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Or, rather, the original design philosophy of the roach has been a thorn in the side of Starcraft 2.
I can't find the video now, but long ago (2007 or 2008) Dustin Browder introduced the roach. It was orignally a harassment-style unit with moderate damage, medium hitpoints, but insane health regeneration. Dustin explicitly described how players had to focus fire roaches to be able to kill them. This is one of many ways they hoped to encourage micromanagement through the game's mechanics.
As we now know, that idea failed catastrophically. I can't say exactly why, but there are many plausible reasons:
1. Speedlings are already fantastic harrassment tools, so there was too much overlap.
2. Roaches in small numbers were too strong against other small numbers of units.
3. Yet in medium sized battles, roaches were practically worthless.
4. It is too hard to balance for all skill levels. Skilled players deal with it easily, while beginners who don't understand the concept of focus firing will get steamrolled.
Whatever the reason, the roach never worked as intended. So Blizzard made it an early game tank at 1 supply, high hitpoints, and 2 armor. It should have been obvious to them at the time, but this made it incredibly over powered. To compensate, Blizzard has the Marauder and Immortal, which hard counter roaches very convincingly. This triumverate was discussed a lot in beta, so I don't want to rehash those arguments.
Instead, I think the roach symbolizes a deeper problem with Starcraft 2's design. Blizzard tried too hard to introduce micromanagement. With the introduction of multiple building selection, they got worried players wouldn't have enough to do, so they compensated by adding contrived abilities. All of the early videos demonstrate this thinking. Consider some of the new abilities in Starcraft 2:
- Blink
- Force field
- Cliff-hopping
- Graviton beam
- Corruption
To me, these and others are merely contrived excuses to encourage micromanagement. Blink and force field work better than others. Some of the abilities feel stolen straight from Warcraft III. Cliff-hopping has encouraged Blizzard to throw cliffs everywhere in their maps, with deleterious effects on gameplay.
They do their job, yet they are incredibly one dimensional. It's obvious how to use these abilities, and they don't leave much to be discovered. Ok, I can use blink to get onto cliffs or to save damaged units. Ok, I can use force field to block other units. Ok, I can lift other units off to save them or to shoot them. Great. But that's about it.
The abilities in Starcraft 1 existed more for the sake of existing. This led to tricks that were completely overpowered, but I want to argue that this is precisely the reason Starcraft 1 was so balanced.
- Vultures were never meant to counter dragoons.
- Shuttles weren't designed to shoot scarabs.
- Mutalisks weren't supposed to cost 600/600 and one-shot workers.
When each race has several tricks that are overpowered, it doesn't matter how overpowered they are. If one trick is 5x better than what it counters, and another is 8x better, it doesn't matter that one is actually better than the other; in the end, it matters more how you use the abilities, and skill is brought to the forefront.
Yet in Starcraft 2 we're stuck with the roach. We have units whose role was designed from the start. There were extensive meetings contriving ways for skills to be micromanaged. Rather than letting things be overpowered, Blizzard is intent on squashing them. Some examples:
- Fazing let Void Rays counter marines and hydralisks. Blizzard nerfed it.
- Creep spreading let Queens go on the offensive. Queens are "supposed" to be defensive, so Blizzard nerfed that.
- Spine crawlers are supposed to be defeinsive, so Blizzard nerfed them too when they became offensive.
Blizzard is taking a different route than in Starcraft 1. The "wait and see" approach to balance isn't working, because when something new and interesting arises that falls outside of Blizzard's specifications, they change it. They want the gameplay to conform to their original intentions for each unit.
So that's how we have the Roach. A terrible, one-dimensional unit that never worked as intended, and is now a poor orphan, devoid of purpose in life. Rather than letting balance arise from a mutually-assured-destruction circle of overpowered abilities, everything is brought to the same level, and this amplifies the effects of minor imbalances.
The roach is the symbol of this failed philosophy, and that's why I hate the roach.
Thoughts?
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I love my roaches....Just need to get better at having something to snipe obs vs toss and roach burrow will be soooo much fun.
Plus I just think the little guys are cute xD
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Roaches are cute though, however yes. I kind of agree to some points, it seems like they made maps for the units they create and not units for the maps. If that makes sense. If not I'm sorry I'm tired.
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it was never intended as a super fast in combat regeneration unit. it was always supposed to regen very quickly when burrowed though. thats quite a big difference..
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Well, as a decent Protoss on SEA I can definitely say that Roaches encourage micro in the early game. If you're not using your stalkers to focus fire on his roaches and having them waste shots on lings, then yea.. you're going to lose.
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I agree with blizz nerfing units when they do something not originally intended. Takes away some creativity. Imagine if they fixed muta stacking in SC1, that would be awful
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I hate to reply tersely to such a large post but
1. This is the first of three expansions. Blizz has more room for tricky/cute combinations
2. I like the ability of the roach to burrow and regen quickly. Not many players will actually spend the time to burrow individually(at least i've never seen a match) to maximize their health regen.
3. Blizz made sc2, WOL to be an e-sport, which means there's quite a bit in the game already that the pros can exploit, but haven't been because they're still learning the game.
4. Kind of the same as 3, but we can't really say what blizzard's original intentions with any unit is/was, as we didn't develop the game. Queens and spine crawler nerf only makes them slower, which means you just have to invent something new if you really want that offensive spine crawler/queen strat to work. How do you know vults were never designed to counter goons? Was it just some mistake that the damage added to nicely from the mines to take them out? Blizz made it this way so that if you micro'd just right you could take out something that was better "on paper".
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I'm not sure how you go from "muta micro wasn't intended" to "stuck with roachs" to "they nerfed fazing"
This just looks like another nostalgic thread about wanting it to be the same as BW.
edit: after reading more i understand the first bit, but i still think you are just nostalgic. These are two different games that just happen to share the name SC. They dont have to be designed exactly the same.
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Because in SC2, speedlings aren't the unit used by zerg to deal with hellions early game, reapers can't take out roaches with proper micro when used en masse, and more recently, mutas haven't been evening it up against thors.
Nerfing something like "fazing" isn't removing something COOL about the game, it makes the game actually balanced. There's no reason void rays should be good against basically everything.
Yes, they do want all the gameplay to conform to their intentions for the unit. The units are designed from the bottom up with a concept in mind, a piece of lore, and mechanics unique to that unit. They were created to be something specific. Intuitively, most players understand that the zergling is weak, but quick, and easy to mass. Marauders are buff infantry units that pack a punch. Void rays are great charged up, but crap when they're uncharged.
Just because for some reason, SCBW ended up balanced, there is no reason Blizzard should just go away, and come back in a couple years and hope a tournament scene pops up around SC2. Yes, SCBW is great, no doubt. No, SC2 is not the same game, and further, no, SC2 is not reliant on what are essentially glitches to balance the game.
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Pretty much agree with the OP.
I wouldn't say Blizzard tried to hard though, I just think they went the wrong way with patches, instead of buffing underpowered things they nerfed what was considered overpowered. This really leads to a situation where very few strategys and units are viable because most are so so so weak.
As opposed to having multiple strong viable strategies to select from there is generally only 1 or 2 build orders which are viable because so many units have been nerfed into oblivion.
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Great writeup. I'd prefer if they made roaches slightly weaker but 1 supply again, as it stands they suck and Zerg has no viable way to pressure without committing to some easy to scout all in.
Also, agree on their maps too. They replaced functionality with "OMFG LOOK AT HOW STRATEGIC OUR GAME IS HERE ARE 431772 PIECES OF TERRAIN YOU CAN ABUSE STRATEGICALLY IN OUR REALLY STRATEGIC GAME!"
On August 22 2010 07:06 Backpack wrote:
I'm not sure how you go from "muta micro wasn't intended" to "stuck with roachs" to "they nerfed fazing"
This just looks like another nostalgic thread about wanting it to be the same as BW.
edit: after reading more i understand the first bit, but i still think you are just nostalgic. These are two different games that just happen to share the name SC. They dont have to be designed exactly the same.
That's a stupid thing to say. Brood War did so many things right, I don't see why Sc2 can't elaborate on everything that worked without being a carbon copy. Also, "they're different games". Are you fucking serious? Let's list all the similarities:
- Exact same economy system: you get peons to mine minerals and gas and send them to your townhouse.
- You require a building on a geyser to get gas
- Terran builds anywhere, Zerg builds on creep, protoss builds on areas powered by pylons.
- Terran macro system (rax + factories + starports), zerg macro system (building opens up tech options, units come out of larva, which spawns from hatcheries) and protoss macro system (gateways and robo bay) remain largely unchanged.
- Pylons, ovies, and depots, exactly the same
- Terran units still in Sc2:
--- scvs, marines, dropships, tanks, battlecruisers, comsats, bunkers
- Units which are changed but obviously mirror the original:
--- Ravens (vessels), vikings (goliaths / wraiths), medivac (dropship + medic), helion (vulture)
Zerg units still in Sc2:
--- Queen, zergling, hydralisk, mutalisk, ultralisk, drone, overlord. Corrupters / broodlords are basically devourers and guardians, spine crawlers are sunken colonies, and infestors replaced defilers.
- Protoss units still in Sc2:
--- Zealot, probe, observer, dark templar, high templar, archon, carrier, cannons.
Recycled units: Collosus (reaver), Stalker (dragoon), mothership (a useless arbiter), pheonix (corsair).
That was quite a wall of text but I seriously hate it when people say that. Starcraft 2 borrows so heavily from the first (seriously...over half the new units are just modified versions of old ones in BW, except given an even more niche role) that saying its a completely new game is like saying Gears of War and Gears of War 2 or Halo and Halo 2 are entirely new games that happen to be under the same name.
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I'd say the Mutas is what's wrong with SC 2. It's a worthless unit with no purpose. Terran gets one thor and mutas are useless. Protoss get 2 cannons and same story. Mutas can't beat a stalker or marine army.
Mutas are tier 2 yet they cannot hope to beat or harass lower tier armies. Lastly, they are much less effective at harassing in SC2 as they were in BW.
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On August 22 2010 07:20 deadbutmoving wrote:
I'd say the Mutas is what's wrong with SC 2. It's a worthless unit with no purpose. Terran gets one thor and mutas are useless. Protoss get 2 cannons and same story. Mutas can't beat a stalker or marine army.
Mutas are tier 2 yet they cannot hope to beat or harass lower tier armies. Lastly, they are much less effective at harassing in SC2 as they were in BW.
Have you ever watched ANY high level zerg games?
I wanna know where people even get these idea's from.
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I think we really have to wait for the next 2 expansions, when they have more time working on the other 2 races in detail. Imo Terran is really well designed in Starcraft 2, there's just a huge amount of stuff that you can do with the race. The other two races fell a bit behind, but that's because Blizzard focused on Terran first for this game (because they needed something ready for the singleplayer devs guys to work with).
In general, you can really see the games development through the complexity of the races and the campaign missions. The campaign missions start really basic, first it's marines vs marines, then it's marines vs lings and hydras (obv. the first Zerg units to make the cut) etc, and later in the campaign we first deal with advanced Protoss units before we move on to the late game Zerg units (Broodlords etc.)
Also, they started out with designing Terran and then moved on to Protoss, and only then started with Zerg when they were done with the other two races. You can see it in unit count and unique-ness. Terran just has a ton of different units and is undoubtedly the most flexible race, Protoss is kind of in between and Zerg is really at the bottom with very few things they can do (compared to the other two races).
I'm pretty sure Zerg will get at least 2 or 3 new units for the next expansion, while Toss and Terran only get changed mechanics and abilities (or new ones). I'm sure we're not the only ones aware of the fact that Zerg has the fewest units in the game.
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Nice OP. But I can't really blame Blizzard too much. If they were to just "let things happen" and see if it comes out balanced, then I think that's much riskier than purposefully trying to force balance.
It feels like for some things Blizzard just tries too hard and at the same time, not hard enough for others (chat rooms, post-release balance patches, etc), but I guess that's all depending on your own viewpoint.
On August 22 2010 07:20 deadbutmoving wrote:
I'd say the Mutas is what's wrong with SC 2. It's a worthless unit with no purpose. Terran gets one thor and mutas are useless. Protoss get 2 cannons and same story. Mutas can't beat a stalker or marine army.
Mutas are tier 2 yet they cannot hope to beat or harass lower tier armies. Lastly, they are much less effective at harassing in SC2 as they were in BW.
You're trolling, right?
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On August 22 2010 07:20 deadbutmoving wrote:
I'd say the Mutas is what's wrong with SC 2. It's a worthless unit with no purpose. Terran gets one thor and mutas are useless. Protoss get 2 cannons and same story. Mutas can't beat a stalker or marine army.
Mutas are tier 2 yet they cannot hope to beat or harass lower tier armies. Lastly, they are much less effective at harassing in SC2 as they were in BW.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=145936
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On August 22 2010 07:08 DeckOneBell wrote:
Because in SC2, speedlings aren't the unit used by zerg to deal with hellions early game, reapers can't take out roaches with proper micro when used en masse, and more recently, mutas haven't been evening it up against thors.
Nerfing something like "fazing" isn't removing something COOL about the game, it makes the game actually balanced. There's no reason void rays should be good against basically everything.
Yes, they do want all the gameplay to conform to their intentions for the unit. The units are designed from the bottom up with a concept in mind, a piece of lore, and mechanics unique to that unit. They were created to be something specific. Intuitively, most players understand that the zergling is weak, but quick, and easy to mass. Marauders are buff infantry units that pack a punch. Void rays are great charged up, but crap when they're uncharged.
Just because for some reason, SCBW ended up balanced, there is no reason Blizzard should just go away, and come back in a couple years and hope a tournament scene pops up around SC2. Yes, SCBW is great, no doubt. No, SC2 is not the same game, and further, no, SC2 is not reliant on what are essentially glitches to balance the game.
Correction; Idra just proved you wrong on all your points about the zerg.
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Tell me have you ever seen WARP PRISMS. Now that's food for thought.
Roaches are sad, however as I've seen a small kill squad of roaches with burrow speed they completely throw me off and as well are annoying and can snipe nexii.
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<3 roaches.
I use them early and often. One of my favorite units.
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The one thin i can agree with you is one simple idea: With SC2, they try to control everything to work as intended, so that they don't get surprised or denounced because some weird new thing comes up.
With that mindset, they just might miss out on something crazy weird that just so happens to be good for the gameplay.
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