enough corsairs to one shot scourge they are equally bad against scourge despite move-shot. Think Julyzerg vs Best in the OSL when Julyzerg utterly denied Best air control. That whole point was nonsense. 7th- "You can never engage a superior force with a weaker one" This is just false false false false. I've only had the beta for about 5 days now and am no where near the best(20ish plat), and yet I've played countless games where this was simply not true. Not to mention all the steams I've seen this disproven in. I beat a terran today who snuck in a gold expo I never scouted, then Maurader/ghost balled me. And I won with a considerably smaller Chargelot, sentry, stalker army. Even though he surprised me initially and hit pretty much every unit with emp, good use of ff, blink and move shooting stalkers + focus fire won me the game. 8th-- OP quotes: "What good would an air unit that dealt 5 damage otherwise do if it became immobilized and impossible to micro after it fired? Let me answer that for us: Absolutely none. And that is the very reason why no air unit with splash damage exists in Starcraft 2" This is such a ridiculous assumption.... If the corsair existed in SC2 I would be surprised if you could not move/shoot just as well as in SC:BW. Did you ever think the Blizz team simply decided to go a different way than corairs?? Maybe they wanted mutas to be more viable so removed splash from air? 9th-- Just about everyone, even you, has realized all the mbs and unit selection overreaction proved to be just that, an overreaction. I'm thinking this "micro is dead" BS will go the same way... And 10th- This wasn't a main point, but what the hell does a players skill have to do with his intelligence, or ability to analyze the game? This was more a general attitude I noticed from the OP(not to mention a good deal of TeamLiquiders in general...) than a specific point, but its a ridiculous, arrogant attitude that I think need to go away. I was never all that great at SC:BW(C rating about). I found out about the pro-scene too late to feel I could catch up fully, but I followed avidly, and feel that while many of you could easily beat me, I can make just as good a post as a better player... Now I'm a Plat player in the Beta, so I guess my arguments should magically carry more weight, no matter if they're retarded or not... And lastly-- I've only had the beta a short while, but I find the engine to be soo much beter than SC:BW's. I find I have much better control. I generally am highly impressed with the game. It's far from perfect yet, but I think its doing great. And the numbers reported of very balanced win rates for races, plus the already impressive levels of competition and creativity shown in the numerous tournaments have me highly hopeful. PS: Sorry for the rant....But yah.....And did it ever occur to you that your friend may have beaten Nony, cause they weren't playing SC:Bw.... Maybe Nony isn't as good, or as knowledgeable about SC2 yet as he was about SC:BW? It's a related game...But a new game... Sorry if there was bad grammar in parts, was typing fast, not sure I said it all perfect. What a pile of stupid comments 1) However the Broodwar engine was planned, it turned out to be very good for competetive gaming. Actually its not the important point here. 2) Who cares why, I'd rather say that engine equals design decisions by CnC'Dustin here. 2.5) Banshees and Viking moveshoot well? LOL read the opening post man! Really, you cannot anything comparable to what was possible in BW with them. It's totally annoying as their range/attack-cd before shooting-ratio makes them depending so few on actual micro skills. Actually it's more about planning, however it totally 3) One point I have to agree with, I think corrupters' skill is underused, however this everything-gets-feedbacked-stuff is so annoying and still, no hit and run technique available. 4) Stupid point, he said because it's so impossible to micro workers in a certain way it is possible to block an expansion like forever (until army arrives) and you totally missed that.("Noticed how impossible it is to put down an expansion if your opponent really doesn’t want you to put down an expansion?") 5) Hellions are _so_ annoyingly useless as soon as there is any defense because of this stupid stupid stupid delay before shooting as lalush pointed. This unit is only usuable when there is not enough defense or you can drop them into base or something and you cannot fight with them exept for non-speed lings and zealots. 6) Whats your point? Don't quite get it. 7) No you can't. There is not this "you can always play better" thing, there is only the chance of your enemy totally sucking so you have an opportunity to react but often enough, even that won't be enough. You should consider that you always have to count forcefields, storm and EMP into that as there is few skill required to use them right. 8) That surely wasn't about mutalisks become more viable, say Hi to the Thor. Lalushs point however was that a unit that cannot shoot while moving anymore needs more damage and since units can't do that anymore at all right now, it would need alot of damage to compensate so they just didn't bring one at all. Also, "a different way than corsairs" in this case means less skill heavy, more a-click and throw on your calculator as what the player does isn't important anymore. That's the heart of this thread. 9) Guess it won't with current state of the game but that's not so important here. 10) It's just a bad thing that the whole skill factor of micro almost dimishes. Also, it will heavily endanger SC2 as an eSportsgame since micro was a huge factor amongst those which made a game fun to watch! 11) BETTER controll? I'll catch the symbol of "playing through a thick layer of Syrup" here. It sucks, guess why people stick to CS 1.6. It allows less micro in terms of use a few units so well that they can catch up with many more units because you use them well and the results are better than a-click. They're not anymore. On April 27 2010 13:50 ttsp wrote: Someone at blizzard needs to give Lalush a job. This guy understands balance better than anyone who works at Blizz. This article surely showed a good sense for both games and was very well written but he was not the first one to see these weaknesses of starcraft 2. However, people like him should get a job there, ideally replacing CnC-Dustin. | ||
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LunarC
United States1186 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:13 Tin_Foil wrote: How has anyone agreed with this article??? The OP shows such ridiculous favoritism and elitism, not to mention bases his arguments on falsehoods. This whole article and many people's responses to it just got me soo frustrated I had to post some points... Rest of the quotes are in spoilers. + Show Spoiler + My main problem with the OP's point is that his analysis of Move/shoot being more difficult is complete wrong. Its not an engine issue. It's attack animations, or attack times, or whatever you want to call it. The corsair had an instant attack, this allowed it to continue moving. The phoenix has a slow attack, this makes it not able to move/shot as well. The banshee has a much faster attack, and magically, it can move/shot much better. Its slowish move speed is the main thing slowing it down. Therefore, if you want more micro for Phoenix then crusade for a reduced attack time, don't moan about SC2 failing... It's the deceleration after the attack animation that is frustrating to the OP, which is something that is hardcoded into the engine. So it is a Starcraft 2 engine failure. + Show Spoiler + 1st-- SC:BW had a perfect engine?? That whole rant was so much BS... What made micro in SC"BW so hard was the crappy, outdated engine...It did make the game enjoyable to watch, so it worked out, but personally I enjoy being able to control my units in SC2, and find the engine to be great, with multitudes of micro opportunities... Starcraft Brood War did not have a perfect engine. Its engine is rather outdated and units demanded a lot of attention simply because of poor AI. However, that was a major factor in distinguishing the skilled and unskilled player. What are these micro opportunities? Can you point to a single match-up in Starcraft 2 with the depth and complexity of army positioning and control as any of the match-ups in Starcraft Brood War? If not, can you indicate a single match-up with the POTENTIAL to develop such dynamic and premeditated army control? + Show Spoiler + 2nd-- Corsairs vs Phoenix -- Again... SOO much BS... Corsairs are better vs muta because of splash...the move attack does help, sure, but splash is the important part. A corsair doesn't do 5 damage like you claim, against stacked mutas it does much, much more since it hits all, making it excellent against stacked mutas. Thats why the sairs did so much better...Also. Its not the engine that makes the phoenix not move shoot as well, its a longer attack time, if you were to give the phoenix an instant attack, I'll bet move-shoot would appear instantly. The Corsair/Mutalisk dynamic was an example of limited micro POTENTIAL in Starcraft 2, albeit an imperfect one. The point illustrated still stands. + Show Spoiler + So you don't need to go off on ridiculous tangents about engines...You just should have said that the phoenix should have an instant attack, allowing it to move shoot. Banshee's and vikings move shoot very well, and I've seen them microed poorly and die, or well and do mass damage in many games. Micro is not only determining where and when to attack, and more likely than not the Banshees did more damage when they were moved around correctly, which are TACTICAL decisions, not micro. + Show Spoiler + 3rd-- The whole anti-Corruptor thing was truly, truly ridiculous!!! Are you kidding me!! You basically said, "I DON'T LIKE THIS UNIT CHANGE IT NOW!" Just because you don't realize that stopping building from functioning is useful doesn't mean the unit should be removed... Corrupt can be used to shut down defenses(ie. limited disruption web), which is good, but yah, not just the coolest thing, but you know what is cool---Denying your enemy from making units...Just because people aren't using it now does not mean its useless. It was rather immature of him to word it that way, but I can see why he wants it to be drastically altered. The way it is now does not give it ANY capacity for micro. It only has Anti-Air and rather boring tactical value. Boring as in no micro is necessary to pull it off or dodge (unless you like to micro Barracks around). + Show Spoiler + 4th-- There is plenty of worker micro, and I've yet to see a game where someone was able to permanently stop an expo, the zerg is able to micro well enough to drop it(sometimes delayed) every time, but if they could, why don't you see that as,"Oh wow, with a some mirco I can stop expo's!" Isn't that an nice micro opportunity? I've won or lost numerous games from poor or good probe micro and abusing mining pathing. I probe drilled a toss just today to break a ramp for a zealot rush and then cornered and mostly killed his stalkers, much better than I could have done with SC:BW probes. Of course there is plenty of worker micro. What do you have to gain by NOT microing workers? The problem is that there is not as much effectiveness as there was in Starcraft 1 because workers are targeted even while attacking units are nearby. So you benefited in one isolated incident that actually has NOTHING to do with the issue most people have with worker micro as it stands. + Show Spoiler + 5th- I've seen awesome, and entertaining hellion micro. Its just not vulture micro. You have to be more careful about when you take a shot, and work better angled shots, but the results can be devastating. In addition, Hellions are not an essential staple to a Terran army. Vultures used to be like the Marine to Tanks as Marines are in modern Starcraft 2 MM. Hellions presently are limited to tactical use, though that could change based on the metagame. Really, there is not a reason not to just get two marines with the same price, however. + Show Spoiler + 6th- Valks are bad against scourge because they have gradual damage. This gives time for the scourge to close. Before you have enough corsairs to one shot scourge they are equally bad against scourge despite move-shot. Think Julyzerg vs Best in the OSL when Julyzerg utterly denied Best air control. That whole point was nonsense. Also, Valkyries have a deceleration period after firing, much like the Phoenix. Deceleration that discourages micro is the issue being presented; even though the Valkyrie example was not ideal (more than one factor to its incapability for good micro), the point still stands. + Show Spoiler + 7th- "You can never engage a superior force with a weaker one" This is just false false false false. I've only had the beta for about 5 days now and am no where near the best(20ish plat), and yet I've played countless games where this was simply not true. Not to mention all the steams I've seen this disproven in. I beat a terran today who snuck in a gold expo I never scouted, then Maurader/ghost balled me. And I won with a considerably smaller Chargelot, sentry, stalker army. Even though he surprised me initially and hit pretty much every unit with emp, good use of ff, blink and move shooting stalkers + focus fire won me the game. Terran must have not microed well, and Chargelots are noticeably good against Marauders, especially with Stalker support. In any case Protoss has always fared better against other races with fewer units. Take the Micro Tournament UMS from Starcraft 1. Matchups include 4 Dragoons against 12 Cracklings, 4 Speedlots against 6 Marines and 2 Firebats, there are more but they escape me at the moment. + Show Spoiler + 8th-- OP quotes: "What good would an air unit that dealt 5 damage otherwise do if it became immobilized and impossible to micro after it fired? Let me answer that for us: Absolutely none. And that is the very reason why no air unit with splash damage exists in Starcraft 2" This is such a ridiculous assumption.... If the corsair existed in SC2 I would be surprised if you could not move/shoot just as well as in SC:BW. Did you ever think the Blizz team simply decided to go a different way than corairs?? Maybe they wanted mutas to be more viable so removed splash from air? Rather, splash would have made AA dominate every type of air unit because of the "stacking mechanism" hardcoded into the engine. + Show Spoiler + 9th-- Just about everyone, even you, has realized all the mbs and unit selection overreaction proved to be just that, an overreaction. I'm thinking this "micro is dead" BS will go the same way... I still have qualms about unlimited unit selection. It just encourages invariability of army movement. Designing units they way they did adds onto that invariability. Also, the idea is that micro is not dead, but it is severely stunted. Micro will always exist. Hell, I microed my units in the CnC4 open beta and produced tangible results. Doesn't mean anything. + Show Spoiler + And 10th- This wasn't a main point, but what the hell does a players skill have to do with his intelligence, or ability to analyze the game? This was more a general attitude I noticed from the OP(not to mention a good deal of TeamLiquiders in general...) than a specific point, but its a ridiculous, arrogant attitude that I think need to go away. I was never all that great at SC:BW(C rating about). I found out about the pro-scene too late to feel I could catch up fully, but I followed avidly, and feel that while many of you could easily beat me, I can make just as good a post as a better player... Now I'm a Plat player in the Beta, so I guess my arguments should magically carry more weight, no matter if they're retarded or not... You're correct. But rank tends to lend something more credibility, unfortunately. + Show Spoiler + And lastly-- I've only had the beta a short while, but I find the engine to be soo much beter than SC:BW's. I find I have much better control. I generally am highly impressed with the game. It's far from perfect yet, but I think its doing great. And the numbers reported of very balanced win rates for races, plus the already impressive levels of competition and creativity shown in the numerous tournaments have me highly hopeful. I have already posted this in the thread, but balance =/= spectatability. + Show Spoiler + PS: Sorry for the rant....But yah.....And did it ever occur to you that your friend may have beaten Nony, cause they weren't playing SC:Bw.... Maybe Nony isn't as good, or as knowledgeable about SC2 yet as he was about SC:BW? It's a related game...But a new game... Sorry if there was bad grammar in parts, was typing fast, not sure I said it all perfect. Don't worry. Everyone needs a good rant now and then. Of course nobody is very good at Starcraft 2. But that doesn't keep us from trying to determine issues with the game and pinpoint problems, though they may be misconceptions or not. In the end, all we can do is wait and see where newer patches and the expansions take us. Hopefully it will result in a game with the core fundamentals that made Starcraft Brood War so exciting to watch and fun to play. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
This is a good question. Why erase these flukes? I suspect they erased the flukes because it is a different game, and mimicking flukes usually leads to disaster without having a complex understanding of how they impacted the game (See Quake 4). What they should have done is designed the new game with new mechanics designed to create the same kind of tension as those flukes (See:Macro mechanics), while retaining some concepts behind the flukes (Like a few units that attack-move, like you suggested). They made small attempts at it, but not nearly enough, and the impact its had on the importance of micro is pretty noticeable. Essentially, the way they should have approached this problem is "Making a unit have hideous pathing/value without micro so pro players get their kicks is dumb, so instead of giving the unit a front loaded learning curve, we give it a backloaded learning curve" They didn't, they just reduced its front ended micro that overcomes crappy pathing without adding anything on the back. I'm totally on agreement that replicated the crappiness of SC1 units for micro is stupid, but they needed to add something on the back to keep it useful. | ||
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teekesselchen
Germany886 Posts
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teekesselchen
Germany886 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:21 DaEm0niCuS wrote: Id be suprised if any good players bw B+ or higher on iccup disagree with this. Anyone elses opinion doesn't really mean shit IMO, lol. I don't even need to have played BW on any level that could compete with some random however low ICC-Guy to agree with it. Some common sense and feeling for RTS and the comparison between CS 1.6 and more modern shooters is totally enough for me. | ||
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nujgnoy
United States204 Posts
I've watched a LOT of SC:BW games. I still watch progamer VODs. I'm most familiar with TvP (I've watched probably over 90% of all TvP games in the past year.) so I will use most of my comparisons bringing up SCBW TvP progaming + Show Spoiler + Rather than seeing a multitude of different strategies and openings being made viable by these balance changes, most of the time they turn out to be only affecting early game survivability. The root of every problem seems unbendable, and consistently persists throughout the mid- and lategame stages. Unless Blizzard truly wants 4-5 production buildings on 1 base to be one of the predominant strategies in SC2, they better think long and hard about some necessary changes. The OP is complaining that having 4~5 production buildings on 1 base is the predominant strategy and other strategies are not used as much. This is b/c 1base play is the standard right now. In BW TvP, the standard for P is 1gate-core into FE and reaver harass into arbiter and the standard for T is Factory-expand-upgraded mech play. Almost every game consists of this clash. Other builds, such as BBS or proxy rush exist, but they're not really used as much, I'd say only 1 out of >6 matches. Once the standard changes to another build, that build will be played predominantly. There is nothing wrong with the presence of a standard build that is used predominantly over other builds. In SC2 TvP I see most predominantly gate-core-robo into additional gateways and expansion. But I've faced builds centered around 4-gate, void ray, DT, proxy zealot, proxy canon, etc. This is like SCBW TvP in that there is the standard, but there can also be builds centered on 2+gates, dt, reaver, dt+reaver, carrier, proxy, etc. You might say that these builds I've listed are "cheeses" and they are not real "builds." But the truth of the matter is that the standad build has to be safe and versatile, and only 1 or 2 routes will really provide both of these characteristics. Meaning, it has been tradition for there to be only 1 predominant build in SCBW, and the existance of a predominant build in SC2 is not a sign that the game is failing. + Show Spoiler + Attack command: Right click or a-click on a unit followed by a quick move command to avoid deceleration. If you don’t a-click on a unit or building your units will act like SC2 air units. Hold position: Move units towards enemy and press H followed by a move command to avoid deceleration. Allows spreading shots and dealing damage more efficiently as opposed to target firing one single unit and wasting damage. Patrol command: Allows you to fire from a 90° angle without losing speed. Is frequently employed against scourge. There is no doubt that these differences made BW unique and fun. But in a serious tone, even as a terran player I don't think the vulture patrol micro has a place in today's game, just like stop-lurker and allied mines. In my opinion, these "techniques" are more like bugs that were not intended. I would even call them exploits. So, although I would love to have vultures and patrol micro in sc2, I'm not surprised or mad that they no longer exist because these exploits were only balanced by other exploits and overpoweredness present in other races in BW imo. + Show Spoiler + Scenario 1: You’ve got 3 corsairs and one canon guarding your mineral line in Brood War. Your opponent flies in with 8 mutalisks, and notices your templar archives (applicable to any important building) is out of place and starts picking away at it. Scenario 2: You’ve got 3 phoenixes and one canon guarding your mineral line in Starcraft 2. Your opponent flies in with 8 mutalisks and notices your stargate is slightly out of place and starts picking away at it. Corsairs and phoenixes are different units. Corsair had splash, phoenixes don't. Also, bw mutas were stacked tight, and sc2 mutas are not as clumped. AoE in general dealt crazy amount of damage in bw mutas, to the extent that one irradiate, maelstrom, storm, archon, etc countered mutas significantly. And even in bw, a single corsair was taken down easily to scourges and forced sairs to run until a clump was made. These scenarios are flawed because what made corsair stand out was not its moving shot ability, but its splash damage that countered stacked mutas so well. After watching the vod, I do see some difference in that sairs are much more mobile than phoenixes b/c of the firing cooldown. But I don't think the only or even the major difference was the moving shot. I would say 50% of the difference was due to moving shot, whereas the other 50% was due to splash (meaning, I think they are equally important in corsair fending off mutas). Not to mention the mutalisk micro wasn't perfect (not intended to insult at all, just that it could've been better and may not accurately exemplify the ideal mutalisk harass). + Show Spoiler + The problem that arises is: you can never engage with an inferior force against a superior one. The outcome of taking the risk of firing a shot on a superior air force in SC2 is a vastly different one from that of Brood War. I think this has some validity, but not true in all cases. Although you're talking about air, just to bring in a ground example, marauder moving shot gives a lot of advantage to the terran player against roaches. And in air, vikings can engage battlecruisers with inferior resources spent b/c of the range and speed difference. I can't really think of any good comparison b/c in SC2 there is no splash dealing air unit. But maybe a close comparison is thor vs mutalisk. 1 thor (300/200) can nullfiy like 6+ mutas with support. This is similar in that lower investment in corsairs helped nullify greater investment in mutalisks. The thor has terrible mobility, yet it counters mutas b/c of its splash, range, and good damage type. The corsair had terrible damage and low range but countered mutas b/c of its mobility, splash, its damage type, and good firing rate. Phoenix has mobility, fast firing rate, appropriate damage type, but no splash. Maybe the core to countering mutas is an appropriate mixture of splash, damage type, and firing rate in relation to mobility and range. I don't think moving shot was the one-and-only factor that allowed an inferior troop of corsairs to engage a superior pack of mutalisks. + Show Spoiler + There is little else that differentiates a valkyrie from a corsair aside from the moving shot (don’t mention the unit cost, lol). Yet this small difference somehow makes a world of difference in how the unit is used in the game. While the valkyrie can never be used in an offensive context by its own right, the corsair is a unit that, if controlled properly, can be all over the place: harassing, scouting, supporting shuttles, defending. This is a pretty good example but not 100% correct. Valkyrie: 250/125/3/60, requires starport, addon, armory Corsair: 150100/2/40, requires stargate The difference is that valkyrie costs 100 more minerals, 25 more gas, 1 more supply, 20 more seconds to build, and additional tech buildings. This makes valkyries incredibly hard to mass, when the terrans have a completely great alternative to mutas: MM + irradiate. MM + irradiate provides a lot more firepower against mutas and are much more versatile while providing detection and midgame dominance. Valkyrie was just too expensive, not cost effective, and considering its tech route, there's a more preferable route to science vessels. That's why valkyrie was not used. Moving shot wasn't the major factor imo that restricted valkyries. I mean, anyone knows the different in build time of 20 seconds. This is the difference between build time of a vulture (30) and a tank (50). Any terran knows how fast vultures can be massed and how long it takes to mass tanks in relation (aside from resource consideration just considering build time). + Show Spoiler + Imagine if scourge existed in SC2. Imagine if they were spire tech units just as in Starcraft. Imagine the scenario in the above picture. Imagine any scenario where any race makes any air units. Would you dare to fire off a single shot against a muta/scourge army with vikings? Even if there were 2 turrets around? Ugh… I’m having this nightmarish déjà vu feeling like I’ve seen this happen somewhere before. Scourges were nullified with a critical number of corsairs (with splash damage). Phoenixes don't have splash damage. In fact, there is no air unit that does splash damage in sc2. That means the nature of scourge (low hp, massable, high damage unit) itself is hard to deal with considering current sc2 units. What if corsair were to exist in sc2? PvZ would have a similar balance of corsair vs scourge. With or without moving shot, at low numbers sairs would have to run from scourges. Once a critical mass of sairs existed, scourges would no longer do damage b/c of the firing rate and the splash. I don't think moving show was the main factor in corsair and scourge balance in SCBW + Show Spoiler + You think phoenixes are bad against mutalisks as it is? They deal 20 damage and they still somehow mysteriously suck. Imagine if scourge were in the game. Ok. Now imagine you’re a balance designer working for Blizzard. How much more bonus damage would you now reward phoenixes against light armor to balance out the game? Phoenix does 18.18 DPS against light air units. Thor does 16 dps against light air units with splash. Yet thors completely counter mutas whereas phoenixes seem to be less effective. I think the major difference here is splash (if the high range difference were to cancel out with the high mobility difference). If you think about it, archons are like a mixture of thor (large, slow, splash, high hp) and phoenix (lower range) (and shared characteristics: appropriate damage type). Yet archons stilled countered a muta stack well. I think the critical quality was splash. There are other characteristics of course, but they more or less supported this major characteristic. + Show Spoiler + The only reason the corsair was even viable in the first place in Starcraft was because of the moving shot mechanic. What good would an air unit that dealt 5 damage otherwise do if it became immobilized and impossible to micro after it fired? Let me answer that for us: Absolutely none. I think you're exaggerating here a bit. Mutalisks ran from corsairs b/c of the damage type and splash. Moving shot was just there to make sure mutalisks couldn't run away from corsairs. Even if corsairs couldn't make moving shots, mutalisks still wouldn't be able to engage the corsairs in similar resources spent in stacked condition. Moving shot as a chaser as demonstrated by the video doesn't mean much if you can't win in a straight fight. I think the best way to think of this would be by considering phoenix versus stacked mutas from scbw. What would you rather have as the phoenix: moving shot or splash? I would probably choose splash. + Show Spoiler + Noticed how they have to come to a full stop before attacking? Noticed how impossible it is to put down an expansion if your opponent really doesn’t want you to put down an expansion? I don't think this is as a significant as made sound in this sentence. There was never one case where I could delay a hatchery from being made indefinitely with just a moving worker. And there was never a case where i couldn't land my lifted rax b/c of a harassing worker indefinitely. I don't feel strongly either way though I guess. Except if moving shot is implemented to workers, SCVs had better get 60 health, because worker harass would be too much against terrans with such low health workers. This thread is incomplete in that it implies that micro is dead because of the lack of a moving shot. You should title it "Oh moving shot, where are thou" and not "Oh micro..." If you really want to keep the thread title as is, you should think about other aspects of micro as well (such as ground unit moving shot, shift-queue, forcefield, emp, storm, etc.). Although I thought that there was little micro when I first started playing, I realized that there is still plenty of micromanagement, if not MORE micromanagement, in SC2 as compared to SCBW. | ||
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QibingZero
2611 Posts
What an amazing post that both said everything a lot of us old school SC fans were feeling, and yet also contained some eye-opening examples. I think the biggest thing for me is just simply that I want to be in control of the game. I want my ability to control every aspect of the game to be the deciding factor in a win or loss. That's what RTS is truly about - your control over everything matters. We always talked a lot about build order supremacy in BW, but there were still so many opportunities to make up a disadvantage, so many openings to gain the upper hand by microing. Ones that you could create for yourself even. And it almost seems like every one of these situations has been purposefully limited in SC2. Workers are terrible in combat - a fact that is detrimental toward early defense of econ-based builds. Units are much worse in small groups, forcing every race into the kind of BW PvZ ball mechanic, which then causes the entire game to revolve around one huge battle where micro is limited to using unit abilities as you A-move and occasionally focus fire. Harass is all-or-nothing. Either your Reapers do a ton of econ damage before your opponent has any useful units out, or they're ineffective and also useless in combat. Either way, one side of the match has no real micro opportunity. A minor note to those who just claim it's early and things will eventually be figured out: don't use BW as an example for this. The comparison from the early days of vanilla SC to the first days of SC2 beta is like night and day. There was no real competitive scene other than those of us who played WC2 on Kali, and that was largely negligible in terms of raw mechanical skill. Now, we've jumped into SC2's beta with hundreds if not thousands of us having very high APM, all wanting to be the best or make it 'pro' or whatever. We're spending countless hours practicing, trying to figure out how to best utilize the units we have to work with. And you know what? Most of the micro tricks have come pretty intuitively after 10 years of development in BW. Things happen quickly when you have thousands of people messing around spamming attack move, patrol, hold position - everything we possibly can to try to figure out some way to allow us to have more control over our units. | ||
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ploy
United States416 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:56 teekesselchen wrote: I don't even need to have played BW on any level that could compete with some random however low ICC-Guy to agree with it. Some common sense and feeling for RTS and the comparison between CS 1.6 and more modern shooters is totally enough for me. Whats funny is that a lot of FPS`ers would say the same thing about pre-1.6 CS and 1.6 CS | ||
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LunarC
United States1186 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:26 Xenocide_Knight wrote: oh wow, he fired, moved forward, then fired again. Ooo he set his melee units in from before a-moving. Oh look, he moved his damaged unit back. You really think that's the micro we're talking about? I guarantee more than half the D- players on iCCup could have performed the amount of micro in that game. Probably one handed. Gameoffear, just listen to monion and stop embarrassing yourself Listen, everyone who signed up on TL solely because you were looking for a starcraft 2 forum to join. Broodwar is History. And not the kind of History that is gone. The kind of History we all learn from, the kind of History we are ALL benefiting from right now. Talking about SC2 without knowing broodwar is like leaf that doesn't know it's part of a tree. PLAY broodwar and find out what it is to micro. You will get wrecked by armies not even half your size. Muta micro will dismantle you, even if you turtle on 1 base. a pair of corsairs and a pair of dts will force you to rage quit. Watch some big battles in progames. Count or estimate the units and recreate the battle. A battle that a progamer won, you won't even destroy half the enemies army. That was micro, that was what made Broodwar. Jaedong has 18 lings vs some D level player's 24 lings? Jaedong would probably kill you twice over. Look at sc2. And don't tell me there's micro yet to be found, yet to be discovered by legions of progamers, why the hell do we have to find it. If I wanted to find hidden things in the game I would have bought fucking Barbie Scavenger Hunt. Broodwar was a fluke. The micro was due to the primitive game engine and coding. However, it was amazing. Why are we trying to erase these incredible flukes and attempting to discover new ones. Especially flukes that took 10 years to figure out. The fact that life evolved on Earth is sort of a cosmic fluke. sc2 is basically like "Oh the fact that life developed on earth was a fluke. Let's put life on earth2.0! But we don't want life from original earth because that would be the same. Let's just throw shit together in a primordial soup on a new planet, wait millions of years, and hope life just works out." This. Is. Fundamental. Yet not even the Starcraft 2 design team at Blizzard have familiarized themselves with Brood War. | ||
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shindigs
United States4795 Posts
However, I'm sorry I'm gonna have to fall back on the argument that this game is still in its very early stages. Your criticisms are a bit condescending of a company that did try its best at making a pretty amazing game, and personally I thought it'd be more convincing if you focused on the mechanics rather than Dustin Browder. But I will agree with the fact that an article like this exists. Like you said, if we run blindly into SC2 with no question at all we would be doing the developers, ourselves, and the rest of the SC community a disfavor. Your skepticism is well justified (thought I don't think you need a noob like me to tell you that =P) Also I hate the Void Ray and everything it stands for. | ||
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Xenocide_Knight
Korea (South)2625 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:31 NicolBolas wrote: This is a good question. Why erase these flukes? Because maybe they're not as incredible as you suspect. ............................................................ that's really my only reaction to your statement. I can only assume you know nothing about broodwar. Fine whatever, I'll get you on track Jaedong microing 22 mutas to 1 shot turrets the Hero dragoon with 30+ kills Using a barracks to push units across the mineral field on King of the abyss Just go learn about broodwar | ||
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iheartpurplez
Canada54 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:48 Xenocide_Knight wrote: Let me tell you exactly how the thought tree goes in sair vs Muta or Pheonix vs Muta SC2: Phoenix vs Muta I have 8 pheonix, he has 8 mutas. I can right click his muta and he has to run away I have 5 phoenix and he has 8 muta. If I right click his muta I die so i have to run away SCBW Muta vs Sair I have 9 Mutas, he has 5 sairs. If I rightclick his sair, I die so I run away I have 9 Mutas, he has 5 sairs. I practiced my muta micro. If I use patrol shot, and split my mutas well, I can win the fight with minimal losses. The problem with SC2 is that there is no micro that will cause such a huge impact in an engagement. 10 marauders will always rape 8 roaches, I dont care how well either side micro. In BW, 11 Mutas vs 30 marines with medic and turret support comes down to how much you practiced your muta or marine micro. Me vs flash, I probably would kill 3 rines and lose all my mutas. Jaedong vs flash, they might split even. Jaedong vs me, I would lose all my marines and maybe kill a muta. is really the biggest issue concerning micro at the moment, and that awesome example xenocide_kinght gave goes right for the jugular . | ||
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404.Delirium
United States1190 Posts
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Brad
2754 Posts
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Playguuu
United States926 Posts
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ymirheim
Sweden300 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:48 Xenocide_Knight wrote: The problem with SC2 is that there is no micro that will cause such a huge impact in an engagement. 10 marauders will always rape 8 roaches, I dont care how well either side micro. In BW, 11 Mutas vs 30 marines with medic and turret support comes down to how much you practiced your muta or marine micro. Me vs flash, I probably would kill 3 rines and lose all my mutas. Jaedong vs flash, they might split even. Jaedong vs me, I would lose all my marines and maybe kill a muta. Really? In SC2, Immortal/Stalker force with sentry support vs marine/marauder with ghost support comes down to how much you practiced your forcefield and kiting micro as well as unit spreading. Me vs White-rA, I probably would kill a few units and loose my entire force to excellent forcefields and good unitspread. We can already establish that we cannot compare case for case exactly because the units are different but if people are really intent on comparing micro opportunity then we can always cancel out micro situations against each other, so in sc2 we got forcefields which make a HUGE difference depending on how you use them. Well placed forcefields can allow you to take out a larger force with a smaller force, the very definition of micro. So lets just take muta control and forcefields and remove those two from the discussion. Maybe we can go down the line and find that one of the two games have slightly more microable situations but by no means is it just as simple as saying one game has these scenarios and the other doesn't. Just because any numbnut can place sentries or kite with marauders does not mean that everyone can do it equally well, there is bad forcefield micro and there is bad marauder micro and people seem way to willing to just ignore this to further their argument. | ||
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DaEm0niCuS
United States60 Posts
On April 27 2010 13:48 Ballistixz wrote: theres B+ players in this thread that disagree with him tho while at the same time theres a few average players that agree with him. with your logic the only ppl who should even be posting in this thread are B+ players where everyone else does not count for anything even tho average players have gave very valid points in this whether they agreed or disagreed with the OP thread lol, you agree with the OP and thus your trying to strengthen your own points of agreement by saying "Id be suprised if any good players bw B+ or higher on iccup disagree with this. Anyone elses opinion doesn't really mean shit IMO, lol." just look at what you said and how biased it is. lol..... man your just looking for something to disagree with, if you want to take advice/listen to the opinions of those less experienced go ahead. My point is that everyone has an opinion and there are simply too many people with bad opinions to listen to them all(if blizzard was to do so they would end up with a shit ton of crappy opinions from people who don't know what the fuck their talking about). As such they/anyone who wants a decent opinion should only listen to those who are experienced and high level. I don't see how you can disagree with that. This applies to EVERYTHING in life. And yes not all B+ players will have a 100% consensus on everything, but smart/experienced people disagree all the time, that doesn't mean there isn't a majority in favor. If you poll 500 B+ players and 90% agree and 10% disagree, wouldn't you make the changed polled? That's what blizzard should have done. Rather then reading forums with a bunch of random opinions from random people, they should have found a group of 100-500 GOOD players and had private polls. For instance zerg is a fairly easy race to play and do well with, where as terran is harder to do well with and you generally need more tech/upgrades/better build orders. As such when two equally inexperienced players play one another the terran players tends to lose. On the other hand when two highly experienced players play each other the match is much more even. However in blizzards view since their looking at statistics of everyone, it leads them to believe that terran is weak which leads to terran getting buffed and zerg getting nerfed. CowGooMoo was a terran player way before all the buffs/zerg nerfs and he had like a 10-1 win/loss ratio. As an example if you take two bad players and put them in a zvt 1v1(in sc1). The z player is going to win far more often, probably in a 60/40 ratio. Because once zerg gets lurkers the MU becomes much harder for the inexperienced player with worse micro. This however does not mean the MU is imbalanced, it simply means the game is designed/balanced more toward perfect play and less toward newb friendliness. | ||
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hacpee
United States752 Posts
The issue I have is from a spectator's perspective. I was watching Nony's phenonix micro or attempt at phenonix micro. It was horrible. At one point in the game, he tried to attack and retreat 4 times and failed all 4. That is simply not fun to watch. If you cant control your units precisely, you are then reduced to autoattacking/casting spells/focus firing. Again, nothing wrong with that from a player's perspective, however it is not fun to watch. | ||
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roemy
Germany432 Posts
similar for mobility: there's acceleration, lateral acceleration, turning rate, stationary turning rate, and for bigger units such as carriers even mass and then there's one-liners such as these: phoenix: <AllowedMovement value="Slowing"/> i'm not taking sides yet: i just wanted to say that if push comes to shove, we can indeed create our own mod. the april fool's might not have been so far fetched. more and more it seems to me that bliz is only selling the engine like ID sold the q3 engine - and then tried again with doom3: the game itself just an ad for the engine behind it. their idea to charge players for custom maps bigger/better than dota would support that theory. basically we'll be getting a console called starcraft2 for our PCs x_X and we'll get all the ROMs from battle.net | ||
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