On March 08 2011 04:41 FeyFey wrote: think compared to bw melee units are damn strong now. never had so much problems in bw with lings then i have here hehe, always so painfull to see a group of marines dieing to lings even with micro. While in bw i simple could let my marines fight and they did the job pretty easily. And since they are way faster the range advantage isn't that big anymore. So all in all Blizzard balanced out balled ranged units pretty good against meeles, but aoes had to be made so weak that you don't die because the opponent has aoe and melee.
So even if people dislike this damage shifts, its more balanced then it was in bw hehe.
No, it isn't. The only thing melee units can do in star2 is absorb enough damage that the enemy won't hit that thing that's really going to damage them. Once a Terran has a significant amount of marines and stim, I can send a 200 food army of zerglings at them and I might kill a few marines. The only thing zerglings are good for vs marines (in large numbers) is distracting bullets long enough for some banelings to roll into them. Now, not only do we have worse melee units, but we have no way of engaging ranged units cost effectively (swarm).
On March 08 2011 03:39 dave333 wrote: Zerglings are so weak now. You used to be able to slam a dozen cracklings into a marine drop. Now rine drops consist of 8 combat shield stimmed rines against weaker cracklings; it's an ugly sight.
I know blizz nerfed melee/buffed range because they thought pathing would improve the melee a lot, but that's totally not true. The clump effect really makes melee a lot worse.
Also they made everything a wall in this game, which weakens them even more.
How can you say a unit that does around 15 dps fully upgraded at .5 supply cost is "weak"
3/3 cracklings are just as good, if not better than 3/3 marines
Everything is relative. If you look at their rate of attack in BW vs. cannons, rines, dragoons/stalkers, zealots, etc. vs. those same units now, the other units basically got stronger while the ling stayed the same=weaker. Add in unit clumping, smart tanks, and all that jazz and zerglings are way weaker relative to brood war.
On March 08 2011 04:52 Dalavita wrote: Speedlings in SC2 are pretty damn good against everything except for zealots in small numbers.
30 speedlings vs 15 marines, the lings win.
I'm not sure how higher numbers are, but at those numbers, the lings are still stronger.
Its a very very fine line where lings are actually good nowdays. Slowlings suck against pretty much anything. Speedlings to decently against small numbers of units. Directly after that, larger balls, stim, combat shield, sentry critical mass, and so on completely negates speedlings, or at least makes them ineffective.
But yeah, I guess they are a terrible unit if all you do with them is A-move them into 10+ tanks.
Yet at the other end of the spectrum you have terran's that spend the majority of their early , mid , and late game simply stim A-moving bio and it is obscenely effective.
I'm not saying lings need a buff or anything needs a nerf , but I find the amount of damaging units that toss and terran can fit into such a small surface area substantially different than that of zerg.
From a balanced unit point of view, personally I think lings aren't so bad off. They are certainly more effective for rushes than rines or zeals... plus they got this one special ability that's pretty important: morph to baneling.
It is agreeable though that lategame they are generally worthless.
I think Ultras are best used as forcefield breakers to get banelings on a big Protoss ball. Not so much to kill Protoss unless they are fighting in the open... so map dependent I guess.
SC2 does feel a little less micro intensive, but maybe it's just the stage the game is in. I dearly hope so anyway.
Overall, I always miss melee being effective. Even BW was a little saddening compared to Warcraft 2. Ranged units... I dunno, design-wise they just seem too easy to suddenly become critical mass game over. But Blizzard has done a good job with BW... I think with an expansion SC2 will just get better and better. It's a pretty awesome and tight game even now, despite Terran having all the early game kill options with so few on the other sides.
On March 07 2011 23:48 Toadvine wrote: In summation, I want to ask: Are the melee units in SC2 too weak, given the huge mechanical disadvantage they're at in any given engagement? If so, would it be possible to buff Zerglings and Zealots in the mid to late game somehow, without making early rushes too good? Should the Ultralisk be made smaller, or should it perhaps walk over other Zerg units like the Colossus?
You and everyone else in this thread compares them to BW units and completely ignore the 1 control group factor, which effects zerglings the most. Having 60 units in 1 key while you required 5 keys not so long ago is not something you can overlook in your "balance equation".
On March 08 2011 02:24 Liquid`Tyler wrote: In SC1, area damage is much stronger. In PvT, mines and tank splash do a lot of friendly damage. In PvZ, storm is much much stronger in SC1 and any zerg in a ball gets slaughtered. Defiler is actually needed for zerg to buff their melee units (it casts dark swarm which is a cloud that sits on the map for a while and any units in it don't take damage from ranged attacks)
SC2 PvZ is balanced around force fields a lot. When you force field to split an army in half, zealots have nothing to do. If they attack, then the army isn't split in half because the army behind the force fields kills the zealots.
This covers more reasons to why changes made to melee units are logical and not some random change that happened when they made the game. Also explains why ultralisks are less effective even after so many buffs as they were directly linked to dark swarm which Blizzard completely removed.
Its not so much about the stats of the units regarding the zergling being worse, its the new pathing. While they may have thought that the new ai would allow for better surrounds and flanks, i don't think they understood how big of an effect the tightness of these army balls would have on melee units, the zergling in particular. Zerglings, while their dps per cost is very high, have a very low dps per surface area. Comparing to zealots, 24 lings can fit around a hatchery to attack at once for a total of 171.4 dps while 18 zealots can fit around the same hatchery for a total of 240 dps.
Because the new pathing creates such tight formations that are impenetrable by melee units, at a certain point their effectiveness starts to drop. Plus to add in a little geometry, a group of units tend to be in a circular formation (hence we call it a ball) and circles have the highest ratio of area to surface area.
As the size of the ball grows the surface area grows linearly (2 pi r) while the volume (number of units it contains) grows exponentially (pi r ^2, or do i mean quadratically?) so they literally get exponentially worse as the armies grow. Its all about the pathing, no amount of buffing or nerfing of unit damage can change geometry.
The only changes that could begin to effect this are collision size. Making zerglings smaller could be a huge buff for later in the game without having too much of an effect earlier.
On March 08 2011 06:11 Tyler214365 wrote: Its not so much about the stats of the units regarding the zergling being worse, its the new pathing. While they may have thought that the new ai would allow for better surrounds and flanks, i don't think they understood how big of an effect the tightness of these army balls would have on melee units, the zergling in particular. Zerglings, while their dps per cost is very high, have a very low dps per surface area. Comparing to zealots, 24 lings can fit around a hatchery to attack at once for a total of 171.4 dps while 18 zealots can fit around the same hatchery for a total of 240 dps.
Because the new pathing creates such tight formations that are impenetrable by melee units, at a certain point their effectiveness starts to drop. Plus to add in a little geometry, a group of units tend to be in a circular formation (hence we call it a ball) and circles have the highest ratio of area to surface area.
As the size of the ball grows the surface area grows linearly (2 pi r) while the volume (number of units it contains) grows exponentially (pi r ^2, or do i mean quadratically?) so they get exponentially worse as the armies grow. Its all about the pathing, no amount of buffing or nerfing of unit damage can change geometry.
The only changes that could begin to effect this are collision size. Making zerglings smaller could be a huge buff for later in the game without having too much of an effect earlier.
But Zerg has an interesting dynamic as well. They have very effective AoE damage in Banelings and Infestors. So "deathballs" will be forced to spread because of Zerg AoE, but spreading out increases Zergling effectiveness.
For lings, you also have to consider the limit in getting them: larva. In BW, to get extra larva production for lings you would have to build a new hatch. Now, just throw a queen on a hatch and that hatch now becomes 2.33 hatches for larva production. Sure, in terms of minerals and supply, lings are less effective in SC2, but you can get more of them easier and faster. If lings were just as powerful in SC2 as BW, you'd see every Zv* game start off with a 6-10 pool into super aggression/contain with speedlings. Zerg would still have the larva to drone while making zerglings which easily overpower any small force already. By the time the other races got out their door to expand, zerg would be on 3 bases with 2x the workers.
Intentionally make zerg slightly OP to make all the zergies buy the expansion. In all seriousness it's a combination of factors that make melee units worse.
They've largely been unchanged while marines were buffed and perform really well in a tight ball. Ball = less surface are to attack and more ranged units can attack at once. As others have said the 1 control group syndome has a lot to do with this. No longer are 12 marines in 1 group, making them are easier to surround, plus they won't move in 8 directions anymore but can move 360 degrees, so less collisions occur and less "limbo line" when moving units around.
Marines are a little too good. Higher dps, combat shields, medivacs are much better than medics, ai changes, "ball" formation, double production with add on, pre upgraded range, "free" bunkers.. I'd change any number of these, instead blizzard balance is +building health.
If melee units actually got to do their damage, they'd be better off. It's nice that zealots are partially being addressed with the patch, so hopefully that helps.
The zealot buff should make them a little less weak, but IMO the T3 upgrade for lines should make them just as insanely strong as it did in BW. One of my favorite parts of that game was the dynamic between ultras and lings. Sure, ultras were strong, but ultimately what killed all of your units and raised your base was the cracklings. While your marines were busy trying to burn down the ultra, it was the cracklings that were mangling your marines.
This dynamic has been completely lost in SC2, where ultras are simultaneously the tank and the damage dealer, except they don't do either particularly well. Meanwhile, zerglings are fairly stagnant throughout the game. The 20% increase they get in DPS at T3 is equivalent to the increase in damage marines get from their +1 attack upgrade. IMO, reverting lings and ultras to their BW functionality would go a long way towards making TvZ a better matchup.
I get where you're coming from, but it's tricky to buff lings and zealots in particular for the lategame without imbalancing the early game, as both units are quite amazing for their cost in small army situations. That said, I still use chargelots lategame a good amount of the time in all matchups. Even against roach/hydra, they absorb a lot of dps for 0 gas investment, and fairly gas-heavy units like Colossus and Void Ray are very important to keep alive in this situation. Even if the Zealots don't do any damage, if they absorb a couple rounds of Roach/Hydra attacks while my Colossi rain down aoe damage, my Stalkers pick off a few units, my Void Rays charge up, etc., I'd call that a mineral dump well spent.
On March 08 2011 03:39 dave333 wrote: Zerglings are so weak now. You used to be able to slam a dozen cracklings into a marine drop. Now rine drops consist of 8 combat shield stimmed rines against weaker cracklings; it's an ugly sight.
I know blizz nerfed melee/buffed range because they thought pathing would improve the melee a lot, but that's totally not true. The clump effect really makes melee a lot worse.
Also they made everything a wall in this game, which weakens them even more.
How can you say a unit that does around 15 dps fully upgraded at .5 supply cost is "weak"
3/3 cracklings are just as good, if not better than 3/3 marines
Everything is relative. If you look at their rate of attack in BW vs. cannons, rines, dragoons/stalkers, zealots, etc. vs. those same units now, the other units basically got stronger while the ling stayed the same=weaker. Add in unit clumping, smart tanks, and all that jazz and zerglings are way weaker relative to brood war.
This. I remember Blizzard talking about how the new unit pathing would help melee units which is why Marines were buffed compared to Zerglings. The truth is that Blizzard were wrong - stutter micro and units clumping together more than in BW have buffed Marines against Zerglings.
Thus Blizzard were wrong and buffed the wrong unit.
Thus Blizzard were wrong and buffed the wrong unit.
That seems highly unlikely. Blizzard isnt perfect, and they do make mistakes in balance/design. But everything points towards them wanting to make melee units weaker, and not keeping the BW balance. From the easy walloffs, to the supply depots lift and raise, to ling dps nerf, to removal of dark swarm, to adrenal gland nerf, to the easier unit clumping, and so on, absolutely everything except from the slightly better surrounds when attack moving, shows a pretty clear design decision towards making lings much much weaker than they were in BW.
Why they would want to nerf the iconic zerg unit so badly, and why they think it was a good idea, I dont know. But saying that they nerfed every single aspect of lings while massively buffing ranged units, "by mistak", seems a little far fetched.
If they did intend for lings to remain a strong unit used for its high dps, then they would have reverted their changes in the first build of alpha They aint perfect, and I think the decision to put lings on the backside was a terrible one, but hey, you gotta give them at least a tiny bit of credit. Every single aspect of lings were nerfed, and roaches were at 1 supply 2 armor when the beta was launched. If their intent was to make lings the backbone of the zerg army, youd think theyd have noticed the problem before the beta even came out. Design decisions seem to indicate that instead, they wanted the roach to be the new backbone of the zerg army, instead of the lings and the hydras.
The point of melee units are to tank. They have can take damage, but it has to be right next to a unit to attack it. Ranged units have less health, though they have a ranged advantage. This is why there is micro in RTS's.
And is everyone neglecting that lings are far more faster than their SC1 versions? That in itself lends them to be more like harassment units. That a T or P has to wall off nice and tight to be safe from them.
I know I built a ton of chargelots vs a giant roach/hydra ball. They just evaporate and are a waste of resources. Zealots are better in smaller engagements.
On March 08 2011 09:07 Ownos wrote: It's the critical mass effect.
And is everyone neglecting that lings are far more faster than their SC1 versions? That in itself lends them to be more like harassment units. That a T or P has to wall off nice and tight to be safe from them.
I know I built a ton of chargelots vs a giant roach/hydra ball. They just evaporate and are a waste of resources. Zealots are better in smaller engagements.
That's not true. All units have become quicker, but the relative speeds are almost identical.
Normalized speeds (dividing by base zergling speed), with upgraded speeds in brackets:
On March 08 2011 09:07 Ownos wrote: It's the critical mass effect.
And is everyone neglecting that lings are far more faster than their SC1 versions? That in itself lends them to be more like harassment units. That a T or P has to wall off nice and tight to be safe from them.
I know I built a ton of chargelots vs a giant roach/hydra ball. They just evaporate and are a waste of resources. Zealots are better in smaller engagements.
That's not true. All units have become quicker, but the relative speeds are almost identical.
Normalized speeds (dividing by base zergling speed), with upgraded speeds in brackets:
EPT
