I have played BroodWar since release (my childhood!) and Starcraft 2 since early Beta. I LOVE watching competitive BW / SC2 and I probably spend more time watching the game being played at the top level than actually playing it myself. (Go xHydrax / Day9 / CellaWerra!) Unfortunately, the more and more I watch Starcraft2 the more I realize that it's not as fun for me to watch as Brood War was. I've thought a lot about why it seems like this to me. In this thread, I'm going to try to explain one of the most important reasons that (in my opinion) makes SC2 less appealing as a spectator sport.
As most of you realized by now, Starcraft 2's "XYZ Damage vs. Light / Armored" damage system is very very similar to Brood War's Explosive / Concussive / Normal damage types, but with a new coat of paint and yellow highlighted text that says cute words like "50", "VS", and "ARMORED".
For reference, this is how it worked in Brood War: - Normal does listed damage vs everything. (Zealot) - Explosive does 100% to large units, 75% to medium, and 50% to small. (Hydralisk) - Concussive does 100% to small units, 50% to medium, and 25% to large. (Vulture) - Splash deals damage to all units in a certain radius (Seige Tank Seige Mode)
Starcraft Brood War Dragoon. 20 Explosive Damage.
Instead of getting a unit that displays 10 damage and only deals 7.5 to medium and 5 to small like the Hydralisk of Brood War-
We see units that display 10 damage with a "bonus" displayed to the side, such as the Marauder, that proudly boasts 10 Damage (20 vs Armored). In Starcraft 2, instead of "Large" we have "Massive" (Ultralisk, Colossus, Thor), and "Medium" units are now called "Armored".
That's all fine and dandy until you consider the fact that in Starcraft 2, all Massive units are Armored. Meaning that your Stalker, which says 10 Damage (14 vs. Armored) also does 14 to Massive, despite the fact that the Stalker has no listed damage for vs. Massive units.
So in Starcraft 2 the damage system looks like this: - Listed damage against everything (Zealot) - Listed damage vs Light with bonus damage vs Armored AND Massive (Marauder, Immortal) - Listed damage vs everything with bonus damage vs Light Units (Helion, Reaper, Phoenix) - A few oddballs like Archon with bonus damage to Biological
Starcraft 2 Protoss Immortal. The equivalent of 50 Explosive Damage?
Needless to say, this system is a lot more one dimensional than what we had in BW.
There is no longer a 100% / 75% / 50% Explosive for units with big damage. There is no longer 100% 50% 25% damage penalties for units that are good at killing "Small" targets. Now it's just BAM 10 damage, NO penalty, with a BONUS vs X for fun. It just seems to me like DPS has gotten way out of control as a result.
This lead me to think that many of the cries and whines we have been seeing about balance since Beta / Release are because of Blizzard going in the wrong direction with this "new" approach to the damage system, which results in Starcraft 2 units hard-countering their "countered unit" to the point where things die in seconds and battles don't last at all, especially not with the right unit compositions.
To me it seems like the transition between the damage systems is incomplete, and now that (as far as damage is concerned) Massive = Armored, we're left with units that just don't have a very well defined role. And now we get to HP inflation because since everything now counters Armored and Massive, "large" units have seen an HP increase.
What is a Corruptor? What's it supposed to do? Counter capital ships?
What is an Ultralisk? What's it supposed to counter? Armored units? But the Ultralisk IS itself Armored (Because it's Massive, and in SC2 Massive gets hit by + dmg vs Armored), so it gets annihilated by the units that it's supposed to be good at killing, despite the fact that they needed to give it +100 HP with all the + Armor flying around.
Ultralisk HP in Brood War: 400 Ultralisk HP in Starcraft 2: 500
Battlecruiser HP in Brood War: 500 Battlecruiser HP in SC2: 550
Medic HP in BW: 60 Firebat HP in BW: 50 Marauder HP in SC2: 125 (Obviously, he's armored, that's why he now needs nearly the same HP of a):
Seige Tank HP in BW: 150 Seige Tank HP in SC2: 160
I've gone off in a tangent now. Anyways, to end this rather long post, I feel like the new stats and damage systems in SC2 contribute to it's quality as a spectator sport, but not necessarily in the best way. In Brood War, you had units that performed well over others, yes. But you didn't have this completely one sided mechanic of "either it counters it or it doesn't, and is generally now useless against X unit.
funny way to see it but I think you can think of it this way: Normal damage is what it does maximally (with bonus) And it suffers penalties for things that it doesn't do (remove the bonus)
So it's basically 2 ways of looking: You can see things as 100%, 75%, 50%
Or you can see things like 50%, 50%+25%, 50% + 50%
Or if you fancy 100%, 100% - 25%, 100% - 50%
The actual representation doesn't really matter imo. However, what I do miss is the finer grainularities of the 100, 75, 50 system. There are some intermediate values to go about, now it's too 1 dimentional, either bonus or no bonus. No such thing as bonus, half bonus, no bonus.
I actually agree that battles are too short because units do too much damage.
Another game from another genre "guild wars" was killed by massive buffs to offensive skills which lead to tons of gimmicky builds that killed everything way too fast.
The actual representation doesn't really matter imo. However, what I do miss is the finer grainularities of the 100, 75, 50 system. There are some intermediate values to go about, now it's too 1 dimentional, either bonus or no bonus.
On October 14 2010 18:51 Felix_mk wrote: I actually agree that battles are too short because units do too much damage.
Another game from another genre "guild wars" was killed by massive buffs to offensive skills which lead to tons of gimmicky builds that killed everything way too fast.
no don't make it like w3 .. maps are just too small + chokes are just useless to defend on sc2
I mean battles are rather short now because forces are so mobile. There's no siege tank line that holds for long time, and the turtle ass terran is getting rather mobile... but that's totally another discussion.
After reading your post, I don't understand why "new stats and damage systems in SC2 contribute to it's quality as a spectator sport, but not necessarily in the best way."
Also, it's Large that is Armored now. For example Siege Tanks are Large in BW and Armored in SC2. Wraiths and Goliaths are Large -> Viking in both modes is Armored. Same goes for Overlords, Shuttles and Warp Prisms, Devouers and Corruptors, Dragoons and Stalkers / Immortals...
Few units being Massive affects the game only in a good way: It makes sense that Marauders can't slow Ultras, Thors and Colossi. It makes sense that Phoenix can't use Graviton Beam on them. It helps Zerg to deal with capital ships and Colossi without the need for overpowered AA. and that's it. I don't get why it's not good.
edit: and about % of base attacks versus base attack +N, both system can be very easily converted into each other. All you can say is you read them in a different way. For Stalkers it's much clearer way, when you check Dragoon's damage in BW it doesn't say how much damage it does to small size units until you check it on the web. On the contrary you know exactly how much damage Stalkers deal to what. I don't think that BW system is more sophisticated because you divide and multiply instead of adding. That is maybe sophisticated for children in elementary school O_o
BW Medium size isn't lost. New Medium is just units that aren't affected by damage bonuses to armor and light. Those are Banelings and Queens.
sc2 to watch as a spectator sucks every day more and more , the dmg system is only one of the things that are bad imo . Me personally i don't agree about the fact that only terran can put up pressure in the beginning with his various openings (i don't mean here chess) , the other 2 races have to defend the first 10 minutes to get a fair fight . In bw every race had openings that could pressure the other races , so even the mighty terran had to watch out for dts ( in sc2 i think terran gets his scan to easily , so dt's are totaly useless vs terrran ), reavers mutas, hydra/lurker bust, ...
not this thread again. Maybe all the other ones were badly worded or just closed but hasnt this been done to death during the beta? Or maybe I'm hugely mistaken.
Edit: I may come off as bitter or whiney(maybe both :D) and I dont think OP is an idiot or anything heck the post by OP is great, just that's it been done over and over. Just wanted to clarify
On October 14 2010 19:22 lastreason wrote: sc2 to watch as a spectator sucks every day more and more , the dmg system is only one of the things that are bad imo . Me personally i don't agree about the fact that only terran can put up pressure in the beginning with his various openings (i don't mean here chess) , the other 2 races have to defend the first 10 minutes to get a fair fight . In bw every race had openings that could pressure the other races , so even the mighty terran had to watch out for dts ( in sc2 i think terran gets his scan to easily , so dt's are totaly useless vs terrran ), reavers mutas, hydra/lurker bust, ...
How the damage system is bad? You can point at some units and say they are overpowered or underpowered. But those are your feelings regarding certain units, not whole damage system.
I think what makes sc2 boring too watch is just what lastreason said, but also things like "blue goo" and I've always liked spider mines and the insane amount of damage it does sometimes. same goes for tanks, the damge they do to other but also to them selfs. So the things sc2 has done good is units like banelings, acid death animation, burn death animtion.
that's also the bad design of many units (roach, marauders) that keep the game boring.
Tell me what's so fun about marauder as a unit... it's kiting micro ? it's Stimpack speed ? ah ah ah
I simply stopped playing zerg because is so boring, and i play terran without making marauders at all because i hate them.
The only race i can play with fun are protoss... but only vs Z or T... because PvP macro is a ridicolous colossus fest now... the result of introducing such a powerful dps unit destroyed the match up... do you like watching PvP ? I don't like watching AND playing them anymore.
Plus SC2 lacks powerful gamechanging powers like (spidermines, dark swarm, storms)
Please don't compare THIS 80 damage storm with inflated HP units of SC2 with the old 120 damage storm against units with much less hp. Last terran i have fought i had to use almost 50 storms to kill it... and it was a noob.
On October 14 2010 19:43 alkampfer wrote: Please don't compare THIS 80 damage storm with inflated HP units of SC2 with the old 120 damage storm against units with much less hp. Last terran i have fought i had to use almost 50 storms to kill it... and it was a noob.
Maybe covering opposite army in storms is the way it's meant to be used now. It sucks that a single storm isn't as strong but there are many things in place to make size storms happen: faster energy regen for all units, smartcasting and upgrade that allows HTs to throw storms as soon as they warp in. Being able to warp in HTs is pretty huge itself imo.
On October 14 2010 20:11 MavercK wrote: one of the many reasons i was so inspired to make a brood war mod.
Maybe you can tell me what is OP's point? Because it still doesn't make sense to me.
Dustin Browder (SC2 lead designer) has officially stated he considers the new system (light/heavy-hard counter) an improvement over the old 50% 75% 100%.
All this coming from the guy who thought stim and marauders would a "cool" addition to Terran.
You misunderstand "Massive" as a higher tier of "Armored". They are different things and all Massive units by pure coincidence also have the Armored trait.
SC2 weapon system is entirely different from SC1. Whereas SC1 had weapon types (and you have to have one distinct type for every weapon) and armor types (the same thing, you have to have one distinct type of the three), in SC2 units may deal damage vs other units with specifical traits. A trait is not a type, it's just a boolean flag. A unit is massive or it is not massive. Completely unrelated, it is light or not light (not being light DOES NOT equate to being 'heavy' or even 'armored'). You can have a unit that has no traits at all (Queens and Archons are neither Light nor Armored, although they still have Psionic), and you can have a unit with a combination of traits that defy logic, like Massive-Light. And that unit will burn in Hellion fire at the same time being demolished by Corruptors.
Same thing, while there are actually none at the moment, Blizzard or any mapper can introduce units that do bonus damage to Psionic etc. I'm not sure, but probably you can add other kinds of traits to units in the editor.
very interesting read. Solid points. Thanks for the contribution. I didnt play BW so i cant personally compare but I do agree with your take on the Massive units being armored and dying to the units they are supposed to kill. In general I just think that units Hard counter each other too greatly (this is not an original idea). I think if my army is worth 3 times as much as yorus but your unnits "hard counter" mine it should be a closer fight than it is currently.
I dont think the + damage system is bad in itself. What makes it kind of boring is the lack of variety in the bonus categories. Pretty much everything is either armored or light, and its the same with the damage bonuses. If there were more units that did +psionic, +biological, or +massive instead of just 2 units, it would offer more variety and make unit compositions more dynamic. I agree too that damage is too high. If battles weren't over so quickly we could see more gosu micro in big armies rather than 1a working because his army dies before micro could have helped. to improve the spectator aspect something has to be done about these big 1 command army balls. In bw battles were more spread out and you could micro a section to gain an advantage but here with a 200 supply army on 1 screen you can't have such dynamic battles. I'm not trying to rip on the game, I enjoy it alot, but 1a'ing 2 armies together is not as entertaining as bw battles were.
The damage bonuses to armor types is excessive, lowering the bonuses would give players a wider array of strategies that can be used versus various unit compositions without getting slaughtered. It would also lengthen the battles that occur.
I don't agree with the OP. For one, I don't think SC2 is boring to watch. Second, I honestly always found the BW damage system to be cumbersome and confusing. The UI did a poor job of communicating the information, how units were classified was rarely intuitive, and you had to do a lot of memorization to figure out how much damage one unit would do to another unit. In my opinion the SC2 system, is simpler, more streamlined, and more elegant, and it makes it easier for players and spectators to understand how much damage units are going to cause.
I also don't buy the argument that the system makes SC2 more 'hard-countery' and DPS-oriented. If anything, there are fewer one-sided unit interactions in SC2, more units are more viable in more matchups, and units generally take longer to kill one another in SC2 vs BW.
In SC2, there's also the Consideration of the removal of really amazingly powerful AOE and spells. Plague, old storm, lockdown/emp, reavers/siegetank massive damage is all a thing of the past.
Yeah, I was considering making a thread about this myself. Great points, and the current damage system (and how blizzard has used it) really lends to the overwhelming number of "hard counters" that exist in starcraft 2, IMO. It helps make the battles seem less dynamic and more forced.
This was talked a lot about in beta and called the "terrible terrible damage" syndrome... Too late to change it now but I agree it was a better way of having damamge modifiers.
And in SC2, archons suddenly don't suck vs all types of damage and can actaully be used effectively to TANK damage, because they have NO armor type. just Psionic. And +dmg vs biological?
The new system is more versatile than the BW damage system, BUT it hasn't been fully explored by Blizzard. Only a few units are outside the light/armored/+vs light/+vs armored rigid design. But they show that it exists!
Armored isn't medium, medium simply doesn't exist anymore.
Hydras were medium, now they are light. Vultures were medium, Hellions are light. Corsairs were medium, Phoenixes are light. Lurkers don't have a closely related unit.
Massive is "extra large" and if corruptors didn't have a bonus against it, it wouldn't matter at all.
Also, the damage inflation is irrelevant to the system used. The SC2 system is more flexible and can be made to act like the BW system(with the exception that it's bugged vs shields and you'll have to code the damage for that yourself).
What is an Ultralisk? What's it supposed to counter? Armored units? But the Ultralisk IS itself Armored (Because it's Massive, and in SC2 Massive gets hit by + dmg vs Armored), so it gets annihilated by the units that it's supposed to be good at killing, despite the fact that they needed to give it +100 HP with all the + Armor flying around.
This brings up an issue that was heavily debated in the beta:
Every races primary early-game anti-armor unit is also armored. Marauder, roach, and immortal are all designed to be anti-armored, but they are armored themselves...so they counter each other. This was called the 'unholy trinity'.
And as you point out, the ultra suffers this as well, being an armored unit that has bonus damage vs armored. However the ultra is still good at killing some units that don't have bonus damage vs armored, like the thor & colossus.
I really wish there was at least 1 non-armored unit that did bonus damage vs armored :/
On October 14 2010 23:56 lololol wrote: Armored isn't medium, medium simply doesn't exist anymore.
Hydras were medium, now they are light. Vultures were medium, Hellions are light. Corsairs were medium, Phoenixes are light. Lurkers don't have a closely related unit.
Massive is "extra large" and if corruptors didn't have a bonus against it, it wouldn't matter at all.
^ To whoever said I was misunderstanding SC2 unit types, I'm quoting this for truth. Medium doesn't exist anymore.
OP here. I wrote this post before going to bed like at 5 AM my time, so I'm sorry if my thought process jumps around a little bit.
My point was that SC2 feels forced. Build this vs this, or die. Not fun to watch.
And in SC2, archons suddenly don't suck vs all types of damage and can actaully be used effectively to TANK damage, because they have NO armor type. just Psionic. And +dmg vs biological?
The new system is more versatile than the BW damage system, BUT it hasn't been fully explored by Blizzard.
This is a joke, right?
Just because 1 oddball Protoss unit has + Bio damage doesn't make the system more versatile, just like 1 oddbal Zerg Corruptor having an exclusive +Massive bonus doesn't compensate for the rest of the system causing damage inflation. It's cute and gimmicky, but like you said, it hasn't been fully explored, everything feels and behaves half-way, so we're stuck in this:
Great points, and the current damage system (and how blizzard has used it) really lends to the overwhelming number of "hard counters" that exist in starcraft 2, IMO. It helps make the battles seem less dynamic and more forced.
On October 14 2010 22:21 hEndO wrote: very interesting read. Solid points. Thanks for the contribution. I didnt play BW so i cant personally compare but I do agree with your take on the Massive units being armored and dying to the units they are supposed to kill. In general I just think that units Hard counter each other too greatly (this is not an original idea). I think if my army is worth 3 times as much as yorus but your unnits "hard counter" mine it should be a closer fight than it is currently.
idk if that made sense to anyone but me =/
I too think that theres too many hard counters. The game could be way more about using terrain for your advantage, trying to punish enemy of his little mistakes and countering his strategies, instead of his unit compositions. ( This would be also much more fun to watch )
For example: using vultures against dragoons. Dragoons got advantage agains vultures, but with some good spider mine usage you can actually prevent enemy from pwning your ass before you get some tanks out. ( You know, some godly micro play, dropping mines around dragoons and running away and stuff like that )
Theres also some very ridicilous things like tanks only doing 35 damage to light. It makes no sense, but was a must-do nerf because of that ridicilous tank targetting AI. But still, you can no longer use small groups of lings to take out some unprotected tanks. That targetting AI is what made tanks strong, and Blizzards response was to add some more hard countering weapon to the game.
edit. Blizzard is just doing some very bad and very weird design choises for this game. 125 health infantry units? 400 health giant mech robots? If I knew nothing about new units I would instantly guess that we are talking about new Protoss units, not new Terran units.
Theres just so many little thingies that bother me and that I cant understand why they are in way they are.
For example: using vultures against dragoons. Dragoons got advantage agains vultures, but with some good spider mine usage you can actually prevent enemy from pwning your ass before you get some tanks out. ( You know, some godly micro play, dropping mines around dragoons and running away and stuff like that )
And that's what was fun to watch, IMO.
It's not fun to watch 5 Immortals decimating 10 Ultralisks just because they "Hard Counter" them. It's not fun watching 20 Marauders kill 16 Ultralisks with Stim just because they "Hard Counter" anything that is armored. It's not fun watching Helion "Hard Countering" 30 Zerglings with Blue Flame just because of it's design, instead of the player's control over them. I can keep going. In Brood War, you had units that performed well over others, yes. But you didn't have this completely one sided mechanic of "either it counters it or it doesn't, and is generally now useless against X unit.
I think THAT is the core of the issue.
edit. Blizzard is just doing some very bad and very weird design choises for this game. 125 health infantry units? 400 health giant mech robots? If I knew nothing about new units I would instantly guess that we are talking about new Protoss units, not new Terran units.
Yeah. This thread isn't about Terran HP inflation per se, but yes. Terran has crossed over into Protoss role territory in SC2 with Expensive, Over-performing units like the Thor. Combined with Terran's cheap but versatile T1 it is rather powerful. Protoss no longer has the highest quality units per IMO, Terran does.
I see this thread as a Mekka for people who who just haven't figured out what units they need in what situations. Let me try to address OP's problem.
There is no longer a 100% / 75% / 50% Explosive for units with big damage. There is no longer 100% 50% 25% damage penalties for units that are good at killing "Small" targets. Now it's just BAM 10 damage, NO penalty, with a BONUS vs X for fun. It just seems to me like DPS has gotten way out of control as a result.
Regarding what units exactly? We can convert current system to BW one, generalize Armored as Large and Light as Small and suddenly Marauders have 50% penalty against Small targets, Immortals 60%, Stalkers ~29%, Siege Tanks: in Tank mode 40% and in Siege mode 30%, Ultralisks 57%, charging Void Rays 50% and charged 60%, Archons ~29% (remember that Hellions, Ravens, Phoenixes, Interceptors (lol), Observers, Sentries and Banshees aren't biological).
And that's also keeping in mind Stalker can do 14 damage max while Dragoons 20, Siege Tanks: in Tank mode 25 (BW 30) and in Siege mode 50 (BW 70). + Show Spoiler +
We can even go a bit ridiculous and include Reavers as ancestors of both Immortals and Colossi. While Colossi inherited deadly AoE, Immortals inherited insane damage that can be dealt to a single target. Comparing Reavers to Immortals, Reavers have smaller penalty against small units (50% while Immortal 60%).
Ghosts cost twice as much as in BW so they have everything multiplied by 2.
Somehow you don't see Carriers used that much even though Interceptors do 66.(6)% damage more, air upgrades give them +2 instead of +1 and the only upgrade for Carriers themselves makes Interceptors deal even more damage faster. Each Carrier warps in with 4 of them, compared to 0 in BW and there is no upgrade needed for bigger capacity of Carriers (so they can carry more than 4 Interceptors in BW).
Hellions have a lot smaller DPS than Vultures when including Mines in this comparison. Even though Hellions can deal a lot greater damage, with their standard attack it's not set like this by default, it all comes down to T's micro and mismicro by opponent. Using Hellions one can only achieve through micro what Mines could do. And only against 1 type of targets, not all of them. AND they have to stop to fire.
Also Mines are only 1 BW example among Storm, Plague and other overpowered but balanced spells and abilities that aren't in SC2 or if they have equivalents (like Stasis has Vortex) they aren't as strong (only 1 Mothership can be made, there is no limit on Arbiters in BW). There are literally no examples to support statement that "DPS has gotten way out of control".
A point can be made that "unholy trinity" deals a lot of damage to each other but it still doesn't hard counter each other - for the same cost Immortals don't hard counter Marauders and both Immortals and Marauders don't hard counter Roaches when things like: Roach Speed (and burrow to some degree), whether battle is going on on creep or not, is zerg fighting in chokes, coming only from 1 side, or is he trying to flank and surround, are taken into consideration. But saying that Massive is the new Medium isn't correlated to Roach, Marauder, Immortal issue. edit at ~6:00 I don't understand how it is supposed to be.
The only 1 thing (also not mentioned in OP) I can agree with is it too often can't be said at all who is going to win a battle. In BW, spells make it very clear. It is easy to see who has advantage and where. If stream has even mediocre quality it often can't be seen at all who has advantage, even with force fields, storms and fungal growths used. Or like in PvP, it comes down to who has more Colossi. that is rather irrelevant to the thread. /edit~6:00
This lead me to think that many of the cries and whines we have been seeing about balance since Beta / Release are because of Blizzard going in the wrong direction with this "new" approach to the damage system, which results in Starcraft 2 units hard-countering their "countered unit" to the point where things die in seconds and battles don't last at all, especially not with the right unit compositions.
And it's not different from BW. In BW TvZ you make Vessels or Mutas keep harassing, Defilers and Ultras roam free, anything plagued, especially Marines, dies in seconds, not being able to kill anything when covered in Dark Swarm. Similarly you make enough Scourge and get the Vessels or you can't defend and get rolled by rivers of bio. In TvP you cheese with bio or hide Barracks ("deep six") for as long as you can because Storm makes bio obsolete. Protoss needs Arbiters (or Carriers on certain maps) against maxed out Terran mech army because unless he can flank and cast size storm like a god, he doesn't stand a chance with just zeals and goons. Those are just few examples. If anything, scouting just matters more in SC2. And 1a isn't the best way to micro available.
To me it seems like the transition between the damage systems is incomplete, and now that (as far as damage is concerned) Massive = Armored, we're left with units that just don't have a very well defined role. And now we get to HP inflation because since everything now counters Armored and Massive, "large" units have seen an HP increase.
What is a Corruptor? What's it supposed to do? Counter capital ships?
What is an Ultralisk? What's it supposed to counter? Armored units? But the Ultralisk IS itself Armored (Because it's Massive, and in SC2 Massive gets hit by + dmg vs Armored), so it gets annihilated by the units that it's supposed to be good at killing, despite the fact that they needed to give it +100 HP with all the + Armor flying around.
Ultralisk isn't Small or Medium size in BW, it is Large and that translates to Armoured. It has always been like this. And Ultralisk was never meant to fight battles alone. Alone it is countered by anything, getting +2 carapace against MnM is a matter of life and death. How changing it's size is supposed to change anything? It is all about number of hits needed to kill it.
Ultralisk HP in Brood War: 400 Ultralisk HP in Starcraft 2: 500
AND it costs 100 minerals more, takes 75 seconds to make, deals splash and can tank for other units as good as ever. AND it started with 600HP in the beta.
Battlecruiser HP in Brood War: 500 Battlecruiser HP in SC2: 550
How is 50HP relevant? They also have much bigger DPS, so strong it had to be nerfed against ground targets in the last patch. And can shoot Yamatos much faster thanks to it's lower cost and faster energy regen. They even have upgrade that gives +25 energy once they are finished.
Medic HP in BW: 60 Firebat HP in BW: 50 Marauder HP in SC2: 125 (Obviously, he's armored, that's why he now needs nearly the same HP of a):
Including Slow, widely considered overpowered even though it can't shoot air. I don't see how 125HP is a sign of weakness.
Seige Tank HP in BW: 150 Seige Tank HP in SC2: 160
Comparing 10HP is just ridiculous. SC2 Tank needs more supply and more gas, gas itself being much more precious. For it's cost, it's more of glass canon then a unit with inflated HP.
For example: using vultures against dragoons. Dragoons got advantage agains vultures, but with some good spider mine usage you can actually prevent enemy from pwning your ass before you get some tanks out. ( You know, some godly micro play, dropping mines around dragoons and running away and stuff like that )
And that's what was fun to watch, IMO.
It's not fun to watch 5 Immortals decimating 10 Ultralisks just because they "Hard Counter" them. It's not fun watching 20 Marauders kill 16 Ultralisks with Stim just because they "Hard Counter" anything that is armored. It's not fun watching Helion "Hard Countering" 30 Zerglings with Blue Flame just because of it's design, instead of the player's control over them. I can keep going. In Brood War, you had units that performed well over others, yes. But you didn't have this completely one sided mechanic of "either it counters it or it doesn't, and is generally now useless against X unit.
edit. Blizzard is just doing some very bad and very weird design choises for this game. 125 health infantry units? 400 health giant mech robots? If I knew nothing about new units I would instantly guess that we are talking about new Protoss units, not new Terran units.
Yeah. This thread isn't about Terran HP inflation per se, but yes. Terran has crossed over into Protoss role territory in SC2 with Expensive, Over-performing units like the Thor. Combined with Terran's cheap but versatile T1 it is rather powerful. Protoss no longer has the highest quality units per IMO, Terran does.
Immortals lose in 1v1 fights against Ultras. Marauders kite because you let them by doing 1a instead of trying to surround or simply casting a Fungal on them. Exactly the same goes for ling vs hellion. Hellions do reach critical mass of units as any other ranged unit but lings is all they can kill as long as you are aware what is flying near your bases. Once you know that, they are minerals dumped into something that can't hurt anything else you have. They are a cannon fodder at best.
The core of the issue is I don't think you are even Gold because your comparisons show how bad is your skill in this game. The game is not at fault, you are just bad at it sir O_O
And Terran mech is the most cost effective army in the BW.
Immortals lose in 1v1 fights against Ultras. Marauders kite because you let them by doing 1a instead of trying to surround or simply casting a Fungal on them. Exactly the same goes for ling vs hellion. Hellions do reach critical mass of units as any other ranged unit but lings is all they can kill as long as you are aware what is flying near your bases. Once you know that, they are minerals dumped into something that can't hurt anything else you have. They are a cannon fodder at best.
The core of the issue is I don't think you are even Gold because your comparisons show how bad is your skill in this game. The game is not at fault, you are just bad at it sir O_O
And Terran mech is the most cost effective army in the BW.
I don't see what my comparisons are telling you about my skill level, though, but thanks for the guess.
Immortals might lose to 1v1 against Ultras but they start countering them HARD when numbers on both sides start going up, and that's exactly what you see when you spectate this game. Big Mara ball wiping the floor with superior cost of Ultralisks.
Ya seriously...who thought of 125 HP infantry tanks? It used to be firebats would "tank" in some sense. Now you have a unit with double HP, but it's almost a requirement because everything else hits real hard too.
Meanwhile lings still suck. 6 lings were>photon cannon in BW, now it's really not close at all.
in starcraft, good micro could make your units perform against all expectations against units who are supposed to counter yours. But in SC2, this is nigh impossible, the countering is often just too one sided.
Immortals lose in 1v1 fights against Ultras. Marauders kite because you let them by doing 1a instead of trying to surround or simply casting a Fungal on them. Exactly the same goes for ling vs hellion. Hellions do reach critical mass of units as any other ranged unit but lings is all they can kill as long as you are aware what is flying near your bases. Once you know that, they are minerals dumped into something that can't hurt anything else you have. They are a cannon fodder at best.
The core of the issue is I don't think you are even Gold because your comparisons show how bad is your skill in this game. The game is not at fault, you are just bad at it sir O_O
And Terran mech is the most cost effective army in the BW.
I don't see what my comparisons are telling you about my skill level, though, but thanks for the guess.
Immortals might lose to 1v1 against Ultras but they start countering them HARD when numbers on both sides start going up, and that's exactly what you see when you spectate this game. Big Mara ball wiping the floor with superior cost of Ultralisks.
Your comparisons are that bad, making them over exaggerated in that way doesn't prove anything.
Ultras aren't the only unit meant counter them. Zerg didn't win GSL by making only Ultras. 1 dimensional comparisons get you only that far and make lose armies superior in cost. Think beyond that or you will just keep blaming random things like unit damage system.
Immortals lose in 1v1 fights against Ultras. Marauders kite because you let them by doing 1a instead of trying to surround or simply casting a Fungal on them. Exactly the same goes for ling vs hellion. Hellions do reach critical mass of units as any other ranged unit but lings is all they can kill as long as you are aware what is flying near your bases. Once you know that, they are minerals dumped into something that can't hurt anything else you have. They are a cannon fodder at best.
The core of the issue is I don't think you are even Gold because your comparisons show how bad is your skill in this game. The game is not at fault, you are just bad at it sir O_O
And Terran mech is the most cost effective army in the BW.
I don't see what my comparisons are telling you about my skill level, though, but thanks for the guess.
Immortals might lose to 1v1 against Ultras but they start countering them HARD when numbers on both sides start going up, and that's exactly what you see when you spectate this game. Big Mara ball wiping the floor with superior cost of Ultralisks.
Your comparisons are that bad, making them over exaggerated in that way doesn't prove anything.
Ultras aren't the only unit meant counter them. Zerg didn't win GSL by making only Ultras. 1 dimensional comparisons get you only that far and make lose armies superior in cost. Think beyond that or you will just keep blaming random things like unit damage system.
You keep posting like this thread is about blaming the game for me being in Platinum (or something???) I'm not blaming the damage system or the game for my losses in this thread. Please read it.
This isn't a QQ post, or a balance thread. I'm not a Zerg player that uses Ultralisks. I play Protoss.
I'm pointing out that the new damage system is worse than it was in BW, and more 1-dimensional, something which I believe contributes to it being less fun to watch.
I don't think u can give an accurate assessment of the game at platinum, let alone this early in the game's life considering its constantly being patched. I don't get why you're comparing it to BW which is a different game, you either enjoy both or one or the other. Just my 2 cents.
I really like the point about how more DPS means that battles arent as epic because they end too quickly. While it places a premium on handspeed in those critical situations it is MUCH harder for spectators to follow.
On October 15 2010 04:27 lGy wrote: I don't think u can give an accurate assessment of the game at platinum, let alone this early in the game's life considering its constantly being patched. I don't get why you're comparing it to BW which is a different game, you either enjoy both or one or the other. Just my 2 cents.
I barely play SC2 anymore, working all the time.
That said, I can't assess how fun SC2 is as a spectator sport without being in top Diamond?
Because that's what this thread is about. I'm not pretending to be some top level player who just won the GSL giving my opinions on SC2 balance, man.
I'm a guy who loves watching pro level BW / SC2 explaining why I feel like the new damage system makes SC2 less interesting to watch. If you read the OP this is very clearly stated.
Immortals lose in 1v1 fights against Ultras. Marauders kite because you let them by doing 1a instead of trying to surround or simply casting a Fungal on them. Exactly the same goes for ling vs hellion. Hellions do reach critical mass of units as any other ranged unit but lings is all they can kill as long as you are aware what is flying near your bases. Once you know that, they are minerals dumped into something that can't hurt anything else you have. They are a cannon fodder at best.
The core of the issue is I don't think you are even Gold because your comparisons show how bad is your skill in this game. The game is not at fault, you are just bad at it sir O_O
And Terran mech is the most cost effective army in the BW.
I don't see what my comparisons are telling you about my skill level, though, but thanks for the guess.
Immortals might lose to 1v1 against Ultras but they start countering them HARD when numbers on both sides start going up, and that's exactly what you see when you spectate this game. Big Mara ball wiping the floor with superior cost of Ultralisks.
Your comparisons are that bad, making them over exaggerated in that way doesn't prove anything.
Ultras aren't the only unit meant counter them. Zerg didn't win GSL by making only Ultras. 1 dimensional comparisons get you only that far and make lose armies superior in cost. Think beyond that or you will just keep blaming random things like unit damage system.
You keep posting like this thread is about blaming the game for me being in Platinum (or something???) I'm not blaming the damage system or the game for my losses in this thread. Please read it.
This isn't a QQ post, or a balance thread. I'm not a Zerg player that uses Ultralisks. I play Protoss.
I'm pointing out that the new damage system is worse than it was in BW, and more 1-dimensional, something which I believe contributes to it being less fun to watch.
Did you even read the OP??
I elaborated why the damage system is IMO irrelevant on this page. At least in the way I understand your post.
It sounds like a pretty huge QQ when you say 5 Immortals "decimate 10 ultralisks" or 20 Marauders kill 16 Ultralisks. I have no idea how can you let that happen. It makes me wonder if you are just exaggerating or are you that ignorant to what is the reality.
I have no problem with arguing if microing units that are meant counter one another is vaible, if micro itself can, like in BW, win you battles that seem to be unworthy to engage in, judging just by unit compositions. But the question is: is micro (done by top players) in SC2 on the level good enough to say that all you need is a better army composition and it doesn't matter if you 1a or try to do something more?
This whole thread would be excellent if there would be any analysis about situations that actually happened, instead of generalizing. What could be done? How economy of both players influenced number of units on both sides? What was the positioning? What unit could be used but wasn't there? Was it that certain units weren't used because player disregarded them and just assumed simplier unit composition would do? This thread would be excellent if focusing on damage systems being just different, without using games that happened as examples, was the only thing it does. And saying one system is worse because it adds instead of dividing is really saying that it is different and nothing more.
How the damage system is bad? You can point at some units and say they are overpowered or underpowered. But those are your feelings regarding certain units, not whole damage system.
How about the fact that your entire army can be in 1 hotkey and grouped into a tiny compact ball that dishes out 10,000 dps to any unit that comes within 9 range of it?
On October 14 2010 18:51 Felix_mk wrote: I actually agree that battles are too short because units do too much damage.
Another game from another genre "guild wars" was killed by massive buffs to offensive skills which lead to tons of gimmicky builds that killed everything way too fast.
no don't make it like w3 .. maps are just too small + chokes are just useless to defend on sc2
He never mentions w3.....But to the OP, units simply do too much damage right now. Battles are extremely short and almost every game comes down to one large mid to late game fight. I really wish they just ported BW to SC2 graphics, because it was so flawless. I mean, keep in mind that it took SC 7 years to get to where it is now, so give SC2 time to balance out.
Damage system alone is not the problem. The problem is that Blizzard is trying to design a somekind of net of counters where each unit type counters some unit type and gets pwned by some other unit type and leaves space for nothing else. Very little space for some creative unit usage.
What they should be doing is giving us different kind of units with different kind of tools for fighting and killing enemies. Letting us to find best way to use this unit type to counter that unit type in this specific situation, which would make game much more dynamic. Now its too much about massing unit A and B, because they work nicely againts enemys units C and D.
One system starts with maximum damage value and this value has to be divided to calculate damage done to other types of units. Another system starts with minimum damage value and you have to add to calculate damage done to other types of units. How is one worse than the other? What matters are the numbers, not percentages.
How the damage system is bad? You can point at some units and say they are overpowered or underpowered. But those are your feelings regarding certain units, not whole damage system.
How about the fact that your entire army can be in 1 hotkey and grouped into a tiny compact ball that dishes out 10,000 dps to any unit that comes within 9 range of it?
What is the composition of both armies? What is the positioning? How did the game look like earlier? Did anyone get advantage over the other? Where can I find the replay? Was there any gameplan and did any scouting occur? What is the level of players?
This whole thread would be excellent if there would be any analysis about situations that actually happened, instead of generalizing.
I gave 2 examples of scenarios that are common when spectating games, and are lame to watch, IN A REPLY, NOT THE OP - And you're already speculating how amazing the thread would have been if specific examples were used with theory-crafting of alternative possibilities instead of vague examples? lol seriously?
That's not what this thread is about AT ALL. If you're looking for in-depth strategic analysis, please go to the Strategy Forum.
I'll put this in very simple terms so that you stop criticizing this thread on the basis that you think it should be something that it's not.
SC2 top level games. Too much damage. Forced counters. Not fun to watch.
Most of you probably agree that Reaver was one of the coolest units in sc. It had a very powerfull splash attack and very weird attack mechanic that was quite hard to use.
Then some guy invented reaver drop and other cool ways to use that huge damage potential reaver has.
Was reaver somekind of anti armor or anti massive or perhaps worker harrasing tool? No. It was very good at killing workers, balls of hydralisk and stuff like that, but you could also use it againts other targets too, when controlled correctly.
Reaver was an unit with attack mechanic that had its huge potential and its weaknesses.
IMO Blizzard should have offered us more different kind of weapons and fighting mechanics, instead of just this net-of-hard-counters. Few hard counttering units are cool, but game should have more diversity and depth. Not just a fancy version of rock-paper-sciccors.
This whole thread would be excellent if there would be any analysis about situations that actually happened, instead of generalizing.
I gave 2 examples of scenarios that are common when spectating games, and are lame to watch, IN A REPLY, NOT THE OP - And you're already speculating how amazing the thread would have been if specific examples were used with theory-crafting of alternative possibilities instead of vague examples? lol seriously?
That's not what this thread is about AT ALL. If you're looking for in-depth strategic analysis, please go to the Strategy Forum.
I'll put this in very simple terms so that you stop criticizing this thread on the basis that you think it should be something that it's not.
SC2 top level games. Too much damage. Forced counters. Not fun to watch.
I hope that clears it up for you.
Lol what are your examples? You said you like Goon vs Vulture micro. That's one, BW example. I can see you edited and added content to your OP so I have to reread it but you said you gave them in responses. I don't get how in depth analysis can hurt your point. If you are right it should prove that you are right more than anything. There are no SC2 examples at all. Once someone posted about how Archons work you asked if he was joking:
On October 14 2010 23:56 lololol wrote: Armored isn't medium, medium simply doesn't exist anymore.
Hydras were medium, now they are light. Vultures were medium, Hellions are light. Corsairs were medium, Phoenixes are light. Lurkers don't have a closely related unit.
Massive is "extra large" and if corruptors didn't have a bonus against it, it wouldn't matter at all.
^ To whoever said I was misunderstanding SC2 unit types, I'm quoting this for truth. Medium doesn't exist anymore.
OP here. I wrote this post before going to bed like at 5 AM my time, so I'm sorry if my thought process jumps around a little bit.
My point was that SC2 feels forced. Build this vs this, or die. Not fun to watch.
And in SC2, archons suddenly don't suck vs all types of damage and can actaully be used effectively to TANK damage, because they have NO armor type. just Psionic. And +dmg vs biological?
The new system is more versatile than the BW damage system, BUT it hasn't been fully explored by Blizzard.
This is a joke, right?
Just because 1 oddball Protoss unit has + Bio damage doesn't make the system more versatile, just like 1 oddbal Zerg Corruptor having an exclusive +Massive bonus doesn't compensate for the rest of the system causing damage inflation. It's cute and gimmicky, but like you said, it hasn't been fully explored, everything feels and behaves half-way, so we're stuck in this:
Great points, and the current damage system (and how blizzard has used it) really lends to the overwhelming number of "hard counters" that exist in starcraft 2, IMO. It helps make the battles seem less dynamic and more forced.
You gave no scenarios at all, yet you are dismissing anything defending the system.
The actual representation doesn't really matter imo. However, what I do miss is the finer grainularities of the 100, 75, 50 system. There are some intermediate values to go about, now it's too 1 dimentional, either bonus or no bonus.
OP here.
100% Agree.
And I would like to know what units demand to be medium size.
Meaning that your Stalker, which says 10 Damage (14 vs. Armored) also does 14 to Massive, despite the fact that the Stalker has no listed damage for vs. Massive units.
It doesn't deal any additional damage to massive targets. And it deals less damage than Dragoon but you use it as an example of the worse system at work.
People did this whine in the beta. They're wrong then and they're wrong now. SC2 is emphatically not all about hard counters. The scenarios you described are all wrong.
Since you want to talk about a "spectator" point of view..
Have you been watching GSL, or IEM, or the team tournament on gom right now? You claim that "all games come down to one big fight in the midgame", battles are so fast that it's impossible to follow what's happening, and the game is all about building the right hardcounter.
But in the games I'm watching, there's constant action from start to finish (in the games that don't end with a quick timing push, which is unavoidable at this stage of the game and on these maps)
Almost all games involve a standard backbone force supplemented by tech units, rather than massing "hard counters" (which would be a stupid idea, since for the most part they're not really hard counters, they're soft counters.) The "web of hardcounters" everybody was scared of early on never materialized because they're not hardcounters with a handful of exceptions (terran pure mech gets basically hardcountered by voidrays, for example.)
And battles last plenty long enough to follow, especially since SC2 lacks BW style crazy damage units like oldschool psistorm, reavers, siege tanks, and cracklings. ((edit: and how could I forget spidermines and scourge?) Their SC2 counterparts really have nothing on the old units damagewise..
On October 14 2010 23:56 lololol wrote: Armored isn't medium, medium simply doesn't exist anymore.
Medium exists. Units that are neither armored nor light are the new 'medium.'
Technically yes, but it doesn't play the same.
A unit will deal the same damage to 2 of the 3 following armor types: light, armored, 'medium'/no-class.
In BW that wasn't true.
But is it necessary at all? The only units that would benefit from that are units that deal fair amount of damage to armored units. I don't think that making Marauders, Immortals, Siege Tanks and Vikings stronger against anything more (for example Hydras) is a good idea.
My theory is that battle are too short since the skill levels varies too much, the game is still young(in starcraft time) and we have yet too see that more and more players becomes more skilled at SC2.
its not simply that "oh unit dps is way too high" its more like that even the pros sometimes just mass up one army and attack instead of trying too have long drawn out battles with 30min+ of pure action.
I think we need too give the game more time(and more units if blizzard change its mind) and see how more endurant strats are made viable.
Meaning that your Stalker, which says 10 Damage (14 vs. Armored) also does 14 to Massive, despite the fact that the Stalker has no listed damage for vs. Massive units.
It doesn't deal any additional damage to massive targets. And it deals less damage than Dragoon but you use it as an example of the worse system at work.
What he's saying is that every massive unit is also armored. So its like the massive descriptor is unnecessary (except for corrupter). The system itself is fine, with + damage instead of reduction, but it seems like they had all of these possibilities with the different unit types, but just gave up and settled on armored and light. Again, the game is fun to play, I love it, but a more in depth system could have made it more dynamic.
I by no means can claim to be an expert on Broodwar, but the assertion that the new damage system is the significant deciding factor on the speed of battles seem like a pretty dumb one to me.
There were plenty of things in broodwar that kill masses of units really fast siege-tanks/lurkers/cracklings/storm/plague. The reason why battles still took place over a relatively longer period of time than they do in Starcarft 2 was, from my observation, mostly due to the limitations of control, unit collision, and the space was occupied by units.
A 200/200 army in broodwar quite simply took a lot more of the relative space on the map then the armies in this game do. Even when full engagements happened like and arbiter tech protoss trying to break a meching terrans siege line. Just because of the sheer mass of space that both armies would occupy. The fight would of course last longer than the SC2 equivalent where 300 food of combat units can fit in one frame of the screen.
Another big reason, again in my opinion, would be the limitation on control. Twelve unit control groups quite simply make it a lot harder to bring your whole army together for one concerted effort than just simply using 1 as the control group for your main army with a few others dedicated to specialty units. If the whole army of each side was able to engage each other simultaneously battles in broodwar would've looked very similar to the way they look now in starcraft 2.
Another aspect of control is how MBS effects rally placement. Adjusting rallies on the fly actually took a significant amount of time as opposed to say clicking 5/6/7 and right clicking where you want your reinforcements to arrive. This provided for a lot more skirmish play with portions of the army engaging with other portions.
As far as collision, the fluid dynamic that units in starcraft 2 exhibit while certainly interesting and tactically significant in it's own right. It makes units much more vulnerable to area affect abilities and attacks. Imagine how much more deadly defiler plague and storm would have been if units clumped the way they do in this game.
The size of the maps is probably also worth mentioning, but I think in general it's pretty agreeable that Starcraft 2 is a more cramped game then it's predecessor with mechanics that support it's compression.
Again like I said I'm certainly no Broodwar expert, but I think most of the reasons I listed were much more significant in the creating the longer lasting battles seen in Stracraft 2's predecessor.
P.S. To the guy who said, "He's tired of seeing 20 stimmed marauders kill "16" Ultralisks because they hard counter them." All I can say is haha haha hahahaha ha ha ha hahaha oh man comedy.
Meaning that your Stalker, which says 10 Damage (14 vs. Armored) also does 14 to Massive, despite the fact that the Stalker has no listed damage for vs. Massive units.
It doesn't deal any additional damage to massive targets. And it deals less damage than Dragoon but you use it as an example of the worse system at work.
What he's saying is that every massive unit is also armored. So its like the massive descriptor is unnecessary (except for corrupter). The system itself is fine, with + damage instead of reduction, but it seems like they had all of these possibilities with the different unit types, but just gave up and settled on armored and light. Again, the game is fun to play, I love it, but a more in depth system could have made it more dynamic.
OK but to quote myself:
Few units being Massive affects the game only in a good way: It makes sense that Marauders can't slow Ultras, Thors and Colossi. It makes sense that Phoenix can't use Graviton Beam on them. It helps Zerg to deal with capital ships and Colossi without the need for overpowered AA. and that's it. I don't get why it's not good.
I forgot to add that only massive units can break Force Fields.
And I think devs got too fed up by the talk about SC2 being too gimmicky.
the damage types and the giant. high hp. high cost. slow moving units detracts from starcraft. i've said it many times but units like the thor and mothership feel extremely forced the thor is just a giant goliath. the mothership is just a giant arbiter.
would you rather have 2-3 goliaths or 1 thor? would you rather have 2-3 arbiters or 1 mothership?
i know im going to cop alot of crap for this but the differences between warcraft and starcraft were extremely clear.
warcraft units featured these things high supply cost expensive large health pools low damage/attack speed slow moving
starcraft units featured low supply cost cheap units low health fast attacks/high damage alot of very fast moving units.
you can see how units like the thor and mothership simply do not fit. i understand blizzard wanting to make it original. but a giant goliath? can you really call that a "new" unit? read it somewhere once and i laughed "Zerg are supposed to be the "Swarm" yet the only unit they have that is 1 food or less is the zergling/baneling
im kind of going off topic here but im trying to express a point of view that i think blizzard made alot of bad design choices in starcraft 2. damage types being one of them. another big design flaw i feel they made was killing the diversity between the races. roach going from 3 > 4 range, while being a good change. just feels even more like a stalker/marauder. starcraft 1 was unbalanced at certain tiers. but on the grand scale was very balanced and fluid. it feels like the only distinguishing feature of each race now is their "macro mechanic"
obviously none of this is going to change in future expansions. or i seriously doubt it.
I don't want to be a dick but this debate seems meaningless. I found the exact quote from Dustin Browder. Blizzard considers the "hard counter" system much better and I seriously doubt it is ever going to change.
"Q: The damage modifiers have been slowly weeded out through the patches, have you thought about getting rid of them completely? A: StarCraft had a damage system that was similar to ours only it was more complicated and a lot less clear. We are very happy with our damage system as a significant improvement over the original StarCraft and will continue to use it as a balance tool to try to create the best strategy game we can. There are no plans to cut it."
I personally believe SC1 damage system to be immensely superior and it's one of the reasons the game has lived for so long. I might be wrong but the people who made the game don't agree with me... so I just go back to my dark corner and weep.
I noticed something to this effect when comparing protoss shields from BW to protoss shields from SC2.
Take for instance the ghost and dragoon from BW. The ghost does reduced damage to the dragon (i believe 1/4 of the stated damage) when the ghost is attacking a dragoons health. While the dragoon's shields were up this damage reduction would not occur and the ghosts full damage would be dealt to the shields.
Now we once again look at SC2 where this no longer occurs. A marauder which does base 20 damage to an armored unit does 20 damage to the unit's shields as well, so long as the unit is armored.
Disclaimer: I do not believe this is a balance problem, but I believe that in 'concept' it should have been implemented to the game. After all, what really is the difference between a zealot's shields, and a stalkers shield?
The only unit to break this exception is the Immortal, which has an ability that states that its shields are different from other unit's shields
It's not the + damage system that's the problem. The problem is there are alot of units with high damage values in SC2 compared to SC1. Just look at a list of the damage values and you can see how much higher SC2 values are overall
On October 15 2010 10:43 kasumimi wrote: I don't want to be a dick but this debate seems meaningless. I found the exact quote from Dustin Browder. Blizzard considers the "hard counter" system much better and I seriously doubt it is ever going to change.
But they don't call it a "hard counter" system, so you shouldn't put those words in Dustin Browder's mouth. I'm not sure where this idea came from about there being more hard counters in SC2. BW had a very similar, but more confusing, system for accomplishing the same objective. It also had a lot of units that were explicitly designed to counter specific units, and that did so much more effectively than in SC2 in many cases. I would argue that unit counters were stronger in BW -- to the extent that it made many units completely inviable against certain matchups. Bio against toss comes to mind, as does big air against zerg. It also had the effect of completely changing the nature of the matchup as new tech emerged (vessel/defiler in TvZ).
It seems like the system they have in place could do everything the previous system could do and more if they wanted to use it that way. For example, there's nothing to say corruptors couldn't do 10 with 6 bonus to armored and another 6 bonus to massive if they wanted it to have a smooth scale to the damage as the target gets bigger.
So perhaps your beef is in the way they've done the stats as opposed to the system itself
On October 15 2010 09:18 MavercK wrote: the damage types and the giant. high hp. high cost. slow moving units detracts from starcraft. i've said it many times but units like the thor and mothership feel extremely forced the thor is just a giant goliath. the mothership is just a giant arbiter.
would you rather have 2-3 goliaths or 1 thor? would you rather have 2-3 arbiters or 1 mothership?
i know im going to cop alot of crap for this but the differences between warcraft and starcraft were extremely clear.
warcraft units featured these things high supply cost expensive large health pools low damage/attack speed slow moving
starcraft units featured low supply cost cheap units low health fast attacks/high damage alot of very fast moving units.
you can see how units like the thor and mothership simply do not fit. i understand blizzard wanting to make it original. but a giant goliath? can you really call that a "new" unit? read it somewhere once and i laughed "Zerg are supposed to be the "Swarm" yet the only unit they have that is 1 food or less is the zergling/baneling
im kind of going off topic here but im trying to express a point of view that i think blizzard made alot of bad design choices in starcraft 2. damage types being one of them. another big design flaw i feel they made was killing the diversity between the races. roach going from 3 > 4 range, while being a good change. just feels even more like a stalker/marauder. starcraft 1 was unbalanced at certain tiers. but on the grand scale was very balanced and fluid. it feels like the only distinguishing feature of each race now is their "macro mechanic"
obviously none of this is going to change in future expansions. or i seriously doubt it.
/rant
i'm sorry but did you want every single unit to be new? stalker is a "new" unit but it's basically a dragoon what about colossi? they're a brand new unit how does a roach feel like a stalker/marauder besides the range being the same roaches can burrow and move and regenerate, stalkers can blink, and marauders can stim and slow
i doubt you really gave this game a shot since you started working on your brood war custom map very early after release
On October 15 2010 10:43 kasumimi wrote: I don't want to be a dick but this debate seems meaningless. I found the exact quote from Dustin Browder. Blizzard considers the "hard counter" system much better and I seriously doubt it is ever going to change.
"Q: The damage modifiers have been slowly weeded out through the patches, have you thought about getting rid of them completely? A: StarCraft had a damage system that was similar to ours only it was more complicated and a lot less clear. We are very happy with our damage system as a significant improvement over the original StarCraft and will continue to use it as a balance tool to try to create the best strategy game we can. There are no plans to cut it."
LOL, right, lets take this extremely well balanced game with a proven damage system, and IMPROVE IT!! We'll achieve this by making it LESS COMPLICATED!!!!! Although I have absolutely NO IDEA whether I'm correct or not, I will NOT change my newly created damage system. The only thing I will do is to promise to KEEP BALANCING, needlessly expanding arbitrary +XXX dmg vs XXX to more units until nobody knows what the fuck is going on.
I'm sorry, what? Concussive damage is excessive. It gives a 4x damage bonus against its preferred target relative to its un-preferred target. Nothing in SC2 has that wild a swing in terms of damage. Even the Hellion with Preignighter is only doing 2.4x the damage to preferred targets. The Immortal only does 2.5x damage to preferred targets.
Sorry, but until a unit in SC2 gets 4x damage against a type of unit, calling it "excessive" is simply wrong.
For example: using vultures against dragoons. Dragoons got advantage agains vultures, but with some good spider mine usage you can actually prevent enemy from pwning your ass before you get some tanks out. ( You know, some godly micro play, dropping mines around dragoons and running away and stuff like that )
I'm trying to figure out what this has to do with damage bonuses, but quite simply, it doesn't. The presence or absence of spider mines has nothing to do with damage bonuses.
Theres also some very ridicilous things like tanks only doing 35 damage to light.
Um, Siege Tanks only did 35 damage (70 explosive damage) to normal in SC1. So I guess that was "ridicilous" too.
a lot of posters in this thread seem to be hating on sc2. i don tknow...playing bw for 12 years...i sorta like sc2. the games are different but i don tknow i get a feel of rock paper scissors but its not like i didn't get the same thing in bw it just wasn't like in ages series where counters were almost explicit. am i missing something here?
On October 15 2010 10:43 kasumimi wrote: I don't want to be a dick but this debate seems meaningless. I found the exact quote from Dustin Browder. Blizzard considers the "hard counter" system much better and I seriously doubt it is ever going to change.
"Q: The damage modifiers have been slowly weeded out through the patches, have you thought about getting rid of them completely? A: StarCraft had a damage system that was similar to ours only it was more complicated and a lot less clear. We are very happy with our damage system as a significant improvement over the original StarCraft and will continue to use it as a balance tool to try to create the best strategy game we can. There are no plans to cut it."
LOL, right, lets take this extremely well balanced game with a proven damage system, and IMPROVE IT!! We'll achieve this by making it LESS COMPLICATED!!!!! Although I have absolutely NO IDEA whether I'm correct or not, I will NOT change my newly created damage system. The only thing I will do is to promise to KEEP BALANCING, needlessly expanding arbitrary +XXX dmg vs XXX to more units until nobody knows what the fuck is going on.
Are you honestly saying that Blizzard should completely ransack a game that has already been released, to switch to a damage system that, with the exception of Medium and a few esotheric types (Massive, Psionic), is no different from SC1's damage system? Thus necessitating a complete rebalancing of every unit's stats?
Are you kidding? Even if you took SC2 and went back to SC1's damage model, it's not like Spider Mines would magically poof back into existence. It will not suddenly make hard counters go away, because hard counters were part of StarCraft 1 too!
Speed Vultures cannot be killed by Zerglings if you micro them. Period. Siege Tanks alone cannot stop Zealots. Zealots alone will not stop Vultures. And so on. Why do these exist?
Because Vultures do 5 + 15 Small 20 Concussive damage and Zerglings/Zealots are Small. Because Siege Tanks do 35 + 35 vs. Large 70 Explosive damage and Zealots are Small.
Just went through this thread, if you take away all the typical SC2/Blizzard hate and BW fanboys then there really is not much of an argument for the OP
3 attack types (armor piercing, balanced, anti-personnel) & 3 armor types (heavy armor, medium armor, light armor) is very simple and straightforward, and they behave as you'd expect.
SC2's system is more powerful, but to stay simple, SC2 doesn't make much use of its power.
On October 15 2010 10:43 kasumimi wrote: I don't want to be a dick but this debate seems meaningless. I found the exact quote from Dustin Browder. Blizzard considers the "hard counter" system much better and I seriously doubt it is ever going to change.
"Q: The damage modifiers have been slowly weeded out through the patches, have you thought about getting rid of them completely? A: StarCraft had a damage system that was similar to ours only it was more complicated and a lot less clear. We are very happy with our damage system as a significant improvement over the original StarCraft and will continue to use it as a balance tool to try to create the best strategy game we can. There are no plans to cut it."
LOL, right, lets take this extremely well balanced game with a proven damage system, and IMPROVE IT!! We'll achieve this by making it LESS COMPLICATED!!!!! Although I have absolutely NO IDEA whether I'm correct or not, I will NOT change my newly created damage system. The only thing I will do is to promise to KEEP BALANCING, needlessly expanding arbitrary +XXX dmg vs XXX to more units until nobody knows what the fuck is going on.
Are you honestly saying that Blizzard should completely ransack a game that has already been released, to switch to a damage system that, with the exception of Medium and a few esotheric types (Massive, Psionic), is no different from SC1's damage system? Thus necessitating a complete rebalancing of every unit's stats?
Are you kidding? Even if you took SC2 and went back to SC1's damage model, it's not like Spider Mines would magically poof back into existence. It will not suddenly make hard counters go away, because hard counters were part of StarCraft 1 too!
Speed Vultures cannot be killed by Zerglings if you micro them. Period. Siege Tanks alone cannot stop Zealots. Zealots alone will not stop Vultures. And so on. Why do these exist?
Because Vultures do 5 + 15 Small 20 Concussive damage and Zerglings/Zealots are Small. Because Siege Tanks do 35 + 35 vs. Large 70 Explosive damage and Zealots are Small.
That's exactly my point, siege tanks are now 35dmg vs light + 15dmg vs armoured, where did the 15 come from, why not make it 13.52093857209385209358 and then tweak it over and over again. In sc1 I only had to remember 1 dmg number and could figure out in my head what its going to do against all the other units, but now in sc2 there are two numbers. Is it system really LESS COMPLICATED like that guy says? REALLY?
Right, so IF blizzard decided to make complicated numbers for their units it would be a complicated system.
In bw could you imaging a unit that did 13.52093857209385209358 damage, then having to divide it down for all the different types of unit?
Making up numbers is a retarded way of arguing your point because it is pure fiction, the fact is the system in SC2 is simple because the numbers are simple, remembering two numbers isn't difficult.
i agree that some units just do a retarted amount of dmg, i just played a BW game today and it was awesome back and forth ZvP where i eventually lost due to good muta control. any way it just seemed so fair in a way, I know SC2 is a new game and all, but cmon 2 dropships of stimmed rauders can kill a hatch, nexus in like 4 seconds its a little ridiculous, aswell as hydras, they rape shit so hard, not too say hydras dont have their counters but just so much dmg
It would be cool to try out a version of sc, where all attacks including DoT spells, do 60-70% normal dps. Movement speed is still the same, DoT spells simply last longer. More reinforcing batles could occur. At the moment, one of the few battles with the potential to rage back and forth for a extended amount of time, is the collolus vs collolus battle, and that is because micro and positional errors can swing the battle 180 degrees, even with uneven sides.
Timing based defences like in PvT, usually resolve themselves in very short single battles, while fights like 3 rax against 1 gate expo go on until the protoss economy kicks in, or the terran kills the protoss, that can be up to a minute in game time.
Having multiple battles over say...5 minutes would make sc2 much more awesome.
On October 15 2010 14:09 Slago wrote: i agree that some units just do a retarted amount of dmg, i just played a BW game today and it was awesome back and forth ZvP where i eventually lost due to good muta control. any way it just seemed so fair in a way, I know SC2 is a new game and all, but cmon 2 dropships of stimmed rauders can kill a hatch, nexus in like 4 seconds its a little ridiculous, aswell as hydras, they rape shit so hard, not too say hydras dont have their counters but just so much dmg
It'd take 10 seconds with Stim ( "Normal" ) and 8 seconds with Stim ( "Faster" )
On October 15 2010 14:08 Myrdin wrote: Right, so IF blizzard decided to make complicated numbers for their units it would be a complicated system.
In bw could you imaging a unit that did 13.52093857209385209358 damage, then having to divide it down for all the different types of unit?
Making up numbers is a retarded way of arguing your point because it is pure fiction, the fact is the system in SC2 is simple because the numbers are simple, remembering two numbers isn't difficult.
Did you even read what I was responding to? Talk about retarded!
the light/armored system works pretty good so far, with a few exceptions maybe
izerg, zerg has few units that do extra dmg to light or armored, (only ultras, and corruptors are out of the question.) personally i would think and a dmg buff to hydras, maybe like 12+4 to light or something would make the hydras a lot more viable, that way they don't get absolutely faceraped by hellions.
i just hate how a unit gets countered by what its supposed to counter. Makes no sense whats so ever. And i hate that theres really no unit that sucks vs another unit, but if you micro, you can win. The only exception now that i can think of is blink stalkers vs zerglings if you do it right. But thats really it.
Honestly, we can argue forever about how BW had much better variability and gameplay style and thats why sc2 is fail, but as a noob, all i can go off of is the pro scene out there right now, the buzz it's generating, and the popularity hitting the non-bw fans out there.
BW was an awesome game, but SC2 is awesome too, even with all the changes to gameplay (i'd rather say distinctive than worse)
I love SC2 for being so different from SCBW. Cuz some poster mentioned that they wanted to make a BW mod. Go ahead, but I aint paying 60 per expansion for a game that came out a decade ago, just with prettier graphics.
GIVE ME NEW.. and so far, they're delivering. Let's embrace the new, yes?
IF not, just go back to playing BW. Simple, right?
On October 15 2010 14:09 Slago wrote: i agree that some units just do a retarted amount of dmg, i just played a BW game today and it was awesome back and forth ZvP where i eventually lost due to good muta control. any way it just seemed so fair in a way, I know SC2 is a new game and all, but cmon 2 dropships of stimmed rauders can kill a hatch, nexus in like 4 seconds its a little ridiculous, aswell as hydras, they rape shit so hard, not too say hydras dont have their counters but just so much dmg
It'd take 10 seconds with Stim ( "Normal" ) and 8 seconds with Stim ( "Faster" )
Coincidentally, 8 marines could kill a hatchery in about 8 seconds in BW, as well...
On October 15 2010 14:09 Slago wrote: i agree that some units just do a retarted amount of dmg, i just played a BW game today and it was awesome back and forth ZvP where i eventually lost due to good muta control. any way it just seemed so fair in a way, I know SC2 is a new game and all, but cmon 2 dropships of stimmed rauders can kill a hatch, nexus in like 4 seconds its a little ridiculous, aswell as hydras, they rape shit so hard, not too say hydras dont have their counters but just so much dmg
It'd take 10 seconds with Stim ( "Normal" ) and 8 seconds with Stim ( "Faster" )
Coincidentally, 8 marines could kill a hatchery in about 8 seconds in BW, as well...
he's talking about marauders though...
Cooldown on sc1 rines after stim = 7.5frames / 24 or 0.3125 = up to 3.2x hits a sec ( slightly less though supposedly due to random delay intervals ) ( almost as high as marauders in sc2 dps when both stimmed ~19.2 vs 1.5 x 20 / 1.5 )
Cooldown on sc2 rines after stim = 0.86 x ( 1/ 1.5 ) = 0.573 = 1.74x hits a sec
Blizzard now feels like buildings need more HP to resist the ridiculous amount of damage being thrown out by units.
Let's increase building HP but keep insane DPS vs Armored the same.
Oh well, atleast it's cool seeing a Nexus with 1000 / 1000 under it's wire-frame icon.
EDIT: And Spawning Pools with 1000 Health. This just keeps getting more ridiculous. Blizzard will do whatever it takes to try and balance using this system instead of a DPS backpedal.
On October 15 2010 14:09 Slago wrote: i agree that some units just do a retarted amount of dmg, i just played a BW game today and it was awesome back and forth ZvP where i eventually lost due to good muta control. any way it just seemed so fair in a way, I know SC2 is a new game and all, but cmon 2 dropships of stimmed rauders can kill a hatch, nexus in like 4 seconds its a little ridiculous, aswell as hydras, they rape shit so hard, not too say hydras dont have their counters but just so much dmg
It'd take 10 seconds with Stim ( "Normal" ) and 8 seconds with Stim ( "Faster" )
Coincidentally, 8 marines could kill a hatchery in about 8 seconds in BW, as well...
he's talking about marauders though...
Cooldown on sc1 rines after stim = 7.5frames / 24 or 0.3125 = up to 3.2x hits a sec ( slightly less though supposedly due to random delay intervals ) ( almost as high as marauders in sc2 dps when both stimmed ~19.2 vs 1.5 x 20 / 1.5 )
Cooldown on sc2 rines after stim = 0.86 x ( 1/ 1.5 ) = 0.573 = 1.74x hits a sec
I meant that Slago was complaining that marauder drops are too strong, DPS too much against buildings. I was just pointing out that in BW marines kill buildings insanely fast. One dropship of marines is super cheap and can kill bases in seconds.
If you compare DPS charts the big picture isn't really that much different BW vs SC2. It's just that people use units differently.
Agree somewhat. I see the issue as Blizzard playing Rock, Papaer, Scissors with the bonus damage but not the Armor. If Armor actually meant something it would be different, currently it's just a death sentence. For example imagine if some units got +5 armor per armor upgrade like some of the high DPS units do. I'm not advocating +5, just illustrating the problem. I do think Armor needs to count for more instead of just being a huge liability. To give an example look at Marines vs Ultras. The highest ground armor unit in the game vs one of the lowest ground damage unit in the game (tied with the Zergling), theoretically Ultras should slaughter Marines. However the reality is just the opposite, max upgraded Ultras get slaughtered by max upgraded Marines. The only unit really effected by armor is the BC vs Protoss due to the Phoenix and Carrier having very low damage and very high attack rate and the BC having substantially more base Armor than other units. Now this is becoming an issue as well with Blizzard nerfing the Armor bonus for Void Rays. I have serious doubts that the current system is balancable to any degree without considerably more units added to the game unless they completely redesign many units.
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