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On November 30 2010 17:16 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2010 16:22 kochujang wrote:On November 30 2010 14:55 pure.Wasted wrote:On November 30 2010 14:39 DoubleReed wrote:The Baneling is actually an AMAZING example of just what I'm talking about when I say natural synergy. You have a race that can burrow, you give them a unit that blows up, bam, a natural combination. Problem is, that's one legit, viable combination. Terrans have one of those for every single mech unit they got. And Protoss.. they've got nothing at all. Well certainly warp prism and warp gate have natural synergy. One warps units into a power field, and the other puts a power field anywhere. That's about as natural as you can get. Saying "but that's just what its supposed to do" isn't fair. MULEs can repair, so obviously dropping them to repair in a Thor Drop is something they're supposed to do. I will give you Warp Prisms as an example of otherwise lacking Protoss synergy, but I won't give you MULE repair being intentional. :p The repair itself, certainly, but not this bizarro combination that players have been taking advantage of -- Thor's power, MULEs' teleport, and repair. I do think Nydus Worms have tons of application in a ton of situations. There's 101 ways to use them, honestly, and not all of them are straightforward. Similarly, Infested Terran can actually be used to do all sorts of things that you wouldn't necessarily think of. Screwing up Tanks, granting sight, forming a wall... Whatever happened to not bringing unit micro into the discussion? ?: ( If you don't want unit micro discussion, we cannot talk about repair either. Perhaps I should clarify what I mean when I say that unit micro doesn't belong in this discussion. Terrans have 13 standard units, counting SCVs. Zerg have 13 standard units, counting Drones, Queens, and Overlords. Protoss have 15. All very close, and the units of each race offer micro possibilities (shoot and skoot vs. fungal + flank vs. blink stalkers, and so on). It isn't really possible to figure out which race offers more such possibilities, especially as there are still many abilities that don't see a lot of use, that inevitably will -- Seeker Missile, Infested Terrans, anything on the Mothership, etc. We just don't know which race has more... so, seeing as how they're very close in number, I decided to just call it even. Let's assume for the sake of argument that all races' unit micro is even across the board, even including things that are not yet discovered. We do this because micro possibilities, and especially how difficult they are to pull off, are incredibly subjective. That Terrans have access to the superfluous yet useful Sensor Tower while Protoss don't is not subjective. This is why I feel the question of whether or not Infestors, or Overseers, or whatever, have tricks yet to be discovered is not one that should interest us. Whatever tricks the Infestors or Overseers may or may not have may or may not perfectly cancel out other tricks that Terrans have, ie. Ravens' spells, Ghosts' spells, and so on. MULEs are not a standard unit, however; moreover, their Repair ability which is the focus of our analysis is a meta-ability, a racial mechanic -- despite the fact that it is on a single unit. I admitted that Baneling mines are a perfect example of synergy between units and mechanics, and that's because Burrow, like Repair, is a racial mechanic. That it also happens to be on the unit in question (Baneling) is irrelevant. The moment a Zerg player figures out how to use Infested Terrans in combination with Burrow to gather resources, I will start paying attention. For now I can't possibly see that happening, so my focus remains elsewhere.
You always talk about mechanics used in unorthodox ways, or offer abilities which have not been explored yet.
Lets talk about the aspect healing. Protoss regenerates their shields fast outside of combat, zerg heal slowly (except for burrowed Roach) but can be healed by Queen. Terran can repair (SVC or MULE) or heal (Medivac). These mechanics are very clear-cut and simple, but somehow you want to label the terran repair as something special? Repair does exactly what it says, it repairs. That you can call down MULE anywhere and repair is tactic, and frankly micro. Who says you cannot find a fantastic way to use force-fields or warp-prism to get protoss units out of the way to abuse the faster healing of shields? No, we cannot discuss that, because that is (unit) micro. Repair is pretty well defined, so there is nothing to discover here.
Salvage? That comes under construction/deconstruction. Protoss well ahead here since they can warp in tons of different buildings with one single probe. You can even use the synergy with Warp-prism, but that doesn't go well with you, because it is too well defined. Well, salvage is pretty well-defined also, except for situations where you are using them together with units, but we can't have micro-talk here right? Protoss is ahead.
Shelter. An ability only terran have, which is supported by bunker and cc. Plus for terran.
Warp-in can be used to call reinforcements everywhere on the map. Terran has no such ability. Synergy is given, which like repair, is not something you need to discover, only how you use it with your units. Plus for protoss
I would like to set chrono-boost together with addons. You can combine different addons to achieve the following: better/faster tech or faster units. Chrono can achieve the same, but is more flexible. I would call it equal.
Scouting. Terran have sensor-towers and scans, Zerg can use burrow. Protoss have the hardest time here, but they also have the best scouting unit, the observer. You could leave any units out of the equation but that does not make much sense, since it is known that terran is the most difficult race to scout in the beginning.
I think I know what you are trying to say, but your arguments are a bit flawed and I also disagree with your statement ;-)
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but...
the entire game itself has an endless skill ceiling.
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A year from now, you won’t see Chrono Boost being used in new and inventive ways
Famous last words.
If you played Protoss, you'd know this is one of the most underutilized abilities in their arsenal. While constantly keeping your chrono low is the style of today, and the optimal usage on-paper, the real value is going to come from unscoutable timing attacks, impossible tech switches, and double expo transitions that are only possible by stockpiling your chrono.
Nobody really has developed a protoss style yet that's only possible with smart chrono use. The fact that it can rush probe production, tech, and unit production means if you focus 200 energy of chrono on only one of those areas, you're going to see a dramatic transformation in your army. A year from now, we'll only be seeing the very beginnings of pro-level chrono builds.
And the highest skill ceiling is zerg, because skill ceiling has NOTHING to do with the meta game. Zerg reward good decision making better than the other races, since you can devote 100% production to drones or units at any moment. Zerg also punishes bad decision making much worse than the other races, since if a zerg prepares for an attack that doesn't come, they might never recover economically. This is why a zerg took GSL when they were universally considered the most underpowered race.
It's also why TLO decided to switch to swarm before the patch changes took effect. This is not dependent on the meta game, it's a hard-wired mechanic that rewards Zerg players who successfully predict their opponent's movements MORE than the other races.
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I think that both toss and zerg have abilities that are severely underused at the moment and that can be abused in very subtle ways to great effect.
the prime example is the overseer, which i have not gotten or seen others get very often for reasons other then detection. imagine the power of well executed mass-contaminate strategies or the possibilities of using large amounts of changelings to block of a ramp and keep enemy re-enforcements from joining a fight. clever usage of the nydus worm has not been tapped into a lot (theres a ZvP on metalopolis somewhere on HDs account which showcases very interesting and abusive nydus use, but i forget who played in it). Mass transfuse could be very abusable, especially since queens dont cost any gas. imagine late-game ultra/queen mass transfuse. with good micro, this is really scary
terrans are merely the first to start abusing their mechanics because theirs have rather obvious and straight-forward way of being abused. the other races will follow in time.
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I think Zerg has the highest skill Ceiling:
1) Creep Spread.
2) Overlord spread
(with these two, your map control is insane already)
3) Spawn Larva ( absolutely the strongest macro mechanic in SC2)
If you do these three things perfectly, you will be at huge advantage against other races already.
And zerg has lots of strategy options too :
1) Banelings/Ultra Drops.
2) Nice amount of queens in battle to use transfusion.
3) Correct Infestors play. ( Using IT walls to kill splited groups of MM, fungal growths on workers, neutral parasite with burrow, neutral parasite with drops and so on...)
4) Nydus play (may it be on defensive purpose to defend expos easily or to be aggresive and siege someones base without them noticing it fast enough/getting them unprepared.)
5) Overseers play.
Etc.
I'm a Terran player, and they have a huge skill ceiling with their building positioning (Like we see Flash doing in SC:BW) but in most of the cases they won't reach the point when they could use it and they are not as perspective on other skill celling stuff like zerg.
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Zerg are more unit centric meaning that they focus on overrunning/surrounding their opponents. They can make much more units faster. Larva injection are used to increase number of units you can make. etc.
Protoss are more focused on building, their placements around pylon, they can build multiple at a time. One thing people don't mention is that Protss can stack all of their warpgates together , or any formation they want as matter of fact without blocking any of those units in. Hiding tech for fleet beacon and DT shrine becomes more important. I know other races can do this but this is specially true for things like DT or Mothership rush (lol)
Terran focuses on the synergy between the two. Units can repair building, building can build units anywhere after it lands or transport them as well as call them down. Buildings can switch add-on to produce different combination of units.
More examples to consider, Zerg's food are units, they can be left alone floating, Protoss's food effects their psi as well as their buildings, Terrans kind of mixes up the two in a sense their SD can move up and down as to not get in the way, but the movement is severely limited. Lastly Zerg take a worker to be converted into building, protoss can just start it and leave. While terran buildings takes a worker for the duration of the building.
OP only talks about the synergy between building and units in this "skill ceiling" discussion, there are some examples of what each race's synergy that fits their theme.
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On November 30 2010 22:22 Wodenborn wrote:
It's also why TLO decided to switch to swarm before the patch changes took effect. This is not dependent on the meta game, it's a hard-wired mechanic that rewards Zerg players who successfully predict their opponent's movements MORE than the other races.
TLO switched after GSL 2, well after the T openings were nerfed
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Speaking of TLO's switch, I think it was premature. I know he felt that he is not improving even if he practiced and played more as a terran, but the real problem is, 3-4 months down the road (most likely wasted time), he might feel the same about Zerg. He feels he keeps improving if he puts hours into Zerg, but that's because his level as a zerg is not high right now, so he will keep improving, until he reaches a saturation point, like he felt he did with Terran.
When you feel you don't improve, probably the next step is to come up with YOUR OWN WORKING STRATEGIES. It's not like TLO discovered all strategies, broke the race and game, it became boring.
My feeling is that, Terran suited TLO more. He had a decent shot at becoming one of the better Terrans around. As a Zerg... I'm skeptical.
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On November 29 2010 23:45 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2010 21:27 ShadowIord wrote:On November 29 2010 18:27 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Sorry but most T's just spam tier 1 units and add a small number of higher tier units like medivac and viking as support whilst still spamming the same tier 1 units 30 minutes into the game.They then just stim and a click.
Hardly ground breakingly high skill ceiling when compared to brood war. So... Zerg do not spam lings/Blings and toss do not spam leglots/stalkers... isnt it? To OP "A Planetary Fortress is a powerful defensive tool… only thing is, combined with the Command Center’s ability to fly and its ability to carry SCVs, it can even be used offensively in the early game." line. No PF cant fly an if i do not remember bad, neither PF or OC, can carry SCVs. and PF rush do not work vs a good player. I think NettleS' point was that all the way into the late game T players are relying almost entirely on their Teir 1 units with some tier 3 support. I do not think this is the way blizzard intended the game to be played, but they still have a lot of work to do. Ideally, (and this is theory here) they would want terrans to have marines and marauders supporting thors and siege tanks and such units as additionaly firepower rather than mass bio ball being used to take on tier 3 units. This doesnt mean you wouldn't have a large number of marines/marauders, but rather than you would be forced to make some more tier 3 units rather than just pumping off of 8 raxes. Yes protoss make zealots and zerg make ling/bling, but we dont spam them. We would lose big time if we did. Ideally, the same concept of low tier units losing effect over time should apply to terrans as well. But because of the OP's "Unit Synergy" you are allowed to keep making bio for the entire game up until a protoss gets templar AND colossi, or a zerg player can get fungal/bling.
Not gonna argue whether or not going MMM the whole game is imba or not op or not needed or not.
However, not what blizzard intended? I'm not so sure about that. Have you ever watched BW tvz? Even if you haven't I'm sure people that have worked on sc2 at blizzard have. tvz in BW was some combination of marine/medic/tank/vessel (T1.5 plus support units) almost regardless of what the zerg goes for.
During the alpha of SC2 there was commentary on the blizz forums from someone at blizzard that the medic was being removed and its abilities were given to the dropship (thus the birth of the medivac). The reason for this was medics were too slow to keep up with reapers. I'm sure they realized with the way terran tech worked out it was relatively easy to tech to medivacs to aid reapers. Now blizzard isn't dumb I'm sure they realized that medivacs would not just be used in combination with reapers but with other infantry units as well also I'm sure they knew how well it would work because there is already an instance in BW where this has happened. Blizzard even admits via the SC2 single player that marauders are good vs stalkers. Therefore I cannot see them not foreseeing MMM. In BW thats exactly how it worked. If the zerg player was stubborn enough to only build zergling/hydra/muta the whole game as soon as the terran player had adequate turrets to defend his bass MM rolled the zerg. So zerg would evolve and get lurkers which would devastate marine/medic. How did terran players respond? They started supporting their MM with tanks against lurkers.
In SC2 what happens the zerg goes for blings against the massive amount of Marine count the terran has. Therefore the terran builds tanks to kill the banelings or marauders to soak up the damage. And in tvp for sc2 toss responds to MMM by building collosus so terran adds vikings as their support unit.
It all comes back to the same BW concept.
Now if you said that blizzard did not intend for BW zvt to end up with massive amounts of t1.5 plus support units then I would believe you. But for sc2 seeing as how blizzard has a previous instance of this happening I do not believe you.
Edit: If blizzard wasn't wanting MMM the whole game why give the abilities of the medic to the dropship knowing the consequences of this choice. If they were not wanting MMM spam then a choice to simply give the Marines and marauders an upgrade later on in the game to make them more useful would have been better.
(and before anyone says something I said MORE useful which does not mean they were useless before)
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Great topic. No time to read all responses just yet but my thoughts on the matter to follow.
Agree Terran definitely have the most options. They are fun to play and the options make them more fun. I want more options for Zerg and Protoss! The game doesn't need to change drastically to insert some of these things into the expansions.
CC, OC, and PF are great interesting and versatile in many ways.
The queen comes in second, and does have some synergy w/ buildings and units with it's version of heal. Creep tumors/creeping overlords are fairly shallow, I'll give you that. I wouldn't mind seeing an "upgraded creep" option in an expansion that allows a certain area of creep to buff friendlies regen or the creep itself attacks.
Chronoboost is a great edition to Protoss, since they have flexibility problems... the worst ability to anti air, tech switch, scout (except for early midgame with an observer), etc. Chrono helps all of these things at least somewhat by giving Protoss extra probes early for an earlier scouting probe, quicker build time of observer in those oh shit moments a banshee is in my base, etc.
But wouldn't it be nice if chrono could do something for units themselves like make a unit move faster (for the duration of the ability) by casting chrono on it. It wouldn't be used all the time, but for instance with a voidray harass, colossus being chased by vikings, or mothership getting from one side of the map to another... it could be useful. Maybe it could speed up energy and shield regen on units as well, making it a little like a MULE on a thor drop.
Protoss additions that may add synergy and options:
1. Make the warp prism double as a shield battery. This would make harass slightly more viable and less "you will lose all the units you warp in".
2. Allow chrono boost cast on a unit to enable an ability that you haven't researched yet. This will allow for a hallucination early on for a scout before you get observers. Will give the option to "cast" charge or blink on one or two zealots or stalkers for specific early game harass or escaping from Concussive.
3. As before, chrono cast on units speed them up in movement, shield regen, energy regen, cooldown (blink) timer.
4. Pylons having some sort of warp-across option. Such as you walk in a pylon at point A, it's connected to B to C to D (fields overlap). You right click units onto pylon A, then use pylon D to bring them out of warp. Useful for defense vs. air units that hit and run before you have blink, useful for dealing with PvP 4 gate all-ins when you went tech (keep your red health units alive longer for shield regen).
5. Allow building shields to protect touching units - so you could run probes to your nexus. Would compare to burrowing drones or running SCVs behind a planetary fortress. Would also allow early game defense to be better comparable to marines hiding behind SCVs/depots or ling speed on creep. Would be some relief from the "perfect forcefield placement" complaint if you could double the shields on your zealots at your ramp. Protect that early expand from a concussive + stim rush without nerfing stim, etc.
Zerg additions for synergy and options:
1. A creep tumor that hasn't duplicated itself (created a new tumor, I'll call it "uncast creep tumor") has the option to be cast on a friendly unit or area of units for a temp buff or heal. Or cast on enemies for damage, etc.
2. Overlords spewing creep on top of friendly units or buildings make them regen quickly. Useful for defense or holding a spine crawler line.
3. Overlords spewing creep on top of "temp" units like broodlings or changelings make them last indefinitely. Hold a xel' tower for "free".
4. Overlords suicide land to produce broodlings. Useful for harass, defense, attacks, you name it.
Out of time... but there are lots of things in the game that could be slightly tweaked to give all sorts of options.
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On December 01 2010 00:19 hugman wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2010 22:22 Wodenborn wrote:
It's also why TLO decided to switch to swarm before the patch changes took effect. This is not dependent on the meta game, it's a hard-wired mechanic that rewards Zerg players who successfully predict their opponent's movements MORE than the other races. TLO switched after GSL 2, well after the T openings were nerfed
It is to my understanding that he switched before GSL 2 however, he had already chosen terran to play at GSL 2 and wasn't allowed to change it. I also believe it was said during an interview that he was practicing playing again as zerg long before the patch 1.1.2 came into effect which is the one you are referring to if I am not mistaken.
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It's way too early to tell but if I happen to throw a guess I would say that 1 year from now:
Protoss will be way different
Terran will be slightly less different
Zerg will be pretty much the same
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I just realized that the day terrans perfect marine control, banelings will be completely useless. Blings rely solely on the opponent being bad so they will probably become phazed out in high play,(Except on creep with speed upgrade I guess.) If the terran spreads out his marines, then even perfectly microed blings will result in a minimum 2-1 ratio. 100 min, and 50 gas for a marine? Thats a concrete example of how terran skill ceiling is higher.
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I'm not sure if creep spread was the best example...things like dropping queens at expansions and all other the map to place creep tumors is something that zerg has figured out over time as being possible to spread creep.
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I just realized that the day terrans perfect marine control, banelings will be completely useless. Blings rely solely on the opponent being bad so they will probably become phazed out in high play,(Except on creep with speed upgrade I guess.) If the terran spreads out his marines, then even perfectly microed blings will result in a minimum 2-1 ratio. 100 min, and 50 gas for a marine? Thats a concrete example of how terran skill ceiling is higher.
The deal is, Zerg are also working on countering this. Although Marine micro is what it is, im rather skeptical about the fact that banelings are useless against them. Infestors totally shut down marines and when they cannot be moved, they cannot be microed, making Infestors and Banelings a brutal combo against quite a bit of marines.
We cannot forget carpetbombing either. All of these strategies evolve as the need to beat a certain strategy arises, this will keep happening for years to come.
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On December 01 2010 20:33 Grend wrote:
I just realized that the day terrans perfect marine control, banelings will be completely useless. Blings rely solely on the opponent being bad so they will probably become phazed out in high play,(Except on creep with speed upgrade I guess.) If the terran spreads out his marines, then even perfectly microed blings will result in a minimum 2-1 ratio. 100 min, and 50 gas for a marine? Thats a concrete example of how terran skill ceiling is higher.
With flanks and pincer attacks this isn't as true as it could be but yeh you have a point.
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Good points TyrianD! I also forgot about bling mines, though that also relies on your opponent being sloppy. But the infestor also relies on the opponent not spreading well. Sort of disturbing how all these counters to marines are based on the Marines clumping up, something which can be remedied by a good terran. I really hope carpetbombing becomes more used, as it is an awesome strategy. But yeah, saying completely useless was hyperbole, and quite the overexaggeration.
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This post captures everything that is wrong with Terran at the moment (or Zerg and Protoss depending on the viewpoint). I've been saying for a while now that Terran can make any random units and they will do at least average while at the same time Zerg, and to some extent Protoss, have to make exactly the right units and get exactly the right tech or they will die hardcore. But I think you said it better.
One of Zerg's synergies that was removed from the game was queen creep tumors and overlord creep. I think it would be cool to walk a queen to different spots around the map and lay creep tumors, but nowadays you'd first have to spend 300/300 to upgrade overlords to carry the queen because she's to slow off creep.
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Wanna bet?!
You will see overlord spreading creep to prevent expos, you will see overlord spreading creep to hide buildings or position crawlers near the front of the enemy base!
On the protoss side, you will see sentries left at random chokes to prevent enemy movement for the reminder of the game and you will see multiple nexi in one base to be able to chrono non-stop all your structures in the late game..
Just give it time.. People are creative as shit!
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One of Zerg's synergies that was removed from the game was queen creep tumors and overlord creep. I think it would be cool to walk a queen to different spots around the map and lay creep tumors, but nowadays you'd first have to spend 300/300 to upgrade overlords to carry the queen because she's to slow off creep.
You really only need overlord speed to pull this off. With enough overlords properly used, you can spread a very quick line for a queen or two to scoot and lay creep tumors along. Then you group your overlords and do it again. This is very effective way to suddenly surge forward with creep aggressively.
Try it out. You can actually spread creep really fast if you try.
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EPT
