If ALL the Terran's ground buildings are destroyed, and he has buildings in the air, a timer starts (5 mins, 10 mins?).
To stop this timer, he has to land his buildings. Timer is only reset when he builds another ground building (to prevent simply landing for 1 second). If the timer runs out, he loses the game.
I'm a Terran player, and I don't think this is unfair at all.
On May 17 2010 09:01 DarQraven wrote: How does that even work in a game situation? It's one player's turn, yet the rules forbid him from endangering his own king, therefore he cannot make a move without breaking a rule and losing. So, the player just sits there and waits until the jury/audience get bored and call draw?
The rules specifically state that that situation is a draw. No sitting and waiting involved: it happens and the game is instantly over if you have no legal moves.
On May 17 2010 09:01 DarQraven wrote: I'm not too familiar with chess tournament rules, but the way you're describing it to me now, that particular draw situation sounds equally unwarranted as what is going on with Terran lifting in SC2.
So, the king is cornered and literally cannot move without losing the game, yet simply because the actual taking of the king has not happened and cannot happen because of some other rule (which was probably never designed for this purpose anyway), it's a draw?
How does that even work in a game situation? It's one player's turn, yet the rules forbid him from endangering his own king, therefore he cannot make a move without breaking a rule and losing. So, the player just sits there and waits until the jury/audience get bored and call draw?
No. Basically, if a players only legal move is to move his king from a safe spot to one where he is in danger the game is automatically called a tie. This is because the king is never meant to be taken in chess, only unable to move to a safe spot after being endangered. This is actually a pretty nifty rule, as it can turn a definitive loss into a tie.
In SC2 it's retarded though for several reasons: 1) Only one race has the ability to declare a tie (with the small exception of getting island expos as Z/P that run out of resources). Imagine if black could only get stalemated in chess. 2) A barrack with no resources is not a unique game deciding unit. Unlike chess, it doesn't end the game under normal circumstances. 3) Having say, an air unit whilst your opponent only has anti ground (or a ground to ground vs air to air) doesn't count as a stalemate, despite the chance that the unit is actually worth more than a barrack. 4) The logic that ladder matches should be about who can wait the longest before disc'ing is just straight out wrong, and a poor rationalised excuse for whoring victory points.
On May 17 2010 09:01 DarQraven wrote: How does that even work in a game situation? It's one player's turn, yet the rules forbid him from endangering his own king, therefore he cannot make a move without breaking a rule and losing. So, the player just sits there and waits until the jury/audience get bored and call draw?
The rules specifically state that that situation is a draw. No sitting and waiting involved: it happens and the game is instantly over if you have no legal moves.
In this case, then, there is an established rule that states this situation results in a draw. Both players know this and both players are capable of using this rule to their advantage. They can therefore, when they foresee a loss, play towards this situation. If a player manages this, that's an honorable way to force a tie. It actually requires just as much thought as trying to win, if not more.
Lifting off requires no more skill than the ability to press the L key once you know you traded bases and only one race can do it. Furthermore, there aren't any established rules on this specific situation, therefore a draw should not be a valid outcome until such a rule is present. That's just going by the rules and being pedantic about it - I'm not even mentioning the fact that this situation is plain nonsensical if you take the context and setting of SC2 into account; War. War only ends in a draw once BOTH parties refuse to fight. Only one party refusing to fight is known as a surrender. When fighting for territory, one party fleeing said territory while the other remains present with armed forces is known as retreat - loss. While I don't think that setting or 'realism' should ever be a reason to incorporate bad gameplay elements, it sure as hell is a good reason to remove bad gameplay elements.
That aside, being able to force draws that easily is just bad for competition. The chess equivalent takes thought and skill and the actual point of chess - outmaneuvering, outthinking your opponent and good foresight - is still intact while trying to force that draw. The SC2 version requires no more than one functioning finger to press L and click and the actual gameplay itself ceases once a player does this. It truly is what I described before - a player refusing to play. It requires no planning, no foresight or outmaneuvering of your opponent, nothing. Just the ability to click buttons once you spot a basetrade that didn't go so well for you.
Draw option. Problem solved. I really don't see how this is such a large problem. This affects what? One in a couple of hundred or thousand games? And both players have to literally cripple the other for it to occur. A draw is not unreasonable in such circumstances.
On May 09 2010 01:12 arb wrote: I dunno if its been mentioned yet but fuel is so stupid lets just imagine this scenario :
after both cheese , reaper zealot whatever terran loses everything but his rax or cc, toss has about 5 zealots and a pylon/gate left but no money or probes for a nexus.
obviously toss cant win and terran cant win, so adding fuel is gonna punish terran even though protoss has no way of killing him anyway.
how is that fair? if protoss cant kill terran because he lifted he obviously doesnt deserve the win in the first place
Oh how terribly unfair to add a system wherein the player who still has attacking forces will win the game
But the issue is that he doesn't deserve to win, because he didn't make units capable of killing flying buildings.
For god's sake, if you're going to base trade a Terran, just hide a void ray or a mutalisk somewhere. There's no point rewarding sloppy play by cutting some slack for players who base trade a Terran and don't account for the fact that Terran buildings can lift off.
WRONG. There is no reason to reward losing your entire army and all of your buildings bar one. The flying terran does not deserve a draw, because he has no means of forcing a victory condition for him/herself. This game is not chess, and needs to stop being treated as and compared to it.
Terran is just abusing 1) unit abilities and 2) game coding. They are not able to achieve a victory condition via anything they can do and thus they have lost the game. They do not deserve a draw for the opponent not being able to fulfill victory conditions THAT THEY COULD FORCE if the T player did not again 1) abuse a unit ability to 2) take advantage of game coding.
All of the T players saying the non-T race player does not deserve a win are wrong. In any other MU, a player who has buildings and units that may attack will always win against the player who has a non defensive building only and no minerals (or not enough minerals to build anything). Again, in TvP, TvZ, ZvZ, ZvP, PvZ, or PvP whoever has the units that may attack and buildings will automatically win so long as the player without units does not have buildings that are defensive in nature. Why should T be granted special dispensation because they can abuse abilities that are clearly not meant to be used in such a way.
Saying that the non-T race does not deserve to win is akin to saying that were a T player left with a factory and a hellion, and the other player left with a pylon, that the T player does not deserve to win. Ludicrous and ridiculous. The blatant race fanboyism/bias must stop.
Simply put, if you cannot in any circumstance WIN. Then you have lost. You do not deserve a draw by any means. The only sensible thing to do would be to award the lifted player a loss, and the non-lifted player a draw.
You can win as a T with only a floating building: what if the opponent takes his army and attacks his own buildings? I find that just as realistic as the T choosing to land somewhere where his building can die.
On May 17 2010 09:54 Brett wrote: Draw option. Problem solved. I really don't see how this is such a large problem. This affects what? One in a couple of hundred or thousand games? And both players have to literally cripple the other for it to occur. A draw is not unreasonable in such circumstances.
It's not really a simple solution. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but my concern is how skewed the stats will be on the draw. If they implement draw, a huge proportion of all draws will happen in Terran games. And usually, the draw is on Terran's terms (If the Terran were winning, there weren't be a draw, because the other play can't lift his/her buildings!). Simply put, if they put in a draw system, I assure you in less than 2 weeks, people would start throwing up threads about "Terran forced another draw, wtf imba bullcrap" etc. If there is a draw system, Blizzard will also have to ensure that the draws are statistically balanced, just like with wins and loses.
There should certainly be an "auto-draw" mechanism that goes into effect when the game records neither player gathering minerals, building units/buildings, or dealing damage for a given period of time.
Either that or there should be a mechanism that limits the amount of time a Terran building can stay in the air. Perhaps make Terran buildings begin to gradually lose HP if they spend more than 5 minutes in a flying state and give them cooldown time after landing equal to the time they spent flying before they can lift off again.
A draw offer and some sort of timer to force a draw when no progress is being made should be included. If Terran only has floating buildings he should be put under some sort of pressure to land.
pvt i rushed stalkers + blink w/ an obs so i can blink into his base cuz his bridge was blocked turns out as i blink into his base hes attacking me so we trade bases on accident. he kills my base i expod top mid @ lost temple he floats 3 barracks down to the bottom of the map. then he kills my nexus and probes w/ target fire cuz i had to blink back to micro to make sure i didnt lose my stalkers. so im sitting in the game now afk pretty much and he has 1 barracks bottom left of the screen. there is an island underneath him and its in range but it "imaginary" you cant blink there even though its easily within range. i blinked all the way across the islands on the right side of the map and now i cant kill him.
no way you can think this is a draw. i have the units to kill him its just a flaw in the map.