Abilities that nullify micro - Good or bad? - Page 13

On March 20 2011 02:27 Zelniq wrote:

I'm getting tired of hearing this, the reason why July kept being unable to hold off the attacks is because he didn't go for burrowed roach, instead kept making hydra dens or hydralisks or spires. You can easily hold those attacks with just burrowed roach, even easier if you went burrowed move instead of roach speed as the first roach warren upgrade, but you dont even need that all you need is burrow and roaches. It's like imagine if terrans were whining about similar force field attacks when terran made vikings, it's just the wrong unit choice (although its an extreme example, the same idea applies)

On March 19 2011 18:51 theBOOCH wrote:
I think you should focus this thread a little more if you want a better discussion. How about focus on forcefields for now. I believe it was Louder who said during the beta that forcefields were the most broken thing in the game. I definitely think that in many situations he's right.

So some of the comments you make about forcefields and some other observations to consider
The better the user...
Stops opponents ability to micro
Blocking ramps; Strategical advantage (rush survival/cutting off reinforcements)
Bunching up units; Tactical advantage (melee disadvantage/range advantage)

The better the user... Skill ceilings are essential to the success of a competitive game. If there were a very low skill ceiling, SC2 would get stale very quickly (some say it has- I disagree that the ceiling is too low, though). If a player cannot physically outplay an opponent, then all that's left is strategy, something that develops slowly, but is disseminated quickly. Basically everyone would be at just about the same level. It is not the fact that one player possesses higher skill than another, it is the ability to activate that skill that is a problem. If one race has built in mechanics that allow them to outplay their opponent through physical skill and the other does not, then one race is at a disadvantage. Likewise, if one race must actively activate more skill to gain an advantage or stay on par with another race, there is a problem there as well, unless the other races are able to similarly take advantage of physical skill (think Terran in SC:BW).

They stop the opponents ability to micro. I don't think this is a problem in itself, as long as it is something that can be avoided. Basically, it takes good micro to successfully use and successfully avoid forcefields. The impetus is on Protoss to gain an advantage. However, the opposing race does not gain an advantage from successfully avoiding being forcefielded. However, if sentries are seen as an investment (which they are) and a compromise between more powerful units (which they are), their failure to be utilized properly does put the Protoss at a disadvantage. the important question here is "does failure to utilize the investment of sentries put me at as much of a disadvantage as my opponent failing to properly avoid my forcefields." I think the answer to this question might very well be "no" in many circumstances.

Blocking Ramps. The ability to instantly create impassable terrain is, on the surface, really really cool. That's probably why Blizzard likes it so much. It's a really novel idea and I think it deserves recognition. That being said, forcefields being used to strategically block a ramp (as opposed to being used tactically to gain an advantage on the battlefield) greatly change the strategical make-up of SC2. It messes with some of the fundamental concepts of an RTS game (as do a few other SC2 innovations). I'll start with the obvious. Not being able to reinforce your units (or utilize a large chunk of your army) during a key fight completely changes the advantage disadvantage balance of the game. One of the fundamental choices in SC2 is whether to build units or build economy. Each of those decisions has benefits and consequences for all of the races. When you are denied the benefits of the decision to build an army at a specific point, you are forced to cope with both the inherent disadvantages (not building an economy) and the lack of immediate advantages (which can turn into a permanent lack of advantage. This can be incredibly bad, as we've seen. Players should never be punished for making good decisions (as July was when he decided to build roaches to defend MC's push- as obvious of a decision as that was).
The decision to invest in military, economy, or technology is also fundamental to any rts game (as far as I know there are no games with only a single type of un-upgradeable attacking unit). The decision to rush is basically a decision to focus on military might as quickly and as aggressively as possible. It comes with advantages (I kill my opponent, I survive a rush) and disadvantages (putting off economy and tech). Forcefielding a ramp to survive a rush eliminates this inherent and necessary compromise in many situations; My opponent decides to rush, I decide to tech to gain an advantage. For a small price (the significance of which needs to be questioned), I am able to completely negate my opponents decision and immediately and completely punish him for making another good (in the sense that it should have to be reconciled appropriately by the opponent) decision. This is a bad thing. However, if forcefields are absolutely necessary for the survival of a race against certain strategies (meaning there are no other options that don't put the defender at a disadvantage), then it is perfectly fine as long as the benefit of making the proper decision is appropriately rewarded (meaning that you don't immediately win the game by defending the rush or whatever). I think in this respect forcefields, while annoying, are mostly okay (defensively). Now lets go back to the offensive aspect of forcefields being used to block an opponents reinforcements. The interesting thing here is that Protoss has another HUGE strategic advantage. The warp-in mechanic (which deserves it's own thread), fundamentally changes another basic aspect of RTS play, the rush distance, or better, the unit reinforcement period. Since time is the most valuable of all resources in any rts game (more on that some other time), eliminating the reinforcement period through warp-in should be considered a major modification to the usual mechanic of the game. The odd thing here is that Protoss has both of these advantages. Putting these two things together seems incredibly risky from a balance perspective. Of course, if these things are counter-balanced by advantages in the other race, it is fine. Zerg certainly has many advantages, but the question is does Zerg have a reasonable advantage at the right stages of the game to make it balance. An interesting thought; since Protoss clearly has the offensive advantage with warp-in, wouldn't it make more sense for the Zerg to have a defensive advantage (they do have one key one- flexibility)? From a strategic perspective it almost seems like Zerg should have the forcefield ability (or course this makes no sense from a narrative perspective).

Finally, the tactical use of forcefields; Forcefields have two tactical uses on the battlefield. First, it has the ability to artificially lower the number of enemy units in an engagement (by cutting them in half and the like). There are other abilities that do this (Vortex) and certain tactical maneuvers can accomplish it (good concaves, engaging at chokes). The other is that it can situationally remove the opponent's ability to deal damage, while still allowing them to take damage. Again, fungal growth can do the same thing (while also dealing damage) and the high ground advantage also simulates this. These are both very powerful advantages that can determine the outcome of games and of course, should be very carefully considered. The first one is not of as much interest because it is fairly straight forward and doesn't depend much of unit composition or other tactical advantages/disadvantages. A smaller army is a smaller army. It's the second situation that I think is really notable because it has the potential of greatly amplifying other advantages. One of the basic disadvantages of a melee unit is that it cannot deal damage if it cannot get in range of a target. Forcefields coupled with units of higher range essentially turn any unit into a temporary melee unit. A roach has range 4, a stalker has range 6. A forcefielded roach essentially has range 0 versus a stalker and can obviously do no damage while being itself killed. There is nothing complicated about it. What is interesting, however, is the fact that a hydralisk has only base range 5, but can be upgraded to range six to equal a stalker. Hydralisks are also higher tier units than stalker and are extremely slow moving whereas stalkers are extremely fast. While they do good dps to stalkers and stalkers do slightly limited damage to hydras, stalkers are naturally more strategically advantaged to hydralisks, a fact that I'm sure is no accident on blizzards part. This strategically advantage is normally balanced by the fact that hydralisks have a statistical advantage on stalkers: they are cheaper and they do more damage. But with forcefields and the fact that stalkers outrange hydras and roaches (pre-upgrade), stalkers can literally kill an infinite number of hydralisks. Add to that the fact that hydras are much too slow to micro against forcefields and you have the recipe for the kind of carnage that July experienced at the hands of MC. If hydras are the natural response to mass stalker, yet sentries with forcefields can completely nullify them, one must carefully consider the timings and situational options that a Zerg has to deal with such a scenario to see if it is too situationally slanted in one races favor or another.

Do I think that forcefields are broken? Yes. Do I think that that is necessarily bad? No. Forcefields add a really interesting element to the game. However, they seem to change some of the fundamental aspects of the game, and that is something that definitely needs to be considered. If forcefields are necessary to defend a rush, then they need to be available for that, but if they give too much advantage to one player without the other player having an appropriate response or a similarly powerful advantage, they need to be dealt with.

One possible solution- increase the energy requirement for using forcefields while at the same time raising the starting energy of the sentry. This would mean that a single sentry would still be enough to defend a rush while not having so much energy as to become overly useful later in the game. Only a thought.

On March 20 2011 02:34 Fig wrote:
How much micro does is take to cast one EMP???? Seriously just get a ghost or two and click once and you have a bunch of useless units to steamroll. Ghosts are usually a must if they have a billion sentries. But I guess you could get siege mode too.

Zerg can't take away their energy, but using burrowed roaches or banelings would punish that. Just gotta go to lair for the research a bit quicker in that case.

Forcefields are good, but they should be. It's an early game gas heavy unit with little fighting potential that slows down teching. A ghost is the same way, early game gas heavy, with a ridiculously good ability vs protoss. Just allows for more micro on everyone's part.

On March 20 2011 02:39 Kimaker wrote:

Yup everyone...except the person getting FF'd.

You can dodge EMP, and do unit splits; you can only run away from FF, and you can only run so far before you have nowhere else to run.

I do think it's beatable, but saying once "everyone" gets better at micro is just wrong since FF NEGATES micro after it's cast.

On March 20 2011 02:40 Hirmu wrote:


You can split your units but not dodge emp ,lol

On March 19 2011 19:00 seiferoth10 wrote:


What he's saying is that forcefields make it impossible for the opponent to micro out of the situation. Using your example, you can split marines, but then the Zerg can counter split their banelings (or pull them back, or whatever). With forcefield, the opponent is forced into having 0 responses available to him during that battle. Basically, the forcefielder is deciding what the forcefieldee does in the battle because forcefields remove all micro options from the forcefieldee.

On March 20 2011 02:37 StateOfZerg wrote:


I myself is tired of hearing this counter argument. Why is everyone saying burrowed roaches is the way to go. Roaches may be the counter to forcefield, but a 6 gate blink stalker ball RIPS it apart with or without observer. A zerg player plays the first 6 mins pretty much blind and cannot afford to go burrow roaches and btw it takes 2 upgrades to be viable. The timing of it leaves you pretty much vulnerable to stargate play, DT play and immortal builds as well.

Just because u can pass forcefields with burrowed roaches does not mean its the best way to play in the situation. You have to consider the lack of intel July had. Can u assure yourself every game that your opponent is going 6 gate sentry? If your opponent is MC, I fear even luck is not enough to get enough information as overlord scouting is denied and lings cant go up his ramp

On March 20 2011 02:28 krok(obs) wrote:
since were dealing with force fields alone in this thread, id like to bring up an idea ive mentioned before, namely making forcefields not be able to cast on spots that are already blocked by units. this way you can still maintin your defensive stance with forcefields but youd have to cast them earlier. this would make it a lot more difficult to try to separate the opponents army as well as making it possible to prevent the toss player from forcefielding YOUR ramp in order to maintain the flow of reinforcements.

kinda sounds like a good idea to me

On March 20 2011 02:37 StateOfZerg wrote:


I myself is tired of hearing this counter argument. Why is everyone saying burrowed roaches is the way to go. Roaches may be the counter to forcefield, but a 6 gate blink stalker ball RIPS it apart with or without observer. A zerg player plays the first 6 mins pretty much blind and cannot afford to go burrow roaches and btw it takes 2 upgrades to be viable. The timing of it leaves you pretty much vulnerable to stargate play, DT play and immortal builds as well.

Just because u can pass forcefields with burrowed roaches does not mean its the best way to play in the situation. You have to consider the lack of intel July had. Can u assure yourself every game that your opponent is going 6 gate sentry? If your opponent is MC, I fear even luck is not enough to get enough information as overlord scouting is denied and lings cant go up his ramp

On March 20 2011 02:45 clik wrote:


I like this idea. Kind of adds more skill to both sides. The Zerg has to anticpate and position correctly and the Protoss has to put a little more thought into where he places them instead of brute forcing his way by carving the army how he pleases or pushing units around. Not even a "nerf" as it affects everyone and just changes the way they are used.

On March 20 2011 02:44 Zelniq wrote:
wrong on so many accounts

1. roaches do not get ripped up apart by 6 gate blink stalker ball

2. it doesnt take 2 upgrades to be viable, if you have good control you dont need Burrowed Movement upgrade just Burrow

3. You can afford getting an overseer still and scouting for stargate play, and you can react and survive to that even if you dont use overseer/overlords to scout it. (as july managed to do in the game july won, he took a little damage but was fine dealing with the air after protoss revealed it to him)

4. DT play and immortals as well? now I just know you have no idea what youre talking about, you have lair and you can easily react to dts and be fine even if you didnt scout the tech/prepare beforehand. And once again like above you can afford to get an overseer + burrow to scout it anyways. Roaches aren't hard countered by immortals, you can still just make roaches and beat immortals

I know this from experience of playing this game at a high level, ask other experienced top zergs they'll tell you the same thing, but your post clearly shows your lack of knowledge

On March 20 2011 02:50 Dismantlethethroat wrote:


But then you cannot split armies. Completely useless.

On March 20 2011 02:48 Dommk wrote:

Yeah, Zelniq totally has no idea what he is talking about.

Burrowed roaches do well against high sentry compositions, especially since he never got a robo in any game (except the one he lost). MC doesn't stalker stalker production until the moment he heads out, he quite literally only has 1 stalker 1 zealot and 100000 sentries, he relies heavily on splitting up the army without taking damage, then it just snow balls since Zerg doesn't kill anything and MC just keeps warping.

On March 20 2011 02:53 CursedFeanor wrote:


I think it is much more the timings that makes MC's build so powerful. I would love to see Zelniq play MC and see him use his proposed solution....... not sure it'd be so successful.