I saw a thread a few days about nerfing the mule, which i did not take notice of because i thought the mule did not influence the early/mid game that much. A short boost of minerals that in the long game only ends up with your main/natural being mined out faster. The only thing that i felt the mule managed to do that really influenced that game would be in a late game situation where the terran can cast a handful of mules on a new set up expansion and have his income shoot up by 2/3k a minute.
However, i was watching a replay between HuK and MorroW, and saw something that made me realize just how powerful the mule actually is.
HuK had pushed forward and manage to kill MorroWs army, so he was forced to pull his scv's to kill the remaining collosus and stalkers. HuK killed a considerable amount of scv's before losing all his units, and changed the worker count to considerably in HuK's favour. Now without the Mule this would of been GG for MorroW. Yet even though HuK had delivered what i would call a killing blow, MorroW not only managed to hang in there, he managed to exceed HuKs income with less than a half of the worker count!
Now this isnt a "Omg thats so OP" thread, i am doing fairly well in my PvT's so i don't really think much about it, however i just wanted to see what people think about it. This is a "discussion board" so lets /Discuss
30 per trip for normals and 42 per on golds.. I don't think they should be removed, but for the energy cost I think the spell is way too strong. Probably the most powerful spell in the entire game. Of course I'm biased, because I don't play Terran and get mad when my mutas work the supply line over and m/m keep flooding out. So take it with a grain of salt.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
I REALLY dislike the MULE. Its brute, uninspired, and a cause for all kinds of bullshit T comebacks, like that one.
Logic tells us that if terrans are supposed to get a baseline higher income per saturated mining base, you'd need to make terran units less cost-effective than other units to balance it out. Funnily, T units are among the most cost-effective in the game.
The MULE is somehow involved in the current game balance mess. I for one would like to see it redesigned.
On September 16 2010 17:23 klauz619 wrote: They don't magically pop up minerals and just make you mine out faster, it's just 300 minerals sped up to you.
That's what all is about, if they give you minerals faster then you are at advantage.
If you had no mule at that time you had no ~270 minerals at THAT certain time.
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
You can also forget to Chrono boost or inject larva during/right before a fight, but that will hurt you in the long run, which forgetting about mules wont.
On September 16 2010 17:24 kyarisan wrote: Why can't the orbital command just be... free... but then the mule gives less return?
Because an orbital command has scan too? noone has free detection...and it shouldn´t be free. Mules are kinda op in their current state. Also they are allowing all the terran allins with like 15 scvs where the opponent has to pull his ohn workers and then sit with bad income vs. 4 mule income. In some way they need to be changed but the right way hasn´t come to my mind.
Whether you like it or not, Mules seriously are the only way Terran can keep up with Zerg and Protoss income, without them we'd never catch up.
It's just, later in the game when you have more orbitals or forget to use them for a while, you can call a few down at once and that's more than likely the problem.
I think what they could do, is just have it so only one mule can be out per CC on the field at the same time.
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
Just small correction, you mean PvT, but if you think about it MMM remains good no matter what the Toss is doing. So there is no point in the game when having mules is bad,
In fact, late game, Mules are even better since that's 1 less supply you devote to workers and 1 more devoted to something to kill the other player with.
MULE is the best mineral mechanic on purpose. It's more or less one-dimensional (well, they can repair, but it's not used much and probably not very practical) and it takes away from scans. It takes twice as long to have energy for a MULE as it does for a Chrono Boost (or Larva Inject), and it costs 150 minerals for the Orbital Command (so the first MULE nets you 120-150 minerals as opposed to 270-300).
That Screenshot doesn't really prove much as MorroW may have been saving up/forgetting energy in his Orbitals, and that boost in mineral gain is only temporary.
Chrono Boost can be used to speed up Units and Upgrades, and the Queen is a very good attacking unit, and has other useful support spells.
In BW, Terran had the worst economy as they couldn't "power" SCVs and their workers had to stay put to build something. They always either had less workers (vZ) or lost more mining time (vP).
I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced- I don't actually know (and neither does anyone else outside of Blizzard), but I just wanna make sure all of the cards are on the table before balance discussion even starts. I think it would take a lot more than discussion to "solve" this issue. The only thing I see this topic doing is more stirring up of people who hear something and jump on the bandwagon without thinking about it.
Someone suggested earlier that a player should only be allowed to have 1 MULE at a time per Orbital Command. Makes perfect sense to me. That would be a fairly small change that wouldn't hinder people that are proactive and on the ball about dropping their MULEs. Let's take this small baby step and test it for a month or two and then go from there.
The easiest change which would make the game dramatically more balanced would be to make it so you can only have 1 MULE per Orbital command at a time and make it cost 25 energy. You are then punished for forgetting to call one down a MULE when the first one dissapears and have to do it more, making you change screens.
I honestly can't believe Blizzard thought the MULE and spawn larvae were equally difficult, and Terran macro has almost been optimized as a result.
The Point that many people forget is, that you have to see this as a peek of income. First of all, how many mules did he use? And now think about how long this income will last.
They mine as fast as 3-5 workers(depending on saturation).
Huk's main has mineral fields missing, so it's almost mined out => a lot of the workers weren't doing anything. Morrow isn't mining gas, while huk has 12 workers on gas and he also likely called down multiple mules at once, which creates a burst in his income, but obviously he can't constantly have 4 mules mining with just 2 OCs.
Nerf suggest 1: Command center should be able to upgrade to EITHER an orbital command which have scans, OR a harvesting station which has mules.
Both can upgrade to planetary fortress.
Alternative Nerf suggest 2:
On September 16 2010 17:31 Piy wrote: The easiest change which would make the game dramatically more balanced would be to make it so you can only have 1 MULE per Orbital command at a time and make it cost 25 energy. You are then punished for forgetting to call one down a MULE when the first one dissapears and have to do it more, making you change screens..
I think each OC should have a cool down on mules. Even if its 10 seconds. This would level out the huge spike in income that Terrans can get. It would also stop Terrans from exploiting mass mules on the gold mineral patches. I think that the Terran that never forgets to Mule should get the maximum income, and the Terran who only does his Mules every 3 minutes should get less income.
On September 16 2010 17:31 Dekker wrote: The Point that many people forget is, that you have to see this as a peek of income. First of all, how many mules did he use? And now think about how long this income will last.
So what that it is the peak of his income. Playing Z or P if you lost ton of workers then it's pretty much gg, cause you have no income.
On 3+ bases terran can lose all his scvs and he has still decent chances of winning.
Mules themselves aren't the problem, its just that unlike the other two macro abilities (well at least inject) OB's are extremely forgiving, meaning that even if you dont keep up with your macro you can immediately recover due to popping two or three mules at once. I like the 1 active mule / cc at once idea however am not at a high level so not really my place to call for changes.
Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
Why does blizzard make all terran units so unbelievably good?
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
Just small correction, you mean PvT, but if you think about it MMM remains good no matter what the Toss is doing. So there is no point in the game when having mules is bad,
In fact, late game, Mules are even better since that's 1 less supply you devote to workers and 1 more devoted to something to kill the other player with.
Yeah but they melt to storms and collusus, and the only way to counter those units is with gas units of your own, so MM are beneficial but not usually the deciding factor in battles.
another terran OP thread? of all the things people tend to complain about, mule is really not that much of a gamebreaker. zerg can cover half the map in creep for christ sake.
On September 16 2010 17:23 klauz619 wrote: They don't magically pop up minerals and just make you mine out faster, it's just 300 minerals sped up to you.
SCVs do the exact same thing. They merely give you minerals faster. As in, that's extremely important.
Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
12 mules over the course of the game would have been better than all at once as your economy rises exponentially.
Also 12 mules at the same time in a gold expansion means you waste precious mule efficiency.
This is thread is stupid, all that shows is that the mule mechanic is far more forgiving than chrono or larva because you can spam them all at once lategame and get that 2-3 min of crazy injection.
I think a good solution would be to decrease the Orbital Command energy to 125. That way Terran players are actually punished for forgetting to MULE, but it also gives them the ability to store scans for cloaked units without losing any energy regen.
Of course, that doesn't effect that actual power of a singular MULE, but I think a large part of the problem is the forgiving nature of the Terran macro mechanic. It would be a step in the right direction.
I don't think solutions like forcing a single MULE at a time are particularly elegant personally. It would be better to stick with the same mechanic but change harvesting rate/time/energy cost.
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
I was wondering about this too. . .1 mule isn't enough to give that much of an econ boost. Morrow shouldn't have had that much energy built up in the first place and after his mule time is out his intake went down i'm sure.
It's pretty dumb when people compare the three races. Chrono boost is also pretty good, but it's less obvious.
This is the equivalent to just saving up 200/200 chronoboost and making a ton of units really fast. Yes it seems very good, but it would've been better to just use it earlier.
I do see a problem late game where the Terran can just summon 10 mules at a gold expo, but you cant just directly compare races, you'd have to take EVERYTHING into account.
Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
12 mules over the course of the game would have been better than all at once as your economy rises exponentially.
Also 12 mules at the same time in a gold expansion means you waste precious mule efficiency.
Unlike scvs, up to 2 mules can mine the same patch at the same time, so despite their longer mining time 12 mules at a gold expo is still at max efficiency. They use the same ai as scvs, so the mules will automatically split to one per patch, even though that's actually detrimental, but if you have more than one per patch, they will start "doublemining".
I watched that entire game myself and was pissed off on how resilient MorroW was despite being in such a terrible position. This reminds of me games like BratOK vs Mondragon, 10 scv vs 80 drone zerg and 10scv ends up winning. Something just has to change I think, perhaps making the mule much like spawn larvae, punishing terrans for forgetting to mule for a few seconds.
People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings. T also can't chronoboost out probes or pump drones 7 at a time per base every 40 secs(when its safe)
Edit : that said, I do believe adding a cooldown for MULE definitly won't hurt. That way forgetting it will hurt you, but since you also need energy for scans and you can supply drop with extra energy it's not overly punishing to not do it (similar to zerg being able to transfuse low hp muta or adding a creep tumor when their macro slips)
What you don't realize often is that in SC2, you reach full saturation on 1base pretty quick. The only point where Protoss has an income advantage vs terran is during the first 4-5 minutes of the game. As you move towards full saturation, terran is going to mine more minerals than you every subsequent minute because of the MULE.
The terran macro mechanic promotes aggression with very little economical punishment.
As long as terran can keep Protoss on 1base vs 1base, they will win.
As long as terran can keep being aggressive vs zerg they can match the zerg's income on 2bases with 1base MULE, and then surpass the zerg when they lift out their second Orbital Command to the expo (even if it's a really late expo after 11-12 minutes).
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
but a zerg pumping drones is losing army count for it, a terran is not, thats two disadvantages to one advantage
This is nothing new. The only way to cripple a Terran's economy is to snipe their command centers (Void Rays can do this; Zerg sadly has no equivalent that I know of, as Orbital Commands can just lift off against a burrowed roach snipe).
I saw so much of this tactic in MLG and it pissed me off to no end. Blizzard nerfed SCVs earlier because of completely different reasons, yet thanks to mule, they are still being used in the same manner regardless. That screenshot is just disgusting to look at quite honestly.
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
but a zerg pumping drones is losing army count for it, a terran is not, thats two disadvantages to one advantage
That actually makes them more versatile, it's not a disadvantage unless you suck and make drones while getting attacked and killed.
On September 16 2010 17:31 Dekker wrote: The Point that many people forget is, that you have to see this as a peek of income. First of all, how many mules did he use? And now think about how long this income will last.
So what that it is the peak of his income. Playing Z or P if you lost ton of workers then it's pretty much gg, cause you have no income.
On 3+ bases terran can lose all his scvs and he has still decent chances of winning.
Well the thing is, the terran only actually has a chance if he was bad at his macro, and has a ton of energy saved up. If you take a zerg, that has a ton of larva stockpiled, and 2k minerals stockpiled too, losing all his workers would also not outright cripple him, since he can rebuild 40 of them instantly.
3 base terran with just 3 mules against 3 base toss or zerg with tons of workers, dont kid yourself, the terran is dead. 3 base terran with 12 mules, sure, but thats only cose it was bad macro before. If you have 10k minerals saved up, losing workers isnt such a big hit, but thats also due to bad macro.
On September 16 2010 20:43 Raevin wrote: Many of you are missing the point: When you lose alot of your workers, T has a very easy way to stage a comeback, Z and P dont have this luxury.
Chrono and Larvae is not going to help as much as a couple of mules, its basically a second lifeline to T
yeah but protoss can warp in units ANYWHERE, I think it's overpowered and terran needs a similar feature to be fair, lets spend the next 4 pages discussing this even though the OP clearly said he wasn't concerned about balance issues. ------------------------- ^ now you know what you sound like
This is nothing new. Terrans do this all the time against Zerg. Take 12 Scvs with you in a push that can only be stopped by baning the workers, that Z for some frickin reason is still able to defend, come back 2 mins later because your economy still equals the Zergs.
Mules are (especially in combination with the extremly cost effective units of T) one of the main reasons T is able to produce such strong pushes in the early, and stay on less bases in the mid/lategame.
On September 16 2010 17:53 Scruff wrote: Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
Why does blizzard make all terran units so unbelievably good?
So you let him sit in his base for FIVE MINUTES building units and you think you lost because Terran is OP?
Zerg and Toss can make workers much faster, at the expense of army size. Terran can summon temporary workers, at the expense of detection.
Terran has by far the most restrictive mobile detection unit, and faces two races that have incredibly strong cloaked/burrowed units.
And how do we save energy for 12 mules? That takes 3 orbitals at full energy, which means we're not scanning at all for a very, very long time.
You're whining because another race doesn't work exactly like yours. You're playing the wrong game.
If zerg is at a disadvantage, then fix that, don't call for homogenization of all races just because you can't think of complex balance issues in any other way but "my arbitrary hobby horse issue is obviously to blame".
On September 16 2010 19:56 eNbee wrote:Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
I must have missed the patch notes where mules do anything other than mine out your minerals faster.
Getting more workers faster = getting a temporary worker that does more at a time.
The balance problems in TvZ aren't caused by MULEs, for chrissakes. If you can't out-econ a terran who's not forcing you to one base, you're terrible at Zerg. If you're forced to one base because of mass reapers too early, then maybe you need more breathing room. Which is what's being patched in.
Chrono Boosting out workers and mass producing drones cause of multiple build queues (larva) are offsets to this during the game.
There is no doubt Mules are powerful, maybe a tad too powerful. But consider that when you upgrade the Command Center to an OC Protoss can be like 3 workers ahead once its done if they chrono boost. That's a 20% lead in economy there. Which will shrink over time, but still.
On September 16 2010 20:43 Raevin wrote: Many of you are missing the point: When you lose alot of your workers, T has a very easy way to stage a comeback, Z and P dont have this luxury.
Chrono and Larvae is not going to help as much as a couple of mules, its basically a second lifeline to T
Really? Being able to spawn 14+ drones in one production cycle is not a viable comeback mechanic?
Next thing you'll complain that zerg/toss structures are stuck to the ground, nerf liftoff.
On September 16 2010 17:53 Scruff wrote: Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
Why does blizzard make all terran units so unbelievably good?
So you let him sit in his base for FIVE MINUTES building units and you think you lost because Terran is OP?
Zerg and Toss can make workers much faster, at the expense of army size. Terran can summon temporary workers, at the expense of detection.
Terran has by far the most restrictive mobile detection unit, and faces two races that have incredibly strong cloaked/burrowed units.
And how do we save energy for 12 mules? That takes 3 orbitals at full energy, which means we're not scanning at all for a very, very long time.
You're whining because another race doesn't work exactly like yours. You're playing the wrong game.
If zerg is at a disadvantage, then fix that, don't call for homogenization of all races just because you can't think of complex balance issues in any other way but "my arbitrary hobby horse issue is obviously to blame".
I'm not sure I understand this. How is building a raven restrictive? Or, putting down a missile turret anywhere you like in your base? By not scanning you are simply playing at the capabilities of the other races whom rely solely on units for scouting. That is no disadvantage by comparison in the slightest.
Saving up your energy was the entire point of OP's post. The whole point of the strategy involves saving your energy so you can send your scvs with your force, and then drop mules to keep your previous economy going. This is why the drone argument doesn't hold because while zerg has to spend the time waiting for spawn larva, and then drone production time, and sacrificing unit production, the equivalent terran still has an economy going instantly, and is still producing units. Thanks, but try again.
On September 16 2010 20:43 Raevin wrote: Many of you are missing the point: When you lose alot of your workers, T has a very easy way to stage a comeback, Z and P dont have this luxury.
Chrono and Larvae is not going to help as much as a couple of mules, its basically a second lifeline to T
Really? Being able to spawn 14+ drones in one production cycle is not a viable comeback mechanic?
Next thing you'll complain that zerg/toss structures are stuck to the ground, nerf liftoff.
You can spawn so much if you have minerals for that, right? Terran does not need minerals to get mules.
Realistically you have lost ton of drones after opponent attack, that mean you invested most minerals and larvas into attacking units.
Picture doesn't say it all. How dow we know what the probes are up to? It's only two base, so even if all of them are mining they aren't getting full use because of oversaturation. Also, you do realize it's impossible to keep up scv production with probe production, thereby making the mule a necessity?
wow i really hate mules.. and that screenshot is just disgusting.
Of course, the mule becomes my favorite spell when I'm playing terran. I switched cold turkey and won all my first 5 games using only MMM. It's super easy!
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
'Get it'? Nope, apparently you still don't understand.
Being able to pump Drones faster because of Larvae has absolutely nothing to do with MULEs. In BW Zerg had the same ability and MULEs did not exist.
On September 16 2010 21:23 gillon wrote: Picture doesn't say it all. How dow we know what the probes are up to? It's only two base, so even if all of them are mining they aren't getting full use because of oversaturation. Also, you do realize it's impossible to keep up scv production with probe production, thereby making the mule a necessity?
Just look at the minimap? Or if you are really curious, watch the replay yourself? Lastly, irregardless of oversaturation, having 32 or 48 workers on minerals versus 19 workers for terran obtaining the same income. What do you think of that figure?
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
'Get it'? Nope, apparently you still don't understand.
Being able to pump Drones faster because of Larvae has absolutely nothing to do with MULEs. In BW Zerg had the same ability and MULEs did not exist.
Ye but in BW you didnt have Queens for more larvae/hatch...
On September 16 2010 21:23 gillon wrote: Picture doesn't say it all. How dow we know what the probes are up to? It's only two base, so even if all of them are mining they aren't getting full use because of oversaturation. Also, you do realize it's impossible to keep up scv production with probe production, thereby making the mule a necessity?
Just look at the minimap? Or if you are really curious, watch the replay yourself? Lastly, irregardless of oversaturation, having 32 or 48 workers on minerals versus 19 workers for terran obtaining the same income. What do you think of that figure?
On September 16 2010 21:18 a176 wrote: I'm not sure I understand this. How is building a raven restrictive?
You need to tech up to a starport and then put a tech lab on it. A lot of builds and comps are hindered by putting that addon on the starport.
Zerg mobile detection just requires a lair, something you're going to 100% tech to in every single game, and the build time is negligible.
Toss mobile detection is perma-cloaked, and only requires a robo, a structure that is used in most builds. Can be chrono'd out.
Or, putting down a missile turret anywhere you like in your base? By not scanning you are simply playing at the capabilities of the other races whom rely solely on units for scouting.
Missile turrets aren't mobile detection. Spore crawlers and cannons are almost entirely equivalent so that's not even a relevant discussion.
Scanning is done at the expense of economy. Of course I will scan if needed. Scans are a vital part of terran scouting and detection, and if all we had were starport units we'd be completely screwed.
Saving up your energy was the entire point of OP's post. The whole point of the strategy involves saving your energy so you can send your scvs with your force, and then drop mules to keep your previous economy going. This is why the drone argument doesn't hold because while zerg has to spend the time waiting for spawn larva, and then drone production time, and sacrificing unit production, the equivalent terran still has an economy going instantly, and is still producing units. Thanks, but try again.
Zerg would never use workers in the first place since so many of their units are melee. Toss can most certainly do that.
Likewise, our mineral income might be artificially extended for a few minutes, but we also have the slowest unit production, and we sacrifice a lot of scouting info and detection to build up all that energy.
If the Terran isn't scanning you, and is stacking energy in hopes of an all in with SCVs, then punish that. Force scans, hide tech, harass.
And why is saving up energy for mass MULEs not a viable strategy, if saving larva or chrono boosting armies is?
Why is it a bad thing that terrans can temporarily extend their income, but it's not a bad thing that a Zerg on multiple bases can replace pretty much their entire army in one production cycle?
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
SC2 was in beta for five months...
in fact, this LINK might bring some light into future Blizzard plans for 1.1 patch. As it says in the title, it's unconfirmed, just supposed to be leaked Blizz information
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
lol. how imba would it be if you can control all those units... sc1:bw final campaign any1?
If you've been following the pros play, most top T players are playing a bio style TvP now.
IMO the only problem with MULES is that you can cast them at other expansions. Mathematically, whenever Terran is holding a gold expansion anywhere, all of their OCs on the map automatically become able to generate twice the income, even if they decided to PF the gold. I've played games where opponents have made massive armies out of less bases and almost entirely mined out mains and nats because they spammed 12 MULES down on a gold expo.
It makes it unwise to take a gold in response to or in advance of having a T do the same, and it forces other races in to agression, possibly against a PF, depending on how close the match is.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a timer, a drop in minerals (270 is pretty high), or maybe even a reduced lifespan if they harvest the more valuable (maybe we could say "harder") gold minerals.
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
you're missing a vital point, terran can throw up 3-4 barracs and start pumping marines for that money and their tech doesn't get slowed down one bit, this gives them early pressure, meanwhile the protoss are forced to build an equally strong army with 2 gateways and that costs them money so they can't tech as fast, if they don't the terran will just fast expand same time keeping you from taking your own expansion because they have mapcontrol. and zergs will have to cut back in drones in order to get enough units.
On September 16 2010 21:56 SharkSpider wrote: IMO the only problem with MULES is that you can cast them at other expansions. Mathematically, whenever Terran is holding a gold expansion anywhere, all of their OCs on the map automatically become able to generate twice the income, even if they decided to PF the gold. I've played games where opponents have made massive armies out of less bases and almost entirely mined out mains and nats because they spammed 12 MULES down on a gold expo.
It makes it unwise to take a gold in response to or in advance of having a T do the same, and it forces other races in to agression, possibly against a PF, depending on how close the match is.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a timer, a drop in minerals (270 is pretty high), or maybe even a reduced lifespan if they harvest the more valuable (maybe we could say "harder") gold minerals.
Agreed. Terran are just rewarded so much more than Z and P players for taking a gold. Scouting a T player with a gold and then 5 mins later coming in to attack it, you realise, oh they've mined it out already with mules. -____-"
On September 16 2010 21:56 SharkSpider wrote: IMO the only problem with MULES is that you can cast them at other expansions. Mathematically, whenever Terran is holding a gold expansion anywhere, all of their OCs on the map automatically become able to generate twice the income, even if they decided to PF the gold. I've played games where opponents have made massive armies out of less bases and almost entirely mined out mains and nats because they spammed 12 MULES down on a gold expo.
It makes it unwise to take a gold in response to or in advance of having a T do the same, and it forces other races in to agression, possibly against a PF, depending on how close the match is.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a timer, a drop in minerals (270 is pretty high), or maybe even a reduced lifespan if they harvest the more valuable (maybe we could say "harder") gold minerals.
Agreed. Terran are just rewarded so much more than Z and P players for taking a gold. Scouting a T player with a gold and then 5 mins later coming in to attack it, you realise, oh they've mined it out already with mules. -____-"
Agreed it's a big problem that T can call down mules from 3 orbital commands to a MULE... Maybe they should just put a range restriction on the cast for mule so T can't call MULE from everywhere to everywhere.
On September 16 2010 17:30 Sylvr wrote: MULE is the best mineral mechanic on purpose. It's more or less one-dimensional (well, they can repair, but it's not used much and probably not very practical) and it takes away from scans. It takes twice as long to have energy for a MULE as it does for a Chrono Boost (or Larva Inject), and it costs 150 minerals for the Orbital Command (so the first MULE nets you 120-150 minerals as opposed to 270-300).
That Screenshot doesn't really prove much as MorroW may have been saving up/forgetting energy in his Orbitals, and that boost in mineral gain is only temporary.
Chrono Boost can be used to speed up Units and Upgrades, and the Queen is a very good attacking unit, and has other useful support spells.
In BW, Terran had the worst economy as they couldn't "power" SCVs and their workers had to stay put to build something. They always either had less workers (vZ) or lost more mining time (vP).
I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced- I don't actually know (and neither does anyone else outside of Blizzard), but I just wanna make sure all of the cards are on the table before balance discussion even starts. I think it would take a lot more than discussion to "solve" this issue. The only thing I see this topic doing is more stirring up of people who hear something and jump on the bandwagon without thinking about it.
All these stupid accounting tricks for mules are bullshit. You can't measure the costs like that. The orbital command unlocks many different things. Also, my biggest pet peeve is morons saying a scan "costs" 270 minerals. If a scan costs 270 minerals, then all zerg buildings cost INFINITE minerals since those guys could have otherwise kept mining.
My only real problem with the MULE is that it makes (early) expanding so much less riskier for a terran compared to the other races. You can build the CC in your base, convert it to an OC and immediately call down a MULE in your main therefore giving you an extra 270 or 300(with the return worker trick) minerals. Then you can fly it to your natural and if it is threatened by enemy forces you can just lift off and fly back to base and after the second MULE from it you have paid for the CC+OC already. This coupled with the great cost effectiveness of T units and salvageable bunkers makes for some tough situations.
I don't especially have trouble against Terran players though, I play mostly Protoss/Zerg and all my winrates are pretty equal.
People really need to stop saying that the negative side of the mule is that the base gets mined out faster.. it makes absolutely no sense and everyone should stop saying it.
Every worker you make means your minerals will get mined out faster.. that's the whole point of it. ffs Someone may say that the workers don't die after a while, but that has nothing to do with the point I'm making.
I like my minerals mined out fast, and so should you, thanks.
people need to stop comparing mule with larva/chrono, mule directly boosts economy, regardless of current saturation and without any investment, while the other two boost production capacity, which is still dependant on economy (they potentially can boost your economy after further investment but you are still capped by worker saturation)
Damn I am a Terran player however this discourages me because of fancy things like calling a few mules in battle to auto repair my thors/tanks/banshees I will miss doing this, however it did slightly seem a bit overpowered when super late game I had 12+ orbitals and called in 25 mules to mass repair 10 thors
It'd be kind of neat if MULEs had 5 hp. They'd still be crazy good, but not unreasonably so. If it got to the point where you kill all of their workers and they're left with only MULEs, you could rush and kill them with your workers to finish them off.
I think the most ridicilous example of the power of the MULE was the game between Dimaga and Lucifron in IEM (?) where Diamaga killed ALL of lucifrons scvs and beacuse of MULES, lucifron somehow still managed to comeback and win the game. Sure Dimaga played sloppy but really, that should not be allowed to happen regardless.
Mules need a cooldown. For that matter, so does Chronoboost. Right now these is essentially no penalty for forgetting to use either one--whenever you remember, you can use them right away and make up whatever you'd been missing. They shouldn't be something you can spam
It can be done with Queens too, when you have a lot of hatcheries.
No, a direct comparison would be if Spawn Larva had no cooldown in the same way that Chronoboost and Mule don't. So a Queen could save up a bunch of energy (or forget to use it for a while), then spawn like 30 larva at one hatchery when they did remember by spamming it out.
On September 16 2010 22:03 MoreFasho wrote: Also, my biggest pet peeve is morons saying a scan "costs" 270 minerals. If a scan costs 270 minerals, then all zerg buildings cost INFINITE minerals since those guys could have otherwise kept mining.
Yeah, that's right. A zerg building is worth shit tons of minerals if that drone would get to mine for the whole game and you wouldnt produce another one to replace it, but that's not really how it goes. When it comes to the CC, you choose between scan, a mule or a supply drop. How exactly is it not fair to say that a scan or supply drop costs 270 minerals when people are calling a mule free 270-300 minerals all the time?
There must always be something new to whine about tho, I understand.
Mule isn't OP in the sense people usually talk about them as. They make terran require ~4.5 less workers per OC to stay on equal econ(if scan/drop supply is never used, else less). That isn't OP in any sense, it equals out the econ of the races with zerg having inject larvae and toss having chrono boost on their nexus. Note: this is assuming not oversaturated bases, mule ofcourse becomes more useful in that case(when you have more than 24 workers on minerals).
It gets a bit tiredsome when the discussion always goes down to "you can call down multible mules at the same time, hence it's OP". It's not OP in any sense because of that, since you have had lower econ since you started "saving up" energy on your OC. It just equals the econ out in the end.
What people _should_ be argueing about is the fact that mule allows terran to have 4.5 supply/OC less than the other 2 races spent on workers. This should be the argueing point, if the versitily of inject/chrono is enough to allow terran to require that much less supply spent on workers.
Saving up OC energy is BAD BAD BAD. If somebody unloads for a quick burst of income, that's all it is. A burst. Once all that energy is used up, their income will go right back to normal.
On September 16 2010 22:47 TheNomad wrote: I will miss doing this, however it did slightly seem a bit overpowered when super late game I had 12+ orbitals and called in 25 mules to mass repair 10 thors
its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
It seems people are just pointing out unique race mechanics and qqing over it. Mule spam and the spike in eco is pretty good and makes for good strats and comebacks. I feel the toss equivalent is the ridiculous spike in army units a toss can get off chronoing multiple warp-gates. They are both different and awesome in their own ways, there should be a place for both of them in the game.
If mule spam bothers you so much gets some cloaked units and force T to save energy for scans. Ravens are too weak and expensive/easy targets to be used as reliable detection esp. since they get one-shotted from a 9 range feedback.
Edit: Also what other people have pointed out, if a terran is saving energy for spamming mules on a gold expo he is doing it at the cost of his current economy which IMO is completely fine.
It seems people are just pointing out unique race mechanics and qqing over it. Mule spam and the spike in eco is pretty good and makes for good strats and comebacks. I feel the toss equivalent is the ridiculous spike in army units a toss can get off chronoing multiple warp-gates. They are both different and awesome in their own ways, there should be a place for both of them in the game.
Sure...
but whats the Zerg equivalent.
Oh, thats right, there isn't one, because Spawn larva is the only macro mechanic that can't be spammed.
It seems people are just pointing out unique race mechanics and qqing over it. Mule spam and the spike in eco is pretty good and makes for good strats and comebacks. I feel the toss equivalent is the ridiculous spike in army units a toss can get off chronoing multiple warp-gates. They are both different and awesome in their own ways, there should be a place for both of them in the game.
Sure...
but whats the Zerg equivalent.
Oh, thats right, there isn't one, because Spawn larva is the only macro mechanic that can't be spammed.
Sure it can be. Just do what pretty much every korean zerg does. MAKE ONE EXTRA HATCHERY.
PROBLEM SOLVED. (well not the whole zerg problem, but the ability to unload all your queen energy on larvae even if you miss some)
It seems people are just pointing out unique race mechanics and qqing over it. Mule spam and the spike in eco is pretty good and makes for good strats and comebacks. I feel the toss equivalent is the ridiculous spike in army units a toss can get off chronoing multiple warp-gates. They are both different and awesome in their own ways, there should be a place for both of them in the game.
Sure...
but whats the Zerg equivalent.
Oh, thats right, there isn't one, because Spawn larva is the only macro mechanic that can't be spammed.
Its pretty difficult for zerg to keep up with the macro mechanic I'll give you that. Problem is spawn larvae would be broken (way more than mules and chrono) without cool down. At my level I just make some more hatches in mid game and it works out well. Five hatches off 3 base macro is pretty good and quite forgiving on larva injections and not too hard to get esp. with the mineral surplus that zerg builds up. I also feel zerg would have an easier time if we didn't have those stupid destructible rocks blocking extra bases which are already a few hundred miles away from your main and natural. Its takes so much effort to connect everything with creep them and then T ruins all that hard work within seconds with just one scan and a-move :'(.
On September 16 2010 19:17 LaLuSh wrote: What you don't realize often is that in SC2, you reach full saturation on 1base pretty quick. The only point where Protoss has an income advantage vs terran is during the first 4-5 minutes of the game. As you move towards full saturation, terran is going to mine more minerals than you every subsequent minute because of the MULE.
yes this is precisely the case. In fact, I'd argue that Terran always has a resource advantage over Protoss/Zerg because the MULE is so efficient. For example, at the 5 minute mark, Protoss may have 20 probes while the Terran has 16 SCVs. However, the Terran also has a mule, which is between 5-7 SCVs. That's a major advantage for nothing, considering that it's mining as fast as 5-7 SCVs, but you didn't need to drop an investment other than OC energy for that extra income. Once bases are saturated, the MULE allows for an extra income level over Protoss/Zerg. The problem is only compounded by expansions, since two MULEs give a much better return than two Nexuses making probes.
what i think needs to be done about mules is to give the player a 1 mule at a time per command center limit. terran's macro mechanic needs to be more like zerg's. even though blizzard had no fucking clue what they were going to do with zerg in most aspects, they got the macro mechanic right: something that raises the skill ceiling by punishing the player for not doing it properly.
that's the problem with terran's macro mechanic. it rewards the terran for doing it but doesn't punish them for not doing it. forget your orbital commands exists because you were too busy not doing anything? no big deal, call down 4 mules.
what i like about zerg is that they can't do that. if they miss an injection, they can't double inject a hatchery. they have missed that injection and there is no way to get it back. that's the way terran should be. if they miss a mule, that's it. no making up for it. sure you can spend the energy on scans or supply drops like a queen can on transfusions or creep tumors, but there is still no making up for the most important mechanic. it would also give terran players the incentive to expand. "hey, if i expand, i can get more mules".
i don't have a problem with chrono boosts stacking though. protoss needs more chrono boosts to stack up for more buildings, and what with the warp gate nerf coming up, they're going to be punished if they don't manage their chrono boosts well.
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
I do think that MULEs allow for comebacks that really shouldn't be possible. They tend to cause more aggravation for T's opponent than fun for T, so I don't think it's a good mechanic. A simple cooldown (20 seconds?) would fix everything (presuming it's broken) without changing anything but the late game.
Oh, thats right, there isn't one, because Spawn larva is the only macro mechanic that can't be spammed
Spawn larva is a combination of unit production and drone production. Missing a spawn larva is like forgetting to warp units in from a warpgate for 30 seconds as much as it is like missing a chronoboost. Do you think when Protoss forgets to warp in units they should be able to spam extra units later?
The macro mechanics are very different and serve different purposes and that is why they work differently.
The one change I would like is for orbital commands to spawn with 25 energy. This would mean a delay before you could MULE and you would have to actually choose when to get the OC instead of always getting it asap. It would also make expanding a little bit more painful for Terran.
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
It should be considered that more real units require more supply, so more Pylons/Overlords are needed for workers early on. Very difficult to compare all of those mechanics completely.
Picutre doesn't say a lot when its pretty obvious he's transferring probes.
54 workers doesn't only make 1300 per minute.
Not to mention unless you're going pure hellion marine, which is absolute shit against toss, minerals wont help you when you're in need of gas, since if you're engaging a toss past tier 1, you need gas units primarily.
You'll notice he's mining no gas, right? I'd hate having an army comprised of Marines / Hellions to fight collosi / high templars / whatever that costs gas.
I used to think TL was smarter overall compared to the b.net forums, but I'm seeing a lot of threads like these popping up...
MULES kind of blow as a macromechanic. They're good, but it's no chronoboost or larva inject.
You're actually better off using a lot more scans except in the early game, where it's really necessary to use mules to keep up with the higher worker counts of the other races.
Yeah, that picture pretty much isn't representative of anything. Morrow isn't mining gas, so there's 12 harvesters you have to factor out of Huk's income. Morrow also has 1-2 MULEs that he missed, but is making up for. While it's a nice boost to income, it means he gave up that 5-ish workers worth of mining earlier, and that this income rate is not sustainable. Finally, since HuK's main is more mined out, he is not getting full saturation's worth of income out of it.
It's basically comparing the income of one fully saturated base vs. 2 half-saturated bases--which should be about the same.
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
'Get it'? Nope, apparently you still don't understand.
Being able to pump Drones faster because of Larvae has absolutely nothing to do with MULEs. In BW Zerg had the same ability and MULEs did not exist.
Ye but in BW you didnt have Queens for more larvae/hatch...
No in BW you just had 4+ hatch instead of 1 hatch and 1 queen.
That screenshot is so much biased in everyway possible. The protoss has a really low mineral income/worker, how is that ? The terran, on the other hand, has saved energy like for 2 entire full CC to be able to have so much income and used like 8 mules at the same time. Obv the income is very fluctuating whith mule, like with +300 / -300. I'm sure the person who took the scree nwas really honest and took a median income. Sure. It's not like the T was at half income for the rest of the game when he saved his energy while the protoss chronoed probes to quickly gain a 3 to 2 worker advantage. Nooo, let's not talk about that. Let's just say it's imba, imbaness is the solution of every problem and every loss.
Perhaps my post is overreacting, but reading OP then the first page nearly made me puke. I guess TL is the new official WOW forum. I hope not.
edit : well, obv I didn't read the part when more clever people are posting and are really better at explaining without over reacting than I am.
On September 16 2010 19:14 eNbee wrote: People seem to forget terrans lose mining time by constructing buildings
People seem to forget that zergs lose their workers by constructing buildings
Way to only read half his post.
Way to miss the point.
I read the rest of the post. Zerg can pump Drones faster than other races can make their workers. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with the MULE, and it certainly doesn't justify the idea that they shouldn't be nerfed.
Zerg can pump faster because of their mule counterpart... Get it...?
Anyways mules > *, for econ, which is why it needs a cooldown so at least you have to be on top of it to get that economic advantage. Also remember terrans can't speed up their unit production with their "racial omg special energy ability"
'Get it'? Nope, apparently you still don't understand.
Being able to pump Drones faster because of Larvae has absolutely nothing to do with MULEs. In BW Zerg had the same ability and MULEs did not exist.
And that would indeed be a problem if sc2 was a broodwar port to a new engine. Which it's not. T's are balanced (perhaps incorrectly, I'm not to judge that) around having MULE's.
And also being able to pump drones faster because of larvae has EVERYTHING to do with MULE's. It's zergs counterpart to MULE's......................................
Hi guys! Long time lurker, first time poster here. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and even made a post on the Blizzard SC2 forums about this:
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE There is an EXTREME opportunity cost on forgetting to use Spawn Larvae
Forgot to use Calldown: MULE for a two+ minutes? No problem, spam it on a High Yield base of yours, or whatever base has the most minerals @ it (no need to worry about saturation, MULES mine over SCV's)
Forgot to use Spawn Larvae for two+ minutes? Extreme problem! You're now larva blocked when you need them the most. There is no getting these 'potential' larva back, at all.
How can Terran's go on thinking this is balanced?
Here's what I'm thinking. If you divide the energy price of the MULE by the default energy regen rate (not sure what that number is) you will get the 'effective cooldown' of the MULE (per OC). This is the fastest that you could use Calldown: MULE if you used it as soon as you had the requisite energy at the Orbital Command.
Put this 'effective cooldown' as the actual cooldown on the MULE. Therefore, nothing is changed during the early game (you can still use Calldown: MULE every X seconds, the same that you would be able to before this change), but late game it becomes impossible to calldown 10+ mules on a High Yield base or whatever.
I think this is a balanced solution to the problem. This rewards players for good Macro, and punishes players that forget to Macro.
EDIT: The great Liquidpedia has informed me that the internal energy regen rate in SC2 is 0.5625/second. This means that MULES have an 'effective cooldown' of 88.88 (repeating) seconds (out of game seconds). Adjusted for FASTER game speed (72.5% of out of game time) that is 64.44 (repeating) seconds.
Give MULES a 88-89 (64-65 ingames seconds) second cooldown -> nothing is changed early game -> late game it becomes impossible to spam MULES.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
I've always thought there needed to be a limit on how many you can have out per orbital. Something along the lines of 2 per Orbital. It would just be a sort of internal supply for mules only.
i do not understand the thread. there are plenty of games where protoss could have been behind in workers and they chrono boost the hell out of the nexuses and suddenly they are back even or ahead in worker count...just another terran hate thread it seems
On September 17 2010 02:22 avilo wrote: i do not understand the thread. there are plenty of games where protoss could have been behind in workers and they chrono boost the hell out of the nexuses and suddenly they are back even or ahead in worker count...just another terran hate thread it seems
Nobody said nothing needed to be changed about Chronoboost either. The same thing applies here. The ability to 'forget to macro' and then come back to a full energy Nexus and be able to dump all the energy instantly IS NOT BALANCED. This is the same thing, rewarding bad macro. There needs to be a cooldown on Chronoboost also.
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE
I stopped reading here.
Correct me then. What you said added literally nothing to the discussion.
Edit: Oh you sneaky editor :-P. Okay, so there is an opportunity cost on forgetting to C:M. Although it is extremely negligent when compared to the opportunity cost on forgetting to Spawn Larvae, imho.
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE
I stopped reading here.
Correct me then. What you said added literally nothing to the discussion.
Edit: Oh you sneaky editor :-P. Okay, so there is an opportunity cost on forgetting to C:M. Although it is extremely negligent when compared to the opportunity cost on forgetting to Spawn Larvae, imho.
You can make like 7 drones at once with one base if you build nothing so I'm not sure how to do all the math on this one for OC. You can also use the larvae for troops so you can see why this is tricky.
On September 17 2010 02:12 Bleedorang3 wrote: Hi guys! Long time lurker, first time poster here. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and even made a post on the Blizzard SC2 forums about this:
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE There is an EXTREME opportunity cost on forgetting to use Spawn Larvae
Forgot to use Calldown: MULE for a two+ minutes? No problem, spam it on a High Yield base of yours, or whatever base has the most minerals @ it (no need to worry about saturation, MULES mine over SCV's)
Forgot to use Spawn Larvae for two+ minutes? Extreme problem! You're now larva blocked when you need them the most. There is no getting these 'potential' larva back, at all.
How can Terran's go on thinking this is balanced?
Here's what I'm thinking. If you divide the energy price of the MULE by the default energy regen rate (not sure what that number is) you will get the 'effective cooldown' of the MULE (per OC). This is the fastest that you could use Calldown: MULE if you used it as soon as you had the requisite energy at the Orbital Command.
Put this 'effective cooldown' as the actual cooldown on the MULE. Therefore, nothing is changed during the early game (you can still use Calldown: MULE every X seconds, the same that you would be able to before this change), but late game it becomes impossible to calldown 10+ mules on a High Yield base or whatever.
I think this is a balanced solution to the problem. This rewards players for good Macro, and punishes players that forget to Macro.
EDIT: The great Liquidpedia has informed me that the internal energy regen rate in SC2 is 0.5625/second. This means that MULES have an 'effective cooldown' of 88.88 (repeating) seconds (out of game seconds). Adjusted for FASTER game speed (72.5% of out of game time) that is 64.44 (repeating) seconds.
Give MULES a 64-65 second cooldown -> nothing is changed early game -> late game it becomes impossible to spam MULES.
Why not a cooldown. But if you forget to mule, it's not like you lose nothing. You lose your ability to produce more stuff, while your opponent loses nothing. So yeah, I'm not penalised if I forget to use my mule, except when I'm dead before for lacking units. In fact, I think losing a game can be an acceptable penalty ?
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE
I stopped reading here. You have no idea what opportunity cost is.
270 minerals sooner = more SCV more SCV = more minerals.
-- First SCV built at 5:50 because you had a mule will get 2000 minerals over the rest of the game (let's say)
miss mule = less SCV less SCV = less minerals.
-- First SCV built at 6:00 because you had no mule, will get 1990 minerals over the rest of the game.
Good job, missing mule cost you some minerals.
Lol you fail also, 270minerals DOES NOT always = more scv's
Your hard capped by the production queue. Your always supposed to be producing workers anyways. If your playing Zerg, and there was larva around...then yes 270minerals = more drones.
@ OP the only real gripe with mules I have is that it allows the Terran to have a HIGHER income cap then P and T players. I don't noe the numbers, but each Z and P base are capped with 24 + 6 workers to have a fixed income.
T player income is 24 workers + mules. It means they can support more production facilities off 1 base then P and Z players.
That and T macro just feels like it was designed to be forgiving. If we look at it like "oh 4get to keep building workers? here's some mules" or "supply capped? here's call down supply" OR "don't know what opponent's doing? here's scan". Though I'll admit other than Scans, T players scouting are limited.
On September 16 2010 17:53 Scruff wrote: Mules are fucken ridonkulous. Watch when they save up energy and drop 12 mules on to a gold expansion. Seriously, I once rushed a terran and killed almost every single SCV he had and 5 mins later he raped me with 20 marauder.
Why does blizzard make all terran units so unbelievably good?
Blizzard definitely got carried away with Terran. This has gone ignored long enough, something really needs to be done about this.
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Yes, MULES are as powerful as we think.
A 1hatch1queen Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 CC terran can produce up to 2.35 scv's in 40 seconds. All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculation is a little more in depth, but if you spend the majority of chrono on your nexuses you get nearly double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
On September 17 2010 02:22 avilo wrote: i do not understand the thread. there are plenty of games where protoss could have been behind in workers and they chrono boost the hell out of the nexuses and suddenly they are back even or ahead in worker count...just another terran hate thread it seems
You're the typical Terran that doesn't want his race to be balanced. We all know Terran is imbalanced quit trying to deny it.
the mule is getting a nerf just like chrono boost and inject larva so we dont have things like 4 mules landing on gold minerals at once or something like that which wrecks the game.
Mule isn't OP in the sense people usually talk about them as. They make terran require ~4.5 less workers per OC to stay on equal econ(if scan/drop supply is never used, else less). That isn't OP in any sense, it equals out the econ of the races with zerg having inject larvae and toss having chrono boost on their nexus. Note: this is assuming not oversaturated bases, mule ofcourse becomes more useful in that case(when you have more than 24 workers on minerals).
It gets a bit tiredsome when the discussion always goes down to "you can call down multible mules at the same time, hence it's OP". It's not OP in any sense because of that, since you have had lower econ since you started "saving up" energy on your OC. It just equals the econ out in the end.
What people _should_ be argueing about is the fact that mule allows terran to have 4.5 supply/OC less than the other 2 races spent on workers. This should be the argueing point, if the versitily of inject/chrono is enough to allow terran to require that much less supply spent on workers.
This is basically the same point I wanted to bring up when I read the OP. However, also consider this - it costs the equivalent of 3 workers, and it takes time to build, so you end up losing on worker count compared to your opponent. It doesn't give an edge until you are at near saturation. Once you get to 2+ bases (as well as your opponent), their greater number of workers split between multiple bases will give them a higher efficiency, to even it out again.
If you ever force a T to use a scan, its the equivalent of stopping 5 of his workers from mining for 90 seconds. And T almost always has to scan during the production of their starport (doing most kinds of builds involving a starport, you need to know which addon you need). The way I get around this is doing an early marine or marauder + hellion push (depending on what race I face, and what I scout from them), sending the hellions inside to harass/scout while the marines/marauders keep them busy. It costs me some minerals, but it keeps them away from me, and it allows me to use a MULE instead of a scan (or able to save the energy for if I need it vs DT or something).
The only time you need to worry is when they are using MULEs, with 24 scvs on minerals on 1 base, and are 1-basing you. Because their economy is higher than a one base P or Z, and can punish either race if they expand. Then again, the extra units that can be made are basically just marines and hellions (due to the same gas restriction applied to each race). P has an easier time dealing with this, due to the nature of some of their units. Z really needs to be on 2 bases, even if that means they only have mid 20 workers, because the increased efficiency is making up for the lower number of workers (remember the T has the equivalent of around 30 on minerals, not just 24).
MULEs are way awesome late-game, I'm not gonna lie about that, but I'd usually prefer to use my energy in scans instead (since gas is by far the resource I use fastest). MULEs are far from imbalanced..... And being late on a MULE early on can put your economy behind what it should be, weakening your army at the time..... They can help with a comeback, because they are basically 5 scvs you can't kill, until you kill the OC.....
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Yes, MULES are as powerful as we think.
A 1 base Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 base terran can produce up to 2 scv's per 2.35 SCV's in that time.
All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculator is a little more in depth, but assuming one chrono is spent on a nexus every 40 seconds. (meaning 63% of chrono energy is used on nexus) you achieve approxamately double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
Terran is even maybe even a little ahead early game because of the mule. After saturating the patches with 16 drones being able to make 7 drones in 40 secs is really insignificant; however, the mule continues to add a huge advantage to the Terran economy throughout the whole game with NO CONSEQUENCES if you forget to use the mule. On top of that Terran have the most cost effective units in the game. So if the Z drones too hard, he will get rolled.
Just for the record: Protoss has only 2 bases. With that amount of probes he should have atleast 3, optimal would be 4. And the screenshot happens to be right after the terran called down a whole bunch of mules. Obviously your income while rise high for a short period of time.
Of course mules are still pretty good. But not as good as that screenshot implies.
On September 16 2010 17:23 inF.PrO wrote: lol chroono boost is rly better -.- u can make 2 probe while i make 1 scv and the probe are 4ever -.-
one of the other problems not being said, is those 2 probes are 2 food. so if terran has 40 workers a toss player needs 50-60 to keep up with mules. so at a 200/200 army battle between the two toss is alrdy down 10-20 food just to stay even with the terran's income. i am a zerg player thats why the food from # of workers is more important.
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Yes, MULES are as powerful as we think.
A 1 base Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 base terran can produce up to 2 scv's per 2.35 SCV's in that time.
All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculator is a little more in depth, but assuming one chrono is spent on a nexus every 40 seconds. (meaning 63% of chrono energy is used on nexus) you achieve approxamately double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
I don't know how you play Protoss, but I don't chrono the Nexus all the time. You often want Warpgates Observer Collosi etc. asap to be able to compete.
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
Remember there is a trade off for summoning a mule. After saturation of your minerals yes mules can still increase your income as they can mine on a patch that an scv is already on. But after I am saturated I prefer to save energy for aggressive scanning. Whether that means that I start to push out and scan in front my force to see what he is pulling out to defend against the push or to simply scan his base to see whats there.
Lets pretend that battle where morrow lots all of his scvs was a little closer closer. I think morrow would still feel a little uncomfortable pushing out because of the lack of scan.
I'm a protoss player who tends to have TOO many probes, often reaching 75 per game, and I am always frustrated when a terran who is on 2 bases with 45 SCVs is able to keep up with my 3 bases through good MULE use.
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Yes, MULES are as powerful as we think.
A 1 base Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 base terran can produce up to 2 scv's per 2.35 SCV's in that time.
All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculator is a little more in depth, but assuming one chrono is spent on a nexus every 40 seconds. (meaning 63% of chrono energy is used on nexus) you achieve approxamately double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
Terran is even maybe even a little ahead early game because of the mule. After saturating the patches with 16 drones being able to make 7 drones in 40 secs is really insignificant; however, the mule continues to add a huge advantage to the Terran economy throughout the whole game with NO CONSEQUENCES if you forget to use the mule. On top of that Terran have the most cost effective units in the game. So if the Z drones too hard, he will get rolled.
Yeah, mules are good, and the ability to make 7 drones in 40 seconds is significant, especially considering each additional drone gives a compounded advantage as the game goes on. Z can literally grow economy almost exponentially. It isn't uncommon for a Z player to beat T income by a good 30-40% while matching army supply. There are also many ways to force scans, diminishing the benefit of mules. I honestly think the strongest thing about a mule is that it costs no supply and allows T to sit on 1 base longer.
If you made mules like goblin shredders in WC3 you might make them more viable: you can spam them down on a gold but they'll just sit there collecting minerals until they die and if they die, you lose all those minerals: you'd have to manually send them back to the OC in order to benefit from them. It also rewards raiding a lot cause if you kill mules before the player sends them to dump their minerals, they just lost a ton of potential minerals that they could have mined with scvs as well as the mule itself.
The simplest thing would prolly just be to give them a cooldown which wouldn't change anything for good players and would punish bad players. You could still save for scan and might also help make cdsupply more useful during the cooldown.
CB shouldn't have a cooldown cause it minimizes the strategic element of saving boosts. It's hard enough to spend chrono at like 3 bases as it is.
On September 17 2010 02:54 Impervious wrote: MULEs are way awesome late-game, I'm not gonna lie about that, but I'd usually prefer to use my energy in scans instead (since gas is by far the resource I use fastest). MULEs are far from imbalanced..... And being late on a MULE early on can put your economy behind what it should be, weakening your army at the time..... They can help with a comeback, because they are basically 5 scvs you can't kill, until you kill the OC.....
I think this discussion is mainly about mid-late game. The alleged imbalance only shows itself when:
A: Both players are on one base. Terran can 'oversaturate' using mules. (Early-Midgame) B: Lategame when macro become increasingly difficult. Terran players who forget to Calldown MULE aren't punished enough. Coming back to a high energy OC and being able to dump it all on MULES is almost like rewarding the player for forgetting to macro.
The only analogy I can see fitting here is if Zerg was allowed to Spawn Larvae multiple times on a single hatchery. Do you think that would be balanced? 32 Larva popping from a single hatch all at the same time?
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE
I stopped reading here. You have no idea what opportunity cost is.
270 minerals sooner = more SCV more SCV = more minerals.
-- First SCV built at 5:50 because you had a mule will get 2000 minerals over the rest of the game (let's say)
miss mule = less SCV less SCV = less minerals.
-- First SCV built at 6:00 because you had no mule, will get 1990 minerals over the rest of the game.
Good job, missing mule cost you some minerals.
Lol you fail also, 270minerals DOES NOT always = more scv's
Your hard capped by the production queue. Your always supposed to be producing workers anyways. If your playing Zerg, and there was larva around...then yes 270minerals = more drones.
If you have 5 SCV, 50 energy, and 0 minerals you can get an SCV faster with a mule than without.
B: Lategame when macro become increasingly difficult. Terran players who forget to Calldown MULE aren't punished enough. Coming back to a high energy OC and being able to dump it all on MULES is almost like rewarding the player for forgetting to macro.
The only analogy I can see fitting here is if Zerg was allowed to Spawn Larvae multiple times on a single hatchery. Do you think that would be balanced? 32 Larva popping from a single hatch all at the same time?
Like I have already said just because an OC builds up energy to potentially summon 4 mules at once does not mean that the terran is having bad macro.
Gas is still a limiting factor.
During early game it is critical that your mule timing is on regardless of a gas heavy build or not because it will give you enough minerals to start your first expo. After you have your bases saturated and you are not gearing up to take another atm. It is much more worthwhile to save OC energy for the purpose of scanning.
If I am going a pretty mineral heavy build even though I am not a top of the line player even in late game I am able to throw down mules by the time my OC reaches 60 energy. If I know I need all the minerals I can get then I don't save the energy. IF gas is going to be my limiting factor (as it almost always is) then I will save the energy for that critical scan that could see a tech switch. Or to scan in front of my army as I am pushing out. If my scan ahead of my force sees the opponent moving in to engage me I make sure I start siegeing my tanks in the back so I am not caught with everything out of position.
As for spawn larva stacking I wouldn't have a problem with this even if a change to the mule happened.
There is NO opportunity cost on forgetting to use Calldown: MULE
I stopped reading here. You have no idea what opportunity cost is.
270 minerals sooner = more SCV more SCV = more minerals.
-- First SCV built at 5:50 because you had a mule will get 2000 minerals over the rest of the game (let's say)
miss mule = less SCV less SCV = less minerals.
-- First SCV built at 6:00 because you had no mule, will get 1990 minerals over the rest of the game.
Good job, missing mule cost you some minerals.
Lol you fail also, 270minerals DOES NOT always = more scv's
Your hard capped by the production queue. Your always supposed to be producing workers anyways. If your playing Zerg, and there was larva around...then yes 270minerals = more drones.
If you have 5 SCV, 50 energy, and 0 minerals you can get an SCV faster with a mule than without.
Ok, so you get faster SCVs in a scenario that almost never happens. Big deal.
In most scenarios, your SCVs will bring in 50 minerals before your MULE finishes its first trip.
wish people would stop bitching about chrono boost do you guys realize that chrono boost is kinda like a double edged sword sure we can get units/research faster, but blizz nerfed all the research so that we HAVE to chrono boost it if we hit timing right
compared chronoboosting research to mules is like if blizzard made SCV's mine 4 minerals per trip how would terrans like that ?
also, chronoboosting probes is great but when you reach saturation the advantage is nullified
Yes, clearly MULES are OP, to counterbalance this zerg should be able to morph drones into "uberdrones" for 50 minerals they mine twice as fast and have a morphing time of 10 seconds, also to help with this overlords should get a "deathbeam" that instantly destroys orbital commands with a 10 second cool down to punish Terran for trying to get access to their main macro mechanic. Also to help balance this protoss should automatically get reactored nexi to make up for the terribly OP mule. That should be balanced right?
Seriously though people can we stop with the "terran so OP"
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
Does anyone else find Morrow's posts to be disturbingly... low quality for a player of his caliber? I will admit I've only seen him post twice, but both posts were in balance threads saying that if feature X (1.1 Tanks was the other one, IIRC) of Terran were to be nerfed the race would become unplayable. He also seems to be missing some of the points of the arguments, such as the fact that it didn't matter whether he won that game, just that the MULEs were able to supplement his income to such a huge degree. I'm not saying that he's bad or unqualified, just that there seem to be a lot of missing ideas from his posts here.
OT: The main power of MULEs seems to be their ability to skyrocket Terran income on 1-2 base play. This lets them match Protoss and Zerg players with more bases, and lets them expand later and focus on harass earlier. I wouldn't say it's the core of the problem, but it meshes very strongly with the innate features of the Terran race- extreme harass ability, the versatile and powerful Marine, and strong mineral-heavy static defense- to really boost the strength of certain varieties of Terran play. If, say, Zerg got MULEs, then they really wouldn't be able to abuse them as much, because Zerg is primarily limited by gas. Giant Zergling armies just aren't as strong, and there's no harass Zerg can really rush to on one or two bases to make use of the accelerated income.
On September 17 2010 04:24 Condor Hero wrote: wish people would stop bitching about chrono boost do you guys realize that chrono boost is kinda like a double edged sword sure we can get units/research faster, but blizz nerfed all the research so that we HAVE to chrono boost it if we hit timing right
Probes still have the same build time as SCVs and Drones, and all attack/armor upgrades have the same research time as their Zerg/Terran counterparts. It's extremely presumptuous to say that your tech is balanced in such a way to REQUIRE Chrono Boost when all directly comparable examples indicate otherwise.
On September 16 2010 17:23 inF.PrO wrote: lol chroono boost is rly better -.- u can make 2 probe while i make 1 scv and the probe are 4ever -.-
one of the other problems not being said, is those 2 probes are 2 food. so if terran has 40 workers a toss player needs 50-60 to keep up with mules. so at a 200/200 army battle between the two toss is alrdy down 10-20 food just to stay even with the terran's income. i am a zerg player thats why the food from # of workers is more important.
he is also missing that because you just built 2 probes instead of 1 scv that is 50 minerals that is not currently in your army. this makes it difficult when you are expanding. Should you chrono boost 4 probes or get an extra zealot or something to help hold these two bases...
On September 17 2010 04:24 Condor Hero wrote: wish people would stop bitching about chrono boost do you guys realize that chrono boost is kinda like a double edged sword sure we can get units/research faster, but blizz nerfed all the research so that we HAVE to chrono boost it if we hit timing right
Probes still have the same build time as SCVs and Drones, and all attack/armor upgrades have the same research time as their Zerg/Terran counterparts. It's extremely presumptuous to say that your tech is balanced in such a way to REQUIRE Chrono Boost when all directly comparable examples indicate otherwise.
Tech timings aren't always the same. Protoss unlike Zerg or Terran have very bottom heavy splintered Tech tree, all with long research abilities that are almost necessary, what Storm, Amulet, Thermal Lances and Interceptor rate is to Protoss is much more than than what Yamato/250MM Cannon is to Terran. I think it is almost assumed that a large amount of your chronoboost is meant to go into tech.
It can be done with Queens too, when you have a lot of hatcheries.
No, a direct comparison would be if Spawn Larva had no cooldown in the same way that Chronoboost and Mule don't. So a Queen could save up a bunch of energy (or forget to use it for a while), then spawn like 30 larva at one hatchery when they did remember by spamming it out.
Of course, this would be broken...
Kinda like Mules are broken.
This. Another equivalent analogy is if chrono-boosts stacked on structures so you can dump 4 CB on a templar archive or forge to make the effects cumulative.
On September 17 2010 03:00 Grummler wrote: Just for the record: Protoss has only 2 bases. With that amount of probes he should have atleast 3, optimal would be 4. And the screenshot happens to be right after the terran called down a whole bunch of mules. Obviously your income while rise high for a short period of time.
Of course mules are still pretty good. But not as good as that screenshot implies.
54 - 12 on gas= 42 probes on two bases, 21 per base. seems pretty reasonable.
Honestly I believe chrono boosting probes, spawning extra larva for drones and mules should be removed from the game. I don't really see how boosting your economy this way can be balanced for all races and it's just not an interesting mechanic at all.
Killing off mining scvs is pretty useless especially mid to late game.Terran mines so efficiently that they can even afford to make extra orbital commands in the late game. You're better off sniping refineries.
And mules don't take up any food compared to probes or drones.
These new eco mechanics make one of the more interesting things in Starcraft weak, I mean economic harassment.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
As painful as the spawn larva mechanic is, the queen does have other less-useful abilities to excess energy on. So does the OC.
The nexus only has CB which if you put on a cooldown will make it worse than the current Spawn Larva mechanic.
Screen shot is completely misleading because you don't know how many mules MorroW has called down. Also there is a brief lag between resources gathered per minute. MorroW could have just had most of his SCV's killed like 10 seconds ago and it just hasn't updated
On September 17 2010 04:52 KingAce wrote: Honestly I believe chrono boosting probes, spawning extra larva for drones and mules should be removed from the game. I don't really see how boosting your economy this way can be balanced for all races and it's just not an interesting mechanic at all.
quite simply, removing mule and giving reactor ability to oc
On September 17 2010 04:52 KingAce wrote: Honestly I believe chrono boosting probes, spawning extra larva for drones and mules should be removed from the game. I don't really see how boosting your economy this way can be balanced for all races and it's just not an interesting mechanic at all.
Killing off mining scvs is pretty useless especially mid to late game.Terran mines so efficiently that they can even afford to make extra orbital commands in the late game. You're better off sniping refineries.
And mules don't take up any food compared to probes or drones.
These new eco mechanics make one of the more interesting things in Starcraft weak, I mean economic harassment.
Drones/Chrono boost have a very good dynamic, if you want to replenish your economy then you pay in other aspects. As Protoss you increase the rate at which you tech/Produce units and as Zerg you have to juggle a balance between your army and drones, Terran doesn't seem to have a big disadvantage with Mules.
Chrono Boost DOES NOT double production time, "producing 50% faster" means "reduce time by 33%"
Also, most units and research are designed with chrono boost in mind. most of the research has very long times and are almost always necessary beyond early game before a unit becomes useful (see Colossus without thermal lance or high templar without storm or amulet, might as well have a "kill me" sign). Yes you can chono boost probes, but that takes away from chrono boosting upgrades and army, which is pretty important.
I guarantee you Blizz balances out the early game with MULEs in mind, but the problem is there is no penalty for forgetting to MULE since they can all be dropped at once. Can you chrono boost all at once? sure you can, but you can't chrono a research 3 times faster because you forgot to chrono it at he start, Chrono boost is way more forgiving than inject larva, but still pales in comparison to the utility of a MULE.
Oh...and gold expansions.
Simple fix: Cooldown or 1 per base. It would be ok to have a cooldown as long as the MULE lasts because the CC has other ways to use energy (I have never met a Terran who doesn't use scan). All you have on the Nexus is chrono boost, letting the energy pile up because of a cooldown would pretty much leave you at 100% energy all the time unless you are really on top of things. (It would make it worse than spawn Larva IMO).
Well, some quick facts to your factual screenshot which is taken out of context. A mule is about 4-5 SCV in mining. As you MIGHT have seen, Morrow did pull all his SCV off gas. which is 19 probes on minerals. Plus 4 Mules (it's not like he can call down 4 mules every 30s) working which makes it 35-39 SCV depending on close or further mineral patches. HUK had 12 probes saturating his gas efficiency. so that is 35-39SV vs 40 probes on minerals. So all is fine ... Please check the context before you make imbalance threads. and due to chrono bost a toss can have 4-5 more probes as T has SCV until full saturation of 1 base. So the Mule just makes up for that. When you get a T scanning now he literally loses about 300 minerals.
On September 17 2010 05:12 c0rn1 wrote: Well, some quick facts to your factual screenshot which is taken out of context. A mule is about 4-5 SCV in mining. As you MIGHT have seen, Morrow did pull all his SCV off gas. which is 19 probes on minerals. Plus 4 Mules (it's not like he can call down 4 mules every 30s) working which makes it 35-39 SCV depending on close or further mineral patches. HUK had 12 probes saturating his gas efficiency. so that is 35-39SV vs 40 probes on minerals. So all is fine ... Please check the context before you make imbalance threads. and due to chrono bost a toss can have 4-5 more probes as T has SCV until full saturation of 1 base. So the Mule just makes up for that. When you get a T scanning now he literally loses about 300 minerals.
cheers
Err, I think your missing something here. Morrow was down to 19 SVC's after losing a fuck ton defending, his entire production cycle accumulated significantly more than 19 SVC's, if he didn't lose all those SVC's it's safe to assume that Morrow would have been 15-20 SVC's ahead...
LOL... so having equal income for about a minute is actually better that been able to catch back on workers with inject larva and crono???
Are you guys serious??? P or Z would be able to get those workers back so damn fast yet terran just gets about 90sec of incomen then the MULES die and your still so many workers behind, while P and Z have much more workers...
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
its all well and good to see a pro reply to all of us lowbie newbs, but i dont think your entirely right here yes the game was out of context and yes this discussion is probably over the top, but mules combined with still making scvs is just a little bit over the top at the moment, that will probably get balanced around instead of changed anyway as for compensation, terrans hardly need it since they are the most powerful race as is
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Mules let T be ahead in income of a equal base zerg or protoss all game. Watch 99% of replays and see their income tab. More drones/probes cost minerals, after 16 workers mining efficiency drops in half. I haven't tested but I bet 16 scv's with a mule mines faster then 24 drones or probes. So terran is getting more income and spent 400 less minerals on their economy. That sounds balanced and fair to you?
spawn lavra = completely unforgiving, miss 1 and you are behind chrono boost = nice in theory but upgrades and units have a built in extra build time mules = always ahead in income no real downside for being late on using them, 2 other great alternatives as well.
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
I agree, colossus and high templar are pivotal units in TVT
On September 17 2010 05:22 Dommk wrote: Err, I think your missing something here. Morrow was down to 19 SVC's after losing a fuck ton defending, his entire production cycle accumulated significantly more than 19 SVC's, if he didn't lose all those SVC's it's safe to assume that Morrow would have been 15-20 SVC's ahead...
Did you even read what I wrote? 1st of all: He called down 4 Mules, which is 200 Energy. (OC only regenerated 50/mule lifecycle), so he mined minerals he could've gotten before. 2nd of all: if you check the replay until HuK stopped to continously produce, HuK was ahead 4 probes due to 4 chrono bosts he made. (minute 6 - 27:23 in favor of HuK). 3rd of all: Protoss does lose minor mining time due to building than terran because 1.5 SCV are constantly building something. so we are at 27:21.5 in favor for HuK. 4th of all: HuK had 12 probes mining gas. So he is down to about 40 probes mining minerals. Do you see Morrow mining any? 5th of all: HuKs natural was oversaturated if you check the replay because 2-3 probes were running back and forth, stopping and mining only at 1/3 efficiency.
1 Mule brings in about 5 SCV mining efficiency. Morrow had 4 Mules going. 19 SCV + 20 SCV in form of mules = 39 SCV to 39/40 probes on minerals = EVEN. And to repeat myself again: HE HAD 4 mules because he accumulated the energy before, so he just mined in minerals he could've mined before.
On September 16 2010 17:23 inF.PrO wrote: lol chroono boost is rly better -.- u can make 2 probe while i make 1 scv and the probe are 4ever -.-
Lets not negate the fact that these 4 probes you'll get out of 50 energy, still wont mine the same amount as a mule, and with the 2 scvs you made you'll actually exceed the amount!
Lets not negate the fact that these 4 probes you'll get out of 50 energy, still wont mine the same amount as a mule, and with the 2 scvs you made you'll actually exceed the amount!
totally balanced
Did you yet think about the fact that SCV actually have to be present to build any Terran building? So from the very first supply depot you have most of the time 2 SCV doing nothing else than using a hammer and drill to build new stuff?
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
Does anyone else find Morrow's posts to be disturbingly... low quality for a player of his caliber? I will admit I've only seen him post twice, but both posts were in balance threads saying that if feature X (1.1 Tanks was the other one, IIRC) of Terran were to be nerfed the race would become unplayable. He also seems to be missing some of the points of the arguments, such as the fact that it didn't matter whether he won that game, just that the MULEs were able to supplement his income to such a huge degree. I'm not saying that he's bad or unqualified, just that there seem to be a lot of missing ideas from his posts here.
OT: The main power of MULEs seems to be their ability to skyrocket Terran income on 1-2 base play. This lets them match Protoss and Zerg players with more bases, and lets them expand later and focus on harass earlier. I wouldn't say it's the core of the problem, but it meshes very strongly with the innate features of the Terran race- extreme harass ability, the versatile and powerful Marine, and strong mineral-heavy static defense- to really boost the strength of certain varieties of Terran play. If, say, Zerg got MULEs, then they really wouldn't be able to abuse them as much, because Zerg is primarily limited by gas. Giant Zergling armies just aren't as strong, and there's no harass Zerg can really rush to on one or two bases to make use of the accelerated income.
the player with the most tourney wins since release doesnt want his race nerfed because its all his mad skills and there is no underlying imbalance although, even if the games imbalanced he has to beat other T's id say morrow has a valid point to some degree here, T's biggest balance issues are not mules, because they can be balanced around (similar to how CB has been)
Lets not negate the fact that these 4 probes you'll get out of 50 energy, still wont mine the same amount as a mule, and with the 2 scvs you made you'll actually exceed the amount!
totally balanced
Did you yet think about the fact that SCV actually have to be present to build any Terran building? So from the very first supply depot you have most of the time 2 SCV doing nothing else than using a hammer and drill to build new stuff?
cheers
its 3 probes:2 scvs, just for the record
also; at least terrans get the worker back afterwords *cough zerg cough*
Does anyone else find Morrow's posts to be disturbingly... low quality for a player of his caliber? I will admit I've only seen him post twice, but both posts were in balance threads saying that if feature X (1.1 Tanks was the other one, IIRC) of Terran were to be nerfed the race would become unplayable. He also seems to be missing some of the points of the arguments, such as the fact that it didn't matter whether he won that game, just that the MULEs were able to supplement his income to such a huge degree. I'm not saying that he's bad or unqualified, just that there seem to be a lot of missing ideas from his posts here.
OT: The main power of MULEs seems to be their ability to skyrocket Terran income on 1-2 base play. This lets them match Protoss and Zerg players with more bases, and lets them expand later and focus on harass earlier. I wouldn't say it's the core of the problem, but it meshes very strongly with the innate features of the Terran race- extreme harass ability, the versatile and powerful Marine, and strong mineral-heavy static defense- to really boost the strength of certain varieties of Terran play. If, say, Zerg got MULEs, then they really wouldn't be able to abuse them as much, because Zerg is primarily limited by gas. Giant Zergling armies just aren't as strong, and there's no harass Zerg can really rush to on one or two bases to make use of the accelerated income.
You just said that mules lay eggs with minerals in it and increase the mineral concentration in the patches so Terran have to expand later? I apologize but my experience showed me that the patches are just gone more quickly when a mule nibbled at it.
When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent. A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
MULES are good, and Terran needs them. In terms of power as a macromechanic, it goes
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent.
A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
I was just thinking, the longer a game lasts, are mules not actually a bad thing? Since yes, you'll have the boost in minerals now, but you're going to mine out faster than your opponent and being in a game where you've mined all your bases out, to someone still mining, I think we know how that ends.
On September 16 2010 17:23 inF.PrO wrote: lol chroono boost is rly better -.- u can make 2 probe while i make 1 scv and the probe are 4ever -.-
Lets not negate the fact that these 4 probes you'll get out of 50 energy, still wont mine the same amount as a mule, and with the 2 scvs you made you'll actually exceed the amount!
totally balanced
if chrono boost could only be used on probes, that would be an example of imbalance, yes.
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent.
A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
I was just thinking, the longer a game lasts, are mules not actually a bad thing? Since yes, you'll have the boost in minerals now, but you're going to mine out faster than your opponent and being in a game where you've mined all your bases out, to someone still mining, I think we know how that ends.
Mules never become a "bad" thing. You mine out quicker, but that's fine. You would have gotten the same amount of minerals if you didn't mule.
But, yeah, as you get closer to mining out, the less a mule is really worth. Eventually, I think, it's better to use scans later on in the game and really just mule when you establish a new base, with minerals that aren't close to being mined out. "Mule Xing" or something.
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent. A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
MULES are good, and Terran needs them. In terms of power as a macromechanic, it goes
larva inject >> chronoboost > mules.
But by boosting probes he is sacrificing boosted upgrades and units, so the Terran player should be ahead in tech / army if the Protoss player is 100% chrono boosting probes.
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent. A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
MULES are good, and Terran needs them. In terms of power as a macromechanic, it goes
larva inject >> chronoboost > mules.
But by boosting probes he is sacrificing boosted upgrades and units, so the Terran player should be ahead in tech / army if the Protoss player is 100% chrono boosting probes.
This, because Blizzard decided to make every protoss research and unit take that much longer because of chronoboost.
Ok, lets just set the numbers straight here on Chrono Boost. Each Nexus can CB every 44.44 seconds for a 20s duration (.5625 Energy per second). CB increases production by 50%. This is a 22.5% production boost on one building. Twenty Two Point Five Percent. There is no double production speed or 2 probes per 1 scv, or even 3:2. Now with that out of the way, have fun trying to macro out of multiple asynchronous warpgates (both from different unit timers and CB) without losing build time and microing units and their spells.
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent. A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
MULES are good, and Terran needs them. In terms of power as a macromechanic, it goes
larva inject >> chronoboost > mules.
But by boosting probes he is sacrificing boosted upgrades and units, so the Terran player should be ahead in tech / army if the Protoss player is 100% chrono boosting probes.
This, because Blizzard decided to make every protoss research and unit take that much longer because of chronoboost.
Sometimes I think it's a curse in disguise.
Hmm. Protoss get a research speed boosting ability, so their research times are longer by default. Zerg get movement speed boosting creep, so their units are slower by default. Terran get a mineral boosting ability, and their units have... good cost efficiency? Something doesn't add up here. <.<
That's just a nifty mechanic. If you kill a zerg army, then they can remake it faster than the other races. Protoss can get research done faster with chronoboost, and in a low econ environment, Terran has an advantage. It's the way this game works; all the races are different.
Basically this whole thread comes down to the theoretical situation of a terran spamming mules at a new gold expo, because lets face it that is the one and only situation where mules are possibly OP. Anything before that, mules at the beginning or on 2 bases, is just tit for tat vs. chrono and larva.
If you see the terran spam mules at a gold, here's a thought...that's the perfect time to make use of cloaked/burrowed units.
I'm sure it's been said - toss and zerg can force terran to scan thereby missing a mule opportunity, terran can't really dictate when and how chrono/larva is used.
Perhaps the cloak/burrow units need some tweaking to maybe make mule vs. scan a more serious decision early/mid game ?
On September 16 2010 19:17 LaLuSh wrote: What you don't realize often is that in SC2, you reach full saturation on 1base pretty quick. The only point where Protoss has an income advantage vs terran is during the first 4-5 minutes of the game. As you move towards full saturation, terran is going to mine more minerals than you every subsequent minute because of the MULE.
The terran macro mechanic promotes aggression with very little economical punishment.
As long as terran can keep Protoss on 1base vs 1base, they will win.
As long as terran can keep being aggressive vs zerg they can match the zerg's income on 2bases with 1base MULE, and then surpass the zerg when they lift out their second Orbital Command to the expo (even if it's a really late expo after 11-12 minutes).
This post needs more love since it is absolutely true and is an undeniable problem with MULEs.
Couple this with the fact it provides Terran with the only mechanic that can let them come back from losing all of their miners/base (throw in flying builds to make this even more absurd) shows an obvious problem with the mechanic.
Either put a timer on them, make it so you can only have 1 per CC or decrease the mana of the CC. Idc what you do but something has to be done imo.
Without mules, destroying a terran mineral line would put them irreparably behind. Every counter strategy to terran would involve destroying their scv's because they would be the slowest at reproducing them.
As an aside, which of the terran units/structures has not been claimed as OP?
On September 17 2010 08:19 Duese wrote: Without mules, destroying a terran mineral line would put them irreparably behind. Every counter strategy to terran would involve destroying their scv's because they would be the slowest at reproducing them.
As an aside, which of the terran units/structures has not been claimed as OP?
This doens't mean they shouldn't be changed. Noone is saying take them out of the game, rather limit them in a way that finds a middle ground between "the best macro mechanic in the game at any stage" vs "gimp and useless."
On September 17 2010 07:16 Darkstar_X wrote: Ok, lets just set the numbers straight here on Chrono Boost. Each Nexus can CB every 44.44 seconds for a 20s duration (.5625 Energy per second). CB increases production by 50%. This is a 22.5% production boost on one building. Twenty Two Point Five Percent. There is no double production speed or 2 probes per 1 scv, or even 3:2. Now with that out of the way, have fun trying to macro out of multiple asynchronous warpgates (both from different unit timers and CB) without losing build time and microing units and their spells.
Going by those numbers, Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm only doing some napkin maths
* Chrono boost reduces build time to 66.67% for 20seconds * Nexus can Chrono boost every 44.44seconds, therefore, Chronoboost can be up for 27seconds of every minute
So, Chronoboost, if constantly used on a single Nexus, over 60seconds, reduces the effective build time of all units (assuming constant production) to 85%.
To saturate a single base you need 30scv's. This means it takes Terran 510seconds to real full SVC saturation and Protoss 433.5seconds (slightly quicker or slower depending on how the last 13.5 seconds line up with the Chronoboost). So this means when Protoss reaches full saturation (30 Probes), Terran will have 26 SVC's. So effectively, it's 26 SVC's to 30 Probes assuming constant Chrono boosting on a nexus.
TL;DR : Assuming Constant Chronoboosting on a single Nexus by a single Nexus, SVC to Probe ratio will be 13:15. Assuming 1 mule = 4 Harvesters (180 per 60seconds), Mules dwarf the contribution of constant Chrono boosting on a nexus for Probe production (not using a single Chronoboost on tech, only Nexus, everytime it's up)
On September 17 2010 08:56 fueNN wrote: do not forget the build-time of the OC, dunno about numers, should be pretty much two probes
Yeah I purposely left out things like loss of mining time due to SVC's building, Orbital command build time, etc, mainly because I'm assuming chrono boost is used non stop on the nexus. If you assume 50% of the chronoboosts are used then the ratio is like 14 svc's to 15 Probes, the first Mule that comes down pretty much does x4 the work of Chrono boosting a single nexus 50% of the time over 8mins~...
On September 16 2010 23:34 MorroW wrote: its funyn u take that game as example because i fell behind insanily hard barely survived and then lost the game miserbly. i never got back into the game with the mule i just made the game last longer while i had so big disadvantage
chrono boost and spawn larva lets u get out workers alot faster and i think thats better than the mule because the mule is always a set number of minerals while squeezing out workers faster multiplies in effectiveness :p
ppl r really overdoing the mules "imbaness" i hope u realize if u nerfed it it would turn terran matchups so hard for terran because the mule actually gives that much
mule nerf would be nice for gameplay imo but they would be forced to compensate it with other things for the terran race
Does anyone else find Morrow's posts to be disturbingly... low quality for a player of his caliber? I will admit I've only seen him post twice, but both posts were in balance threads saying that if feature X (1.1 Tanks was the other one, IIRC) of Terran were to be nerfed the race would become unplayable. He also seems to be missing some of the points of the arguments, such as the fact that it didn't matter whether he won that game, just that the MULEs were able to supplement his income to such a huge degree. I'm not saying that he's bad or unqualified, just that there seem to be a lot of missing ideas from his posts here.
OT: The main power of MULEs seems to be their ability to skyrocket Terran income on 1-2 base play. This lets them match Protoss and Zerg players with more bases, and lets them expand later and focus on harass earlier. I wouldn't say it's the core of the problem, but it meshes very strongly with the innate features of the Terran race- extreme harass ability, the versatile and powerful Marine, and strong mineral-heavy static defense- to really boost the strength of certain varieties of Terran play. If, say, Zerg got MULEs, then they really wouldn't be able to abuse them as much, because Zerg is primarily limited by gas. Giant Zergling armies just aren't as strong, and there's no harass Zerg can really rush to on one or two bases to make use of the accelerated income.
People confuse being a top player for being smart. There is no correlation between the two.
Anyway I think the mule is far more complex than people make it out it be. It effects so many varying factors that it's not even funny. They should just remove all the macro mechanics and implement proper maps in the ladder. Then the game will be sorted.
u guys see that massive wall of his posts dug up by LaLusH? In beta he whined with the best about pretty much everything he could.
now he just harps on about how Z players just need to practise more, there's nothing wrong with terran, and any nerf will make them unplayable, unless balanced with a simultaneous buff.
are you sure HuK wasn't transferring workers at that point? if he was then it would only make sense... to be honest i cant believe that having 18 harvesters could beat 54... i really think HuK was transferring a lot of workers at that point where the screen shot was taken.
On September 17 2010 10:41 TheTeamLiquidTiger wrote: every race has a special ability, chrono boost, mule, and extra larvae. i think mule is hte most economic, but the other two are equally useful
the issue is that if zerg miss an inject, too bad. need an army? oh sorry u forgot to inject, gg.
terran: zomg i haven't used any mules from my 2 bases in like 3 minutes!
On September 17 2010 10:57 PaPoolee wrote: are you sure HuK wasn't transferring workers at that point? if he was then it would only make sense... to be honest i cant believe that having 18 harvesters could beat 54... i really think HuK was transferring a lot of workers at that point where the screen shot was taken.
From TL wiki
*Three SCVs on one mineral patch harvest ~102 minerals per game minute. This is fully saturated and does not depend on distance.
Three SCVs on gas harvest 101-114 gas per game minute, depending on distance. In the case of far-diagonal gas placement you will need 4 SCVs for full saturation.
1320 minerals per min / 102 = ~39 Harvesters 480 gas per min / 101 = ~12 Harvesters
Total = ~51, the distances of the mining nodes could easily swing +3/4 Probes
EDIT:
19 SCV's = ~657minerals per min 4 Mules = ~720 minerals per min
On September 17 2010 10:41 TheTeamLiquidTiger wrote: every race has a special ability, chrono boost, mule, and extra larvae. i think mule is hte most economic, but the other two are equally useful
the issue is that if zerg miss an inject, too bad. need an army? oh sorry u forgot to inject, gg.
terran: zomg i haven't used any mules from my 2 bases in like 3 minutes!
*drops 8*
Well think about it this way. If you kill mules, or force terran to use scans, you're making him lose mules. They can't really do that to queens. That's energy wasted as well.
If you contaminate a chronoboosted building (or focus it down with stimmed marauders), that's a chronoboost wasted.
There are ways that it all evens out.
The difference is that for zerg, how much energy gets wasted depends on how good the user is, while for the other two races, it depends on how good the opponent is.
LastShadow brings almost all his scvs into the fight and after the fight both players are broken. LastShadow drops some mules and just pulls so far ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if Terran start playing this into their favor more.
Here's my proposition: Make it so that you can only have 1 mule per CC at a time... That way it would punish poor macro a little like the injection macro with zerg. It wouldn't nerf early game as most player remember to put them down but rather late game.
Isnt like like terra has the hardest fight/military mechanics so therefore their eco ismore forgiving? If u get a little drop and u are out of posi ur fucked toss has warpgate and zerg queen and creep. If u forget a uprgarde ur fucked toss can just chronoboost it... If u dotn make units out of ur production facilities constantly ur fucked zerg can stockpile up to 3 or 4 laerva perbase they onlyhave to watch at one building to know if they have tobuild sth or not if u inject constatnly as zerg u can afford it to forget some drones casue afterwards u jsut spam 14 at once
Edit: As terra u have to precounter ur oppontent much more then with the other races cause neither cant warp in critical units instantly neither can u place 1scout at ur opponents ramp and by the timehe pushes out u can respond within 30 sec with atleast 14 more critical units
Every race has its ups and downs and to compare the weaknees of 1 race to the strong point of the other is sensless exept u want 3 races wich play exactly the same and only look diffrent
On September 16 2010 17:35 Nytefish wrote: Mules should cost supply
+1
I think this is an awesome idea. We don't need to tweak the mechanics of nerfing MULEs in the sense of cooldowns, extra energy costs, or strictly limiting x per base... but a Terran should be able to afford (supply-wise) to create them. When they break down, the supply vanishes too. When you're maxed at 200, you can't make MULEs. Besides, when you have a 200/200 army, you really don't need an influx of minerals anyway.
MULEs = 2 supply each. Bam. Super easy tweak, IMO. Not game-breaking, doesn't screw up other orbital command abilities, and is a viable nerf imo.
On September 17 2010 02:30 Wr3k wrote: Keep in mind chrono and inject allow P and Z to produce workers literally twice as fast as T, so in reality its not as powerful as you might think.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You do realize, at least in Zergs case, that larvae have to be split between:
1: Drones 2: Combat Units 3: Supply (Overlords)
Correct? And then Drones have to be split again between harvesting and building creation.
Yes, MULES are as powerful as we think.
A 1hatch1queen Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 CC terran can produce up to 2.35 scv's in 40 seconds. All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculation is a little more in depth, but if you spend the majority of chrono on your nexuses you get nearly double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
So wait... Getting an expansion increases production Capacity? Really? Only for Zerg right?
One thing you guys are forgetting is that SCVs are needed to build buildings for Terran. I don't know if that makes a huge difference, but I just want to know how big of an impact it is.
I feel like mule deserves a cool down of at least 40 seconds. Spawn larvae has a cool down so why shouldn't mule? You can stack resources the same way you can stack larvae. Think of stacking spawn larvae as a cushion for the restraints of the ability (resources and apm restraints). By nature the only restraint to mule is an APM restraint so it really doesn't need this cushion to begin with.
On September 17 2010 02:52 Wr3k wrote: A 1hatch1queen Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 CC terran can produce up to 2.35 scv's in 40 seconds. All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculation is a little more in depth, but if you spend the majority of chrono on your nexuses you get nearly double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
I sincerely doubt you have ever played zerg, because the entire game is knowing when you can drone and when you can't
Here is another major flaw Blizzard didnt see it would come one day. Nexus only having 1 ability (Chrono Boost).
In my opinion, Chrono boosts are fine the way it is. It determines Protoss' strategy and the path they want to take.
They can decide to pump out probes or chrono boost multiple gateways to apply early pressure. By adding cooldown, it makes Starcraft 2 less tectic than it is already...
Just give Nexus an additional ability with a cooldown which is significant compare to Chronoboost.
If you made mules cost supply, it could help make calldown supply more interesting when used in conjunction with it.
Ive often thought that mules should be nerfed and calldown supply buffed. Perhaps it actually lets your supply depots have more health +150% health and 100% supply, so you can choose to use them at walls for some extra beefiness. Maybe make them lose armored attribute?
It's not "making an opponent waste a scan," it's them choosing tactical information over resources. As far as OC and Nexus ability changes, I would love scan to not detect, or a Nexus ability that only detects (like scan, but only detects no vision).
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
Not true, that's assuming that Morrow had spare production buildings idle.
Yes it's the fact that any1 can throw down six mules at once after they're neglected that I have a gripe with. You can't go around missing inject larva and just inject 6 times.
Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
On September 17 2010 10:41 TheTeamLiquidTiger wrote: every race has a special ability, chrono boost, mule, and extra larvae. i think mule is hte most economic, but the other two are equally useful
the issue is that if zerg miss an inject, too bad. need an army? oh sorry u forgot to inject, gg.
terran: zomg i haven't used any mules from my 2 bases in like 3 minutes!
*drops 8*
Pro players shouldn't have huge macro problems like that, and the game shouldn't be balanced around casual players, so I fail to see the 'issue'.
The MULE was a really stupid idea from the outset. It has none of the finesse and element of choice of chrono boosting, all the mindlessness of larvae injecting, and double the strength of both.
I don't like mules because terran can cheese with almost equal income. It's friggin riduculous cause when your dealing with chese you don't have the money to use chronobosst to up your income. Also the save up in late game. Spawning 12+ mules on a fresh expo is ridiculous. You can literally mine out a gold expo in 5 minutes.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion for their mistakes.
One thing I hate about the mule is that it makes terran 200/200 to be more potent, as terran needs less scvs, where as the zerg macro mechanic actually makes the zerg 200/200 less potent as queens take up supply.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
Except it IS a big deal because forcing players to MULE every time takes everything out of the whole scan vs MULE idea. MULE is more than fine. The whole 'T is super OP' bandwagon gets more and more ridiculous everyday. Pretty much every unit and every mechanic is complained about now.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
well.. when those mules die he's going to still be down about 20 workers. Mules are a temporary boost, thats all, as other posters said, the gas is the most important.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
That argument is incorrect and based on either faulty logic or understanding of the race. You are just assuming that you always want to call down a mule on 50 energy like a robot. Which is not at all always the case. There are plenty of situations, especially in TvT where you want to save up energy for scans, then if you realize that you do not need the scans you call down two mules.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
Except it IS a big deal because forcing players to MULE every time takes everything out of the whole scan vs MULE idea. MULE is more than fine. The whole 'T is super OP' bandwagon gets more and more ridiculous everyday. Pretty much every unit and every mechanic is complained about now.
In relation to your supply depot comment I believe they are pretty op. Terran is the race with the most power to be aggressive early and the most power to turtle and because of the lowering and dropping of supply depots they can do both. It's kinda ridiculous.
Also about people in this thread commenting about how gas is the game decider, that is only true for P/Z. Remember, not only do you have the crazy strong marines you have _another_ mineral dump in the hellions. Marine hellion can kill a lot of units.
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
Woah, calm down there, mate. He's entitled to his own opinions, and your entitled to yours. I'm sure that we don't have to resort to personal attacks against someone's age to get a point across. And you know...I'm pretty sure he has a point about the whole hysteria thing going on. Being a zerg player myself, I'm rather annoyed at the number of people fussing about imbalance when the replay clearly shows that they lost because, well, they weren't as good a player.
I'm going to reiterate the point made many times beforehand, and state that a cooldown on MULE would be fantastic. It would allow good players to keep up a steady stream of MULEs while preventing them (or lesser players) from spamming MULEs at a new expansion or one recently shut down by well-managed harass. It just makes it so much less rewarding to kill SCVs with mutas when the terran player doesn't even take an economy hit because of all the MULEs he just whipped up out of nowhere.
The number of minerals it gathers, however, can most likely stay the same. The same number of minerals gathered off of one base in the end remains the same, so if you keep him contained he'll just run dry before you do in the end.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
Yeah because that wall of rant you just typed up was not bm at all I am just calling it as I see it if that pinches a nerve for you then I suggest you grow a thicker skin or stay away from the internets.
The fact is the following, there is ONE widely accepted imbalance at the moment that is really agreed upon at the higher levels of play and that is that terran is possibly too strong against zerg in the early game. It is questionable if this is the case in the mid game and it most definately is not the case in the late game.
This fact combined with these forums and a lot of people who do not understand rts games has led to a group psychology effect where everyone is looking for imbalances that are not there, and then making simplistic comparisons of single game elements like trying to compare the marauder and the stalker to conclude that the marauders i op. An obvious futile exercise since a game like sc2 is balanced through the greater whole and not unit for unit. If thats what you want then I suggest you play warcraft 2.
Furthermore it has led to a lot of mediocre players to suck this imbalance thing up and start to blame it for all their losses. You see it all the time on the ladders, zerg players who actually played horribly or did very basic mistakes but end up blaming the tanks for their loss later on because they read on team liquid that terran is op.
It gets even more ridiculous when protoss players who loose in the late game whine over how marauders are too strong when most high level players right now are leaning towards protoss being slightly overpowered in this matchup in the later stages of the game.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
That argument is incorrect and based on either faulty logic or understanding of the race. You are just assuming that you always want to call down a mule on 50 energy like a robot. Which is not at all always the case. There are plenty of situations, especially in TvT where you want to save up energy for scans, then if you realize that you do not need the scans you call down two mules.
A cooldown just dumbs down the gameplay.
On September 17 2010 14:06 VanGarde wrote:There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
On a more serious note, that's exactly why it needs to have a cooldown. It's pretty silly to be holding on to that energy for scans and then after realizing you don't need to scan, you can dump all that energy into MULEs. Effectively, there is no opportunity cost for that action when there should be an opportunity cost for everything (everything I can think of anyways) economy related in the game. Infrastructure now or SCVs now? Setting yourself up for the mid and late game is very important but that importance for Terran is minimized because of the MULE. It lets them do whatever they want then recover economically. If they play for the mid/late game, then it lets them pull ahead of the other two races even more.
Also, what's wrong with being a "robot" and making the Terran player call down a MULE every 50 energy? Try to back up your points with some valid arguments rather than just saying that people shouldn't have their own opinions.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
That argument is incorrect and based on either faulty logic or understanding of the race. You are just assuming that you always want to call down a mule on 50 energy like a robot. Which is not at all always the case. There are plenty of situations, especially in TvT where you want to save up energy for scans, then if you realize that you do not need the scans you call down two mules.
A cooldown just dumbs down the gameplay.
Isn't that where the problem is though? If you add-on more CC's these choices are easier to make (imo). You have more scans/Mules available to you. You can purposely save one CC worth of scans. and one for mules as both are castable anywhere on the map.
If we look at Zerg, every hatch+queen requires those extra apm to maintain top efficiency. Missing an inject larva means you'll have less larva. Even at the later stages of the game, planting a creep tumour in base has less effect the later the game goes on.
Mule really is a boring subject when people aren't logical.
1 Mule per CC would never work, since it punishes you way to greatly while the energy of OC has very limited versatility(compared to inject/chrono).
Making Mule cost supply *could* work, but there would need to be some tweaking to counter it, such as "You can go over supply cap while using mule", meaning that existant mules limit your army while existant army doesn't limit mules(one idea of tweak). (chrono is usable on tech while at 200/200 aswell as inject on hatch).
On September 17 2010 02:52 Wr3k wrote: A 1hatch1queen Z can produce up to 7 drones per 40 seconds. A 1 CC terran can produce up to 2.35 scv's in 40 seconds. All Z has to do to beat T scv production is spend ~40% of their larva on drones. You also neglect the fact that Z will likely be up one base. So yes, the worker production rate is significantly larger for Z.
With P the calculation is a little more in depth, but if you spend the majority of chrono on your nexuses you get nearly double the worker production rate.
Yes, mules are good, but they are by no means better than chrono or spawn larva.
I sincerely doubt you have ever played zerg, because the entire game is knowing when you can drone and when you can't
His point is still valid. It's rather hard to compare racial differences(in this case mainly due to overlord/drone dieing when building), but if you always make drones from your hatch larvae production, use your first inject for only drones(per hatch) and the rest of the game you use larvae from inject only for OLs/units, you will have similar econ. For toss you need to CB to provide you with 2.5 extra probes from the nexus(since OC takes 35sec meanwhile toss gets up 2 probes). 2 CBs give you 1 extra probe, so 5 CBs(3.7min time to get that energy) you should be equal in econ to terran and any extra CBs on the nexus will put you ahead on econ(if CB was to be used only for nexus, toss could produce 22.5% faster workers). Note: This is not assuming oversaturation(more than 24 workers on minerals). In which case of course Mule is undeniably strong(but there's not much blizz can do about that i believe). Note#2: The cost of drones/probe is hard to calc, but it somewhat equals out due to 150 mineral cost of OC. At the same time zerg has to get a queen, but then again that is a unit which has uses beyond just macro.
Another note for all the toss/zerg out there. There can be tactical decision for having over 100 energy on OC. There are many builds out there that wait with muling especially to be able to scan in case of DTs and therefor stall until detection is out.
People in general are acting like mule's don't 'die' in 90 sec. The mechanic of the mule is great for calculations(since 50 energy takes ~90sec to replenish).
Up until 200 energy(aka energy cap) your OC provides you with 3 minerals/sec(norm worker provides ~0.66 minerals/sec). That is all. The number does NOT go above that even if you see 200 mules come down.
On September 17 2010 10:41 TheTeamLiquidTiger wrote: every race has a special ability, chrono boost, mule, and extra larvae. i think mule is hte most economic, but the other two are equally useful
the issue is that if zerg miss an inject, too bad. need an army? oh sorry u forgot to inject, gg.
terran: zomg i haven't used any mules from my 2 bases in like 3 minutes!
*drops 8*
They should make that you can only have 1 mule per CC... it would be similar to zerg's punishing macro mecanics... Or they should make that you can inject multiple time the same hatchery. Because if you think of it, both Protoss and Terran macro mecanic is pretty forgiving.
Okay. Protoss nexus's every 45 seconds fuze 270 minerals out of the nearest mineral patch. In return, Terran gets drop pods for infantry units. I like that.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
You do realize that you can wall off with every Terran building that can fly jsut as easily and just like back in broodwar?
Not sure if this was already mentioned... but if Morrow really lost a ton of SCVs then the equal income was probably created by him missing some a few mule cycles and throwing down like 3-4 at once...giving him equal income for only a short period of time.
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
Woah, calm down there, mate. He's entitled to his own opinions, and your entitled to yours. I'm sure that we don't have to resort to personal attacks against someone's age to get a point across. And you know...I'm pretty sure he has a point about the whole hysteria thing going on. Being a zerg player myself, I'm rather annoyed at the number of people fussing about imbalance when the replay clearly shows that they lost because, well, they weren't as good a player.
I'm going to reiterate the point made many times beforehand, and state that a cooldown on MULE would be fantastic. It would allow good players to keep up a steady stream of MULEs while preventing them (or lesser players) from spamming MULEs at a new expansion or one recently shut down by well-managed harass. It just makes it so much less rewarding to kill SCVs with mutas when the terran player doesn't even take an economy hit because of all the MULEs he just whipped up out of nowhere.
The number of minerals it gathers, however, can most likely stay the same. The same number of minerals gathered off of one base in the end remains the same, so if you keep him contained he'll just run dry before you do in the end.
'lol i'm usually calm. He actually attacked the majority of posters in this thread by labelling them as "wannabe-game designers who have no clue" or accused them of just jumping on the 'bandwagon' for no reason. He actually posted nothing constructive in his post other than downright degrading other posters.
If that's his 'opnion' than my opinion is stated in my post.
Your last point (imo) is wrong. I would rather mine out my base first and have those minerals in the bank. An extreme example would be, wouldn't you rather be mined out at the start and have all those minerals in the bank?
On September 17 2010 10:41 TheTeamLiquidTiger wrote: every race has a special ability, chrono boost, mule, and extra larvae. i think mule is hte most economic, but the other two are equally useful
the issue is that if zerg miss an inject, too bad. need an army? oh sorry u forgot to inject, gg.
terran: zomg i haven't used any mules from my 2 bases in like 3 minutes!
*drops 8*
They should make that you can only have 1 mule per CC... it would be similar to zerg's punishing macro mecanics... Or they should make that you can inject multiple time the same hatchery. Because if you think of it, both Protoss and Terran macro mecanic is pretty forgiving.
The only reason you can't inject same hatch multiple times is because of the queen. If the ability of inject would be on the hatch itself(such as an upgrade or something like OC) there would be no reason not to have multiple injects at same time... If only... :/
On September 17 2010 14:02 AssuredVacancy wrote: One thing I hate about the mule is that it makes terran 200/200 to be more potent, as terran needs less scvs, where as the zerg macro mechanic actually makes the zerg 200/200 less potent as queens take up supply.
Everything has its up and downside and is not the same. We have three different races here, if you remember. Mules don't take up supply, larva stacks (not the ability on the hatchery yes, but the larva spawned from it).
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
You can also forget to Chrono boost or inject larva during/right before a fight, but that will hurt you in the long run, which forgetting about mules wont.
yea it will... getting money sooner is always going to be better.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
You do realize that you can wall off with every Terran building that can fly jsut as easily and just like back in broodwar?
Lol but any building that's lifted-off can't produce. So if you'd make a rax (cheapest lift-able building) your still down 150 if that's it's sole purpose. also, landing buildings in time is inherently twice as slow as unburrowing supplies (2 clicks vs 1 click). lol I should edit and say that example was just for 'lols'. It was sort of a post to show him how to present an argument. The one I quoted just flamed every1 in the thread prettymuch.
On September 17 2010 13:49 VanGarde wrote: Nerfing a core economy mechanic like the MULE would be the dumbest thing blizzard could do at this point in the game. Anyone who do not realize just how huge the effects are even from slight changes to economy mechanics should get off balance discussions right now.
From a design point of view it would be completely pointless to nerf the mule because the effects would be so wide and across the entire length of the game that it is nearly impossible to analyze it correctly.
But anyway, its really entertaining to see how zerg having issues with terran early game can cause this mass hysteria where everyone is seeing the devil around the corner. Suddently every single terran unit/building is OP. I just await the threads on how supply depots are imba now.
There are unfortunately way too many wanna-be game designers on these forums who sadly do not understand how the game works even at the most superficial level.
The great thing about implementing a cool down on the mule call down ability is, you never have worry about this argument. Just remember to call down your mules on time and everything is returned to status quo. The player still has 100% control over any short-comings. So no, the effects would not be wide-spread, it would simply place more onus on the player to perform instead of providing them with a huge cushion huge for their mistakes.
That argument is incorrect and based on either faulty logic or understanding of the race. You are just assuming that you always want to call down a mule on 50 energy like a robot. Which is not at all always the case. There are plenty of situations, especially in TvT where you want to save up energy for scans, then if you realize that you do not need the scans you call down two mules.
A cooldown just dumbs down the gameplay.
Making the decisions and planning more difficult is not dumbing down the game-play, it's creating more strategical depth. Every 50 seconds the terran player would be forced to think about if they need a scan at the very moment, or if they are going to need any scans in the near future. The tension forces the player to be a better decision maker and a better planner than "LOL I got mules or scans for days, no decision making or planning until the issue is forced".
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Different races are different.
For fuck's sake, Starcraft is a game of ASYMMETRY.
Zerg morph workers into buildings. Terran workers stand there and build. Toss workers just start the warp in and go on their merry way.
Toss can wall off completely just fine, because warp gates let them spawn units anywhere on the map with pylon power. Not that you need to wall off completely in the first place, since you can use very strong melee units (something that Terran doesn't have) to block any early ling or zealot pressure in the gaps. Mid-game, you have force fields.
Zerg can't wall off at all because all their units are spawned at their town hall. In turn, zerg gets Creep, which gives them a really massive home ground advantage.
Races also differ in their production methods. Zerg are highly reactionary and can produce 20 mutalisks just as easily as 20 roaches, all from the same larvae. Protoss mech and air have build times but their varied infantry and casters are all spawned instantly anywhere on the map via warp gates, in whatever combination required. Terran are the least reactionary, due to every one of their units having a build time.
This is why they are also the most defensive and turtle-oriented, and why zerg are least defensive - zerg can reinforce entire armies in one production cycle while terran needs to spend multiple production cycles to pump out the same number of units. Protoss is somewhere in between, since they can always warp in units to defend or reinforce.
For vision and mobility, zerg are by far ahead of every other race by design. Their food buildings are flying units that can be spread around the map for vision. Creep removes fog of war at zero mineral cost (only queen energy) and greatly boosts unit speed. When zerg has map control, they don't use fortified positions but rather control territory with the thread of multi-pronged, fast reactions to anyone entering. Protoss are again a middle ground, in that they can use relatively small, mobile forces to control territory and reinforce them through pylons placed in key locations. Protoss vision is nearly a map hack until the enemy has detection. Terran has by far the poorest vision of the map, and map control is achieved by entrenched positions and chokepoints. Which is why they're good at turtling.
This is what makes the game good. This is why Starcraft was a revolutionary RTS. If you're pining for an RTS where all races can do the same crap, only with different graphics, then please delete your SC2 folder now.
However, pic is misleading. The mineral intake rate is inflated for a period of time. It isn't like that 100% of the time. It's better to take a game long average. If you look at resource collection rate graphs vs terrans you notice they're graphs are far mar jagged. Even then the best quality of mules isn't their faster mining rate, but the fact that you can still use them 100% efficiently regardless of how many workers on a mineral patch which tips the scales in their favor when both armies are close to full saturation. It is also in some ways to make up for the fact that terrans lose mining time on workers having to build stuff.
The spamming MULE on gold expansion is broken. Yes you pay a little risk by not using them before hand but the enormous reward is well worth it.
Basically little risk massive reward. It is simply too powerful the way it currently is. Every OC basically becomes a partial gold expo once you control one because they all concentrate their MULE on the gold expo.
Also Terrans are able to mine more per saturated base than other races. Yes other races can temporarily have a bigger economy faster if they chrono boost or mass drone but they will saturate their bases and now their fast probe production has to stop. A Terran will soon reach full saturation in a few minutes right behind the Zerg or Protoss and then over saturate beyond what they are capable of. It does not take a lot of time to saturate a base either.
The MULE macro mechanic is also very forgiving on on being bad with your call downs. The Protos chrono boost being somewhat forgiving and the Zerg spawn larvae being very unforgiving for missing one. As it takes a long time to correct such a mistake.
If you nerf the mule you need to nerf the chrono boost and inject larva. These are the core abilities of each race. So far from blizzards response Chrono Boost is the most powerful at the moment. You have to understand that Terran can not shoot out workers as fast as protoss and zerg. So Terran is heavily prone to worker harasse unlike a protoss or zerg when you kill 20 workers and out of no where they have 20 again. The mule is to give Terran an edge on how fast the other races can produce workers.
you give DTs/observers/roaches a free pass into your base. that changes big time.
How does having a cooldown on the Mule ability let DT/observers/roaches in? Didn't say anything about a cooldown on scans.
THINK please. because I had to use the mule as soon as it is ready so I would not waste any mining time. I had to keep my energy low and as many ppl suggested are not allowed to miss a mule dropdown or I'd be behind. And when my energy is low I cannot scan. to your suggestion I cannot wait a little with my mule dropdown because it might bring me far behind if I have the feeling that DT might be coming.
MINING severals mules at once means that I missed out on minerals earlier. what is the damn problem with this?
On September 17 2010 02:22 avilo wrote: i do not understand the thread. there are plenty of games where protoss could have been behind in workers and they chrono boost the hell out of the nexuses and suddenly they are back even or ahead in worker count...just another terran hate thread it seems
Nobody said nothing needed to be changed about Chronoboost either. The same thing applies here. The ability to 'forget to macro' and then come back to a full energy Nexus and be able to dump all the energy instantly IS NOT BALANCED. This is the same thing, rewarding bad macro. There needs to be a cooldown on Chronoboost also.
So you don't need them to be nerfed. . .you want zerg buffed. Lol.
On September 16 2010 18:02 Terranist wrote: another terran OP thread? of all the things people tend to complain about, mule is really not that much of a gamebreaker. zerg can cover half the map in creep for christ sake.
Mules could let T win even SCVs have been raped out. We don't even have to prove that.
Well, you wise T player plz tell those poor Z/P how could win you guys with flying all over the overlord?
I'd rather like to exchange the "FAST & GOOD" overlord scouting ability with your tons of Mules. How about that?
Solution: 1. It should have supply. 2. CD - if you don't agree. <How about let Queen inject all its energy at onetime if a Z player forgot to do that, and broods bunch of forces? I guess it would be great...like you throw mass mules into a gold mine base..>
THINK please. because I had to use the mule as soon as it is ready so I would not waste any mining time. I had to keep my energy low and as many ppl suggested are not allowed to miss a mule dropdown or I'd be behind. And when my energy is low I cannot scan. to your suggestion I cannot wait a little with my mule dropdown because it might bring me far behind if I have the feeling that DT might be coming.
MINING severals mules at once means that I missed out on minerals earlier. what is the damn problem with this?
Good players dont miss out mules and know dts and roach burro timings to save up some energry. A mule-cooldown would not change a lot on high level. Terrans just need to be a little bit more focused on their macro.
Yes, mules are definitely OP in the situation where you destroyed your enemies SCVs and he can just call down 10 saved up mules to get back into the game. Any other race that loses a significant amount of workers is going to lose, unless there is a significant army count discrepancy. I don't think mules need a cooldown, I think they need a limit depending on your population count (1 mule call down per 30 population size or something) or based on your scv count (1 mule always available, then for every 10 scvs you have you can call down an additional mule concurrently).
The bust of 2/3k minerals for 90 seconds is not OP imo because it's impossible to make use of that kind of temporary mineral influx efficiently. If terrans forget to or don't call down mules, those should be considered wasted resources, even though they can just call down multiple mules.
you know that there is also the fact that morrow had no scvs on gas at that point right? that will shift the thing by about 12 workers, plus the fact that morrow probably had more than 2 mules going on at that moment, but yeah... mules are awesome.
Wow people are still discussing this as a possible OP thing ? MULE, like chrono and inject, is a basic of each race. So it has to be the very thing that blizzard had carefuly studied, computed, "mathed" so it is perfectly balanced. Bcause it has to be. And it is, get over it. No, a replay where a biased player wait the very best (best as biased) moment to take a screenshot does not equal PROOF. "Oh, let's wait he transfer some probes, tehn let's take mass screens so I can select the highest income fluctuation, then create an imblance thread" is not valid argumentation, sorry.
The only fact people can't use math or logic to show a point and has to rely on biased/very rare real examples is usualy, in any domain, a very proof that this point is not valid.
The problem here is that a lot of people are like religious people when it comes down to imbalance. They want to beleive. So each time a topic like that is created, a wagon of people come to say "yes so true sick sick op", where in a normal environment, they just would be laughed at.
Another one of these , doesn't it ever get old. Yeah i totally agree that Mules are OP , Stimmed MM is OP as well , etc etc etc. Then again , Chronoboost is OP , ForceFields are hacked-like OP , etc etc etc. Also , Larva Inject is OP , can't think of anything else for zerg that is OP lol , i do think zerg in general are underpowered.
But tbh Terran and Protoss balance themselves out well , both are "OP-ed" in a different way, so both are not really OP
As someone pointed out, what good is a ton of minerals when you can't spend them ? If you get production facilities according to MULEing permanently, each one you miss means that your macro will be suboptimal, because of production facilities left unused. If you get them according to your SCVs' mining, dropping x MULEs will give you a huge pile of minerals that you will need time and several production rounds to make use of.
MULEs would be OP on zergs, because of the larva mechanics : save up larvaes, call down multiple MULEs, produce a huge bunch of units at once. Terran can't do that. Also, they can get their money back in some way, MULEing once they're sure they don't need scan. But for the time they aren't MULEing, their income is diminished. Kind of like when in TvT a single banshee can pay for itself by forcing 2 or more scans, because that's getting a temporary boost in income over your opponent that'll probably never get caught up (excluding worker harass, outexpanding, etc.) until both players stop expanding and get mined out. Virtually never, then.
MULEs allow terran to have a better income once saturated, but they saturate their bases slowlier (is that a word?), which means lower income early in the game, slightly better later. You can view it as a timing, and even then, it's an income-based mechanic, which doesn't affect macro unless you plan your production facilities accordingly, unlike spawn larvae, nor your tech/upgrades, unlike chronoboost. You just can't compare those 3 abilities on grounds of income alone. They're not meant too.
I'm not saying there is no problems with MULEs, and I would be fine with a cooldown (not a 40s one like in the fake patch notes which is obviously too long, but a shorter one just to limit mass MULEing w/o making it impossible), but most of you are doing it wrong when trying to judge its balance.
Like I said boosting your economy with mules...getting faster probes with chrono boost and spawning more drones with larva inject, should be removed from the game.
Chrono boosting others stuff is fine, it isn't countered with mules...I don't see why people even bring that up. Chrono boosting is a very skill full mechanic because it actually makes you think and prioritize upgrades and units.
Larva inject is okay, but not as great of skill mechanic as chrono boost IMO.
Mules are retarded, plain and simple. You don't even need them.
Cause as much as zerg and protoss can get probes or drones faster with larva inject and CB. Those units cost money and take up supply. Eventually you're going to stop making workers.
Mules are free. If SC2 actually had units like lurkers, mines then it would make some sense because terran would have to save his orbital energy for scans. But Terran has other detection tools as well. Ravens, turrets and even emp, all easy to come by.
Mules are broken for this game. They really add nothing exciting to the game. While other races find their workers to be a precious investment worth protecting. Terran easily sacrifice theirs without a care in the world. Mules are a terrible excessive mechanic.
I will also I don't like how all the races boost their economies. It's very nooby (I guess is the word) harassing a worker line should be a hallmark for starcraft. These boosts make harassment weaker, especially against terran. Which makes the game boring and bland.
The other interesting thing is if a smarter player drops all his mules in a more vunerable expansion, it will ensure that if it gets destroyed he still managed to 'clean it out' I actually like the cooldown idea from those patch notes, perhaps not 20 or 40s but 10s even would be nice.
I think it really just comes down to the fact that chrono and inject are required for a win T could not have mules just scan and supply drop and do just fine, using no mules puts you n even footing with free no-risk scouting thats why mules are so powerful there extra as opposed to required
yeah. mules are scary. u can kill as many workers as you want but it dont mean you are safe to expand or power worker cos they can just rebuild their army for 1 more push to bone u over
On September 17 2010 18:19 MrCon wrote: Wow people are still discussing this as a possible OP thing ? MULE, like chrono and inject, is a basic of each race. So it has to be the very thing that blizzard had carefuly studied, computed, "mathed" so it is perfectly balanced. Bcause it has to be. And it is, get over it.
Don't be ridiculous, it's impossible for a mechanic to be exactly balanced. If from the start Mules returned 29 instead of 30 minerals, would anyone tell the difference? If things were all balanced all the time, why would there be patches. Obviously there are many enflamed Terran imba posters that complain about everything, but that doesn't mean all of it is unjustified.
Terran is OP becuase marines can shoot air and ground Terran is OP becuase tanks can siege Terran is OP becuase Mules collect minerals Terran is OP becuase Ravens can PDD Terran is OP becuase rauders have concussive shell Terran is OP becuase We can upgrade building armor Terran is OP becuase reapers can jump cliffs Terran is OP becuase we have a dropship and medic in 1 unit! Terran is OP becuase they can counter a voidray with 4-5 marines! Terran is OP becuase Mech is good against zerg Need I continue?
On September 17 2010 17:05 RuFF(TR) wrote: If you nerf the mule you need to nerf the chrono boost and inject larva. These are the core abilities of each race. So far from blizzards response Chrono Boost is the most powerful at the moment. You have to understand that Terran can not shoot out workers as fast as protoss and zerg. So Terran is heavily prone to worker harasse unlike a protoss or zerg when you kill 20 workers and out of no where they have 20 again. The mule is to give Terran an edge on how fast the other races can produce workers.
you did not read the topic did you? there was a very good example earlyer in the topic about how terrible chronoboost actualy is..
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Just stfu, ppls like you who just comes in here and is condescending to all other posters in a discussion forum thinking they're top shit gets me on edge. What are your credentials? ARE YOU a blizzard game designer? ARE you even a game designer at all? DO you even play the game? Are you even out of puberty yet?
Be constructive in a forum. Provide evidence. "blah blah blah you're all wanna-be game designers and have no clue" is just downright bm. For all we know, 10yrs from now we can look back and say "wow, mules were imba back then, how on earth did any1 beat Terran?"
Woah, calm down there, mate. He's entitled to his own opinions, and your entitled to yours. I'm sure that we don't have to resort to personal attacks against someone's age to get a point across. And you know...I'm pretty sure he has a point about the whole hysteria thing going on. Being a zerg player myself, I'm rather annoyed at the number of people fussing about imbalance when the replay clearly shows that they lost because, well, they weren't as good a player.
I'm going to reiterate the point made many times beforehand, and state that a cooldown on MULE would be fantastic. It would allow good players to keep up a steady stream of MULEs while preventing them (or lesser players) from spamming MULEs at a new expansion or one recently shut down by well-managed harass. It just makes it so much less rewarding to kill SCVs with mutas when the terran player doesn't even take an economy hit because of all the MULEs he just whipped up out of nowhere.
The number of minerals it gathers, however, can most likely stay the same. The same number of minerals gathered off of one base in the end remains the same, so if you keep him contained he'll just run dry before you do in the end.
'lol i'm usually calm. He actually attacked the majority of posters in this thread by labelling them as "wannabe-game designers who have no clue" or accused them of just jumping on the 'bandwagon' for no reason. He actually posted nothing constructive in his post other than downright degrading other posters.
If that's his 'opnion' than my opinion is stated in my post.
Your last point (imo) is wrong. I would rather mine out my base first and have those minerals in the bank. An extreme example would be, wouldn't you rather be mined out at the start and have all those minerals in the bank?
Call it an attack or whatever you want it is still true. The "majority" part is your own words, maybe a freudian slip.
The fact remains that there are hundreds of people who are sitting around the forums taking single game elements and trying to list its strengths in order to point out its imbalance and in a game that is balanced across the board rather than piece for piece it makes no sense whatsofuckingever to compare MULE and Chronoboost against each other, at least not for the sake of game balance. Because they are not necessarily MEANT to be balanced.
The mindset among a lot of people on these forums are pretty much at the level of "Look at how fast colossi kill marines, they re OP!" No, they are supposed to kill marines that fast.
These threads will never go away because people expect to be able to detect and kill banshees with zealots.
I would like it if you could feedback an orbital command. I think that might also help out with this.
Most of the "balance" here can be fixed by simply allowing more options to combat it.
But at the moment the best option is simply to kill their mules as often as you humanly can.
Also, when people say making a terran waste a scan, they don't mean just them choosing to scan your base. They mean forcing them to scan something that you're comfortable with them knowing. Or abusing the fact that he needs scans for detection. Maybe run a ling into his base and burrow it in his mineral line. He'll have to scan to kill off one ling. In other words, 25 minerals traded for a potential 270ish. You could also drop creep near his base and build a creep tumor there, essentially "trading" a larva inject for a mule, because they'll almost definitely scan to take out that creep tumor.
So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
On September 17 2010 18:19 MrCon wrote: Wow people are still discussing this as a possible OP thing ? MULE, like chrono and inject, is a basic of each race. So it has to be the very thing that blizzard had carefuly studied, computed, "mathed" so it is perfectly balanced. Bcause it has to be. And it is, get over it. No, a replay where a biased player wait the very best (best as biased) moment to take a screenshot does not equal PROOF. "Oh, let's wait he transfer some probes, tehn let's take mass screens so I can select the highest income fluctuation, then create an imblance thread" is not valid argumentation, sorry.
The only fact people can't use math or logic to show a point and has to rely on biased/very rare real examples is usualy, in any domain, a very proof that this point is not valid.
The problem here is that a lot of people are like religious people when it comes down to imbalance. They want to beleive. So each time a topic like that is created, a wagon of people come to say "yes so true sick sick op", where in a normal environment, they just would be laughed at.
Coming from a religious background myself, I find it hilarious that you accuse those who disagree of you with being blinded by faith, when you are yourself practicing the concept of infallibility on Blizzard for no apparent reason. If you know anything about the history of the company, you know balance isn't their strong point. Starcraft 1's legacy is a combination of coming in at the right time with the right circumstances, getting lots of support from the community, and a bit of luck. There was a review posted very recently that has them explicitly stating how terrified they are to work on SC2 because they know it's next to impossible for them to create the same miracle twice.
If the math is, theoretically speaking, too complicated for the community to figure out, do you think Blizzard has some magical super computers or mad scientists who can crunch numbers better? If they're that capable with numbers, why are there balance problems at all?
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
Balancewise, I would love to hear a logical explanation for why Terran building lift off is even in the game, other than 'Because the first game had it.' The first game had Dark Swarm too but you don't see that coming back. Oh wait, they just renamed it Point Defense Drone, my mistake.
On September 17 2010 18:19 MrCon wrote: Wow people are still discussing this as a possible OP thing ? MULE, like chrono and inject, is a basic of each race. So it has to be the very thing that blizzard had carefuly studied, computed, "mathed" so it is perfectly balanced. Bcause it has to be. And it is, get over it.
Actually the macro mechanics were added in just before beta started. They were thrown in when people complained about there not being enough to do early game. So I think blizzard missed the ball with them. They balanced a game without them then threw them in at the last second and now things are a bit messed. The game has been sped up because of them which is causing issues. They should just remove them completely.
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
I don't mind taking a loss because my opponent defended my all-in strat well, but that's my problem here he failed to stop me but still won the game. I don't get any wins when I don't stop a bunker rush or cannon rush.
On September 17 2010 18:19 MrCon wrote: Wow people are still discussing this as a possible OP thing ? MULE, like chrono and inject, is a basic of each race. So it has to be the very thing that blizzard had carefuly studied, computed, "mathed" so it is perfectly balanced. Bcause it has to be. And it is, get over it. No, a replay where a biased player wait the very best (best as biased) moment to take a screenshot does not equal PROOF. "Oh, let's wait he transfer some probes, tehn let's take mass screens so I can select the highest income fluctuation, then create an imblance thread" is not valid argumentation, sorry.
The only fact people can't use math or logic to show a point and has to rely on biased/very rare real examples is usualy, in any domain, a very proof that this point is not valid.
The problem here is that a lot of people are like religious people when it comes down to imbalance. They want to beleive. So each time a topic like that is created, a wagon of people come to say "yes so true sick sick op", where in a normal environment, they just would be laughed at.
Coming from a religious background myself, I find it hilarious that you accuse those who disagree of you with being blinded by faith, when you are yourself practicing the concept of infallibility on Blizzard for no apparent reason. If you know anything about the history of the company, you know balance isn't their strong point. Starcraft 1's legacy is a combination of coming in at the right time with the right circumstances, getting lots of support from the community, and a bit of luck. There was a review posted very recently that has them explicitly stating how terrified they are to work on SC2 because they know it's next to impossible for them to create the same miracle twice.
If the math is, theoretically speaking, too complicated for the community to figure out, do you think Blizzard has some magical super computers or mad scientists who can crunch numbers better? If they're that capable with numbers, why are there balance problems at all?
While I agree with the first part, I don't with the second. Blizzard don't need anything magical. They have data on every game ever played on bnet. They don't need mad scientist. Just some math/stats men. They can't crunch numbers better, they just CAN crunch number while we can't. And there are balance problems because of complexity. It's like "l'effet papillon" (I don't know the english word, but it's like : the air a butterfly is displacing while flying in Paris can become a storm in Tokyo) : just a little change in something can destroy an entire part of the gameplay on a seemingly irrelevant part of the game. That's why balancing is hard. That why topics like the one we're posting on are totally wrong.
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
I don't mind taking a loss because my opponent defended my all-in strat well, but that's my problem here he failed to stop me but still won the game. I don't get any wins when I don't stop a bunker rush or cannon rush.
Yea that's gotta be a broken game, rather than a bad strategy.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much unsupported whining and bitching on these forums.
The mule is mostly fine. The picture in the OP shows a terran using stacked up mules all at once and a protoss who didn't spread his workers evenly over his bases (or was just mined out). Chronoboost, queen and mule work out fairly evenly in terms of economic boost. The only issue I have with mules is that they can be put on gold minerals for more effectiveness, imo they should bring in 240-270 minerals regardless of what kind of patch they are used on.
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
I don't mind taking a loss because my opponent defended my all-in strat well, but that's my problem here he failed to stop me but still won the game. I don't get any wins when I don't stop a bunker rush or cannon rush.
Man... if you killed all his stuff and workers except for the OC, and he landed it behind rocks, and you still lost, then that one is all on you... The economic advantage you should have had even with a 6 pool is ridiculous. I assume that instead of taking the map and macroing up you kept trying to all-in that base behind the rocks which is why you lost.
Mules gather 30 minerals per trip so are worth about 6 scvs but there is a time difference between them- also scvs generally last longer than the mules
early game they even up the econ between all 3 races, but if each race is on 1 saturated base then obviously the terran will have a mineral advantage from mules.
Also regardless of how you swing it, chronoboost is not free money, nor is inject larva.
Mule should probably just have a 10 second cooldown, as some of the most annoying things to see are late game a terran lifts an OC to somewhere immediately drops 8-10 mules and wins the game shortly after. I guess you could argue that's about as powerful as stocking up larva spawns when zerg's at 200/200. But in that sense chronoboost is weak as hell, since stocking it up doesn't really help like mule/larva.
Other than that i don't really feel like they're broken.
Ploy: it is a bad strategy if it is scouted and defended well he did neither IIRC.
Vangarde: he also saved his barracks so he quickly got marines to shoot from behind the rocks, if u read my first post its in there. It also mentions that after he did this I sent my 3 remaining workers back to mine becuased I used them in the attack aswell. Taking down rocks with zerglings takes forever so I don't think that would've worked even if he didn't save his barracks.
On September 18 2010 00:24 DuneBug wrote: Also regardless of how you swing it, chronoboost is not free money, nor is inject larva.
MULE isn't either. It provides the same mining rate as 3 SCVs, and the Orbital Command costs 150 minerals. You pay exactly for the mining rate that you get.
On September 18 2010 00:24 DuneBug wrote: Mule should probably just have a 10 second cooldown, as some of the most annoying things to see are late game a terran lifts an OC to somewhere immediately drops 8-10 mules and wins the game shortly after. I guess you could argue that's about as powerful as stocking up larva spawns when zerg's at 200/200. But in that sense chronoboost is weak as hell, since stocking it up doesn't really help like mule/larva.
Other than that i don't really feel like they're broken.
I agree with this. The problem with MULE isn't that it's too strong, but that it's forgiving--if you never miss a Spawn Larva, Spawn Larva is actually stronger than MULE--it's just that even players at Idra's level miss Spawn Larva cycles, and while MULE doesn't diminish in value if you miss them, the value of Spawn Larva rapidly diminishes over missed cycles. Similarly with Chrono Boost--if you Chrono the correct things, it's more powerful than MULE--it's just that a lot of the time, a Protoss is going to end up in a situation where they just spam a bunch of them on warpgates because they missed cycles, and that severely diminishes its value.
okay lets face something simple , Protoss just clicks on Building and it starts pumping up itself (lol @ cheeses) , zerg has very low price units +massing 2-3-4-5-6 at same time , and Terran , has to send his SCVs around and actually wait em to build a structure so simply and normaly terran is behind other 2 races in economy (check economy incomes in pro matches with same xpans and u will find out) so here, Mule will fix it .but in other hand , as scouting problems that terran has (like we saw MorroW lost to HuK due to lack of scout) Terran Ocasionally needs to use scan that wastes energy. i think if its about to whine about units we can easly nominate : Banelings / HighTemplar / Marauder's Slow and Ghost . be realistic , ppls are just learning other 2 races and by times passes by , they are coming to top, like all toss in R1ones
On September 18 2010 00:24 DuneBug wrote: Also regardless of how you swing it, chronoboost is not free money, nor is inject larva.
MULE isn't either. It provides the same mining rate as 3 SCVs, and the Orbital Command costs 150 minerals. You pay exactly for the mining rate that you get.
On September 18 2010 00:24 DuneBug wrote: Mule should probably just have a 10 second cooldown, as some of the most annoying things to see are late game a terran lifts an OC to somewhere immediately drops 8-10 mules and wins the game shortly after. I guess you could argue that's about as powerful as stocking up larva spawns when zerg's at 200/200. But in that sense chronoboost is weak as hell, since stocking it up doesn't really help like mule/larva.
Other than that i don't really feel like they're broken.
I agree with this. The problem with MULE isn't that it's too strong, but that it's forgiving--if you never miss a Spawn Larva, Spawn Larva is actually stronger than MULE--it's just that even players at Idra's level miss Spawn Larva cycles, and while MULE doesn't diminish in value if you miss them, the value of Spawn Larva rapidly diminishes over missed cycles. Similarly with Chrono Boost--if you Chrono the correct things, it's more powerful than MULE--it's just that a lot of the time, a Protoss is going to end up in a situation where they just spam a bunch of them on warpgates because they missed cycles, and that severely diminishes its value.
shenanigans, you tarrans keep attempting direct everybody attention away from the real problem to the 'mules being forgiving' which is such a minor issue in comparison
mule gathers 270min over ~63 seconds, normal worker with optimal saturation gathers 42min over 60 seconds, so mule is equal to 6 workers at optimal saturation, normal worker pays itself in 71 seconds (with optimal saturation, or 120sec if worker count >16), mule pays oc in about 35 seconds..
so in reality mule is 6 workers that take no supply and always working at optimal saturation, oh, they also pay for themselves in half the time ONE normal worker would returned the investment in ideal circumstances
let me rephrase again, its 6 magical workers that cost no supply that work on 3 magical mineral patches (tapping into one normal patch)
then theres mules on gold, and that you can cast them in bulk, and 300 min from sockfolded mule (making in nearly 7 magical workers), but those are just insults to injury
^ having this with no cooldown is just stupid. if a worse player forgets to mule he has to be punished like zerg ( yes i am ) when he forgets to inject, its that simple.
also makes ugly and weird comebacks possible that shouldnt happen
On September 16 2010 17:23 klauz619 wrote: They don't magically pop up minerals and just make you mine out faster, it's just 300 minerals sped up to you.
Making additional workers doesn't magically pop up minerals and just makes you mine out faster, but making additional workers is good, yes?
Like Liquipedia says, mules are worth somewhere between 3 and 4.5 SCVS, depending on which patch they're called on.
You'd kind of always prefer 3 scvs to muling from one OC, and the OC costs 150, except in the specific case where you're fully saturated and have no plans on expanding any time soon.
In terms of macromechanics, larva inject is way, way better (to the point that many zergs view "macro" as injecting larva) then chronoboost, which is better than mules. Terran has scans and supply drop, which kind of even things out on that front. If you ever watch a top replay with the income rate on, generally mules just make up the economic gap that Protoss and Zerg have over the Terran.
i still dont get why this cant have a CD like injecting i mean.. good players or pros will not suffer from it if they keep their macro going, while it will punish noobs and make the gap between good and worse players bigger, what isnt wrong imo. Good Terrans will saving Energy for certain Timings where they know that they HAVE TO scan. Building 2 Turrets or a Raven for cloaked unit detection isnt that big of an issue, was possible to build vessels in bw, and its much easier to tech up for a raven in s2
Even if the Terran didn't have an OC he could have loaded up 5 workers and been ahead of you. Stop crying that you tried to 6 pool and lost.
Because that isn't stupid at all right?
I'm not saying I should auto win every time I 6pool, I'm also not saying I was a better player than the terran player. What I am saying is that if this was broodwar he would've lost because he can't load workers and fly off and he can't mule either... so yeah go ahead and tell me this isn't BW again like I don't know.
liquipedia is incorrect on this one, mule lives ~63 game seconds and collects 270 (from close/medium patch) and nearly completes additional trip, so safely can be counted as 270min/minute, 270/42 = 6.4 optimal worker
The problem with the mule isn't the mule itself, the problem is the lack of a cooldown. Terran players are the least effected by a miss/lack of macro. Once a cooldown is implemented, this discussion should end, unless another problem arises.
On September 18 2010 02:00 x7i wrote: liquipedia is incorrect on this one, mule lives ~63 game seconds and collects 270 (from close/medium patch) and nearly completes additional trip, so safely can be counted as 270min/minute, 270/42 = 6.4 optimal worker
The 42 mineral per minute number is in game-time. So, the low is 240/42*(60/90) = 3.8 worker, or 4.28 worker if the final trip is made (for 270). 270 only occurs at close patches. At medium patches, the mule dies with its cargo, making you lose 30 minerals.
Basically, the only time you'd want to be muling constantly rather than have three SCVs is when you're saturated and do not intend to take another base soon. Well, the first mule has a bigger impact. It takes less time to make an OC then it does to produce three SCVs, so you'll definitely want to make an OC ASAP (economically) to drop the first mule.
I don't get it. Assuming the game is balanced to account for constant MULEs usage right? So if MorroW at some point called won a bunch of MULEs to get an income equal to HuK, he must have been playing at a disadvantage earlier in the game by not using those MULEs calldowns. What about protoss using a bunch of saved up chrono-boosts to instantly rebuild his army at some point, is that unbalanced too?
The MULE won´t get a cooldown as long as saving energy is intentional. Saving energy to call MULEs down for Gold Expansions? INTENTIONAL. Saving energy for Scans? INTENTIONAL. Zerg can do something similar, they can save larvae for rapid reproduction and fast Techswitches.
That the spawn larvae mechanic is "unforgiving" is a problem with Zerg not Terran.
On September 18 2010 02:00 x7i wrote: liquipedia is incorrect on this one, mule lives ~63 game seconds and collects 270 (from close/medium patch) and nearly completes additional trip, so safely can be counted as 270min/minute, 270/42 = 6.4 optimal worker
The 42 mineral per minute number is in game-time. So, the low is 240/42*(60/90) = 3.8 worker, or 4.28 worker if the final trip is made (for 270). 270 only occurs at close patches. At medium patches, the mule dies with its cargo, making you lose 30 minerals.
Basically, the only time you'd want to be muling constantly rather than have three SCVs is when you're saturated and do not intend to take another base soon. Well, the first mule has a bigger impact. It takes less time to make an OC then it does to produce three SCVs, so you'll definitely want to make an OC ASAP (economically) to drop the first mule.
i stand corrected on game time minute for 42mineral regarding your apparent definition of medium distance, on most(all?) maps you have 5/6 short distance patches then, its almost irrelevant, except it means mule being 4.5 of optimal saturation (not enough attention here) worker in 90% cases with corrected calculations, income from 16 scv + 1 mule is equal to fully saturated, mule-free base, and well, you dont have magically mined 3 extra patches but only 2 instead, indeed, now i certainly see its indeed a huge disadvantage, those 2 extra patches with free saturation from mule are barely comparable to 1/4 of expansion income and no, only time you wouldnt want to mule constantly is if you have no mule-free patches
Mules are actually more important in the early game, unlike what OP said. Both protoss and zerg have faster worker production than terran. Terran needs mules in order to keep up economically in the beginning.
Mules are good, but OP? I don't really think so They only give minerals and proper usage isn't entirely straight forward.
The Orbital Command might be OP because it has 3 very useful abilities. The Planetary Fortress is kind of terrible in comparison.
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
Balancewise, I would love to hear a logical explanation for why Terran building lift off is even in the game, other than 'Because the first game had it.' The first game had Dark Swarm too but you don't see that coming back. Oh wait, they just renamed it Point Defense Drone, my mistake.
Not only can they use it to swap add-ons, but design-wise, Terran was always intended to have the most versatility when it comes to building placement.
On September 18 2010 04:38 kawazu wrote: Mules are actually more important in the early game, unlike what OP said. Both protoss and zerg have faster worker production than terran. Terran needs mules in order to keep up economically in the beginning.
Mules are good, but OP? I don't really think so They only give minerals and proper usage isn't entirely straight forward.
The Orbital Command might be OP because it has 3 very useful abilities. The Planetary Fortress is kind of terrible in comparison.
And yet, what the Terran call 'terrible' is still better than what the other two factions have access to....
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
Balancewise, I would love to hear a logical explanation for why Terran building lift off is even in the game, other than 'Because the first game had it.' The first game had Dark Swarm too but you don't see that coming back. Oh wait, they just renamed it Point Defense Drone, my mistake.
Not only can they use it to swap add-ons, but design-wise, Terran was always intended to have the most versatility when it comes to building placement.
Why? What weakness is that supposed to make up for that the other factions theoretically don't suffer from?
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
Balancewise, I would love to hear a logical explanation for why Terran building lift off is even in the game, other than 'Because the first game had it.' The first game had Dark Swarm too but you don't see that coming back. Oh wait, they just renamed it Point Defense Drone, my mistake.
Not only can they use it to swap add-ons, but design-wise, Terran was always intended to have the most versatility when it comes to building placement.
Why? What weakness is that supposed to make up for that the other factions theoretically don't suffer from?
The game is designed to have unique and interesting races first, and balanced ones second. If they want an ability to be in the game, it's going to be in the game, and they're going to balance it so it fits.
On September 18 2010 02:11 EliteAzn wrote: Can we please make this clear?
The problem with the mule isn't the mule itself, the problem is the lack of a cooldown. Terran players are the least effected by a miss/lack of macro. Once a cooldown is implemented, this discussion should end, unless another problem arises.
I didn't understand why this was moved, but didn't wanna risk a temp-ban for complaining....
but yeah: there needs to be some mechanism to "punish" a player for not using mules; also the comparison to chrono-boost isn't really good; mules are at their best in late midgame when it comes to mining gold; chrono-boost becomes really weak after some time, because later on the only thing worth boosting are techs and units like colossi
On September 17 2010 22:55 DARKHYDRA wrote: So the other day I 6pooled a terran, took out everything he had except his barracks and his orbital command that he lifted off. He lands them on an expansion protected by rocks. I send my 3 drones back to mine and start attacking the rocks he mules up and uses his money to get marines to shoot from behind the rocks. I back off and tech to mutas. By the time I got some mutas he already had a nice bio ball with medivacs... lost that game.
There was some execution errors on my part, but I still think the reason I lost was because of the rock protected expo that he could lift off to and mules.
Awww, poor baby.
I'm so sorry 6 pool isn't an auto win for you.
Balancewise, I would love to hear a logical explanation for why Terran building lift off is even in the game, other than 'Because the first game had it.' The first game had Dark Swarm too but you don't see that coming back. Oh wait, they just renamed it Point Defense Drone, my mistake.
Not only can they use it to swap add-ons, but design-wise, Terran was always intended to have the most versatility when it comes to building placement.
Why? What weakness is that supposed to make up for that the other factions theoretically don't suffer from?
The game is designed to have unique and interesting races first, and balanced ones second. If they want an ability to be in the game, it's going to be in the game, and they're going to balance it so it fits.
And isn't it nice how Terran's 'interesting' mechanics turn out to be advantages while Zerg's 'interesting' mechanics are limitations, eh?
I think it should also be noted that 1 MULE = about 6 Chronoboosts on Nexus.
Once you start to Chronoboost beyond this is when you truly come out ahead of constant MULE drop. Using Chrono boost lets you build the first Probe in 11.22 seconds and the second in 14.11 seconds or so. Effectively knocking out nearly 9 seconds of building time per 2 Probes using 1 Chrono boost.
Therefore for every 2 Chronoboosts used you get an extra 1 Probe over your enemy. Using it 4 times puts you 2 probes ahead and so on.
A Protoss must use chronoboost on his Nexus 6 times to break even with that MULE. A constant single MULE basically costs 150 minerals with a build time of 35. Getting an Orbital Command always makes you more money. It is much better than simply constantly getting SCV that last forever.
I dont get why it needs a cooldown, its not hard to make 2 mules every 5O seconds or however long it is.. Any terran can do that..
also i dont think mules too imba because huk prob has like 12 of his harvesters on gas.. take that into account... Plus there are prob like 6 mules out lol
On September 18 2010 05:14 AzureD wrote: I think it should also be noted that 1 MULE = about 6 Chronoboosts on Nexus.
Once you start to Chronoboost beyond this is when you truly come out ahead of constant MULE drop. Using Chrono boost lets you build the first Probe in 11.22 seconds and the second in 14.11 seconds or so. Effectively knocking out nearly 9 seconds of building time per 2 Probes using 1 Chrono boost.
Therefore for every 2 Chronoboosts used you get an extra 1 Probe over your enemy. Using it 4 times puts you 2 probes ahead and so on.
A Protoss must use chronoboost on his Nexus 6 times to break even with that MULE. A constant single MULE basically costs 150 minerals with a build time of 35. Getting an Orbital Command always makes you more money. It is much better than simply constantly getting SCV that last forever.
I might have misunderstood you, but the correct way of putting it should be 1 Orbital command = about 6 chrono boosts, assuming the orbital command only does mules for the entirety of the game.
That's not even considering the fact that probes have no downtime while building buildings.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
Larva does stack, but you get less of it total if you forget about it for 2 minutes.
I'd say that MULEs should have a 20 second cooldown. You can still call multiple ones, but it wouldn't allow Terrans to just forget about spending OC energy for 2 minutes with no downside.
Nexuses (nexi?) sort of work this way already... if you wanted to chrono out a colossus but forgot to put 2 on the robo fac, you can't go back in time or stack two chronos to make up for lost time.
If progamers like IdrA can almost flawlessly inject larvae then I don't see the cooldown affecting good Terran players. MULEs are too easy to use at full efficiency -- there's no difference in MULE usage between players with mediocre multitasking and amazing multitasking like players of the caliber of MorroW.
While you focus solely on the benefits mules give the Terran economy, and how its overpowered in the aspect that zerg and protoss can't do that, you are committing a logical fallacy by doing so.
As protoss, you have the chronoboost. While the chronoboost does not have the same function as the mule, it still gives the protoss economy an advantage in a similar fashion to the way the mule does. How many games have you seen Toss win because they got a chrono boosted void ray out, or a 4 gate strat made possible by the chrono boost? I've seen plenty of games won Directly by use of the chronoboost.
And what about zerg? you can't tell me that the queen's vomit lavae abiltiy has not helped you win games. Getting an extra 4 or 5 larvae can be completely gamebreaking. That's 4 drones or 8 lings Every time the queen has enough energy for it.
Don't cry imba just by stating all the "gamebreaking" facts about the terran mules. If you are going to launch allegations of imbalance, you need a comprehensive analysis lining the terran OC, zerg queen, toss chronoboost etc.. side by side. While the terran mule certainly has won games for me, and many others, so too has the queen and chronoboost. Jeez, people need to step down from the "terran imba" bandwagon.
No one is saying that chronoboost or spawn larva hasn't won us a game. And just because it has, doesn't mean that these aspects of the game is balanced.
Your correct that each had its own function, but when looking at resource gathering capability by itself, (as we have all already pointed out) mules have a clear advantage.
On September 18 2010 06:03 ShadowReaver wrote: @Lina
No one is saying that chronoboost or spawn larva hasn't won us a game. And just because it has, doesn't mean that these aspects of the game is balanced.
Your correct that each had its own function, but when looking at resource gathering capability by itself, (as we have all already pointed out) mules have a clear advantage.
That just happens to be incorrect. For pure gathering capability(as in all CB goes to nexus, all inject larvae goes drones) zerg wins, next to it comes CB and last Mule. Putting it into the game, you need the first set of inject larvae to go stricktly to drones and you are even for the rest of the game to the mule. You need 5 CBs on the nexus to be even to mules throughout the game. End result being, mules are quite equal and less versatile for pure gathering than the 2 other mechanics. But whatever, I just hope Blizzard doesn't jump on the same bandwagon as almost everyone in this thread is on.
Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown
On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown
I've said this already but I'll rephrase it.
Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste.
Unlike Protoss and Zerg, Terran's macro-mechanic is a unit and can be killed (quite easily, too. They have, what, 25 hp?)
You can kill a queen, but after it's spawned larva, that energy didn't go to waste. You can kill the hatch/nexus/chronoboosted building, but you can also kill the command center. If that's happening, you've got bigger problems to worry about than mules.
But once you kill a mule, that's 50 energy wasted. That could have been a scan, a supply drop, or 270ish minerals. In fact, even threatening to kill mules makes them go to waste if the player moves them away, because they're losing mining time.
Instead of thinking "what could the game change to fix this", you should be thinking "what can I do differently in my games to fix this?"
On September 18 2010 01:36 x7i wrote: mule gathers 270min over ~63 seconds, normal worker with optimal saturation gathers 42min over 60 seconds, so mule is equal to 6 workers at optimal saturation, normal worker pays itself in 71 seconds (with optimal saturation, or 120sec if worker count >16), mule pays oc in about 35 seconds..
Uhh, no, that's wrong.
MULE's gather 270 minerals in 63 real seconds--which is 90 seconds game time. Workers with optimal saturation gather 42 mins in 60 GAME seconds. Either you were misinformed or you're deliberately confusing game seconds and real seconds to further your point.
From http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/MULE: "They last 90 seconds of game time, or about 65 seconds on "faster" game speed...Their timed life allows 8 or 9 mining trips which totals 240/270 minerals respectively on a blue mineral patch and 336/378 on a yellow one."
On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed.
Terrans are punished for bad Macro. But macro is more than just pushing a button in regular intervals. Besides everything already mentioned Terrans are the worst at converting a huge Incomespike. The Terran Infrastructure has issues scaling up since Productions buildings have additional costs in Addons.
On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown
I've said this already but I'll rephrase it.
Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste.
Unlike Protoss and Zerg, Terran's macro-mechanic is a unit and can be killed (quite easily, too. They have, what, 25 hp?)
You can kill a queen, but after it's spawned larva, that energy didn't go to waste. You can kill the hatch/nexus/chronoboosted building, but you can also kill the command center. If that's happening, you've got bigger problems to worry about than mules.
But once you kill a mule, that's 50 energy wasted. That could have been a scan, a supply drop, or 270ish minerals. In fact, even threatening to kill mules makes them go to waste if the player moves them away, because they're losing mining time.
Instead of thinking "what could the game change to fix this", you should be thinking "what can I do differently in my games to fix this?"
One issue you're ignoring is it's much easier to miss the ability as zerg, and you can't get it back (yes you can spawn creep, but that's easily killed with either a detector, or a well placed scan (b/c you don't need to spend all your energy on mules, same as larva)
As for killing mules, yes, but that's also luck based, and a loss of gas is inevitable (which obviously has more value than minerals). Also, it's not like the mule is being killed JUST when it comes out. That is basically luck (unless the terran is trying to expand, is spotted, and just dumps the missed mules). Plus if we are playing a perfectly macro'ed terran (as in never has more than 55 energy), you're only going to kill 1 mule, maybe two, while you lose probably 300 gas (mutas as an example).
And also, of course they are punished, but if you put it on a scale (biased/extreme scale, but it's to get my point across) of how much each race is punished, it's probably 2 for terran, 4 for toss, and 6 for zerg (out of a possible of 7, higher = more impact/punishment).
Ignored issue that isn't that big, but should be noted, time is needed to build back a queen (of course it's also needed for orbital, but replacing the queen takes time as well). Plus food/supply is needed for the queens as well.
On September 18 2010 07:42 Zarahtra wrote: That just happens to be incorrect. For pure gathering capability(as in all CB goes to nexus, all inject larvae goes drones) zerg wins, next to it comes CB and last Mule. Putting it into the game, you need the first set of inject larvae to go stricktly to drones and you are even for the rest of the game to the mule. You need 5 CBs on the nexus to be even to mules throughout the game. End result being, mules are quite equal and less versatile for pure gathering than the 2 other mechanics. But whatever, I just hope Blizzard doesn't jump on the same bandwagon as almost everyone in this thread is on.
Except that Mules can work on top of SCVs, so this is completely false. They don't squeeze workers out of mineral patches.
Zerg and Protoss can get an early macro advantage by getting workers out faster, but Terran have advantages throughout the rest of the game. Every expo you take increases the number of mules you can call down at a moment's notice, whereas zerg and protoss are still stuck with the standard number of SCVs for every base.
I don't think mules are OP, but I can definitely say for sure they're by far the easiest/cheesiest mechanic. Every second you delay on re-injecting is a huge macro loss for Z, and Chronoboost is not nearly as effective, merely flexible in that you can use it for almost anything. A chronoboost = 10 seconds of production time. The results are also very delayed, because chronoboosting probes or units still takes time. Mules come down instantly, and you can bank a lot of energy before they go to waste.
@yango: ay mate, got confused on game/real seconds there, look later post
@zara&rest of broken record team: riight, you can spend 15 min of chrono on probes but as long as you dont have more mineral patches to mine from (ie. expand) you can never match income of terran with mule, same with zerg, just can saturate faster, which is of virtually no consequence when comparing equal base count, and only time when mule =~ 4.5 scv is when you have <12 scv, every second after is worth more (cause of saturation that would affect 'equivalent' workers), and theres issue of food (0) and time to return of investment (2/3 of 1 worker)
well, apparently no one bothers to think objectively, which is no surprise, but non terran players should bother to think for themselves at least
On September 18 2010 10:04 TedJustice wrote: Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste.
wow, what a "valid" point
if the zerg uses additional larvae for drones, you can kill them with banshees/reapers/whatever; if the protoss uses chrono-boost to get more probes, you can kill them with banshees/reapers/whatever; there's no difference if I kill one mule or you kill 3 probes that I've had more because of chrono-boost
I really don't wanna seem offensive, but this is just such a flawed argument.....sorry....
On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote: It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
a mule is 5-7 workers thus having one mule lets you put your scvs on gas instead ?
After 18 pages of people seemingly arguing with no real purpose, maybe a TvT example would help?
Take's homestory cup, held on the 11th Sep had a very interesting game between Demuslim and Brat_OK on Steppes of War. Brat_OK did an early push and managed to get inside Demuslim's main and kill all but about 5 scvs. Brat_OK had approx 20-30 scvs at this point.
Demuslim had been gearing up to expand, so had a second Command Center in the main that had been morphed into an Orbital Command, and had a lot of energy because of the timing of the attack. Brat_OK hadn't got his expo ready at this point.
Because of this, Demuslim had access to more mules than Brat_OK. So of course he dropped 2-3 on his main to make up the worker deficit. His income while they were down was above Brat_OK's. Demuslim went on to win that game with some incredibly skilled play, but he would have been down and out if he hadn't been able to stack mules like that.
I think it's contexts like this one that mules need to be viewed in during this discussion. I don't think anyone can disagree that a player who is down to 5 workers compared to 20-30 should be so crippled that they're unable to come back, but in this case the ability to stack a few mules completely reversed the situation.
I'm not going to comment on whether I think they're imbalanced or not, but I think if everyone in here agreed on a context for discussion there would be a lot less hostility on all sides.
On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed.
Terrans are punished for bad Macro. But macro is more than just pushing a button in regular intervals. Besides everything already mentioned Terrans are the worst at converting a huge Incomespike. The Terran Infrastructure has issues scaling up since Productions buildings have additional costs in Addons.
This is a good point. Zerg and Protoss are way better than Terran when it comes to catching up and using unspent minerals - and make up for bad macro. Overall I don't think Terran gets less punished for bad macro because of MULEs, although I do think MULEs/OC are easier to use properly than chrono boost and spawn larvae, but that is a different discussion.
Mules are abusively strong at three points in the game - when bases are saturated (and Terran is on an equal # of bases), when Terran has a gold expansion, and when Terran has 200 food of units.
Protoss and Zerg must have a plan to punish Terran should Terran seek those circumstances.
i think it was mentioned before, but what in my eyes the problem with mules is, that the one race with the most cost-effective units can easily catch up in terms of macro. I think zerg or toss should outmacro terran to win games, but this is pretty hard to do since terran's macro is so strong due to MULES. (i actually think that PvT is not such a big issue,i believe it to be rather balanced...)
I played a game some time ago (I am plat btw) against a mid-diamond terran who tried to rush me with mass marines/marauders, me starring as P. I could barely hold it off until I finally got an edge and won. The funny thing was that the Terran cut his worker production at 17 (!!!!) scvs (I had around 30 at that time since he killed some of my probes). He was diamond league, still his macro was so sloppy and he was able to make bio like a maniac. why?? thanks to MULEs. Those are actually moments when I think that the benefit for MULES go too far if they can really make up for such bad macro.
On September 18 2010 18:59 Iamyournoob wrote: i think it was mentioned before, but what in my eyes the problem with mules is, that the one race with the most cost-effective units can easily catch up in terms of macro. I think zerg or toss should outmacro terran to win games, but this is pretty hard to do since terran's macro is so strong due to MULES. (i actually think that PvT is not such a big issue,i believe it to be rather balanced...)
I played a game some time ago (I am plat btw) against a mid-diamond terran who tried to rush me with mass marines/marauders, me starring as P. I could barely hold it off until I finally got an edge and won. The funny thing was that the Terran cut his worker production at 17 (!!!!) scvs (I had around 30 at that time since he killed some of my probes). He was diamond league, still his macro was so sloppy and he was able to make bio like a maniac. why?? thanks to MULEs. Those are actually moments when I think that the benefit for MULES go too far if they can really make up for such bad macro.
You won so clearly his 17-scv one-base all-in did'nt work against even a lower tier player, so how is that a case for that bad macro works? He went for a rush, you had a hard time (of course he is rushing) managed to hold it off and beat him in the long run because of a superior economy, nothing odd about that at all.
I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
Using them early game results in a crapload of extra minerals. For each mule you call down, you can build an scv and a barracks. Thats pretty significant, considering marine/marauders are so cheap but so effective. Especially early game when you dont need to pump units because you have a wall off, you can just make a crapload of production buildings to your hearts content thanks to the mule income spike.
Using them early game results in a second gas geyser really quick if needed to tech as scvs can be taken off minerals since the mules already give significant income.
Late game, well, this has already been discussed.
the mule is not comparable to the other macro mechanics especially in the early game. MULE results in almost instant income, and a significant amount at that. I hear people in this thread saying "o but zerg can make 7 drones at once!!!", but they dont seem to understand that requires minerals to make effective use of the larva, and during the early game there is none of that going on. There is no immediate benefit of spawn larva in terms of income, unlike the mule. You have to have minerals available and you have to choose to make the drones which isnt always the best choice.
MULE does nothing for the game except for allowing such a strong 1 base play. The surge in minerals is all terran needs to get the extra production buildings down, and the pumping of marine/marauder can be done very easily since those units are so light on gas. There really is no reason to expand. Compare that to zerg that needs to get a second hatchery saturated with a queen just to not fall behind a terran in income. Its really not balanced and the mule should be nerfed either with a lower gather rate or a cooldown. A cooldown will fix the late game, but the early game will still be tilted in the terrans favor, like almost everything seems to be in this game.
Id like the mechanics to be as different as possible for each race, but if you were to put the same mechanics on different races you would notice why MULE is too strong.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
No. You can't just say "I can't harras T workers, because he will mule" Stop considering mules like some kind of magic trick that is always ready and always has enough energy to be used. Consider mule like what it is: a free +3 scv to minerals/base as long as no scan is used. (because mule duration = 50 energy regen duration = cost of mule) So killing a scv is woth the same as killing any other race's workers. If a T has more than one mule at one time, stop saying it's imba or whatever. If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
I tend to use mules early game and supply late game as minerals become more constricted. Unless of course i need a boost to my mineral count after an army is wiped out or something. Mining out faster is a bad thing for a lot of less experienced players who cant comfortably expand beyond there natural.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
not really. there comes a point where your scv count more or less meets your mineral needs to mules would only add excess. so it doesnt necessarily mean weaker army.
If i pick terran, i dont build scvs at all. I have mules, so i dont need them. As you can see in the screenshot from op, 19 workers+mules is like 54 workers. So mules only is like 35 scvs. You start with 6, so terrans have 41 scvs instantly one oc finishes. Once it does, i make an all in push with all my scvs, but because of mules i still have 35 scvs left.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
No. You can't just say "I can't harras T workers, because he will mule" Stop considering mules like some kind of magic trick that is always ready and always has enough energy to be used. Consider mule like what it is: a free +3 scv to minerals/base as long as no scan is used. (because mule duration = 50 energy regen duration = cost of mule) So killing a scv is woth the same as killing any other race's workers. If a T has more than one mule at one time, stop saying it's imba or whatever. If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
Terran shouldn't be able to have more than 1 MULE at a time per OC. If zerg misses an injection you think they can just inject 5 times in a row? Not to mention MULEs are stronger than injection anyway.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
No. You can't just say "I can't harras T workers, because he will mule" Stop considering mules like some kind of magic trick that is always ready and always has enough energy to be used. Consider mule like what it is: a free +3 scv to minerals/base as long as no scan is used. (because mule duration = 50 energy regen duration = cost of mule) So killing a scv is woth the same as killing any other race's workers. If a T has more than one mule at one time, stop saying it's imba or whatever. If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
Terran shouldn't be able to have more than 1 MULE at a time per OC. If zerg misses an injection you think they can just inject 5 times in a row? Not to mention MULEs are stronger than injection anyway.
I think it would be more enjoyable for everyone if injections were made more streamlined, rather than making MULEs as annoying as injections. If you're going to shoehorn in a clunky base management mechanic, you might as well at least make it something that doesn't need an egg timer.
The way I see it, early game when all the races are mining and getting their worker count up, yes mules balance out because of larva inject and chrono boost.
However mid to late game, mules become an excessive easy access eco advantage for terran. Because Protoss and Zerg have to stop making probes/drones. But terran can just mule up at anytime even when he has the same worker count as his opponent lets say 40 scvs to 40 probes or drones. At this point with mules he's still out mining both races. And he can afford to lose a couple of his workers, so harassing him is inefficient, terran can sacrifice he's workers in battles.
And the other thing is mules are instant. Chrono boosting probes and larva inject takes more micro and more time to produce results.
Protoss units take way longer to make without chrono boost and larva inject is used for many other units, and drones turn into buildings as well. You don't just us CB and LInject for workers there other things to prioritize.
And mules don't take up supply to block the size of your army like probes or drones.
And terran has reactors too, lets not forget that. Also their armies are more durable and do the most damage.
And you don't need to scan as much early game, you can float a factory over to your opponents base or build a raven; to save your orbital c energy. Use an scv or reaper to scout.
Lets not forget everything else terran has to keep an eye on his opponent. Sensor tower, turrets. And you can always mineral dump for an extra cc for an orbital c or planetary fortress since you have so many minerals in the bank.
I guess I will repeat what I have said, chrono boosting probes should be removed. Larva inject for extra drones should be removed. So that mules are also removed from the game. These econ boost are a terrible mechanic IMO.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
not really. there comes a point where your scv count more or less meets your mineral needs to mules would only add excess. so it doesnt necessarily mean weaker army.
That's still minerals they gave up which could have translated into a faster expansion or tighter defense. You can't just say "past a point, minerals aren't worth anything", because that means that as a mechanic MULEs also become worthless at that point (whereas Chrono Boost and Spawn Larva translate into other advantages).
On September 19 2010 01:27 Uhh Negative wrote: Terran shouldn't be able to have more than 1 MULE at a time per OC. If zerg misses an injection you think they can just inject 5 times in a row? Not to mention MULEs are stronger than injection anyway.
Strictly speaking, MULE's *aren't* necessarily stronger than Spawn Larva.
The value of MULE: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 SCVs' build time to get you the mining of 3-5 SCVs (depending on where you put the MULE and how saturated you are).
The value of the Spawn Larva: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 supply to get you the larva production of more than 1 in-base hatchery AND 1 drone (because a Queen costs you neither larva nor drones to make, while the hatchery would cost you a drone).
So the question boils down to whether 1-3 SCVs (the net gain, since if you didn't make an OC you'd still have made 2 SCVs in that time) is a more significant gain that 1 drone + 1 hatchery. Not an easy comparison to make, but I would think it comes out in favor of the drone + hatchery. The problem is, again, the MULE almost always gets full value because you can spam out the MULEs you missed, while if you miss Spawn Larva cycles, that's diminishing value from the hatchery you saved yourself from making.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
not really. there comes a point where your scv count more or less meets your mineral needs to mules would only add excess. so it doesnt necessarily mean weaker army.
That's still minerals they gave up which could have translated into a faster expansion or tighter defense. You can't just say "past a point, minerals aren't worth anything", because that means that as a mechanic MULEs also become worthless at that point (whereas Chrono Boost and Spawn Larva translate into other advantages).
On September 19 2010 01:27 Uhh Negative wrote: Terran shouldn't be able to have more than 1 MULE at a time per OC. If zerg misses an injection you think they can just inject 5 times in a row? Not to mention MULEs are stronger than injection anyway.
Strictly speaking, MULE's *aren't* necessarily stronger than Spawn Larva.
The value of MULE: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 SCVs' build time to get you the mining of 3-5 SCVs (depending on where you put the MULE and how saturated you are).
The value of the Spawn Larva: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 supply to get you the larva production of more than 1 in-base hatchery AND 1 drone (because a Queen costs you neither larva nor drones to make, while the hatchery would cost you a drone).
So the question boils down to whether 1-3 SCVs (the net gain, since if you didn't make an OC you'd still have made 2 SCVs in that time) is a more significant gain that 1 drone + 1 hatchery. Not an easy comparison to make, but I would think it comes out in favor of the drone + hatchery. The problem is, again, the MULE almost always gets full value because you can spam out the MULEs you missed, while if you miss Spawn Larva cycles, that's diminishing value from the hatchery you saved yourself from.
I´d like to point out that Macro isn´t like Blizzards latest custom map, an effort to get minerals.
Macro is the process from resource patch -> mining process -> resource "bank" -> production process -> unit/building -> positioning of these in the "grand" sense.
Mules are great for the Mining Process but NOTHING else. It´s a fundamental basic which everyone will yell at new players for that stored resources don´t do anything for you.
Terrans are the best at hogging minerals but the worst at converting them. No mass larvae storing and eventual conversion. No "frontloaded"(first the unit then the CD) production via Warp-in. No speeding up via Chronoboost.
The races are different. This means that the only way to decide if the mule is over powered is to determine if massing marines/hellions/(and to a lesser extent) marauders (the big mineral heavy units) with the energy that could otherwise be used for scans and supply drops is overpowered OR having upgraded that CC to a Planetary Fortress is far to powerful. If it has been determined that the mule allows you to mass an army that is to powerful then there are several changes that can be considered.
Nerf the mineral heavy units. Terran now needs the mules to make enough mineral heavy units making the scan/mule choice fall to the mule more often
Nerf the gas heavy units. With gas being the limiting resource I need to be very careful how I spend it. Making a few of the wrong gas heavy units will leave my mineral heavy units without the support they need to overwhelm the opponent. (gasp this on is happening siege tank nerf)
Buff Z's and P's ability to kill those mineral heavy units. Now spending 50 energy on a scan to help me decide how to spend my gas is more important than what I could use those 270 minerals for right now.
Improve alternatives. With a +10 supply +2 armor drop or a 1.5 times size scan it would be more tempting to not mule. Who knows in the next expansion Terran might get the ability to drop a premade structure from orbit for cost + energy that sets up in half the time. I know I would have a hard time muleing if I could do that. (that last one is a bit out there)
Nerf the mule's ability as a miner, or number that can be fielded at once. Self explanatory.
Notice that out of all of those the most boring one dimensional one is to nerf the mule its self. I vote for any of the other options (especially the improved supply drop) over a boring, simple, one dimensional mule nerf.
On September 18 2010 19:25 cerebralz wrote: I would like to add that worker harass vs. terran is much more inefficient than against zerg or protoss. Harassing units for zerg and protoss come out much later, when the terran (who has the best defense) can defend it. If you aren't able to do massive damage, say more than 5 workers, the terran simply MULE's and carrys on without a hitch.
Switch to terran vs. all where their harassment units are tier 1 or 1.5 basically when no one has adequate defense. 5 drone or probe kills is devastating to the opponent forcing them to extremely delay their timings.
This fact almost ensures that the terran can certainly survive the early game not only in a game sense, but in a mind game sense, because harassment is just not efficient. All my zvt games go to a long macro game and when i win, it's because i had superior macro/unit composition. Even when i do harass with say, mutas, and succeed, the terran can scare you away with his ranged units and defense, and survive with mules until he can replenish his econ.
I can remember a bunch of games where i destroyed almost all the terran's workers, but because of MULEs and being able to wall off, coupled with the fact that i skimped on econ for harass, they ended up winning the game overall.
Even a small cooldown on the MULE would be very good way to balance the ability. Make the terran remember timings just like the rest of us, even if it's just 10 seconds. Either that or make all the macro abilities spammable. (of course that's not gonna happen)
If he has more than one mule it's because he didn't mule before and of course that will cost him something (weaker army)
not really. there comes a point where your scv count more or less meets your mineral needs to mules would only add excess. so it doesnt necessarily mean weaker army.
That's still minerals they gave up which could have translated into a faster expansion or tighter defense. You can't just say "past a point, minerals aren't worth anything", because that means that as a mechanic MULEs also become worthless at that point (whereas Chrono Boost and Spawn Larva translate into other advantages).
On September 19 2010 01:27 Uhh Negative wrote: Terran shouldn't be able to have more than 1 MULE at a time per OC. If zerg misses an injection you think they can just inject 5 times in a row? Not to mention MULEs are stronger than injection anyway.
Strictly speaking, MULE's *aren't* necessarily stronger than Spawn Larva.
The value of MULE: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 SCVs' build time to get you the mining of 3-5 SCVs (depending on where you put the MULE and how saturated you are).
The value of the Spawn Larva: Costs you 150 minerals and 2 supply to get you the larva production of more than 1 in-base hatchery AND 1 drone (because a Queen costs you neither larva nor drones to make, while the hatchery would cost you a drone).
So the question boils down to whether 1-3 SCVs (the net gain, since if you didn't make an OC you'd still have made 2 SCVs in that time) is a more significant gain that 1 drone + 1 hatchery. Not an easy comparison to make, but I would think it comes out in favor of the drone + hatchery. The problem is, again, the MULE almost always gets full value because you can spam out the MULEs you missed, while if you miss Spawn Larva cycles, that's diminishing value from the hatchery you saved yourself from.
I´d like to point out that Macro isn´t like Blizzards latest custom map, an effort to get minerals.
Macro is the process from resource patch -> mining process -> resource "bank" -> production process -> unit/building -> positioning of these in the "grand" sense.
Mules are great for the Mining Process but NOTHING else. It´s a fundamental basic which everyone will yell at new players for that stored resources don´t do anything for you.
Terrans are the best at hogging minerals but the worst at converting them. No mass larvae storing and eventual conversion. No "frontloaded"(first the unit then the CD) production via Warp-in. No speeding up via Chronoboost.
Personally I think the disadvantage to Terran production is overblown when taken in conjunction with the rest of the game environment. How easy is it to put pressure on Terran while they're converting their minerals? How often is being able to convert large amounts of stockpiled money at once a practical advantage?
On September 19 2010 08:00 Karkadinn wrote: Personally I think the disadvantage to Terran production is overblown when taken in conjunction with the rest of the game environment. How easy is it to put pressure on Terran while they're converting their minerals? How often is being able to convert large amounts of stockpiled money at once a practical advantage?
At the later stages of the game, being able to convert all of that income into something other than the Avg Unspent Resources bar is a pretty big part of the game. T as a whole is the most limited in its ability to produce units, with only Marines, Hellions, Vikings and Medivacs being units that can be produced two at a time, using an addon that prevent other often more important units from being built, regardless of tech structures/tech level.
It's probably this a few other reasons why I find complaints about the Mule to be laughable, zerg has problems but its definately not in the macro department. People whining about the ability to have a 3 free scvs every 50 seconds, compared to the ability to power production (which in turn powers that same races economy and army) makes me really wonder about the quality of these boards these days. Nevermind that this thread has reached a hilarious number of pages.
People comparing that to their inability to stack spawn larva - Are you serious? No really, people seriously think their tragic inability have 16+larva per hive incoming every spawn larva cycle, (cause Queen production sure ain't capped), compared to the ability to make the Avg Unspent Resources Bar soar -and thats if the player eschews a decent portion of their macro, or is in a do or die 1/1000 situation like the OP posted, (where for some reason being into lategame with an opponent who has 12 probes in gas, and some other probes distributed oddly and having however many OCs intact serves as a perfect example of your typical game). are the same?
On September 19 2010 08:00 Karkadinn wrote: Personally I think the disadvantage to Terran production is overblown when taken in conjunction with the rest of the game environment. How easy is it to put pressure on Terran while they're converting their minerals? How often is being able to convert large amounts of stockpiled money at once a practical advantage?
At the later stages of the game, being able to convert all of that income into something other than the Avg Unspent Resources bar is a pretty big part of the game.
(Going to split up the quote to answer points one at a time for sake of streamlining.) The post I was quoting acknowledged that leaving large amounts of money deliberately banked is a bad idea. Sure, Zerg can rebuild a decimated army fast, or blow up banelings to make room quick for something else. But how is that an actual advantage compared to having an army that is capable of surviving that first fight to begin with?
On September 19 2010 09:09 Mensab wrote: T as a whole is the most limited in its ability to produce units, with only Marines, Hellions, Vikings and Medivacs being units that can be produced two at a time, using an addon that prevent other often more important units from being built, regardless of tech structures/tech level.
...which doesn't matter, because they can take as much time building their units as they need behind their walls.
On September 19 2010 09:09 Mensab wrote: It's probably this a few other reasons why I find complaints about the Mule to be laughable, zerg has problems but its definately not in the macro department.
Which is why the race with the worst base defenses is the most dependent on a fast expansion to match the one-base income of a race with the best base defenses. Heh.
On September 19 2010 09:09 Mensab wrote: People whining about the ability to have a 3 free scvs every 50 seconds, compared to the ability to power production (which in turn powers that same races economy and army) makes me really wonder about the quality of these boards these days.
Well, if you want to bring armies into it... let's put two food-capped armies, one Zerg, and one Terran, against each other. Guess which one will win? The one that doesn't have to spend food on its macro.
On September 19 2010 09:09 Mensab wrote: People comparing that to their inability to stack spawn larva - Are you serious?
The rest of your post was a HORRIBLE run-on sentence, I'm not going to try to pick that apart. But the inability to stack spawn larva isn't a balance issue, it's an 'interface clunkiness/ease of use/quality of life' issue. The fact that you need to hit it exactly at the right second every single time, or else you'll be behind, forever, is simply ridiculous. Even the best players can't do it perfectly all game. It's just mindless yet incredibly punishing busywork with no thought involved, and as such, serves as an excellent example of uncharacteristically poor game design from Blizzard.
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Different races are different.
For fuck's sake, Starcraft is a game of ASYMMETRY.
Zerg morph workers into buildings. Terran workers stand there and build. Toss workers just start the warp in and go on their merry way.
Toss can wall off completely just fine, because warp gates let them spawn units anywhere on the map with pylon power. Not that you need to wall off completely in the first place, since you can use very strong melee units (something that Terran doesn't have) to block any early ling or zealot pressure in the gaps. Mid-game, you have force fields.
Zerg can't wall off at all because all their units are spawned at their town hall. In turn, zerg gets Creep, which gives them a really massive home ground advantage.
Races also differ in their production methods. Zerg are highly reactionary and can produce 20 mutalisks just as easily as 20 roaches, all from the same larvae. Protoss mech and air have build times but their varied infantry and casters are all spawned instantly anywhere on the map via warp gates, in whatever combination required. Terran are the least reactionary, due to every one of their units having a build time.
This is why they are also the most defensive and turtle-oriented, and why zerg are least defensive - zerg can reinforce entire armies in one production cycle while terran needs to spend multiple production cycles to pump out the same number of units. Protoss is somewhere in between, since they can always warp in units to defend or reinforce.
For vision and mobility, zerg are by far ahead of every other race by design. Their food buildings are flying units that can be spread around the map for vision. Creep removes fog of war at zero mineral cost (only queen energy) and greatly boosts unit speed. When zerg has map control, they don't use fortified positions but rather control territory with the thread of multi-pronged, fast reactions to anyone entering. Protoss are again a middle ground, in that they can use relatively small, mobile forces to control territory and reinforce them through pylons placed in key locations. Protoss vision is nearly a map hack until the enemy has detection. Terran has by far the poorest vision of the map, and map control is achieved by entrenched positions and chokepoints. Which is why they're good at turtling.
This is what makes the game good. This is why Starcraft was a revolutionary RTS. If you're pining for an RTS where all races can do the same crap, only with different graphics, then please delete your SC2 folder now.
I see a lot of people stating some incorrect facts about the MULE. Although then again as i don't play terran what i am about to say could also be wrong, but as far as i know
The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
But what bugs me the most is how flexible the terran is. For Protoss and zerg, what happens if you have 40 of your workes taken out? You have to GG. Zerg either has a choice of producing works over units, in which case the other race can just push and win, or producing units over workers, in which case there eco will be aweful and they will also lose pretty soon.
Same for protoss. Although protoss can chrono boost out scv's, the chrono is not constant and its still a very very long time until you have a decent eco going again. By which time the other race should already have pushed and over ran you.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
And the supply drop. Let's say you'r protoss, and you forget a pylon, or your a zerg and you forget an over lord, thats a long time you have to go before you can actually produce units again. What happens if your terran? You just press X click on a supply depo and carry on macroing. No time lost at all.
Or, what if a protoss forget detection and the other race goes for cloaked units? Well thats pretty much GG. Same for zerg. What happens if a terran forgets turrets or a raven and gets a DT in there base? Its ok, they had their detection before you even had a unit. And if its on cool down? Well its not long enough for a DT to kill all your buildings or even make a decent dent in your army before you can scan again.
To me, it just seems like terran is the "Idiot proof" race. Now im not saying all terrans are idiots, most top terrans deserve the majority of their wins. However unlike the other races its much more tolerable to mistakes.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them.
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them.
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
They have to burn SCV time to rebuild them? Zerg loses the drones forever just building tech buildings.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: But what bugs me the most is how flexible the terran is. For Protoss and zerg, what happens if you have 40 of your workes taken out? You have to GG. Zerg either has a choice of producing works over units, in which case the other race can just push and win, or producing units over workers, in which case there eco will be aweful and they will also lose pretty soon.
Same for protoss. Although protoss can chrono boost out scv's, the chrono is not constant and its still a very very long time until you have a decent eco going again. By which time the other race should already have pushed and over ran you.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Again, the MULE minerals don't come out of nowhere. In order to have spare MULEs to use, Terran has to have chosen, deliberately or accidentally, not to use them before, and thus have had a smaller income at some earlier stage. This is exactly analogous to the situation where Z may have chosen not to spend larva to make drones, again either deliberately or accidentally, and instead uses his extra larvae after the battle to replenish his drone count.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: Or, what if a protoss forget detection and the other race goes for cloaked units? Well thats pretty much GG. Same for zerg. What happens if a terran forgets turrets or a raven and gets a DT in there base? Its ok, they had their detection before you even had a unit. And if its on cool down? Well its not long enough for a DT to kill all your buildings or even make a decent dent in your army before you can scan again.
This argument is weak. I understand that you're saying that Terran has less to worry about because they can't "forget" to get detection because the Orbital Command is built into everyone's build, but likewise it's not really easier to "forget" to get an Overseer or Robotics Facility--the fact that they're later doesn't change the fact that they're still generally worth having around in the same manner that an Orbital Command is worth having around.
On September 19 2010 11:44 TheYango wrote: I understand that you're saying that Terran has less to worry about because they can't "forget" to get detection because the Orbital Command is built into everyone's build, but likewise it's not really easier to "forget" to get an Overseer or Robotics Facility--the fact that they're later doesn't change the fact that they're still generally worth having around in the same manner that an Orbital Command is worth having around.
No. The Terran analogue to overseers and observers is the raven. The OC's detect ability is, like many other things Terran has, just an extra gimmick the other factions plain and simple do not get any compensation for. Like flying buildings and 100% salvageable bunkers.
On September 19 2010 08:00 Karkadinn wrote: Personally I think the disadvantage to Terran production is overblown when taken in conjunction with the rest of the game environment. How easy is it to put pressure on Terran while they're converting their minerals? How often is being able to convert large amounts of stockpiled money at once a practical advantage?
At the later stages of the game, being able to convert all of that income into something other than the Avg Unspent Resources bar is a pretty big part of the game. T as a whole is the most limited in its ability to produce units, with only Marines, Hellions, Vikings and Medivacs being units that can be produced two at a time, using an addon that prevent other often more important units from being built, regardless of tech structures/tech level.
What? How hard is it to build even more factories, starports barracks? In the late game that economy is pretty critical and said economy will allow the T player to simply build more production facilities - along with MBS how is dumping really a problem?
The fact is, the Z and P races can have their workers / income smashed and not recover, whereas if you see the OP and the picture included in it, the T player can spam mules and completely keep themselves viable. I'm no where near good enough to argue imba in this game or not but it's certainly something which needs some thought put into it.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them.
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
I don't know why people keep saying this.
Technically, yes zerg can rebuild 50 drones off say 6 bases. In reality though if you have lost that many drones, you are using your larvae on army to not die right away. Sure you could technically remake the drones but that means you have an army attacking you and no larvae left. And don't get me started on Zerg losing a structure (spire build time is what again? not to mention Hive :x). At least Terran can fly away most of their key tech.
On the other hand Terran after a big fight like that usually have accumulated energy (even pro macro slips with crazy end game micro) so they drop a dozen or more free mules that give them an econ equivalent to 60 ish workers. This econ is right when it is needed, where both players are weak, and instantaneous. The workers don't need to transfer or move from the inactive bases, they just appear on wherever you have mineral patches (likely gold if you have one).
Not only that but these 60 free workers you get at the right time take no supply, this is a rather big issue because the 200/200 Terran is already very powerful without adding the fact that they only need 50-60 supply of scvs to get a better econ than zerg or toss on 80-90 workers.
Actually I also think the problem is how spammable they are late. In the beginning Terran can't get workers as fast as chrono boosted probes or hard droning so MULES are the mechanic to compensate. On the other hand what makes Terran so bloody awful to play against is that they have a ton of failsafes in the late game. Kill all their scvs => mules just show up, kill their army => 3 siege tanks and a couple PFs will hold them until they make a new army, catch them out of position => they lift off so you can't really base race them, start starving the whole map => they fly to whatever unclaimed base is left, put down 2 PFs and 6 turrets and they are completely untouchable.
Now there are several possible fixes. The cooldown is one. Another would be to make mules land at the orbital command that spends the energy and then rally to the patch (this does not decrease 1 or 2 base play but means you cant just drop 20 MULES on an island or gold as easily). Yet another would be to make MULES cost 2-3 population while active, this would in my opinion not help the late spam (because you probably just lost an army) but it would punish them for poor macro (it makes it better to have 1 mule per orbital active all the time than dropping them 3 at a time from all orbital commands).
My favorite would be to force MULES to land at the orbital then move. It avoids that silly "I took a gold, dropped 15 mules and am now swimming in minerals when 2 seconds ago I had nothing". It also greatly decreases the effectiveness of Terrans with Island expansions which I don't think is bad.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them.
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
They have to burn SCV time to rebuild them? Zerg loses the drones forever just building tech buildings.
How expensive is that in reality?
Let´s take a supply depot for example: 30 seconds buildtime. The fastest build "general" Terran building. The Terran looses 30 seconds minimum in harvesttime from one SCV.
When the Zerg builds something he needs to replace the drone. The cost is in the structure, all Zerg buildings have a 50 Mineral "discount" or even more because the drone is calculated. Thus the Zerg looses droneharvesttime in the size it takes to replace that drone: max 15 seconds for the next larvae and 15 seconds morphtime.
The Zerg modell is only a disadvantage if the Zerg can´t afford the larvae to replace the drone.
On September 19 2010 10:26 Karkadinn wrote: Which is why the race with the worst base defenses is the most dependent on a fast expansion to match the one-base income of a race with the best base defenses. Heh.
I think you are misunderstanding the concept of static defense in SC2. It´s there to buy you time until your units arrive. Zerg get the "worst" static defense because their army is the most mobile. Their ONLY really immobile ground unit is the Hydralisk which is actually quite fast on creep which you should have between your bases. On top of that Zerg get the Nydus system - ever tried to use them for mobility/defense instead of just drop attempts?
Terrans get the best static defense because it´s the easiest to abuse their immobility.
this post is stupid, he had 2 CC, for all we know he had 200/200 energy at his CC. thats 8 mules he could have called down after his miners got whipped. That mineral count was for at most maybe 1 minute, not the whole game. I am tired of people being such babies about stuff.
If the Terran player does not get any Planetary Fortresses and transitions into the late game Mules could arguably be Imba, but lets face it, how many Terrans get more than 2 Orbital Commands? The Terran army is just too slow to be everywhere at once.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
You "lose" 2 SCVs to the upgrade process to Orbital command. Terrans take longer to saturate Minerallines than even Protoss that don´t boost their Probeproduction because of that. Yeah, Terrans CAN squeeze the most minerals out of a mineralline but that doesn´t mean they DO most of the time. On top of that you "lose" saturation to the Building construction process.
Mules are too forgiving in term of Macroing. Give them a cooldown, even 10 or 15sec. Would be enough to show that Terrans players HAVE to macro before their CC's get 200/200.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote: The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
counting mule by scv is useless, if terran has <12scv then mule is worth about 4-5, between 12 and 16 scv it progresses to 8 scv worth of income, if there are16+ scvs mining mule is worth exacty infinite count of scvs
only good comparison of mule is extra 2 patches of mineral with workers included imagine playing with 6 patches, this is income difference there
On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote: Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion
chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced; chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed
the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed; the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics
I don't think mules are really THAT good. The only problem is they're good when compared to spawn larva and chornoboost. Here is something I wrote in my offsite blog.
Mules are really great mineral gatherers. Once you get up an orbital command and start pumping these guys you pretty much don't have to worry about your mineral resources anymore. I would really find this system fine if the other races didn't have such less forgiving methods; mainly Zerg.
With Zerg you have spawn larva, which takes a very long time to complete. If you miss casting it when you can that is just wasted time, and production. It really doesn't matter how much energy your queen has saved up.
With Protoss you can chronoboost your buildings. Now I actually feel this is balanced somewhat due to the fact you can chronoboost everything. I still don't feel it's as good as Terran's ability to gain such a huge economic lead though. Sure you may able to spit out a million probes, but they can only collect so fast. With Mules they can overlap workers on mineral patches, and they don't take any supply.
It's just not the minerals that are an issue either. If a Terran forgets to spend his energy it saves up to 200 which is enormous. This allows him to throw down multiple mules, or even increase his supply. Terran isn't disadvantaged by player error very badly compared to P/Z.
As for the OP I really don't mean to sound like a condescending ass here, but mining minerals faster is ALWAYS a good thing. Being able to get an early economic lead means you can gain an army count lead, which then leads to easier map control. Which in turn leads to safe expansions. Saying that "Mining your base out faster" is bad... is just... lol.
On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote: Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion
chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced; chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed
the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed; the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics
Yeah from a general gameplay sense I just disagree with the mule. I've disagreed with it since TLO vs Nazgul when TLO essentially due to mules back then.
People are constantly trying to make comparisons to other races where they don't exist, the scv, and the importance of keeping your workers alive in many situations is completely marginalized by the mule. One of the fundamental tenets of a harvester based game is undermined to a very large degree by the mule. Someone will invariably try to compare this to some zerg with an excess of larva who can redrone instantly without addressing any of the commonly known facts about the zerg race in sc2, they have a horrible time economically keeping up with other races. They are dumb comparisons.
Not to mention the fact that they allow terran to exceed saturation on a mineral line, I just don't see why anyone would think that's a good idea. Why not just have terran bases start with 2 extra mineral patches
Mule has always upset game balance to me. That's not to say the second a terran drops a mule the game is over, just that the way it can marginalize scv loss, and allow terran to exceed saturation in a way neither other race can do, is a disruptive force to the flow of the game
I have to disagree with whoever said that chronoboost late game is useless. Late game during macro battles you can chrono all your warp gates for even faster production. Seems pretty damn good to me. Also, I hear late game chronoboosting a crap-ton of +attack speed voidrays is pretty broken as well
On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote: Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion
chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced; chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed
the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed; the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics
Yeah from a general gameplay sense I just disagree with the mule. I've disagreed with it since TLO vs Nazgul when TLO essentially due to mules back then.
People are constantly trying to make comparisons to other races where they don't exist, the scv, and the importance of keeping your workers alive in many situations is completely marginalized by the mule. One of the fundamental tenets of a harvester based game is undermined to a very large degree by the mule. Someone will invariably try to compare this to some zerg with an excess of larva who can redrone instantly without addressing any of the commonly known facts about the zerg race in sc2, they have a horrible time economically keeping up with other races. They are dumb comparisons.
Not to mention the fact that they allow terran to exceed saturation on a mineral line, I just don't see why anyone would think that's a good idea. Why not just have terran bases start with 2 extra mineral patches
Mule has always upset game balance to me. That's not to say the second a terran drops a mule the game is over, just that the way it can marginalize scv loss, and allow terran to exceed saturation in a way neither other race can do, is a disruptive force to the flow of the game
I agree completely. The issue I have with the mule is exactly that. Killing terran workers seems less viable than other races and it really shouldn't be. You have to do loads of damage to set a terran back but they only have to do a little damage added to the fact they have the best means of doing that damage.
The whole Terran race seems badly designed in my opinion.
On September 19 2010 10:26 Karkadinn wrote: Which is why the race with the worst base defenses is the most dependent on a fast expansion to match the one-base income of a race with the best base defenses. Heh.
I think you are misunderstanding the concept of static defense in SC2. It´s there to buy you time until your units arrive. Zerg get the "worst" static defense because their army is the most mobile. Their ONLY really immobile ground unit is the Hydralisk which is actually quite fast on creep which you should have between your bases. On top of that Zerg get the Nydus system - ever tried to use them for mobility/defense instead of just drop attempts?
Terrans get the best static defense because it´s the easiest to abuse their immobility.
I already mentioned why Terran armies are, food for food, better than Zerg armies. Now you want me to further gimp my army by building an incredibly expensive and killable mobility asset that spits out my zerglings one by one? How about I just run a less gimped army over the regular way and be there in the same time or less? Assuming our Terran player hasn't been cheerfully using his three different detection methods to kill off creep as he pushes, anyway. Regardless, though, it requires more effort on my part to defend a wider territory with a theoretically mobile force than the Terran has to spend on defending a single base... or maybe that base and an expo with a planetary fortress on it. Is Terran limited offensively in return for these easier to use defenses? Hardly. And since their 'immobility' doesn't hinder these offensive options, it doesn't count for squat.
Yeah. Maybe on different, flatter, bigger maps. Not these maps, though. I get what you're saying, I get the theoreticals that were supposed to even things out. But in this map pool it doesn't play that way. And I'm pretty sure Blizzard isn't going to revamp every map to even things out.
I think a lot of people here are overlooking the fact that Terran needs mules just to keep up with Protoss Chronoboost and Zerg's inject larva. Wanting a cooldown is fair enough, but most other remarks are just hogwash - some even claim that a Terran player can lose 15 scvs and not be behind because mules would make up for it. If you can call down 4+ mules instanteneously than you've made a big sacrifice in economy/scanning(scouting) already, unless it's really late game when that doesn't matter as much.
Other than cooldown, there is nothing wrong with mules. Why do you think tvp is so balanced?
On September 20 2010 02:08 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: I think a lot of people here are overlooking the fact that Terran needs mules just to keep up with Protoss Chronoboost and Zerg's inject larva.
and i think you are overlooking that when granny cant keep up on a sunday walk you dont put her in a race car
you have to sneak in and kill these shiny yellow lil buggers
but in all seriousness you really need to make the mules cost 100 energy or something. I think that the way the game currently is, you can sneak an expo and just spam mules on it and your econ will be skyrocketing. Maybe have them cost gas or something, I dunno there should be some sort of way to fix it. I remember I was playing my friend and we were three base vs threebase and then he landed like 12 mules at this hidden expo and his econ shot up to 5000. It is just rediculous.
On September 20 2010 02:31 likeaboss wrote: you have to sneak in and kill these shiny yellow lil buggers
but in all seriousness you really need to make the mules cost 100 energy or something. I think that the way the game currently is, you can sneak an expo and just spam mules on it and your econ will be skyrocketing. Maybe have them cost gas or something, I dunno there should be some sort of way to fix it. I remember I was playing my friend and we were three base vs threebase and then he landed like 12 mules at this hidden expo and his econ shot up to 5000. It is just rediculous.
12? 5000? really? He prolly dropped the mules from his other 3 hidden bases...
On September 20 2010 02:08 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: I think a lot of people here are overlooking the fact that Terran needs mules just to keep up with Protoss Chronoboost and Zerg's inject larva.
and i think you are overlooking that when granny cant keep up on a sunday walk you dont put her in a race car
On September 20 2010 02:31 likeaboss wrote: you have to sneak in and kill these shiny yellow lil buggers
but in all seriousness you really need to make the mules cost 100 energy or something. I think that the way the game currently is, you can sneak an expo and just spam mules on it and your econ will be skyrocketing. Maybe have them cost gas or something, I dunno there should be some sort of way to fix it. I remember I was playing my friend and we were three base vs threebase and then he landed like 12 mules at this hidden expo and his econ shot up to 5000. It is just rediculous.
I'm gonna go ahead and blame you for this because you lost to a player that was short thousands of minerals for his army.
On September 20 2010 02:08 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: Why do you think tvp is so balanced?
if you want to call it balanced that the early game heavly favors one race, the mid game actualy beeing balanced and the late game favoring the other race as overall "balanced"...
.. then yes, tvp is very balanced indeed.
and chronoboost beeing comparable to Mules has been debunked earlyer in this topic as well.
Forgetting about mules DOES hurt you. 270 minerals now is worth more than 270 minerals later. The only times it is acceptable to build up energy on an orbital command are when you will need scan against cloaked units, or maybe if you are just about to set up a new base and want to mine from it quickly.
Chronoboost is a very similar ability, however it does not give you resources. It lets you build units or upgrades faster. Using it as soon as you have the energy is optimal, although you can use it later as long as you don't max on energy and waste regeneration. The minor difference is that you cannot stack multiple chronoboosts on the same building, but you can land multiple mules at the same base.
Seriously I dont give a shit about any patch changes at all apart from hoping they will fuckin nerf the mule to the ground baby. As it is, it is simply RETARDED.
On September 20 2010 02:08 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: Why do you think tvp is so balanced?
if you want to call it balanced that the early game heavly favors one race, the mid game actualy beeing balanced and the late game favoring the other race as overall "balanced"...
.. then yes, tvp is very balanced indeed.
In BW, tvp was just like that. Protoss was strong during 0 - 4 min, then terran had an attack window from 5 - 10 min depending on how fast the toss exped, etc, etc.
Tvz was similar with terran being strong when on m&m, then muta harrass/lurker contain came and momentum shifts, etc. Nothing wrong with that. Gives the matchups a dynamic aspect.
[quote=PulseSUI] and chronoboost beeing comparable to Mules has been debunked earlyer in this topic as well.[/QUOTE]
How has it been debunked? It's a fact that when neither the terran and protoss cheese or sacrifice economy for a rush, the protoss is always ahead in worker count AND can utilize every single one of them for mining purposes. Terran has fewer workers and loses 2-5 of them to building, repairing, etc.
Oh, and the screenshots are definitely deceiving. The guy was transferring his probes, making it look like he earned less from them, and the terran is not mining ANY gas and will have 0 income one minute later..... but yeah, just keep telling yourself he was still in the game. Like I said, mules are just to keep up with the other races. Please don't cry about terran being able to bring down 6 mules on a new exp; they lost economy/scans prior to doing so. Protoss has teleported rally points anywhere on the map. Zerg can do the same with nydus canals, although most zergs don't want to use it and just keep telling themselves they lost due to IMBA!!!@?@?! instead of thinking why they lost..
[QUOTE]On September 20 2010 06:13 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: [QUOTE]On September 20 2010 04:49 PulseSUI wrote: [QUOTE]On September 20 2010 02:08 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: Why do you think tvp is so balanced?[/QUOTE]
if you want to call it balanced that the early game heavly favors one race, the mid game actualy beeing balanced and the late game favoring the other race as overall "balanced"...
.. then yes, tvp is very balanced indeed.
In BW, tvp was just like that. Protoss was strong during 0 - 4 min, then terran had an attack window from 5 - 10 min depending on how fast the toss exped, etc, etc.
Tvz was similar with terran being strong when on m&m, then muta harrass/lurker contain came and momentum shifts, etc. Nothing wrong with that. Gives the matchups a dynamic aspect.
[quote] and chronoboost beeing comparable to Mules has been debunked earlyer in this topic as well.[/QUOTE]
How has it been debunked? It's a fact that when neither the terran and protoss cheese or sacrifice economy for a rush, the protoss is always ahead in worker count AND can utilize every single one of them for mining purposes. Terran has fewer workers and loses 2-5 of them to building, repairing, etc.
Like I said, mules are just to keep up with the other races. Please don't cry about terran being able to bring down 6 mules on a new exp; they lost economy/scans prior to doing so. Protoss has teleported rally points anywhere on the map. Zerg can do the same with nydus canals, although most zergs don't want to use it and just keep telling themselves they lost due to IMBA!!!@?@?! instead of thinking why they lost..[/QUOTE]
really THIS is making terran abled to do some very goofy comebacks that shouldnt happen imo.
On September 17 2010 05:40 Pyre wrote: Mules let T be ahead in income of a equal base zerg or protoss all game. Watch 99% of replays and see their income tab. More drones/probes cost minerals, after 16 workers mining efficiency drops in half. I haven't tested but I bet 16 scv's with a mule mines faster then 24 drones or probes. So terran is getting more income and spent 400 less minerals on their economy. That sounds balanced and fair to you?
spawn lavra = completely unforgiving, miss 1 and you are behind chrono boost = nice in theory but upgrades and units have a built in extra build time mules = always ahead in income no real downside for being late on using them, 2 other great alternatives as well.
On September 17 2010 06:48 koppik wrote: When at full saturation, a terran will mine slightly faster thanks to mules. But, really, you need 52 workers to optimally saturate two bases. Against a Protoss, for instance, who has been chrono'ing probes like crazy, he'll reach that point 3 minutes later than his Protoss opponent. A zerg would reach full saturation even quicker.
MULES are good, and Terran needs them. In terms of power as a macromechanic, it goes
larva inject >> chronoboost > mules.
But by boosting probes he is sacrificing boosted upgrades and units, so the Terran player should be ahead in tech / army if the Protoss player is 100% chrono boosting probes.
This, because Blizzard decided to make every protoss research and unit take that much longer because of chronoboost.
Sometimes I think it's a curse in disguise.
Hmm. Protoss get a research speed boosting ability, so their research times are longer by default. Zerg get movement speed boosting creep, so their units are slower by default. Terran get a mineral boosting ability, and their units have... good cost efficiency? Something doesn't add up here. <.<
guys, think about it. zerg with larva spwan gives u not only drones, but OTHER UNITS!!! dont make only 3 ultras, make like 6 ultras. chorno boost doesnt only boost out probes, how ab out a phoenix??? mule cant do shit to units popping out, so mule may b OP by like 300 minerals, but they cant halpe faster unit production, which is why its a fair trade. u cant make more units... but the time will be too long
On September 20 2010 06:15 in7e.sCream wrote: In BW, tvp was just like that. Protoss was strong during 0 - 4 min, then terran had an attack window from 5 - 10 min depending on how fast the toss exped, etc, etc.
oh, nobody would complain if it was like BW where it shifed back and forth and was pretty balanced once lategame hits.
but right now, in TvP: early game is only survivable for toss if the terran allows it (or makes misstakes). mid game, if the terran was 'stupid' enough to let the toss get there is actualy pretty balanced. then lategame hits and now it is the other way around... and the longer it goes the more it favors toss.
i would not call that 'balanced' by any means, sorry.
On September 20 2010 06:13 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: How has it been debunked? It's a fact that when neither the terran and protoss cheese or sacrifice economy for a rush, the protoss is always ahead in worker count AND can utilize every single one of them for mining purposes. Terran has fewer workers and loses 2-5 of them to building, repairing, etc.
it has been debunked in so far that the bonus from chronoboost, if only used on the nexus, is a laughable 22.5%, wich means that a Toss with 30 probes will be a full 4 probes ahead of a terran. and that is if the toss only uses the chronoboost on the nexus, nothing else.
those 4 probes and even the ones used to build, are easy made up with the MULE's.
On September 20 2010 09:59 FlaShFTW wrote: guys, think about it. zerg with larva spwan gives u not only drones, but OTHER UNITS!!! dont make only 3 ultras, make like 6 ultras. chorno boost doesnt only boost out probes, how ab out a phoenix??? mule cant do shit to units popping out, so mule may b OP by like 300 minerals, but they cant halpe faster unit production, which is why its a fair trade. u cant make more units... but the time will be too long
those minerals are used to throw down multiple production buildings. terran are one of the best reinforcing races in the game if macroed well.
On September 20 2010 09:59 FlaShFTW wrote: guys, think about it. zerg with larva spwan gives u not only drones, but OTHER UNITS!!! dont make only 3 ultras, make like 6 ultras. chorno boost doesnt only boost out probes, how ab out a phoenix??? mule cant do shit to units popping out, so mule may b OP by like 300 minerals, but they cant halpe faster unit production, which is why its a fair trade. u cant make more units... but the time will be too long
lol you just owned yourself... Not only do zerg have to make drones with that limited larva, but they also have to make UNITS. They can't miss any larva injects, or they are behind. If a queen dies they are behind. Terran is never behind, Mules have no downside how can you not understand this. The Zerg equivalent of this would be getting larva inject every 25 energy no matter what so you could stack 3 or 4 larva injects. Even then you wouldn't have the econ to use all the larva. Or letting P use multiple chronos stack all at once. The mule is imbalanced quit denying it with half ass arguments. At least make a legitimate point if you can even find one..
On September 20 2010 09:59 FlaShFTW wrote: guys, think about it. zerg with larva spwan gives u not only drones, but OTHER UNITS!!! dont make only 3 ultras, make like 6 ultras. chorno boost doesnt only boost out probes, how ab out a phoenix??? mule cant do shit to units popping out, so mule may b OP by like 300 minerals, but they cant halpe faster unit production, which is why its a fair trade. u cant make more units... but the time will be too long
lol you just owned yourself... Not only do zerg have to make drones with that limited larva, but they also have to make UNITS. They can't miss any larva injects, or they are behind. If a queen dies they are behind. Terran is never behind, Mules have no downside how can you not understand this. The Zerg equivalent of this would be getting larva inject every 25 energy no matter what so you could stack 3 or 4 larva injects. Even then you wouldn't have the econ to use all the larva. Or letting P use multiple chronos stack all at once. The mule is imbalanced quit denying it with half ass arguments. At least make a legitimate point if you can even find one..
god, my brain hurts. thank god most of you retards never touched brood war in any meaningful way. do you really think this is the way mechanics interact with each other?
On September 20 2010 10:32 PulseSUI wrote: it has been debunked in so far that the bonus from chronoboost, if only used on the nexus, is a laughable 22.5%, wich means that a Toss with 30 probes will be a full 4 probes ahead of a terran. and that is if the toss only uses the chronoboost on the nexus, nothing else.
those 4 probes and even the ones used to build, are easy made up with the MULE's.
this math cant be accurate. there's no way protoss can only squeeze out 34 probes to the terran's 30
There is no good reason to save up MULES. Apart from waiting to launch them all simultaneously on a gold, which is really ridiculous, a terran player who isnt constantly Muling is actually behind (theoretically). Sadly it is possible for a terran to get a bit behind and then erase their disadvantage by pulling right back ahead quickly. If a zerg forgets to spawn larvae, as a million people have said, they get behind for the rest of the game. Its like forgetting to make an extra barracks.
Chrono boost isnt like this and a cooldown would kill it. Chrono boost does not have to be used every X seconds in order to be optimized. I can let my nexus get up to 100 then chrono out 2 zealots, warpgate research and a probe if i want to, or i can whore it on probes the second my nexus hits 25.
The strategy im using might call for saving, or it might call for spending. Limiting what a player can do with this ability is really quite stupid since it actually has some neat decision making associated with it (nexus, zealots or warpgate research?, colossus, or colossus range? do i finish my +1 weapons or do i get my VR a bit faster?) MULE/SL are much more straightforward.
If I miss chrono, it might be sloppiness (in which case i dont get that unit/upgrade now, and am punished, or it could be strategic (saving for that specific research, unit etc). The game shouldnt be punishing good creative play and it shouldnt make a dynamic interesting ability (prolly the only semi-good macro mechanic) boring and repetitive. It kills me when i see people calling for a cooldown on chrono boost since that kills the entire point of it. MULEs yes, Chrono, no.
i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
On September 20 2010 11:06 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
Okay. So since missing a mule drop will harm your economy either way, why not add a cooldown in order to punish this even further?
That way playing terran will be as demanding as playing zerg.
There is a lot of discussion about how Terrans can come back from losing most or even all their workers. I'm curious as to whether people think it's a good design that Terran needs less bases than the other races. Considering how strong Terran defense is it seems a problem to me if Terran does not need as many bases to have an equal army.
On September 16 2010 17:23 klauz619 wrote: They don't magically pop up minerals and just make you mine out faster, it's just 300 minerals sped up to you.
Let's make probes harvest vespene gas at 20 per trip instead of 4. It's okay, though, their geysers will be depleted faster so it's balanced.
On September 20 2010 10:53 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: this math cant be accurate. there's no way protoss can only squeeze out 34 probes to the terran's 30
below two quotes. they are accurate and can be read on page 11 of this very topic.
Ok, lets just set the numbers straight here on (Wiki)Chrono Boost. Each Nexus can CB every 44.44 seconds for a 20s duration (.5625 (Wiki)Energy per second). CB increases production by 50%. This is a 22.5% production boost on one building. Twenty Two Point Five Percent. There is no double production speed or 2 probes per 1 scv, or even 3:2. Now with that out of the way, have fun trying to macro out of multiple asynchronous warpgates (both from different unit timers and CB) without losing build time and microing units and their spells.
Going by those numbers, Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm only doing some napkin maths
* Chrono boost reduces build time to 66.67% for 20seconds * Nexus can Chrono boost every 44.44seconds, therefore, Chronoboost can be up for 27seconds of every minute
So, Chronoboost, if constantly used on a single Nexus, over 60seconds, reduces the effective build time of all units (assuming constant production) to 85%.
To saturate a single base you need 30scv's. This means it takes Terran 510seconds to real full SVC saturation and Protoss 433.5seconds (slightly quicker or slower depending on how the last 13.5 seconds line up with the Chronoboost). So this means when Protoss reaches full saturation (30 Probes), Terran will have 26 SVC's. So effectively, it's 26 SVC's to 30 Probes assuming constant Chrono boosting on a nexus.
TL;DR : Assuming Constant Chronoboosting on a single Nexus by a single Nexus, SVC to Probe ratio will be 13:15. Assuming 1 mule = 4 Harvesters (180 per 60seconds), Mules dwarf the contribution of constant Chrono boosting on a nexus for Probe production (not using a single Chronoboost on tech, only Nexus, everytime it's up)
non stop building, toss using CB everytime it is up, a toss will have 4 probes more once 30 probes are hit.
Ok, lets just set the numbers straight here on (Wiki)Chrono Boost. Each Nexus can CB every 44.44 seconds for a 20s duration (.5625 (Wiki)Energy per second). CB increases production by 50%. This is a 22.5% production boost on one building. Twenty Two Point Five Percent. There is no double production speed or 2 probes per 1 scv, or even 3:2. Now with that out of the way, have fun trying to macro out of multiple asynchronous warpgates (both from different unit timers and CB) without losing build time and microing units and their spells.
Going by those numbers, Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm only doing some napkin maths
* Chrono boost reduces build time to 66.67% for 20seconds * Nexus can Chrono boost every 44.44seconds, therefore, Chronoboost can be up for 27seconds of every minute
So, Chronoboost, if constantly used on a single Nexus, over 60seconds, reduces the effective build time of all units (assuming constant production) to 85%.
To saturate a single base you need 30scv's. This means it takes Terran 510seconds to real full SVC saturation and Protoss 433.5seconds (slightly quicker or slower depending on how the last 13.5 seconds line up with the Chronoboost). So this means when Protoss reaches full saturation (30 Probes), Terran will have 26 SVC's. So effectively, it's 26 SVC's to 30 Probes assuming constant Chrono boosting on a nexus.
TL;DR : Assuming Constant Chronoboosting on a single Nexus by a single Nexus, SVC to Probe ratio will be 13:15. Assuming 1 mule = 4 Harvesters (180 per 60seconds), Mules dwarf the contribution of constant Chrono boosting on a nexus for Probe production (not using a single Chronoboost on tech, only Nexus, everytime it's up)
non stop building, toss using CB everytime it is up, a toss will have 4 probes more once 30 probes are hit.
The napkin math misses the fact that Terran loses 2 SCV build cycles in order to build the Orbital Command. So in reality it takes 545 game seconds to reach saturation, not 510. So when Protoss has 34 probes, Terran will have 28 SCVs.
This perfectly sums up the direction this thread is going.
The thread has no real merit. It consists of an observation (Mules are really strong), cites a public consensus (Terran is probably overpowered), and then proceeds to go nowhere.
Yes, terran is really strong, and yes, so are Mules.
So fucking what? You know what else is strong? Banshees. And Marines. And Marauder. And hellions. And tanks. And thors. And reapers, omg they are so strong.
Obviously nerfing any relevant variable could cause terran to be less strong. If I nerfed marines, terran would be less strong. If I removed banshees, terran would be less strong. Does that mean I should make a thread about how banshees are intrinsically break the game?
Any advocate for a specific nerf needs not to pinpoint how his topic is "strong", and how if it were theoretically "less strong", the race would be "less overpowered". Because making any relevant terran unit weaker would cause the race to be "less overpowered". Duh.
To prove that a single unit is an "imbalanced", you need to prove how the relative strength or role of a unit restricts or expands too many gameplay options for a given race, or there opponent in an atypical way.
In the case of the Mule, despite the fact that the thread has now reached twenty two pages, no valid reasoning for imbalance has been given.
In order to prove that the Mule is imbalanced, someone needs to show how the advantage Mules give allow terran too many options that can be reasonably dealt with, or allows terran to excessively restrict the opponents possible actions. In this case is the terran economy so inordinately strong that they restrict the possible actions of another race in too severe of a way? Or in other words, Terran is too strong because they have the strongest economy, and they can call down a bunch of Mules to get a lot minerals.
The clear answer to the above is bullshit. That is not why terran might be overpowered, and that is not the subject of a single high level consensus.
The other possible argument you could make is that the terran macro-management, due to the relative ease of the Mule, requires too little attention and is an imbalancing factor.
This is even more unarguably bullshit because Terran macromanagement as a whole is as hard as zerg, protoss being the easiest, that being the principal consensus of the many high level players including Idra, Artosis, and Machine, as of the end of beta interviews.
I think I need to make a thread to educate the forums what constitutes an imbalance. Sorry, comparing two dependent mechanics from two desperate races in a vacuum while ignoring the context in which they exist is not enough. Maybe for Pokemon. The current direction of this thread is very narrow, it just compares 1 gameplay mechanic to a random other gameplay mechanic. Well, obviously, they are not equal, because Starcraft has different races with different gameplay, surprisingly enough.
On September 20 2010 12:20 BiOAtK wrote: Don't forget that it also doesn't include MULE usage. In that napkin math, the nexus uses all of it's energy but the OC is still saving it all up.
Right that's the point. The idea is to figure out how many times Protoss needs to chrono to be on par with a Terran who is MULEing every time (assuming the MULE is worth ~4 SCVs).
The original math says that you need enough chrono boosts to be 4 probes ahead in order to catch up to a Terran who is MULEing. But the fact that Terran already falls behind by 2 to build his OC means you only need to chrono out 2 extra probes. I could be off, but I believe that's doable before your Cyber even finishes, assuming you don't chrono your first zealot.
The napkin math misses the fact that Terran loses 2 SCV build cycles in order to build the Orbital Command. So in reality it takes 545 game seconds to reach saturation, not 510. So when Protoss has 34 probes, Terran will have 28 SCVs.
Still the difference in their unit production is a LOT closer than most of the terrans in this thread want you to believe. The main thing is mules are good if you have zero miners or full saturation. A couple extra probes when you already have 20+ mining is a negligible income gain.
The napkin math misses the fact that Terran loses 2 SCV build cycles in order to build the Orbital Command. So in reality it takes 545 game seconds to reach saturation, not 510. So when Protoss has 34 probes, Terran will have 28 SCVs.
Still the difference in their unit production is a LOT closer than most of the terrans in this thread want you to believe. The main thing is mules are good if you have zero miners or full saturation. A couple extra probes when you already have 20+ mining is a negligible income gain.
I think people exaggerate on both sides. There are just as many people saying that the MULE gives an insurmountable early game economic advantage in the Protoss camp as there are in the Terran camp saying that MULE is worthless compared to CB. I'm pretty sure Blizzard mathed this out for the economic benefits to be reasonably similar (e.g. Terran gets their MULE going at just around the time Protoss wants to start using their Chrono Boosts for things other than probes, so they stay approximately at parity so long as neither player is over-saturating for an inordinate amount of time).
The disparity comes about primarily due to the fact that oversaturation happens more frequently in SC2 than Blizzard could have anticipated based on what SC1 games look like (either because players are relatively poor at this point, or because we haven't figured out the defensive timings for safe economic play). If games played out like in SC1 and people took bases as quickly as they do now, then Chrono Boost would be a lot stronger than it looks now (because when you can't fully saturate your bases, more probes have more value), and MULEs would be less so (because without their oversaturation benefit, MULEs are somewhat less appealing). If you balance in the short term, based on the current way games play out, you may run into the situation where MULEs end up falling short relative to Chrono Boost once we do figure out defensive timings and people start diversifying into SC1-style macro play.
On September 20 2010 12:10 TheYango wrote: The napkin math misses the fact that Terran loses 2 SCV build cycles in order to build the Orbital Command. So in reality it takes 545 game seconds to reach saturation, not 510. So when Protoss has 34 probes, Terran will have 28 SCVs.
the napkin math also does not take in to account that a toss will never spend all his chronoboost on a nexus and instead often safes it up for army or tech. (CBing the first stalker/ CB warpgate tech/ CBing the first Observer and so on).
the point was simply to show that chronoboost does not allow toss to get out 30 probes during the time it takes a terran to get 15 or 20 probes as was claimed multiple times.
all the math is good and right, but in the end, someone will have to make a direct ingame comparison to have some real solid proof and if and how much the MULEs actualy push the terran ahead economicly.
On September 20 2010 12:10 TheYango wrote: The napkin math misses the fact that Terran loses 2 SCV build cycles in order to build the Orbital Command. So in reality it takes 545 game seconds to reach saturation, not 510. So when Protoss has 34 probes, Terran will have 28 SCVs.
the napkin math also does not take in to account that a toss will never spend all his chronoboost on a nexus and instead often safes it up for army or tech. (CBing the first stalker/ CB warpgate tech/ CBing the first Observer and so on).
the point was simply to show that chronoboost does not allow toss to get out 30 probes during the time it takes a terran to get 15 or 20 probes as was claimed multiple times.
all the math is good and right, but in the end, someone will have to make a direct ingame comparison to have some real solid proof and if and how much the MULEs actualy push the terran ahead economicly.
Anyone who said that is obviously being silly.
CB allows Protoss to be at parity economically with the Terran before your main gets saturated. You need enough Chrono Boosts to get 2 probes out to reach a 4 worker advantage, which, assuming you aren't oversaturated, is enough to match the MULE's mining power. And you WILL chrono out 2 probes, because there simply aren't enough legal targets to use the chrono boost on before then (chronoing out 2 extra probes is ~3 Chrono Boosts, which isn't exactly an abnormal number to apply to the nexus).
depending on how you rate MULEs, it does indeed take about 3-6 CVs on the nexus per base to pull equal with a OC.
but again, it is theorycrafting and lacking real ingame proof. if i would have time i would do it my self, but someone should try and to some ingame test to show it in screenshots.
my personal opinion is that MULEs might be a hair to powerfull in the early game, pretty balanced in the mid game and have the potential to be outright stupid in the lategame.
On September 20 2010 11:06 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
I love that this is actually what you think is being pointed out when dozens have said repeatedly that no, it's not at no loss it's just not a complete loss. Hence the term 'forgiving.' This discussion isn't about comparing the effect of each macro ability to the other, at least it shouldn't be because that's not how mechanics work. No, the discussion is about which mechanic has the greatest margin for error. Logically it has to be the one where reaching the same effect in the end is possible even if you screw up over and over again.
On September 20 2010 11:06 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
I love that this is actually what you think is being pointed out when dozens have said repeatedly that no, it's not at no loss it's just not a complete loss. Hence the term 'forgiving.' This discussion isn't about comparing the effect of each macro ability to the other, at least it shouldn't be because that's not how mechanics work. No, the discussion is about which mechanic has the greatest margin for error. Logically it has to be the one where reaching the same effect in the end is possible even if you screw up over and over again.
the point i'm making is that the game is just a little more complicated than 'omfg look @ how ez teran pul back from not usin mule!!!'. claiming that terran has it too easy or is too strong or is imbalanced because they can recover from bad macro by suddenly banking thousands of minerals on the back of a few MULEs is the mentality of a terrible fucking player. what about all that time BEFOREHAND where the terran isn't using MULEs? the mechanic is completely necessary to Terran gameplay and not spending your MULEs WILL put you in a hole against a player of equal strength.
its like no one understands how much poorer a player's macro will be in any game where he has the opportunity to drop 6-7 MULEs at once, that's why this discussion bothers me. yes, the MULE is forgiving if you manage to make it to a neutral state without spending your MULE energy, but if the opponent lets you stay at neutral or doesn't have an advantage that can't be trumped by a sudden and temporary increase in minerals, the opponent is a fucking clod!
im not speaking to you directly when i say this, but people are far too unwilling to admit their own shittiness & vastly prefer to blame the game itself.
On September 20 2010 11:06 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
I love that this is actually what you think is being pointed out when dozens have said repeatedly that no, it's not at no loss it's just not a complete loss. Hence the term 'forgiving.' This discussion isn't about comparing the effect of each macro ability to the other, at least it shouldn't be because that's not how mechanics work. No, the discussion is about which mechanic has the greatest margin for error. Logically it has to be the one where reaching the same effect in the end is possible even if you screw up over and over again.
The issue of the MULE being forgiving is one that's been sensibly discussed at various points. I believe Fakesteve was responding to people with the opinion that, forgiving or not, the MULE is just plain better than Chrono Boost. Not only is that hard to evaluate, but even when comparing the pure economic benefits, it's a pretty hard-to-float proposition. The MULE is better than Chrono Boost in certain contexts that may appear more or less often in current games, but may not remain so common as the game develops.
On September 20 2010 10:32 PulseSUI wrote: it has been debunked in so far that the bonus from chronoboost, if only used on the nexus, is a laughable 22.5%, wich means that a Toss with 30 probes will be a full 4 probes ahead of a terran. and that is if the toss only uses the chronoboost on the nexus, nothing else.
those 4 probes and even the ones used to build, are easy made up with the MULE's.
this math cant be accurate. there's no way protoss can only squeeze out 34 probes to the terran's 30
It's not correct. That calculation doesn't take into account:
a) Terran loses scvs because of the OC-upgrade b) Terran loses the equivalent of 3 scvs in money for the OC-upgrade while Chronoboost is free (some might say: so what, 150 isn't that much, but it's a lot early game, and half of what an entire mule gets you). c) Terran has to use 2-5 SCVs for building/repairing/defending purposes - they won't be able to mine and thus you're effectively down that many SCVs.
And everyone who's played terran at a (semi) high level will know that you kick yourself in the face when you've forgotten your 2nd or 3rd mule when you had no intention of scanning. You DEFINITELY notice missing that extra income even if you still get it later. It's like when your opponent expands before you do. You'll still get the money, but you're behind and you know it.
I've just watched more games where the Protoss has done a decent harrass and is ahead on probe count but lo and behold, 3 mules drop and the Terran is easily able to surpass the income.
Notwithstanding whether an ability is weak or strong relative to each other, this seems to be inherently 'unfair'. It devalues harassing against a terran because mules are limited life renewables anyway. The emphasis on covering the mineral line is not a big deal at all for a terran compared to the other races. Lose a bunch of scvs, call down mules, out macro opponent.
uhm, hasn't anybody realised that 54 workers on only 2 mining bases is a waste of probes?? He should have expod long ago and double that income with only 1 base more.
On September 20 2010 19:54 theSAiNT wrote: I've just watched more games where the Protoss has done a decent harrass and is ahead on probe count but lo and behold, 3 mules drop and the Terran is easily able to surpass the income.
Notwithstanding whether an ability is weak or strong relative to each other, this seems to be inherently 'unfair'. It devalues harassing against a terran because mules are limited life renewables anyway. The emphasis on covering the mineral line is not a big deal at all for a terran compared to the other races. Lose a bunch of scvs, call down mules, out macro opponent.
Outmacroing a Player doesn´t mean having more income or more total assets, it means having more food worth of units in the enemys base than HE does. Saved up MULES are the equivialent of Minerals in the Bank. Why isn´t anyone complaining that Protoss can port in 10 Zealots instantly just because they forgot to spend 1000 Minerals!?
Also Quoting this once more because I agree completely:
On September 20 2010 12:20 Half wrote: I don't get how this thread is so long.
This perfectly sums up the direction this thread is going.
The thread has no real merit. It consists of an observation (Mules are really strong), cites a public consensus (Terran is probably overpowered), and then proceeds to go nowhere.
Yes, terran is really strong, and yes, so are Mules.
So fucking what? You know what else is strong? Banshees. And Marines. And Marauder. And hellions. And tanks. And thors. And reapers, omg they are so strong.
Obviously nerfing any relevant variable could cause terran to be less strong. If I nerfed marines, terran would be less strong. If I removed banshees, terran would be less strong. Does that mean I should make a thread about how banshees are intrinsically break the game?
Any advocate for a specific nerf needs not to pinpoint how his topic is "strong", and how if it were theoretically "less strong", the race would be "less overpowered". Because making any relevant terran unit weaker would cause the race to be "less overpowered". Duh.
To prove that a single unit is an "imbalanced", you need to prove how the relative strength or role of a unit restricts or expands too many gameplay options for a given race, or there opponent in an atypical way.
In the case of the Mule, despite the fact that the thread has now reached twenty two pages, no valid reasoning for imbalance has been given.
In order to prove that the Mule is imbalanced, someone needs to show how the advantage Mules give allow terran too many options that can be reasonably dealt with, or allows terran to excessively restrict the opponents possible actions. In this case is the terran economy so inordinately strong that they restrict the possible actions of another race in too severe of a way? Or in other words, Terran is too strong because they have the strongest economy, and they can call down a bunch of Mules to get a lot minerals.
The clear answer to the above is bullshit. That is not why terran might be overpowered, and that is not the subject of a single high level consensus.
The other possible argument you could make is that the terran macro-management, due to the relative ease of the Mule, requires too little attention and is an imbalancing factor.
This is even more unarguably bullshit because Terran macromanagement as a whole is as hard as zerg, protoss being the easiest, that being the principal consensus of the many high level players including Idra, Artosis, and Machine, as of the end of beta interviews.
I think I need to make a thread to educate the forums what constitutes an imbalance. Sorry, comparing two dependent mechanics from two desperate races in a vacuum while ignoring the context in which they exist is not enough. Maybe for Pokemon. The current direction of this thread is very narrow, it just compares 1 gameplay mechanic to a random other gameplay mechanic. Well, obviously, they are not equal, because Starcraft has different races with different gameplay, surprisingly enough.
The picture is incredibly fitting because a game between Terran and Protoss is used as reference for a problem the Zerg have which is supposed to be solved by changing a Terran mechanic.
MULEs and Chronoshift are "forgiving" because it´s intentional and potentionaly optimal to save energy on OC and Nexus. That can´t be possible for Queens because you can have quite a few more of them.
The solution can´t be " Zerg macro is broken, lets fuck up Terrans so we feel better about it".
i love how people say OMG ZERG SPAWN LARVA CANNOT DO SAM TING!!! Like seriously, that is the zerg macro mechanic. You can't expect all races to be like, Terran as an X Ability that lets him to A, and So Does Toss, but Zerg's Z Mechanic, can't let you do A. You can't just go out and compare things like that and be like it isn't fair. Given Mules can be a bit more forgiving, the discussion should be more on should you be able to call that many mules down and match someones econ. Not CHRONO BOOST AND SPAWN LARVA CAN'T DO THAT.
On September 20 2010 11:06 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: i really love the notion of "if a terran doesnt spend his energy on mules he can just pound them out later at no loss" as if having those minerals sooner is completely irrelevant as long as you reach the same total in the end
I love that this is actually what you think is being pointed out when dozens have said repeatedly that no, it's not at no loss it's just not a complete loss. Hence the term 'forgiving.' This discussion isn't about comparing the effect of each macro ability to the other, at least it shouldn't be because that's not how mechanics work. No, the discussion is about which mechanic has the greatest margin for error. Logically it has to be the one where reaching the same effect in the end is possible even if you screw up over and over again.
..not spending your MULEs WILL put you in a hole against a player of equal strength.
The exact same thing is true of the other macro mechanics but only one of them provides the player with the opportunity to make up for lost time. This isn't a mentality, it's just the way the game is verbatim.
Let's be honest, really. We've seen pros play, people so good at this game they do it for a living, and not even they consistently hit injects or chronobosts to the point where no cooldown is missed. Your assessment above is just plain wrong. Currently, at the pinnacle of skill levels, players of equal strength are absolutely not put in a hole, relatively, by missing a MULE because even at the top levels both players are missing cooldowns on their macro abilities. Maybe someday we'll be at the point where the best pros never miss a single one but that day is not today.
To those who are suggesting that mules should not have been banked in the first place, consider the following gameplay scenario:
It is midgame PvT. The T has scanned the P and sees a twilight council but no templar archives or darkshrine yet. To be safe at this point he decides to save some energy for scans. The P proceeds to do a storm drop which kills 8 scvs. The T now knows there are no dts coming and drops 3 mules. His mining rate actually goes UP. The cost to the P is the 2 storms that could otherwise have been used with his main army.
What if the P had not done a successful drop? The T would have had to scan at least once more. If he still does not see the tech tree, he has to save at least 1 scan just in case. Maybe he drops one mule for a small economic boost but wisely does not burn all his energy.
Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.
Now I actually really like the tension in macro choices between saving for a scan vs using a mule as it adds depth to the game. I haven't got a problem with how 'forgiving' the T or P mechanics are (I play Z). However I do feel that the mule is far too strong at negating any damage harrassment can do once the T doesn't need scan anymore. I am in favour of reducing the return from a mule over adding a cooldown.
Note my argument does not hinge on a comparison between racial macro mechanics because as many have rightly pointed out, they were never designed to be equivalent.
On September 20 2010 22:19 theSAiNT wrote: Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.
You are trying to cherrypicking a scenario that supports your argument. Even then the Terran is by default behind in your scenario because he saves energy. This alone is a cost already. The Terran has less than he would have had should he have keept MULEing.
On September 20 2010 22:19 theSAiNT wrote: Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.
You are trying to cherrypicking a scenario that supports your argument. Even then the Terran is by default behind in your scenario because he saves energy. This alone is a cost already. The Terran has less than he would have had should he have keept MULEing.
Did you even read my post? You're the one who is 'cherrypicking', completely quoting out of context. The Terran is RIGHTLY saving energy for scans against a midgame protoss because of the potential threat of DTs. He can safely mule AFTER he sees high templars with storm because now he knows there won't be DTs.
- Protoss have chrono boost > as a result their units and research takes longer to complete compared to Zerg/Terran.
- Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
- Terran have mules > ... but their units are by far the most cost effective units in the game?
So the Zerg/Protoss "specialities" also give them partial negatives, while the Mule really has no negative outset. Especially given there is actually "hardly any" time lost on SCV production, compared to Drone/Probe. Only Probe/Drone production can be "forced out" moreso than SCVs.
On September 21 2010 00:07 in7e.sCream wrote: ^ another terran claiming that all is fine.
why not? As someone stated before, with the choice of chrono boosting probes protoss leads in worker count (permanently) where as mules are a temporary mechanic.
On September 21 2010 00:07 in7e.sCream wrote: ^ another terran claiming that all is fine.
why not? As someone stated before, with the choice of chrono boosting probes protoss leads in worker count (permanently) where as mules are a temporary mechanic.
it also makes it so terran needs a LOT less scv's late game leading to more supply room for a larger army. this especially is crap because their armies are ridiculously powerful even when they don't outnumber the opponent's.
- Terran loose 3 scvs cost (150) and 2 scvs mining ( orbital command building time). That means something like 120 mineral by minute for the WHOLE game.
- Terran is always building, so that makes a huge difference... lot of mineral lost every minutes.
- You have more probes thanx to chronoboost, and they will last for EVER, meaning that with the first 3 CB you have 3 probes more which is something like 180 mineral by minute for the WHOLE game.
- Same thing for drone got by queen larva... and a second expand is only 300. Althought creating building pick up drones balance that
So the only point where you are right is about mules on gold expansion at middle game and larva which cannot stack, which punish zerg players who forget about that. Maybe they could implement something like a queen biding : that way if a queen is bind to an hatchery it will be able to span larvas with no limits.
Actually I feel that protoss has the strongest economy.
On September 21 2010 00:07 in7e.sCream wrote: ^ another terran claiming that all is fine.
why not? As someone stated before, with the choice of chrono boosting probes protoss leads in worker count (permanently) where as mules are a temporary mechanic.
A temporary mechanic that allows you too significantly boost your income for 50 energy at a time. With no penalty for mis-timing. When timed correctly can persist throughout the entire game. Usually starting at 15 supply. Which scales linearly as you gain more OC's.
On September 20 2010 22:19 theSAiNT wrote: Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.
You are trying to cherrypicking a scenario that supports your argument. Even then the Terran is by default behind in your scenario because he saves energy. This alone is a cost already. The Terran has less than he would have had should he have keept MULEing.
Did you even read my post? You're the one who is 'cherrypicking', completely quoting out of context. The Terran is RIGHTLY saving energy for scans against a midgame protoss because of the potential threat of DTs. He can safely mule AFTER he sees high templars with storm because now he knows there won't be DTs.
Yet he actually had costs for that. By threathening DTs the Protoss decreases the Terrans Income compared to what it could be.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: The problem is the following:
- Protoss have chrono boost > as a result their units and research takes longer to complete compared to Zerg/Terran.
Just like it was in BW. Protoss have long build/researchtimes because they are Protoss not because they have Chronoboost.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: - Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
Yeah. It´s like saying that because Terrans have MULES that they have more minerals with MULEs than they´d have without them. But you are probably trying to say that Zerg have a Mobility disadvantage - just not true. Queens and Hydras, every other Zerg unit is naturally fast enough for their role. If you want to abuse Zerg Immobility you need to 1. get them to use Hydras and 2. get rid of the Creep. In any other case mobility simply isn´t a Zerg problem especially figuring in Nydus.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: - Terran have mules > ... but their units are by far the most cost effective units in the game?
How exactly are they the most cost effective? Honestly, maybe it´s true but by what metric do you determine this?
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: So the Zerg/Protoss "specialities" also give them partial negatives, while the Mule really has no negative outset. Especially given there is actually "hardly any" time lost on SCV production, compared to Drone/Probe. Only Probe/Drone production can be "forced out" moreso than SCVs.
What, suddenly Terrans have no specific disadvantages anymore? Their Buildings no longer lose HP on their own when in red? Construction can no longer be interrupted by killing the worker? Restoring HP no longer costs resources?
Or to be more specific to MULEs, constructing a OC no longer prevents that OC from becoming a PF or loading in SCVs? They don´t draw from the same energypool as Scan?
On September 21 2010 00:07 in7e.sCream wrote: ^ another terran claiming that all is fine.
Agreeing that Terran is imbalanced doesn't mean we have to agree with every new absurd idea of why that people come up with each week.
On September 21 2010 00:13 in7e.sCream wrote: because you spend all your cbs on your nexus. most ridiculous post in this thread.
I already pointed out earlier that spending "all" your chrono boosts on the nexus is a gross exaggeration. You need ~3 for a 4-worker advantage, which is how much you need to keep up with the MULE until you hit saturation.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: The problem is the following:
- Protoss have chrono boost > as a result their units and research takes longer to complete compared to Zerg/Terran.
- Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
Where do people get this idea that Protoss research and Zerg move-speeds were deliberately nerfed to compensate for their macro mechanics? Last I checked, Protoss weapons/armor upgrades (which are the only directly-comparable tech) have the same research time as their Terran/Zerg counterparts, speedlings are still the fastest units in the game, with or without creep, and in general, Zerg move-speeds are more or less in line with those of the other races.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: - Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
Yeah. It´s like saying that because Terrans have MULES that they have more minerals with MULEs than they´d have without them. But you are probably trying to say that Zerg have a Mobility disadvantage - just not true. Queens and Hydras, every other Zerg unit is naturally fast enough for their role. If you want to abuse Zerg Immobility you need to 1. get them to use Hydras and 2. get rid of the Creep. In any other case mobility simply isn´t a Zerg problem especially figuring in Nydus.
(Since you're replying to a guy who is paraphrasing me, I'm gonna take the liberty of responding here.) Whenever a Zerg points out some of the many weaknesses in Zerg units, the stock response is 'But Zerg are more mobile!' However, this generally does not apply in aggressive situations. You don't get your creep, and the problems with using Nydus for aggression are numerous. So you're left relying on the base mobility of the Zerg army. Which is, in fact, no better than any other army's except for zerglings and mutalisks. All other units vary from average to unbearably slow in aggressive situations. While another player may look at this kind of mobility and think it's not so bad because they don't have much better themselves, it contradicts the fact that Zerg are weaker in other areas supposedly to make up for their incredible mobility... which has all kinds of conditions and restraints attached to it. Like the undead regeneration mechanic in Warcraft 3, there are more downsides than advantages to this supposed racial advantage. This is one of several things that leads Zerg to a frantically defensive playstyle where they're unable to dictate the flow of the game. Comparisons to Warcraft 3's undead versus an acolyte-whacking blademaster come to mind.
On September 21 2010 00:13 in7e.sCream wrote: because you spend all your cbs on your nexus. most ridiculous post in this thread.
I already pointed out earlier that spending "all" your chrono boosts on the nexus is a gross exaggeration. You need ~3 for a 4-worker advantage, which is how much you need to keep up with the MULE until you hit saturation.
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: The problem is the following:
- Protoss have chrono boost > as a result their units and research takes longer to complete compared to Zerg/Terran.
- Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
Where do people get this idea that Protoss research and Zerg move-speeds were deliberately nerfed to compensate for their macro mechanics? Last I checked, Protoss weapons/armor upgrades (which are the only directly-comparable tech) have the same research time as their Terran/Zerg counterparts, speedlings are still the fastest units in the game, with or without creep, and in general, Zerg move-speeds are more or less in line with those of the other races.
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Different races are different.
For fuck's sake, Starcraft is a game of ASYMMETRY.
Zerg morph workers into buildings. Terran workers stand there and build. Toss workers just start the warp in and go on their merry way.
Toss can wall off completely just fine, because warp gates let them spawn units anywhere on the map with pylon power. Not that you need to wall off completely in the first place, since you can use very strong melee units (something that Terran doesn't have) to block any early ling or zealot pressure in the gaps. Mid-game, you have force fields.
Zerg can't wall off at all because all their units are spawned at their town hall. In turn, zerg gets Creep, which gives them a really massive home ground advantage.
Races also differ in their production methods. Zerg are highly reactionary and can produce 20 mutalisks just as easily as 20 roaches, all from the same larvae. Protoss mech and air have build times but their varied infantry and casters are all spawned instantly anywhere on the map via warp gates, in whatever combination required. Terran are the least reactionary, due to every one of their units having a build time.
This is why they are also the most defensive and turtle-oriented, and why zerg are least defensive - zerg can reinforce entire armies in one production cycle while terran needs to spend multiple production cycles to pump out the same number of units. Protoss is somewhere in between, since they can always warp in units to defend or reinforce.
For vision and mobility, zerg are by far ahead of every other race by design. Their food buildings are flying units that can be spread around the map for vision. Creep removes fog of war at zero mineral cost (only queen energy) and greatly boosts unit speed. When zerg has map control, they don't use fortified positions but rather control territory with the thread of multi-pronged, fast reactions to anyone entering. Protoss are again a middle ground, in that they can use relatively small, mobile forces to control territory and reinforce them through pylons placed in key locations. Protoss vision is nearly a map hack until the enemy has detection. Terran has by far the poorest vision of the map, and map control is achieved by entrenched positions and chokepoints. Which is why they're good at turtling.
This is what makes the game good. This is why Starcraft was a revolutionary RTS. If you're pining for an RTS where all races can do the same crap, only with different graphics, then please delete your SC2 folder now.
Great post.
Seconded that. Best post in this thread for sure. Out of discussion but I still want to point out that Wc3 is also built in this way, which also makes it just that good of a game like SC/SC2 is.
On September 21 2010 00:07 in7e.sCream wrote: ^ another terran claiming that all is fine.
why not? As someone stated before, with the choice of chrono boosting probes protoss leads in worker count (permanently) where as mules are a temporary mechanic.
The Protoss will only lead in worker count until saturation. It's not permanent. Stop saying that -- it only makes it look like you don't know what you're talking about.
However, with MULEs, Terran can: 1. Keep up with the economy of a Protoss chronoboosting probes anyway. This nullifies (or at least dampens) the "permanent" advantage you claimed above with which you attempt to imply balance. 2. Once both T and P are at saturation, MULEs will increase Terran's mineral income beyond Protoss.
If #1 is a wash and #2 gives T the advantage, the net advantage is to T. If there's a net advantage, it's not balanced. Note that I'm not saying the matchup isn't balanced -- that's strawmanning what I'm saying. I'm saying that the macro mechanic for Protoss is not as robust as Terran's in terms of economy. It's straight up better.
Furthermore, depending on the situation and timing (early game, fending off a MM push, etc.), the Protoss may not always have the energy to spend on chrono'ing probes, so I find the argument that Terrans need energy for scanning too as a balancing argument to be null.
On September 20 2010 22:19 theSAiNT wrote: Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.
You are trying to cherrypicking a scenario that supports your argument. Even then the Terran is by default behind in your scenario because he saves energy. This alone is a cost already. The Terran has less than he would have had should he have keept MULEing.
Did you even read my post? You're the one who is 'cherrypicking', completely quoting out of context. The Terran is RIGHTLY saving energy for scans against a midgame protoss because of the potential threat of DTs. He can safely mule AFTER he sees high templars with storm because now he knows there won't be DTs.
Yet he actually had costs for that. By threathening DTs the Protoss decreases the Terrans Income compared to what it could be.
Correct. But that's NOT THE POINT. Try reading it again:
'Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.'
My point is that, harass vs no harass, the MULE makes it THE SAME for the Terran. When most people would agree that a successful harass should disadvantage the player being harassed.
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Different races are different.
For fuck's sake, Starcraft is a game of ASYMMETRY.
Zerg morph workers into buildings. Terran workers stand there and build. Toss workers just start the warp in and go on their merry way.
Toss can wall off completely just fine, because warp gates let them spawn units anywhere on the map with pylon power. Not that you need to wall off completely in the first place, since you can use very strong melee units (something that Terran doesn't have) to block any early ling or zealot pressure in the gaps. Mid-game, you have force fields.
Zerg can't wall off at all because all their units are spawned at their town hall. In turn, zerg gets Creep, which gives them a really massive home ground advantage.
Races also differ in their production methods. Zerg are highly reactionary and can produce 20 mutalisks just as easily as 20 roaches, all from the same larvae. Protoss mech and air have build times but their varied infantry and casters are all spawned instantly anywhere on the map via warp gates, in whatever combination required. Terran are the least reactionary, due to every one of their units having a build time.
This is why they are also the most defensive and turtle-oriented, and why zerg are least defensive - zerg can reinforce entire armies in one production cycle while terran needs to spend multiple production cycles to pump out the same number of units. Protoss is somewhere in between, since they can always warp in units to defend or reinforce.
For vision and mobility, zerg are by far ahead of every other race by design. Their food buildings are flying units that can be spread around the map for vision. Creep removes fog of war at zero mineral cost (only queen energy) and greatly boosts unit speed. When zerg has map control, they don't use fortified positions but rather control territory with the thread of multi-pronged, fast reactions to anyone entering. Protoss are again a middle ground, in that they can use relatively small, mobile forces to control territory and reinforce them through pylons placed in key locations. Protoss vision is nearly a map hack until the enemy has detection. Terran has by far the poorest vision of the map, and map control is achieved by entrenched positions and chokepoints. Which is why they're good at turtling.
This is what makes the game good. This is why Starcraft was a revolutionary RTS. If you're pining for an RTS where all races can do the same crap, only with different graphics, then please delete your SC2 folder now.
Great post.
Seconded that. Best post in this thread for sure. Out of discussion but I still want to point out that Wc3 is also built in this way, which also makes it just that good of a game like SC/SC2 is.
Yeah, I just LOVE watching those orc versus orc tournaments! Undead being unable to regenerate health while moving when off the creep, I mean blight, was totally justified because it made different races different! It's not like it pigeonholed the entire race into getting one particular hero to counter the disadvantage every single game, after all! Why, just look at how successfully Warcraft 3 displaced BW in the e-sports scene!
Okay, that was mean-spirited. But you can't just go 'different races are different lol' to justify every single mechanic in their current implementations. At some point you have to start asking yourself if the disadvantages and advantages involved in any particular race's design features actually match up fairly or not. If you don't care, so long as they're asymmetrical, then your expectations are remarkably low.
I'm not a fan of homogenization of game mechanics. It turned World of Warcraft into a game I don't even want to play anymore. But going too far in the other direction, holding up uniqueness in game mechanics at the cost of all else, is just as bad. A new faction with no air would be unique, but it would suck to play.
On September 16 2010 22:03 MoreFasho wrote: Also, my biggest pet peeve is morons saying a scan "costs" 270 minerals. If a scan costs 270 minerals, then all zerg buildings cost INFINITE minerals since those guys could have otherwise kept mining.
Yeah, that's right. A zerg building is worth shit tons of minerals if that drone would get to mine for the whole game and you wouldnt produce another one to replace it, but that's not really how it goes. When it comes to the CC, you choose between scan, a mule or a supply drop. How exactly is it not fair to say that a scan or supply drop costs 270 minerals when people are calling a mule free 270-300 minerals all the time?
There must always be something new to whine about tho, I understand.
If they end up nerfing the mule it will make scans cheaper then!
To every1 who says "picture says it all"... First, please take a closer look. Both playes only have 2 bases. TWO BASES. And both mains are soon to be mined out. So, HuK has 54 workers on pretty much 1.5 bases. And MorroW has 19 harvasters and probably 2-3 mules.
The thing is. Everytime people takes a look at the income tab and there is a mule up, the Terran income is TEMPORARILY really high, and that is all because of the "big chunk" of minerals the mule gathers every trip (30 minerals that is). And what 30 mineral does is a hugh impact on the Mineral tab because it's calculating mineral per min. And in your "OMG BBQ MULE OP" moment you don't think about that 1 mule only gives you 270 mineral over it's entier lifetime.
And when it comes to protoss. The protoss player can very easily get an early (and longterm) economical advantage over the terran just by mass chronoboosting probes.
In the next terran replay you watch, please check the income tab when the terran has no mule on the map. You will be suprised, that both Protoss and Zerg has an higher average income then the terran.
The reason why Blizzard gave terran the Mule is just so the terran could keep up in the macro game. And now you think,"YEAH BUT LOOK AT THE INCOME TAB U FOOL", sigh. then again let me remind you that it acually only gives you 270 minerals. And the protoss, (and zerg) usually have quite alot more harvasters then terran (on a high level of play).
An Orbital command is considered 4 workers. but then again that's if you spend all your energy on mules and no scans.
I hope this made sence to atleast some of you even tho my typing is horrible. I'm from Sweden, cy@
On September 21 2010 00:23 Unentschieden wrote: What, suddenly Terrans have no specific disadvantages anymore? Their Buildings no longer lose HP on their own when in red? Construction can no longer be interrupted by killing the worker? Restoring HP no longer costs resources?
Or to be more specific to MULEs, constructing a OC no longer prevents that OC from becoming a PF or loading in SCVs? They don´t draw from the same energypool as Scan?
Wow, those sound like horrible disadvantages. I'm glad my race can use its third backup detection ability without having to sacrifice economy for it!
On September 21 2010 01:53 Trawler wrote: The reason why Blizzard gave terran the Mule is just so the terran could keep up in the macro game. And now you think,"YEAH BUT LOOK AT THE INCOME TAB U FOOL", sigh. then again let me remind you that it acually only gives you 270 minerals. And the protoss, (and zerg) usually have quite alot more harvasters then terran (on a high level of play).
ahaa, think and you wont need too lets look at this unfortunate screenshot first terran camp, 2 bases, no gas mined 19 workers x 42 mpm + 2 mule x 270 mpm = 1338 why 2 mules? cause you can support 2 mules constantly from 2 orbitals protoss camp, 2 bases, 12 workers on gas, so 21 workers per base if optimally distributed 21 workers % 16 saturation * 2 bases * 24 mpm + 16 workers * 2 * 42 mpm = 1584
now lets see what happens if terran has 19 workers per base, cause 3-4 are 'always building' so its only fair to comparing to 21? oh, and 2 constant mules 19 % 16 * 2 * 24 + 16 * 2 * 42 + 2 * 270 = 1758 mhmm, so by having 4 workers less we have 174 minerals per minute more...
let see how saturation helps non terrans 24 % 16 * 2 * 24 + 16 * 2 * 42 = 1728 oh gee, terran is 10 scv behind yet still eeks ahead by 30 mpm
with this theres no doubt they WILL STAY UP in the macro game, like on blue pill baby!
On September 17 2010 14:03 me_viet wrote: Supply Depots ARE imba =P
How is it fair that you can wall-off completely and still have the option of moving out with all possible units?
Toss can't wall-off completely. If they wall-off with gate + core or 2gate, it means they can't go immortals and have to research blink for all stalkers in-base to get out, or existing stalkers to get in to defend against drops.
Different races are different.
For fuck's sake, Starcraft is a game of ASYMMETRY.
Zerg morph workers into buildings. Terran workers stand there and build. Toss workers just start the warp in and go on their merry way.
Toss can wall off completely just fine, because warp gates let them spawn units anywhere on the map with pylon power. Not that you need to wall off completely in the first place, since you can use very strong melee units (something that Terran doesn't have) to block any early ling or zealot pressure in the gaps. Mid-game, you have force fields.
Zerg can't wall off at all because all their units are spawned at their town hall. In turn, zerg gets Creep, which gives them a really massive home ground advantage.
Races also differ in their production methods. Zerg are highly reactionary and can produce 20 mutalisks just as easily as 20 roaches, all from the same larvae. Protoss mech and air have build times but their varied infantry and casters are all spawned instantly anywhere on the map via warp gates, in whatever combination required. Terran are the least reactionary, due to every one of their units having a build time.
This is why they are also the most defensive and turtle-oriented, and why zerg are least defensive - zerg can reinforce entire armies in one production cycle while terran needs to spend multiple production cycles to pump out the same number of units. Protoss is somewhere in between, since they can always warp in units to defend or reinforce.
For vision and mobility, zerg are by far ahead of every other race by design. Their food buildings are flying units that can be spread around the map for vision. Creep removes fog of war at zero mineral cost (only queen energy) and greatly boosts unit speed. When zerg has map control, they don't use fortified positions but rather control territory with the thread of multi-pronged, fast reactions to anyone entering. Protoss are again a middle ground, in that they can use relatively small, mobile forces to control territory and reinforce them through pylons placed in key locations. Protoss vision is nearly a map hack until the enemy has detection. Terran has by far the poorest vision of the map, and map control is achieved by entrenched positions and chokepoints. Which is why they're good at turtling.
This is what makes the game good. This is why Starcraft was a revolutionary RTS. If you're pining for an RTS where all races can do the same crap, only with different graphics, then please delete your SC2 folder now.
Great post.
Seconded that. Best post in this thread for sure. Out of discussion but I still want to point out that Wc3 is also built in this way, which also makes it just that good of a game like SC/SC2 is.
Yeah, I just LOVE watching those orc versus orc tournaments! Undead being unable to regenerate health while moving when off the creep, I mean blight, was totally justified because it made different races different! It's not like it pigeonholed the entire race into getting one particular hero to counter the disadvantage every single game, after all! Why, just look at how successfully Warcraft 3 displaced BW in the e-sports scene!
Okay, that was mean-spirited. But you can't just go 'different races are different lol' to justify every single mechanic in their current implementations. At some point you have to start asking yourself if the disadvantages and advantages involved in any particular race's design features actually match up fairly or not. If you don't care, so long as they're asymmetrical, then your expectations are remarkably low.
I'm not a fan of homogenization of game mechanics. It turned World of Warcraft into a game I don't even want to play anymore. But going too far in the other direction, holding up uniqueness in game mechanics at the cost of all else, is just as bad. A new faction with no air would be unique, but it would suck to play.
I feel like you have a very twisted and narrow-minded view of what WC3 is really all about. Now this cant be fully described by words but its soooo much more than just Orc mirrors doing the exact same heroes all the times or Undead being forced into play a certain way. WC3 has been out for so long that certain strats have become more dominant than other on the pro level of play, but there's a whole world underneath that which is not oftenly that greatly displayed but is obviously where the majority of players are and where the majority of variety happens. Its everything from Undead going Tinker/Mass skeleton strategies to orc doing wicked tower rushes and mass bat plays to night elves going crazy mass ancient strategies to Humans executing some bad-ass mortar/zeppelin drops (TH000 is a player to recommend among the pros). Really the variety of possible strategies and hero choices is what really does WC3 to the extremely amazing game it really is.
On September 21 2010 01:53 Trawler wrote: The reason why Blizzard gave terran the Mule is just so the terran could keep up in the macro game. And now you think,"YEAH BUT LOOK AT THE INCOME TAB U FOOL", sigh. then again let me remind you that it acually only gives you 270 minerals. And the protoss, (and zerg) usually have quite alot more harvasters then terran (on a high level of play).
ahaa, think and you wont need too lets look at this unfortunate screenshot first terran camp, 2 bases, no gas mined 19 workers x 42 mpm + 2 mule x 270 mpm = 1338 why 2 mules? cause you can support 2 mules constantly from 2 orbitals protoss camp, 2 bases, 12 workers on gas, so 21 workers per base if optimally distributed 21 workers % 16 saturation * 2 bases * 24 mpm + 16 workers * 2 * 42 mpm = 1584
now lets see what happens if terran has 19 workers per base, cause 3-4 are 'always building' so its only fair to comparing to 21? oh, and 2 constant mules 19 % 16 * 2 * 24 + 16 * 2 * 42 + 2 * 270 = 1758 mhmm, so by having 4 workers less we have 174 minerals per minute more...
let see how saturation helps non terrans 24 % 16 * 2 * 24 + 16 * 2 * 42 = 1728 oh gee, terran is 10 scv behind yet still eeks ahead by 30 mpm
with this theres no doubt they WILL STAY UP in the macro game, like on blue pill baby!
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: - Zerg have creep > as a result their units are slower off of creep, and faster on creep.
Yeah. It´s like saying that because Terrans have MULES that they have more minerals with MULEs than they´d have without them. But you are probably trying to say that Zerg have a Mobility disadvantage - just not true. Queens and Hydras, every other Zerg unit is naturally fast enough for their role. If you want to abuse Zerg Immobility you need to 1. get them to use Hydras and 2. get rid of the Creep. In any other case mobility simply isn´t a Zerg problem especially figuring in Nydus.
(Since you're replying to a guy who is paraphrasing me, I'm gonna take the liberty of responding here.)
On September 21 2010 01:10 Karkadinn wrote: Whenever a Zerg points out some of the many weaknesses in Zerg units, the stock response is 'But Zerg are more mobile!'
That isn´t what I´m arguing. I´m arguing that Zerg are fine in Terms of mobility off creep and actually have an advantage on it.
On September 21 2010 01:10 Karkadinn wrote: However, this generally does not apply in aggressive situations. You don't get your creep, and the problems with using Nydus for aggression are numerous. So you're left relying on the base mobility of the Zerg army. Which is, in fact, no better than any other army's except for zerglings and mutalisks.
I´d like to point out that, by your own argument, Zerg mobility off creep = other races mobility.
On September 21 2010 01:10 Karkadinn wrote: All other units vary from average to unbearably slow in aggressive situations. While another player may look at this kind of mobility and think it's not so bad because they don't have much better themselves, it contradicts the fact that Zerg are weaker in other areas supposedly to make up for their incredible mobility... which has all kinds of conditions and restraints attached to it.
"supposedly" being the important work. I actually think that Zerg being to weak is a balancing issue, not a design choice.
On September 21 2010 01:10 Karkadinn wrote: Like the undead regeneration mechanic in Warcraft 3, there are more downsides than advantages to this supposed racial advantage. This is one of several things that leads Zerg to a frantically defensive playstyle where they're unable to dictate the flow of the game. Comparisons to Warcraft 3's undead versus an acolyte-whacking blademaster come to mind.
About the only thing equal between WC3 blight and SC2 creep is that the producing race can only place their nonmainbuildings on them. Otherwise the games and actual mechanics are so vastly different I just can´t see how to compare them. Lack of speed can´t be the issue with early Zerg aggression: as you said off creep they are "merely" as fast as the other races and that there are other issues. Do you really assume Blizzard assumes early agression/harrassment with creep while it´s absolutely impossible to have it there at that point?
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: - Terran have mules > ... but their units are by far the most cost effective units in the game?
How exactly are they the most cost effective? Honestly, maybe it´s true but by what metric do you determine this?
For just one example, compare and contrast the hydralisk to the marine in roughly equal costs.
A Hydralisk is almost twice as durable (which increases survivability immensly, especially with the upcoming Tanknerf), half effected by armor, equally fast basemovementspeed (remember, Hydras are the "slow" ones). There are also plenty of things that are hard or even impossible to compare: what about the necessary investments in infrastructure? Do you think barracks are more effective than hatcherys? What about the ability to burrow? The natural regeneration? The differences in Upgrades?
On September 21 2010 01:41 theSAiNT wrote: Correct. But that's NOT THE POINT. Try reading it again:
'Economically, the T is pretty even across both these scenarios. Yet it feels like the P should really be ahead from investing a lot into a storm drop. Unfortunately, because he reveals his tech by doing so, he allows the T to drop mules instead of save for scan and in reality doesn't actually hurt the T much.'
My point is that, harass vs no harass, the MULE makes it THE SAME for the Terran. When most people would agree that a successful harass should disadvantage the player being harassed.
The same number in the income Tab for 90 seconds maybe. Are you honestly suggesting that losing SCVs or scanning without result are not losses for the Terran!?
On September 21 2010 00:23 Unentschieden wrote: What, suddenly Terrans have no specific disadvantages anymore? Their Buildings no longer lose HP on their own when in red? Construction can no longer be interrupted by killing the worker? Restoring HP no longer costs resources?
Or to be more specific to MULEs, constructing a OC no longer prevents that OC from becoming a PF or loading in SCVs? They don´t draw from the same energypool as Scan?
Wow, those sound like horrible disadvantages. I'm glad my race can use its third backup detection ability without having to sacrifice economy for it!
Funny how Blizzard gave each race unique (dis)advantages. It´s like they actually wanted them to be different while being equally powerfull.
If you are Protoss your mobile detection method is the one that DOESN`T tell the enemy he is being detected. If you are Zerg your mobile detection doesn´t take up production infrastructure and is the fastest to build.
On September 21 2010 02:59 LittleeD wrote: I feel like you have a very twisted and narrow-minded view of what WC3 is really all about. Now this cant be fully described by words but its soooo much more than just Orc mirrors doing the exact same heroes all the times or Undead being forced into play a certain way.
I've had experienced, competent players in team games immediately quit on me when I stated I was going a build that wasn't DK/fiends, regardless of map and matchup. WC3's gameplay is utterly, utterly stagnant. Even SC2 is a million years ahead of WC3 in terms of tactical diversity. I don't want to see another potentially good game screwed over like that.
On September 21 2010 02:59 LittleeD wrote: WC3 has been out for so long that specific strats has become more dominant than other on the pro level of play, but there's a whole world underneath that which is not oftenly that greatly displayed but is obviously where the majority of players are and where the majority of variety happens. Its everything from Undead going Tinker/Mass skeleton strategies to orc doing wicked tower rushes and mass bat plays to night elves going crazy mass ancient strategies to Humans executing some bad-ass mortar/zeppelin drops (TH000 is a player to recommend among the pros). Really the variety of possible strategies and hero choices is what really does WC3 to the extremely amazing game it really is.
Even at low levels of play, if you avoid cookie cutter, your chances of winning are reduced, regardless of all else. Warcraft 3 did a wonderful job of presenting the player with a ton of options. It did an amazingly horrible job of making 99% of those options practical or useful. Yes, there's technically nothing stopping you from being creative and massing troll headhunters or gargoyles, but you're gimping yourself for it. Unlike Starcraft, Warcraft doesn't have a fluid unit-based 'build this to counter that' gameplay. Instead, it's 'build your best units regardless of whatever the other player is up to, and power level your hero.' Sure, you can be creative and build whatever versus worse opponents and still win... but no one cares, because those aren't the games that count.
I'm of the opinion that MULEs should have a cooldown timer so if a Terran misses his timing, he cannot immediately drain his CC of energy. It would prevent MULE spam and obscene amounts of income and possibly balance the matchups a bit. Spawn larva essentially already has one from the hatchery's end and a Z who misses a cast is SOL.
Of course I'm no pro so there would have to be some serious balance testing done first.
On September 21 2010 03:28 hmunkey wrote: I'm of the opinion that MULEs should have a cooldown timer so if a Terran misses his timing, he cannot immediately drain his CC of energy. It would prevent MULE spam and obscene amounts of income and possibly balance the matchups a bit. Spawn larva essentially already has one from the hatchery's end and a Z who misses a cast is SOL.
Of course I'm no pro so there would have to be some serious balance testing done first.
Punishing lazy play needs testing?
A cooldown to both Mules and Chrono Boost should have been added, respectively, when Larva Spit had a cooldown and I play Protoss at 1500-1600~.
On September 21 2010 03:08 Unentschieden wrote: "supposedly" being the important work. I actually think that Zerg being to weak is a balancing issue, not a design choice.
That more or less sidesteps the whole mobility issue, then, I suppose. I won't strawman you deliberately.
On September 21 2010 03:08 Unentschieden wrote: A Hydralisk is almost twice as durable (which increases survivability immensly, especially with the upcoming Tanknerf), half effected by armor, equally fast basemovementspeed (remember, Hydras are the "slow" ones). There are also plenty of things that are hard or even impossible to compare: what about the necessary investments in infrastructure? Do you think barracks are more effective than hatcherys? What about the ability to burrow? The natural regeneration? The differences in Upgrades?
You apparently missed the 'roughly equal costs' part, because hydralisks are in no way twice as durable for the cost. For the sake of argument, let's say that two marines = 1 hydralisk. The hydralisk still costs 50 gas in addition to being equal in mineral cost, so it should be moderately slanted towards the Zerg being more powerful.
T1 for marines versus T2 for hydralisks. Marine can match hydralisk's creep speed anywhere he wants with stim. Our two marines have 10 more hp even without Combat Shield, with CS puts them at +30 over the hydralisk. Stimming also kicks their DPS over that of the hydralisk, obviously.
If you honestly think burrow, 0.2734 hp regen per second, and a +1 range upgrade make the hydralisk worth 50 gas over the marines, I want some of what you're smokin'.
On September 21 2010 02:59 LittleeD wrote: WC3 has been out for so long that specific strats has become more dominant than other on the pro level of play, but there's a whole world underneath that which is not oftenly that greatly displayed but is obviously where the majority of players are and where the majority of variety happens. Its everything from Undead going Tinker/Mass skeleton strategies to orc doing wicked tower rushes and mass bat plays to night elves going crazy mass ancient strategies to Humans executing some bad-ass mortar/zeppelin drops (TH000 is a player to recommend among the pros). Really the variety of possible strategies and hero choices is what really does WC3 to the extremely amazing game it really is.
Even at low levels of play, if you avoid cookie cutter, your chances of winning are reduced, regardless of all else. Warcraft 3 did a wonderful job of presenting the player with a ton of options. It did an amazingly horrible job of making 99% of those options practical or useful. Yes, there's technically nothing stopping you from being creative and massing troll headhunters or gargoyles, but you're gimping yourself for it. Unlike Starcraft, Warcraft doesn't have a fluid unit-based 'build this to counter that' gameplay. Instead, it's 'build your best units regardless of whatever the other player is up to, and power level your hero.' Sure, you can be creative and build whatever versus worse opponents and still win... but no one cares, because those aren't the games that count.
I disagree. Firstly, yes WC3 doesnt have the same Rock-paper-scissors mechanics like SC2 but definitely has units that works better vs other types of units (armor types), but its more complex. In WC3 you always have to regard to the heroes, but its not like the picture you painted. In order to level your heroes you need to always be aware of the threat of being creep-jacked which will end up in terrible news for you and its also because of the heroes the same mechanics doesnt exist. But you cant go any units you want, creep the map and think thats gonna win you any games (atleast vs somewhat good players). No, what I meant with my post is that you can still be creative in WC3 and still (yes after 8 years from release) utilize very unusual strategies to win you games. Its a strategy game after all (Like SC) where brain pays a huge roll. Everyone seems to think WC3 is all about leveling your hero, doing some certain units and win from there but its actually far more complex than that. To Summarize: Wc3,SC|BW and SC2 are different games but are all amazing in its own way, WC3 has variety, great micro opportunities and intense moments, SC has high APM matches with huge amount of economical haras and multitasking and I guess SC2 ends up somewhere in between but more leaning towards its prequel.
PS: WC3 also requires a big amount of scouting and its not about doing some random good units no matter what your opponent is doing. You have a false sight of WC3
On September 21 2010 00:23 Unentschieden wrote: What, suddenly Terrans have no specific disadvantages anymore? Their Buildings no longer lose HP on their own when in red? Construction can no longer be interrupted by killing the worker? Restoring HP no longer costs resources?
Or to be more specific to MULEs, constructing a OC no longer prevents that OC from becoming a PF or loading in SCVs? They don´t draw from the same energypool as Scan?
Wow, those sound like horrible disadvantages. I'm glad my race can use its third backup detection ability without having to sacrifice economy for it!
Funny how Blizzard gave each race unique (dis)advantages. It´s like they actually wanted them to be different while being equally powerfull.
If you are Protoss your mobile detection method is the one that DOESN`T tell the enemy he is being detected. If you are Zerg your mobile detection doesn´t take up production infrastructure and is the fastest to build.
(I apologize if I'm getting the quote nesting mixed up, this is getting pretty thick.) The point of that response was to point out that you can't flaunt a tactical option that other races simply don't have and then point to its limitations and say those count as genuine disadvantages. One person can't do X. You can do X if you want to, but it costs you Z. Having extra options that have costs attached is not a drawback compared to not having those options at all.
LittleeD: This is getting off topic even by my standards, so if you want to collect your thoughts and debate this more in a thread in a more suitable forum, or in PMs, I'm up with it. But I'd rather not derail this thread more than I already have.
On September 16 2010 17:22 Demand2k wrote: If Morrow didn't have enough energy for that many mules, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle as he'd have more units prior to the battle. Anyone can throw down six mules at once after they've neglected them for ages.
You can also forget to Chrono boost or inject larva during/right before a fight, but that will hurt you in the long run, which forgetting about mules wont.
Well in this example morrow lost like 50 workers and his entire army, so obviously neglecting all those mules was really really REALLY bad for him wasn't it? Didn't see the replay but say he dropped down 6 mules.. that's 36 marines.. could've been a pretty big difference I'd say. Sorry if my math fails me by the way.. havn't slept for two days :'(
yah i watched one of my replays the other day where i had essentially destroyed all of his SCVs excluding 8 at and expo he had, He called in like 6 Mules at once and was Tied with my econ which stunned me because i had 47 drones.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
Larvae doesn't stack. Larvae will be auto-produced up to 3 larvae. And then it stops. Injections can not be missed or you cannot make it up. For example if a terran forgets to mule, as long as he doesn't cap his energy, it's fine since he can just double/triple mule later. You can't double-inject. As soon as those 4 larvae from the inject fall off the hatchery, every second that goes by before the next inject is production time that is forever lost and cannot be made back.
Note, I'm not whining about Zerg versus Terran or anything, just saying... the mechanic is not at all the same. And if the patch notes we've seen are real, I imagine the mule cooldown is to make Terran not so forgiving when missing your mules.
In uber late game, Mules become stupid, and I think that's meant to be balanced by Terran being "forced" to make Planetary Fortresses to survive in the late game. (They do vs Zerg, but the so-called OMG i lose to Toss once they get to 3bases its unstoppable is because of lack of PF use)
On September 21 2010 03:08 Unentschieden wrote: "supposedly" being the important work. I actually think that Zerg being to weak is a balancing issue, not a design choice.
That more or less sidesteps the whole mobility issue, then, I suppose. I won't strawman you deliberately.
No, the mobility issue is after all: Did Blizzard make Zergunits relativly slow as drawback of the existance of the creep speed bonus? That is a design desicion like "Siegetanks get huge range and splash but can´t move". My argument is that no, speedwise all Zergunits expect the Queen and Hydralisk funktion off creep. The speedup on creep is not a necessity to be effective but usefull to be more effective and have a greater Mapcontrol.
On September 21 2010 03:08 Unentschieden wrote: A Hydralisk is almost twice as durable (which increases survivability immensly, especially with the upcoming Tanknerf), half effected by armor, equally fast basemovementspeed (remember, Hydras are the "slow" ones). There are also plenty of things that are hard or even impossible to compare: what about the necessary investments in infrastructure? Do you think barracks are more effective than hatcherys? What about the ability to burrow? The natural regeneration? The differences in Upgrades?
You apparently missed the 'roughly equal costs' part, because hydralisks are in no way twice as durable for the cost.
In actual survivability I´d actually say that Hydras are better off. They are not as vulnerable to splashdamage and even IF it ends up being a DPS to HP race (no SC2 fight is decided that way) Hydradamageoutput drops half as fast as the Marines
On September 21 2010 03:54 Karkadinn wrote: For the sake of argument, let's say that two marines = 1 hydralisk. The hydralisk still costs 50 gas in addition to being equal in mineral cost, so it should be moderately slanted towards the Zerg being more powerful.
T1 for marines versus T2 for hydralisks. Marine can match hydralisk's creep speed anywhere he wants with stim.
But in reality you neither always have Medivac, nor do they have limitless energy. You don´t consider the cost in HP for Marine durability or Medivacs for their resource cost. Also how do you compare "Tiers"? If Marines are T1 because it´s just Barracks they get NO upgrades!
On September 21 2010 03:54 Karkadinn wrote: Our two marines have 10 more hp even without Combat Shield, with CS puts them at +30 over the hydralisk. Stimming also kicks their DPS over that of the hydralisk, obviously.
If you honestly think burrow, 0.2734 hp regen per second, and a +1 range upgrade make the hydralisk worth 50 gas over the marines, I want some of what you're smokin'.
What about the convenience of coming from the Zerg larvae system? What about the more convenient upgrades? They DO speed up on creep which does matter immensly for their performance.
On September 21 2010 00:23 Unentschieden wrote: What, suddenly Terrans have no specific disadvantages anymore? Their Buildings no longer lose HP on their own when in red? Construction can no longer be interrupted by killing the worker? Restoring HP no longer costs resources?
Or to be more specific to MULEs, constructing a OC no longer prevents that OC from becoming a PF or loading in SCVs? They don´t draw from the same energypool as Scan?
Wow, those sound like horrible disadvantages. I'm glad my race can use its third backup detection ability without having to sacrifice economy for it!
Funny how Blizzard gave each race unique (dis)advantages. It´s like they actually wanted them to be different while being equally powerfull.
If you are Protoss your mobile detection method is the one that DOESN`T tell the enemy he is being detected. If you are Zerg your mobile detection doesn´t take up production infrastructure and is the fastest to build.
(I apologize if I'm getting the quote nesting mixed up, this is getting pretty thick.) The point of that response was to point out that you can't flaunt a tactical option that other races simply don't have and then point to its limitations and say those count as genuine disadvantages. One person can't do X. You can do X if you want to, but it costs you Z. Having extra options that have costs attached is not a drawback compared to not having those options at all.
Yep, creep is not a disadvantage just because Zerg are slower off it. Terrans and Protoss don´t get any way to speed up their groundforces for approximately nothing. They can´t story production capacity. etc.
To remind you, this is your original statement:
On September 20 2010 23:53 Koukalaka wrote: So the Zerg/Protoss "specialities" also give them partial negatives, while the Mule really has no negative outset. Especially given there is actually "hardly any" time lost on SCV production, compared to Drone/Probe. Only Probe/Drone production can be "forced out" moreso than SCVs.
actually, creep is a penalty. you cant use hydras effectivly to attack, cause they will die horribly if they have to retreat. its not that you see a bunch of zealots with speed or whatever and you are like "i guess i retreat and everything is OK!!!!1", you cant use this unit ( best example ) off creep effectively, this is a huge design flaw imo
On September 21 2010 05:53 in7e.sCream wrote: actually, creep is a penalty. you cant use hydras effectivly to attack, cause they will die horribly if they have to retreat. its not that you see a bunch of zealots with speed or whatever and you are like "i guess i retreat and everything is OK!!!!1", you cant use this unit ( best example ) off creep effectively, this is a huge design flaw imo
Hydas are not actually slow. At 2.25 off creep they are merely slower than the rest of the Zergforces. That is the same speed as Siegetanks or Immortals, just to bring a few examples. Also, why not bring along a few Overlords to drop creep behind the Hydras? Terrans manage to bring Medivacs along all the Time.
Unentschieden, I'm not going to spend hours walking through an analysis of every single mechanic in the game to make a point that's already commonly accepted within the community. If you want to grasp at every possible detail in a desperate attempt to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion, that's your business, but I'm not wasting any more time on it.
On September 21 2010 05:53 in7e.sCream wrote: actually, creep is a penalty. you cant use hydras effectivly to attack, cause they will die horribly if they have to retreat. its not that you see a bunch of zealots with speed or whatever and you are like "i guess i retreat and everything is OK!!!!1", you cant use this unit ( best example ) off creep effectively, this is a huge design flaw imo
Hydas are not actually slow. At 2.25 off creep they are merely slower than the rest of the Zergforces. That is the same speed as Siegetanks or Immortals, just to bring a few examples. Also, why not bring along a few Overlords to drop creep behind the Hydras? Terrans manage to bring Medivacs along all the Time.
in order to put some sense into this discussion, i provide saturation data timings (hastily done and not very precise) with 3 common openers for each race:
tools used: SC2 replay system, my eye, notes: times are averaged +/- 5 to 10 seconds,
2:30~ 3 chronoboost 16 probe transfer 3 to assimilator 13 probe
3:00~ 4 chronoboost full saturation 16 probe
zerg build: 10OV 11 ext trick 14 gas 14 pool
essentially 13 drone saturation until 2:10~ (as soon as building is put down, a drone is hatched thanks to timings of build) transfer 3 drone to extractor 10 drones
2:45~ back to 12 drones (15 queen in this build)
3:50-4:00~ drone production does not begin again until this point because of zerglings
both terran and zerg achieve full saturation at roughly the same point in time, a bit past 4 minutes. if protoss does not chronoboost probes and instead chronoboosts zealots or tech, like many do, protoss will achieve saturation around 4 minutes as well.
but because of the income value of mule, where 1 mule = a little over 3 scv worth of mineral return time, terran technically achieves saturated levels of income at 3:00, or whenever the first mule drops/refinery is complete.
so by these timings, protoss need to chronoboost their nexus to achieve full saturation to match terran economy in the same time frame. zerg have to sacrifice army production to saturate their mineral line. luckily for zerg, their production capacity is limited and the lower drone count can easily take advantage of early game unit production.
lastly, the mule enables the terran to gain approximately 300 additional minerals every 90 seconds, or 200minerals per minute of game time, of which protoss and zerg require an additional expansion with atleast 5 workers (5*40) on minerals to match this bonus - a 650 mineral investment from protoss/550 from zerg and an additional 3 to 4 minutes of mining time to recoup investment, and then the further minute to finally match the bonus themselves.
@a176: you meant optimal saturation, also you dintnt accounted for income disparity starting with first mule, while at that point terran matches toss, his next 4 scv are worth 2 probes of toss income each... and it dosnt stop there
The power of MULE is a beautiful thing. Make one man weep, and another man sing...
But yeah, it's difficult to know how well it's balanced compared to, say, chrono boost, since over a whole game CB is going to be used for probes, army, and upgrades, whereas a MULE is only going to be used for gathering and possibly emergency field repair. Going back to the OP, a single screenshot of an unknown number of MULEs temporarily making up for a lack of SCVs is hardly sufficient evidence to come to a conclusion that the MULE is overpowered.
Also remember that if a terran has been saving up his energy to dump MULEs at a gold expo, you've had an advantage while he was doing so, since you've been using your energy to get your own workers, larvae, upgrades, and units out faster.
I'm not saying that the MULE doesn't need a change (I'm not nearly qualified to make that statement), but the vitriol in this thread seems way beyond what's actually due.
On September 21 2010 06:14 Karkadinn wrote: Unentschieden, I'm not going to spend hours walking through an analysis of every single mechanic in the game to make a point that's already commonly accepted within the community. If you want to grasp at every possible detail in a desperate attempt to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion, that's your business, but I'm not wasting any more time on it.
Then what are you doing in this Thread? The MULE being overpowered is neither accepted nor proven. If it was accepted this Thread wouldn´t be 26 Pages long, if it was proven you could link the proof to shut me up instead of going "It is as I say and I won´t debate no more". By the way, the earth isn´t flat.
On September 21 2010 05:53 in7e.sCream wrote: actually, creep is a penalty. you cant use hydras effectivly to attack, cause they will die horribly if they have to retreat. its not that you see a bunch of zealots with speed or whatever and you are like "i guess i retreat and everything is OK!!!!1", you cant use this unit ( best example ) off creep effectively, this is a huge design flaw imo
Hydas are not actually slow. At 2.25 off creep they are merely slower than the rest of the Zergforces. That is the same speed as Siegetanks or Immortals, just to bring a few examples. Also, why not bring along a few Overlords to drop creep behind the Hydras? Terrans manage to bring Medivacs along all the Time.
Overlords move at 2.75 now? Awesome.
Hey that hiatus didn´t last long. Nice to have you back in the discussion.
Shure you can debate the validity of bringing Overlords but I´d expect a bit more than comparing their speed to the Medivac. You know something that at least resembels an attempt at an argument instead of a reflexive rebuttal for the sake of disagreeing.
On September 21 2010 06:14 Karkadinn wrote: Unentschieden, I'm not going to spend hours walking through an analysis of every single mechanic in the game to make a point that's already commonly accepted within the community. If you want to grasp at every possible detail in a desperate attempt to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion, that's your business, but I'm not wasting any more time on it.
Then what are you doing in this Thread? The MULE being overpowered is neither accepted nor proven.
I was referring to Terran versus Zerg unit cost-efficiency. I chose hydralisk-marine specifically because it's a particularly egregious example. If you think that's up for complete debate then there's no point in even talking about it further because most of the other examples are less blatant and less directly comparable.
To anyone arguing that increasing the energy cost of the mule would devastate the early game. What about this mule is now 75 energy starting energy from an OC is now 100. This means that you can still immediately call down a mule when the OC finishes and your second one will be able to be called down when you accumulate 50 more energy. Now anything after that would be slower. But your main should be saturated by that point in time. And you should be pressing on to take your natural if you haven't already.
On September 21 2010 06:14 Karkadinn wrote: Unentschieden, I'm not going to spend hours walking through an analysis of every single mechanic in the game to make a point that's already commonly accepted within the community. If you want to grasp at every possible detail in a desperate attempt to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion, that's your business, but I'm not wasting any more time on it.
Then what are you doing in this Thread? The MULE being overpowered is neither accepted nor proven.
I was referring to Terran versus Zerg unit cost-efficiency. I chose hydralisk-marine specifically because it's a particularly egregious example. If you think that's up for complete debate then there's no point in even talking about it further because most of the other examples are less blatant and less directly comparable.
Hey I´m not even contesting that point but I´d like a more informative response than "it´s like that because everyone says so". But in the interest of the thread I´d like you to adress the points relevant to the Thread topic instead of just replying to parts of my posts you can easily disagree with. Honestly, what was the last of your posts containing a fact or an argument? I´m still waiting on at least SOMETHING regarding Overlords other than "They aren´t 2.75MS lol".
Yep, creep is not a disadvantage just because Zerg are slower off it. Terrans and Protoss don´t get any way to speed up their groundforces for approximately nothing.
Also did you seriously just compare hydralisks to siege tanks and immortals? I wasn't aware that hydras could effectively double their range and damage with a 100/100 upgrade (although 10 range still wouldn't compare), not to mention that they're about as sturdy as a wet newspaper.
On September 21 2010 05:53 in7e.sCream wrote: actually, creep is a penalty. you cant use hydras effectivly to attack, cause they will die horribly if they have to retreat. its not that you see a bunch of zealots with speed or whatever and you are like "i guess i retreat and everything is OK!!!!1", you cant use this unit ( best example ) off creep effectively, this is a huge design flaw imo
Hydas are not actually slow. At 2.25 off creep they are merely slower than the rest of the Zergforces. That is the same speed as Siegetanks or Immortals, just to bring a few examples. Also, why not bring along a few Overlords to drop creep behind the Hydras? Terrans manage to bring Medivacs along all the Time.
yup, i love to bring over lords with me with perfect timing over my force, creating a perfect overlord creep placement within 10 second while my army is moving out
I really do not think mules as a unit is in any way OP, and no...im not a terran player. What I do think though is that the mechanic itself is to forgiving. This has probably been stated way to much but then Ill just say it again. A zerg and a terran with quite low apm will not be punished in the same way. Where a zerg just have excess energy he cant spend on anything usefull (creeptumours sure but after you dont need soooo many and a player of lesser skill wont have the apm anyway), the terran though will just use up all his energy and get that huge income boost at once. Therefore I do think the mule should be on a CD, this wont hurt the pro's very much, if at all but the mechanic itself wont be as forgiving as it is now. Sure, you cant save up loads of energy and pump a new expo with loads of mules but really, thats not really something I think terrans should cry about =).
Maybe chronoboost should have the same mechanic, I dont know.
Any opinions about this? I may not have thought this through completly so perhaps im missing something big =)
Although I cant really join in the debate about hydras since I never ever get em against terran. The reason for that is that from experience it just feels that if the T gets 2-3-4 siegetanks to back up his mm or w/e he goes my hydras are completly negated.
About the creep though, the problem with creep is not that you cant spread it, its very doable with both tumours and OLs BUT its extremly timeconsuming for what you actually get, or rather, for how easy it is to negate. Brining OLs is always a big risk, they arnt free you now and loosing a battle ---> getting supplycapped spells doom. Continuosly spreading your tumours is a must and it takes alot alot of APM to keep that up, especially lategame when you have several highways to manage and one raven, observer or just some good scans completly negate the hundreds of actions youve spent in doing so. I do not say dont spread it, you should (must if you go hydras) but waying that creep is an advantage is abit narrow thinking. Well, dont get me wrong, ofcourse creep is an advantage but is the existance of the mechanic one in the first place? I say no, id rather have my units have speedupgrades, perhaps even have them slower then they would have been on creep even after the upgrades just to get more time to focus on other stuff with my non pro apm. Even though im decently fast, 120-150ish apm at avarage in a long game (spamming included ofcourse but I assume that goes for everyone) I cant seem to keep up with creeping, larvainjecting and multitasking armies.
oftopic but well, I saw some hydra/creep discussion so I just felt like giving my view.
On September 16 2010 17:22 Sueco wrote: I REALLY dislike the MULE. Its brute, uninspired, and a cause for all kinds of bullshit T comebacks, like that one.
Logic tells us that if terrans are supposed to get a baseline higher income per saturated mining base, you'd need to make terran units less cost-effective than other units to balance it out. Funnily, T units are among the most cost-effective in the game.
The MULE is somehow involved in the current game balance mess. I for one would like to see it redesigned.
The 2nd week I played beta [when I realized the actual # of extra minerals], I thought it was just in for testing purposes. Unfortunately I still feel the same way, but the problem 'Stims' (HAR HAR FUNNY PUNS) from cost effective units such as the marauder, aka the Dirt cheap 30 second build time all purpose behemoth.
These units can be dealt with in reasonable numbers, however mules allow them to be fueled in excess amounts.
The Mule cooldown (refering to the 'unofficial leaked' patch notes), will help 'some', but 40 second cooldown wont solve the problem of an almost 300 free minerals every 50 energy, that is unmatched by the other races.
But to make this sound somewhat less ranty it does need to be redesigned. The orbital command should be 75 minerals, with a shorter build time. And a mule calldown should grant slightly more minerals than the cost off an extra supply depot (depot cost + lost mining time). Also the supply drop should give increased armor with a little extra health.
I find it halarious how this thread has morphed back and forth about how the mule is cheap/too effective and crap like that. Face it, Terrans need mules, end of story. The only thing I'm asking as a z player is for a damn cooldown (an argument that has been brought up many times in this thread, but then is ignored and covered with more crap about "mule = 3 workers omg."
Seriously, add the damn cooldown so u don't see 6 mules come down in 5 seconds. We understand that yes, u lost potential minerals, but hear me out. What do u lose when u go over by 25 or even 50 energy? technically nothing, just plop it down and wait less time for the next. How much does zerg lose? A whole spawn larva cycle that can't be regained...yeh z can plop down creep, but terran can also scan with extra energy as well, so those arguments cancel out (b/c frankly, no one wants to argue more about stupid shit).
Please for the love of god, please make the argument push towards cooldown, and once that's established, then u guys can argue about the strength of mules (an argument that I believe is stupid b/c no one will win that argument)
do yourself a favour and think, terran had 6 mules to make his magic recovery? thats 1200 min in units made and some more in production, i dare say there would be nothing to come back from if he stayed on top of his eco
so no matey, terran needs something, but not mule in its current form, adding cooldown will only cause you to cry more later
every terran unit gets their 15minutes about it being op, wondered why? because mule economy gives terran possibility to abuse everything
heres simple way to fix terran, mule loses stacking
On September 21 2010 09:06 terranghost wrote: To anyone arguing that increasing the energy cost of the mule would devastate the early game. What about this mule is now 75 energy starting energy from an OC is now 100. This means that you can still immediately call down a mule when the OC finishes and your second one will be able to be called down when you accumulate 50 more energy. Now anything after that would be slower. But your main should be saturated by that point in time. And you should be pressing on to take your natural if you haven't already.
That would make it WORSE for the purposes of the argumentation in this thread. The common complaint isn´t really that MULEs are too powerful but that using them is too easy/forgiving compared to what Zerg do. Slowing it down without underpowering Terrans would make it easier.
Yep, creep is not a disadvantage just because Zerg are slower off it. Terrans and Protoss don´t get any way to speed up their groundforces for approximately nothing.
Also did you seriously just compare hydralisks to siege tanks and immortals? I wasn't aware that hydras could effectively double their range and damage with a 100/100 upgrade (although 10 range still wouldn't compare), not to mention that they're about as sturdy as a wet newspaper.
I´d like to know how I can afford it to stim across the map. What I´m comparing here is Mobility, particularly in the Macro sense. As long as they are on creep any Zerg groundarmy can outrun any groundarmy of the other races. Yeah shure maybe not a stimmed bioball but that is really expensive to maintain constant stim without having them in the red constantly.
On September 21 2010 11:21 doffe wrote: I really do not think mules as a unit is in any way OP, and no...im not a terran player. What I do think though is that the mechanic itself is to forgiving. This has probably been stated way to much but then Ill just say it again. A zerg and a terran with quite low apm will not be punished in the same way.
Thats right the "punishment" isn´t equal. However Terrans will instead suffer a production bottleneck. Terrans can´t "store" productioncapacity like the larvaesystem does.
On September 21 2010 11:21 doffe wrote: Where a zerg just have excess energy he cant spend on anything usefull (creeptumours sure but after you dont need soooo many and a player of lesser skill wont have the apm anyway), the terran though will just use up all his energy and get that huge income boost at once. Therefore I do think the mule should be on a CD, this wont hurt the pro's very much, if at all but the mechanic itself wont be as forgiving as it is now. Sure, you cant save up loads of energy and pump a new expo with loads of mules but really, thats not really something I think terrans should cry about =).
Maybe chronoboost should have the same mechanic, I dont know.
Any opinions about this? I may not have thought this through completly so perhaps im missing something big =)
The issue with that is that storing Energy is a valid and intentional strategy and is somewhat equivialent to Zerg storing Larvae. A Terran having 8 Mules stored "in case" is like a Zerg that has 2k Minerals and 20 Larvae around.
Yeah shure maybe not a stimmed bioball but that is really expensive to maintain constant stim without having them in the red constantly.
I disagree, Bio is pretty inexpensive for their cost. Check this game out, BratOk with around 35 harvesters (effectively mining off a single base) could pump out enough bio to hold off Socke who was on 3-4-5 Bases and with 75-85 harvesters for a good 15mins and there were points in the game where he had a good chance of winning. For a game that has allot of emphasis on macro it really is quite forgiving for Terran.
Yeah shure maybe not a stimmed bioball but that is really expensive to maintain constant stim without having them in the red constantly.
I disagree, Bio is pretty inexpensive for their cost. Check this game out, BratOk with around 35 harvesters (effectively mining off a single base) could pump out enough bio to hold off Socke who was on 3-4-5 Bases and over 40-50 harvesters up for a good 15mins and there were points in the game where he had a good chance of winning. For a game that has allot of emphasis on macro it really is quite forgiving for Terran.
Bratok doesn´t hold off Sockes Army, he keeps them from steamrolling him with constant harrassment. Bratok exploited the hell out of Socke stretching himself over half the map.
Yeah shure maybe not a stimmed bioball but that is really expensive to maintain constant stim without having them in the red constantly.
I disagree, Bio is pretty inexpensive for their cost. Check this game out, BratOk with around 35 harvesters (effectively mining off a single base) could pump out enough bio to hold off Socke who was on 3-4-5 Bases and over 40-50 harvesters up for a good 15mins and there were points in the game where he had a good chance of winning. For a game that has allot of emphasis on macro it really is quite forgiving for Terran.
Bratok doesn´t hold off Sockes Army, he keeps them from steamrolling him with constant harrassment. Bratok exploited the hell out of Socke stretching himself over half the map.
Have a look at some of the end game battles, even with sniping Socke was pretty gosh darn far ahead in macro but Terran was able to keep up in Food with around 35 SVC's. Pretty ridiculous since there were quite a few fights that ended up in a stalemate but Terran just managed to refresh his army from such a tiny economy
On September 21 2010 09:06 terranghost wrote: To anyone arguing that increasing the energy cost of the mule would devastate the early game. What about this mule is now 75 energy starting energy from an OC is now 100. This means that you can still immediately call down a mule when the OC finishes and your second one will be able to be called down when you accumulate 50 more energy. Now anything after that would be slower. But your main should be saturated by that point in time. And you should be pressing on to take your natural if you haven't already.
That would make it WORSE for the purposes of the argumentation in this thread. The common complaint isn´t really that MULEs are too powerful but that using them is too easy/forgiving compared to what Zerg do. Slowing it down without underpowering Terrans would make it easier.
Actually, if you read the OP, the complaint IS that the MULE is too powerful. And if you read other comments as well, they have the same opinion.
I get the sense that you don't read posts at all but happily paraphrase others to further your own arguments.
On September 16 2010 17:08 Frack wrote: It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
But i wouldnt be opposed to a trial period of a cooldown to see how it works.
True, but you cant chrono one building 4x based on banked energy and larva takes a significant amount of time to produce a result. Mules seem to have the greener grass imo.
I still don't understand how larvae inject is less forgiving than MULE except during the early game...
But during the early game, MULE isn't really "forgiving" either. Sure, you can spam down MULE's to empty energy, but if you missed your MULE in the early game that's already a huge error and your build is probably already getting messed up.
As far as the mid/late game goes, isn't all a Zerg needs is an extra hatchery to empty out larvae injects on if they let energy build up?
What is this thread whining about? I don't really get it. Terrible, awful thread.
On September 21 2010 13:18 EliteAzn wrote: I find it halarious how this thread has morphed back and forth about how the mule is cheap/too effective and crap like that. Face it, Terrans need mules, end of story. The only thing I'm asking as a z player is for a damn cooldown (an argument that has been brought up many times in this thread, but then is ignored and covered with more crap about "mule = 3 workers omg."
Seriously, add the damn cooldown so u don't see 6 mules come down in 5 seconds. We understand that yes, u lost potential minerals, but hear me out. What do u lose when u go over by 25 or even 50 energy? technically nothing, just plop it down and wait less time for the next. How much does zerg lose? A whole spawn larva cycle that can't be regained...yeh z can plop down creep, but terran can also scan with extra energy as well, so those arguments cancel out (b/c frankly, no one wants to argue more about stupid shit).
Please for the love of god, please make the argument push towards cooldown, and once that's established, then u guys can argue about the strength of mules (an argument that I believe is stupid b/c no one will win that argument)
I'd rather just see spawn larva buffed to be honest. Reducing the time taken for the larva to spawn by, say, 10 seconds, would make missing a spawn more forgiving.
On September 21 2010 09:06 terranghost wrote: To anyone arguing that increasing the energy cost of the mule would devastate the early game. What about this mule is now 75 energy starting energy from an OC is now 100. This means that you can still immediately call down a mule when the OC finishes and your second one will be able to be called down when you accumulate 50 more energy. Now anything after that would be slower. But your main should be saturated by that point in time. And you should be pressing on to take your natural if you haven't already.
That would make it WORSE for the purposes of the argumentation in this thread. The common complaint isn´t really that MULEs are too powerful but that using them is too easy/forgiving compared to what Zerg do. Slowing it down without underpowering Terrans would make it easier.
Yep, creep is not a disadvantage just because Zerg are slower off it. Terrans and Protoss don´t get any way to speed up their groundforces for approximately nothing.
Also did you seriously just compare hydralisks to siege tanks and immortals? I wasn't aware that hydras could effectively double their range and damage with a 100/100 upgrade (although 10 range still wouldn't compare), not to mention that they're about as sturdy as a wet newspaper.
I´d like to know how I can afford it to stim across the map. What I´m comparing here is Mobility, particularly in the Macro sense. As long as they are on creep any Zerg groundarmy can outrun any groundarmy of the other races. Yeah shure maybe not a stimmed bioball but that is really expensive to maintain constant stim without having them in the red constantly.
On September 21 2010 11:21 doffe wrote: I really do not think mules as a unit is in any way OP, and no...im not a terran player. What I do think though is that the mechanic itself is to forgiving. This has probably been stated way to much but then Ill just say it again. A zerg and a terran with quite low apm will not be punished in the same way.
Thats right the "punishment" isn´t equal. However Terrans will instead suffer a production bottleneck. Terrans can´t "store" productioncapacity like the larvaesystem does.
On September 21 2010 11:21 doffe wrote: Where a zerg just have excess energy he cant spend on anything usefull (creeptumours sure but after you dont need soooo many and a player of lesser skill wont have the apm anyway), the terran though will just use up all his energy and get that huge income boost at once. Therefore I do think the mule should be on a CD, this wont hurt the pro's very much, if at all but the mechanic itself wont be as forgiving as it is now. Sure, you cant save up loads of energy and pump a new expo with loads of mules but really, thats not really something I think terrans should cry about =).
Maybe chronoboost should have the same mechanic, I dont know.
Any opinions about this? I may not have thought this through completly so perhaps im missing something big =)
The issue with that is that storing Energy is a valid and intentional strategy and is somewhat equivialent to Zerg storing Larvae. A Terran having 8 Mules stored "in case" is like a Zerg that has 2k Minerals and 20 Larvae around.
Not saying that your point is totally invalid but a zerg does not have 2k minerals and 20larvas stored as an intentional strategy, we have it cause we are maxed out and its absolutely necessery to keep the spawn larva up in case we loose our army(you may call this a strategy but that somehow implies a choice, you dont really have the choice to not save up larva cause it simply would be suicide if shit goes wrong)
. You could even argue that having to much energy saved up on your CCs is not a valid intentional strategy but rather an example of poor mechanics. The terran could instead have dropped one mule earlier and expanded. I can see few situations where this point is not valid. Sure yhou can argue that expanding in that point is not possible due to a tough situation but then, shouldnt it be more valuable to use the mules to further strengthen the army and then secure that expo? The only situation I can see where saving up mules is valid is when you are more or less mined out and once again, then you have put yourself in a situation that you should not have rather then actually making a strategic choice. Surely the optimal strategy for a macroing terran must be to expand, use all the mules on the expo at all times until he puts up the next expo and never missing a CD?
there might be situations where waiting for 100energy is valid but more then that I personally would rather call poor macro. Once again, im not an expert and terran is by far my worst race so if im missing something enlighten me, Im not afraid of being wrong.
On September 21 2010 20:39 Unentschieden wrote: Bratok doesn´t hold off Sockes Army, he keeps them from steamrolling him with constant harrassment. Bratok exploited the hell out of Socke stretching himself over half the map.
yeah, because that's exactly how it should be....even if you have half the worker-size because your opponent outplayed you, you should be able to constantly harass him and keep yourself in the game...
or maybe not?
I love this replay, have posted it also at some forums, because it's just the perfect example why mules are broken in their current state; not because they are completely rofl-imba, but because they are WAY too forgiving for macro-mistakes
if protoss forgets to chrono-boost probes, he won't catch up or come back into the game by chrono-boosting probes later; not gonna happen; if zerg forgets to puke larvae, he won't catch up by mass-puking larvae later; in fact for zerg that's not even possible in theory
although I'm not sure what should be done, I still favour the cooldown; because this would at least require some macro-management from terran in mid-game, and preventing any weird comebacks from mediocre players who spam 4+ mules on a gold expo after a lost battle to get a omfg-wtf-income instantly
I'd even say terran would be fine without mules; why? because they could boost their economy by constantly calling down supply, not having to use minerals for building them and - more importantly - not losing mining-time for SCVs; chrono-boost gets near useless in late-game too, so when calling down supply loses its purpose at 200/200 chrono-boost won't do much for protoss either
Sure the punishment of the mule is that you have to make a new exp faster.. but considering that you can catch up to a player which make a devastating blow to your worker line might seem a bit too good.
Maybe a 10-15 seconds cooldown would make it less über?
EPT![[image loading]](http://i52.tinypic.com/qrwugm.jpg)
Chrono Boost
![[image loading]](http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/1473/36600085.png)
![[image loading]](http://i52.tinypic.com/2a9bpu8.png)
