First off there is a lot of drama about the GSL finals, which inspired me to write this post. Please know that I'm not whining because july lost, I'm simply discussing this.
Also: some gsl final spoilers up ahead ----
Should there really be abilities that disallow the other player to micro? Force Fields, Concussive Shells and Fungal Growth are the abilities we're talking about here.
My answer is no. Not like this. These abilities have way too much influence. They have enormous potential to be 'exploited'. The better the user, the better his ability to use these micro stoppers, and the smaller the chance for the opponent to do something about it.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do. Most of his units were not attacking so/and he couldn't micro them. Micro is very important, so abilities that negate it, although using those requires skill, are unfair. It feels like the game would have been much closer and more fun without those forcefields. Blocking ramps with forcefields, or bunching up and locking in units with forcefield to storm them seems unfair.
But there is also the problem of protoss needing to forcefield their ramp to survive certain rushes. Also something that should not happen, it just sounds and feels lame/unintuitive.
The same applies to concussive shells. They make terran extremely strong early game (against protoss especially, marauder CS rush), and they make terran drops really good as well. Why are 4 zealots and a few stalkers unable to stop a simple 4 marauder drop? Why are many units so ineffective against a bioball? Because many units don't reach their target, and retreating means losing a lot of units for nothing! Think of concussive shell + stim kiting and I hope you agree that it's lame and shouldn't happen.
I would say fungal is slightly less 'abusive' but that's mainly because we don't see it a lot. It also has a lot of potential to make it impossible for the opponent to manage his units, imagine huge flocks of muta's or marines being stunned and killed.
One could also argue that EMP is casted too fast for the huge AoE and damage to shields/removal of energy it has. It is possible to micro against it by splitting units of course, but you still have to attack and the sc2 engine will nicely stack your units together.
Hmm. Read a good thread about smart casting a while ago. Think that would apply here. Imagine how the GSL would have been if FF had to be clone casted ..
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.
Forcefield requires impossible amounts of micro from one player to deny the other player the ability to micro. Forcefield is probably bringing more micro into the game just from the other player. It also requires the receiver of the forcefield to consider positioning and how he is going to engage much more. If there is one thing forcefield isn't doing its dumbing down the game.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
I agree good forcefield micro is an art and is not nearly as easy at it seems it needs to be done deliberatley and very fast and you have to think in a split second about the right positioning based off of how the opponents army is positioned, i would know i suck at forcefields lol
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
I think a lot of people just see the forcefields own july... but they forget how good and how much control MC actually has. If every protoss could just do that strait up.. the win / loss for PvZ would be 100% - 0% on the ladder, but its not.
I dont think forcefields are op'ed. I do think that a lot of zergs forget that if you fight protoss at your own natural, you die. you HAVE to fight protoss half way to your base. Anyway its hard for zerg no doubt but OP... naaa.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
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 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Not as easy as you think. Optimal FF usage is difficult because it is hard to place them so that they do not stack and become a waste of energy. Also, there's only one sweet spot on the ramp to place the FF on so that units cannot come through. One hex difference, and all the units come streaming out.
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
HuK can throw down forcefields with great precision, but his builds tend to be weaker on the macro side so he has less of everything for his pushes.
I'm not trying to sound offensive here, but you really can't just look at one BO and call out the ability as being OP or needing to be removed. If you've watched any PvT lately, you'd know that FF are absolutely pertinent to staying alive through early stim pushes. So... to outright remove the ability from the game would leave a gaping hole in Protoss defense. I'm trying to speak impartially (I am a Zerg player) so I think it's unbiased when I say the ability has its place.
That being said, in the capable hands of MC and his weird fast 4gas into 6gate Stalker/Sentry, it's ludicrous. I guess my question to you is, rather than just point out its flaws, how would you go about balancing the situation? My suggestion would be to make FF cost more energy or perhaps make it a Twilight Council upgrade?
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
The thing is that, as other players get better, soon everyone (well, every pro) will have the same forcefield "skill". Sure, right now MC is "the best" Protoss but that doesn't mean you can't say that abilities such as force fields are game breaking.
That being said, in the capable hands of MC and his weird fast 4gas into 6gate Stalker/Sentry, it's ludicrous. I guess my question to you is, rather than just point out its flaws, how would you go about balancing the situation? My suggestion would be to make FF cost more energy or perhaps make it a Twilight Council upgrade?
As has been suggested a million times since the beta began, give them health instead of a timer. This way, they're still good and allows the opponent to actually, shock horror, micro against them.
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
The thing is that, as other players get better, soon everyone (well, every pro) will have the same forcefield "skill". Sure, right now MC is "the best" Protoss but that doesn't mean you can't say that abilities such as force fields are game breaking.
Then if more and more people get better and better at force fields then the more and more that Zerg will have to get burrow and tunneling claws faster.
Julys burrow in every game was super late, regular 5gate 2base all-ins hit before that, and you need to have burrow researching to stop them, if they are done well
Sentries are definitely not a problem against Terran, they get much quicker drop ships and their lower tier DPS have high DPS with great range, eventually they get Ghosts to deal with them. The problem became that Ghosts were too good against Sentries, the leaked notes that Naniwa leaked had a small bit about how quick ghost timings were too hard for Protoss to handle
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
The thing is that, as other players get better, soon everyone (well, every pro) will have the same forcefield "skill". Sure, right now MC is "the best" Protoss but that doesn't mean you can't say that abilities such as force fields are game breaking.
Then if more and more people get better and better at force fields then the more and more that Zerg will have to get burrow and tunneling claws faster.
Julys burrow in every game was super late, regular 5gate 2base all-ins hit before that, and you need to have burrow researching to stop them, if they are done well
Again, how would burrow help him game 1? July had enough units to actually defend but simply couldn't get down his ramp to do so. No amount of ability would save him that game because MC could literally forcefield July's ramp as long as he wanted.
Sure, once you've got tunelling claw you can micro vs forcefields with roaches. But you can't micro with any other unit vs forcefields still, and until you have burrow AND burrow movement you still can't micro against forcefields with roaches.
MC dominating July says more about July than force fields.
Remember last game? July finally outlasted and whittled down the sentry ball but what happened when his roach/hydra army came knocking? MC destroyed that with blink micro.
So then, what if July hadn't died to blink stalkers? We won't know until the next time that they face off.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
I beg to differ, casting forcefields is NOT difficult and is in no way similar to marine king splitting marines.
Forcefield is definitely a very powerful spell but there are ways to negate it. Blizzard addressed some of the concerns by making massive units break them, but i say why stop at that? EMP should break it as well as fungals, maybe even storms. I think this idea would be incredibly effective and would require more dynamic play.
Other than using abilities and size of units to stop forcefield, there are tons of ways that i think you could get around it. Burrow move is a known work around for zerg, terran can use medivacs to pick up units trapped around FF and carry them out, but im not sure how plausible this is.
I have a cool idea though: What about even making FF's have life so that you can attack it and 'break' the forcefield?
Early game blocking forcefields like that is a problem. I really like the idea of giving forcefields health, though. Would that not completely solve this?
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
While I agree it probably takes more skills than imagined to do perfect force fields, I would say a big difference is that if you miss your force fields, you just have worse positioned force fields which still are in the way of your opponent and do some of their duties and you still have a army vs armu situation. If you mismicro your marines, they are dead.
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
The thing is that, as other players get better, soon everyone (well, every pro) will have the same forcefield "skill". Sure, right now MC is "the best" Protoss but that doesn't mean you can't say that abilities such as force fields are game breaking.
Then if more and more people get better and better at force fields then the more and more that Zerg will have to get burrow and tunneling claws faster.
Julys burrow in every game was super late, regular 5gate 2base all-ins hit before that, and you need to have burrow researching to stop them, if they are done well
Again, how would burrow help him game 1? July had enough units to actually defend but simply couldn't get down his ramp to do so. No amount of ability would save him that game because MC could literally forcefield July's ramp as long as he wanted.
Sure, once you've got tunelling claw you can micro vs forcefields with roaches. But you can't micro with any other unit vs forcefields still, and until you have burrow AND burrow movement you still can't micro against forcefields with roaches.
I do agree that blocking the small ramps with one forcefield is quite strong, as we saw today. I think a suitable fix would to give them health so that one forcefield isn't able to hold back 50 food worth of army just because it's at a ramp.
Again, how would burrow help him game 1? July had enough units to actually defend but simply couldn't get down his ramp to do so. No amount of ability would save him that game because MC could literally forcefield July's ramp as long as he wanted.
He was completely faked that game, when he found out about the rush it was too late. I admit it did look a bit too strong, but really, that is like Zerg faking a macro game only to all-in with toss not having enough sentries to hold, In those kinds of situations the game is lost before the engagement even happens
Wider Chokes. Simple really. Protoss would need to wall off with buildings still but probably need the sentries to FF to defend. Would take a lot more FF to block a zergs ramp, and you couldn't indefinably keep them there like game 1 showed. Ofc if you get doughnutted in open field then that's your own fault.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
July's response was perfectly fine. It was just that due to the nature of eggs having to be at a hatchery, he couldn't reinforce at all due to forcefields. Meanwhile, MC easily reinforced due to do the nature of warpgate being able to warp in at any pylon. Had July not been blocked, I dare say he would have been able to hold that off.
They approached the engagement with similar armies. They both reinforced, but July's were blocked.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
The problem is, no matter how much skill his opponent has, there is no reliable response to it. You either (hopefully) scout the heavy sentry composition and somehow figure out a way to position your army in a way that minimizes the forcefield's effectiveness, which is extremely map dependent and could backfire horribly, or you make a unit composition that is not destroyed by forcefield (not a viable option that early in the game). The person being forcefielded has to rely on his opponent making a mistake to be given a scenario where his skill at the game can be rewarded. At MC's level, the drawbacks of paying 100 gas for the sentry and forgoing other units are nothing compared to the near-guaranteed win it gives him.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
The problem is, no matter how much skill his opponent has, there is no reliable response to it. You either (hopefully) scout the heavy sentry composition and somehow figure out a way to position your army in a way that minimizes the forcefield's effectiveness, which is extremely map dependent and could backfire horribly, or you make a unit composition that is not destroyed by forcefield (not a viable option that early in the game). The person being forcefielded has to rely on his opponent making a mistake to be given a scenario where his skill at the game can be rewarded. At MC's level, the drawbacks of paying 100 gas for the sentry and forgoing other units are nothing compared to the near-guaranteed win it gives him.
That is not true at all. Against someone like MC who can play well, the game will have to change, but right now, it is only MC that is up there.
You had a thread recently in the strategy section where a Zerg was using dual prong baneling drops to completely counter 3gate expanding protoss. It was later found out the only way to stop it was to cannon up and make a TON of Stalkers, how often do you see that? The potential is there, but until more people are at MC's level we will never know what is possible and what isn't.
to anyone who says FF is imbalance.. I have a simple challenge for you.
Try to play Protoss at Masters WITHOUT using one forcefield.. I dare you. See how badly forcefield is required.
And even if you do use it, 99.9999% chance you will get no where near as good as forcefields as MC.. He is the best in the world, point blank. Watch every other "pro" Protoss player, they dont win every game simply by going mass sentries.. If it was that easy, every protoss would be winning every single game like nothing. Forcefield "placing" is a large talent, trust me.. I have over 2000 protoss games so far, and I still land shitty forcefields once in awhile. It really is an art, and put it this way; you miss one forcefield vs terran, its gg.
Fungal Growth has too much influence? What zerg unit are you going to outmicro any of the other races with? Against fungal part of having good micro is spreading out your units so that small aoe abilities aren't that effective, or just emping/feedbacking the infestor. That's part of micro.
Concussive shells don't really prevent micro because even if it didn't exist Marauders could stim instead and catch nearly every ground unit with the exception of blink stalkers. Your argument is about the combination of marauder micro with stim and dropships and doesn't really have anything to do with the power of concussive shell. If Protoss is being stupid and gets caught out in the open early game vs. concussive shell marauders that's a mistake he should be punished for. Again, your complaint is about the combination of terran bio upgrades, not concussive shell alone.
Forcefields on the other hand require little effort to place correctly and are nearly unavoidable, especially in situations where protoss is pressuring. They at the very least need a cooldown between uses per sentry, which allows protoss to prevent early all ins but have at least a few less forcefields in mid-late game. Although Terran EMPs nullify them, viably teching to ghosts is usually far down the line and Protoss can apply ridiculous pressure with forcefields VERY early in the game. Zerg has no answer with the exception of burrowed roaches which aren't really an 'answer' at all, merely a lifeline.
Change topic to Forcefields - Good or Bad? and you'd have a thread, albeit one that's about a cliche topic.
Many of the major abilities in BW initiated micro contests, for example:
1. Dark swarm initiated a contest of the Zerg attacking vs. the Terran rushing to get out
2. Irradiate initiated a contest of the Zerg trying to split his units vs. the Terran trying to hit as many units with Irradiate as possible
3. Stasis, while in theory very much like FFs, was used against Terran, who had SVs, and could therefore initiate a contest of landing EMP vs. Protoss landing Stasis
Banelings have the same characteristic in SC 2. They initiate micro contests between Terran marines/tanks vs. baneling groups.
Do FFs? Well, against hydras and zerglings on the ground, no, they don't. FFs against hydras and zerglings are just flat-out counters. You can never really micro your hydras sufficiently to escape FFs. Zerglings flanking from multiple directions is a possibility, especially while baiting, but it still seems like a Protoss can always catch a bunch of them if he doesn't panic.
Against roaches, however, FFs DO initiate a contest of micro IF the roaches have burrowed movement and burrow. The Protoss FFs, Zerg burrows and moves either towards or away from the army. The level of micro required isn't really significant right now but I can see it being a contest. Perhaps more can be done with the burrow movement mechanic to make it more exciting, though.
The same is true of overlords with drop. FFs DO initiate a contest of micro there, as well, as you can easily follow your army around with a bunch of speed overlords and pick up and drop off as necessary to escape or bypass force fields. This kind of tactic is underused, in my opinion, though it is also true that it hits a little too late most games to stop the initial FF push.
Against Terran, it really comes down to ghost usage, and currently Terran just don't feel like using them early game even when they see mass sentries. There is also the possibility of medivac micro though here it is more risky because Terran medivacs are more expensive as well. All in all though, EMP vs. Sentries do initiate a contest of micro or at least positioning and so I don't feel like we're seeing the potential for micro here just yet.
On March 19 2011 19:17 Skyze wrote: to anyone who says FF is imbalance.. I have a simple challenge for you.
Try to play Protoss at Masters WITHOUT using one forcefield.. I dare you. See how badly forcefield is required.
And even if you do use it, 99.9999% chance you will get no where near as good as forcefields as MC.. He is the best in the world, point blank. Watch every other "pro" Protoss player, they dont win every game simply by going mass sentries.. If it was that easy, every protoss would be winning every single game like nothing. Forcefield "placing" is a large talent, trust me.. I have over 2000 protoss games so far, and I still land shitty forcefields once in awhile. It really is an art, and put it this way; you miss one forcefield vs terran, its gg.
No one's talking about removing forcefields. We're talking about balancing them so that, as an opponent, you can actually micro against forcefields. Right now if a Protoss uses FFs right you literally cannot micro against them and that is, literally, game breaking. You can modify forcefields so that they're still effective but able to be negated.
Just because MC is the only Protoss in the world who can do good forcefields (a point I completely disagree with but going to ignore) then what happens in the future when every Protoss has the same level of ability? The ability is completely broken from a gameplay point of view; it completely negates micro when done right.
You can't just say "forcefields are fine because MC is the only one who can use them well" because, eventually, everyone will be able to do that level of forcefielding consistently and then what are you going to say?
On March 19 2011 19:12 Gingerninja wrote: Wider Chokes. Simple really. Protoss would need to wall off with buildings still but probably need the sentries to FF to defend. Would take a lot more FF to block a zergs ramp, and you couldn't indefinably keep them there like game 1 showed. Ofc if you get doughnutted in open field then that's your own fault.
If you mean by wider chokes, the chokes that lead up to your base, you'd permanently see roach all ins and bio all ins because it would take more than 1 force field to seal off the choke and protoss wouldn't be able to defend that.
The problem lies deeper with FF. FF is so strong, as is warpgate-tech, that gateway units are in a head to head fight cost for cost worse than their terran and zerg counterparts. Zealots and Stalkers are balanced around FF and Warpgate, resulting in them being shitty. Furthermore Protoss thus needs these super-lol units like colossi and HTs.
If gateway units were greatly buffed, FF a researchable ability at Cybernetics Core and Warpgate tech moved to twilight council - I'd be happy. No more praying for those Colossi to come out in time before the bio ball hits and no more zerg qq because of imba FF.
The same thing kinda goes for concussive. Imho it is worse than FF cuz it is passive and it makes hit and run and thus harassing impossible. However terran is not as reliant on it as P is with FF.
I am okay with Fungal though. It is hard to use, Infestors are quite a big investment and you normally don't get as many as P gets sentries.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
July's response was perfectly fine. It was just that due to the nature of eggs having to be at a hatchery, he couldn't reinforce at all due to forcefields. Meanwhile, MC easily reinforced due to do the nature of warpgate being able to warp in at any pylon. Had July not been blocked, I dare say he would have been able to hold that off.
They approached the engagement with similar armies. They both reinforced, but July's were blocked.
July's response was perfectly fine... if forcefields didn't exist. Otherwise, why do you not see protosses doing nothing but 4 gate fake? If perfect responses lead to a loss, then you've got a completely dominant strategy there.
On March 19 2011 19:22 Iamyournoob wrote: The problem lies deeper with FF. FF is so strong, as is warpgate-tech, that gateway units are in a head to head fight cost for cost worse than their terran and zerg counterparts. Zealots and Stalkers are balanced around FF and Warpgate, resulting in them being shitty. Furthermore Protoss thus needs these super-lol units like colossi and HTs.
This pretty much sums it up. Furthermore, Sentries do rather pitiful damage for their cost, meaning that their army is even weaker as far as damage output is concerned. Forcefields are the only way for a Protoss to survive the early game, and as of now no one except for MC has the skill with forcefields to straight out win without teching past Blink. Placing "decent" forcefields is by no means difficult; doing what MC does and expertly slicing up an army is absurdly hard (go watch the game that July wins where MC has nothing but Sentries vs. Hydras and try to do that yourself).
Essentially, it's all a part of the current metagame. For the past 6 months TvP consisted of Terrans stimming and A-moving. It took a very long time for Protoss to learn how to deal with the Bioball. Now MC (arguably the best player in the world) has changed the metagame, and people need and will learn to adjust their strategy and gameplay. The game's not even a year old, give it some time. Forcefield has been there since beta, and this is the first match where we've seen someone get spanked so hard.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
It's getting pretty tiresome seeing so many people talk about how easy correct forcefield placement is. If you are saying that you obviously don't play protoss. If forcefields were so imba EVERY protoss would be dominating like this. People call for nerfs and balance way too fast. Atleast give the game a chance to balance itself out first (players' strategy/skill evolving). Everyone crying imba over everything and begging blizzard for change is going to end up giving us a crappier game than what we already have.
If an aggressive Protoss can cut a zergs production in half, simply by forcefielding the ramp something is wrong. Warpgates negates the agressors disadvantage (hardly no travelling time) and forcefields negate the defenders advantage (being able to reinforce faster).
I agree that Protoss need forcefields, otherwise they have no chance, so I suggest that queens should be able to break forcefields. I think this would allow Zerg to fight on even grounds. Simply making queens massiv would have issues with graviton beam, but I'm sure blizzard could figure something out.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
On March 19 2011 19:30 seiferoth10 wrote:So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
Had MC not faked an expansion and just blatantly 4-gated July would've had the units already ready and would've easily held. You can't completely ignore the fact that MC perfectly faked the bread-and-butter build of PvZ like no one's seen before.
And if you're complaining solely about forcefield, then split your army up. Roach/Ling is a very mobile army, which is a huge advantage that Zerg has over Protoss (hence why they need Warpgates). Attack the front and flank from the rear or side. Sure, the Protoss might have enough Sentries to completely surround himself, but it'll make the Sentries run out of energy so your ramp won't be blocked.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
it obviously wasnt the perfect time then
and to all the ppl saying give it health...no because toss need FF to survive from stim pushes how r u going to hold off a stim push wen terran can kill ur FF? also if u say well give them enough health to not be able to be killed while fighting without dying at the same time how is it going to change anything? it will only make FFs better, making it a piece of terrain and a meat shield
ive always found forcefields to be almost ridiculously strong. if you think about it, the ability to influence the terrain to your advantage is really strong, especially against zerg opponents who rely on using the terrain against their opoonents, namely wide open spaces to flank. i just sometimes get the impression however that protoss players really need those force fields,otherwise theyd be swamped in a ton of roaches or against terran opponents be utterly crushed in the early game by marauders. then again zerg players face similar issues and have to deal with them without the use of anything like a force field. so in one way they seem like theyre a necessity for toss players but in other cases they seem ridiculously overpowered, such as forcefielding a zerg players ramp forever to not allow reinforcements to take part in the battle, or forcefielding a terrans ramp to keep him in there throughout most of the early game. they are also very effective throughout the entire game ( well until ultras show up) with 130 toss armies being able to defeat maxed zerg armies just by splitting them up and exploiting the already somewhat narrow maps and abundance of choke points by altering the terrain even more in their favour. however against terran bio it seems to me theyre somewhat of a necessity again or their zealots will be kited into oblivion, at least until charge comes out and colossi make their way onto the battlefield.
forcefields really seem like a bad idea to me and ive always wondered about the implementation of them and why blizzard would think theyre necessary. the general consensus seems to agree with me, well that being people cdomplaining about it^^ in any case i think their duration is a little too long. my idea about forcefields was also that they shouldnt be able to be cast ON units, meaning that you cannot cast them on spaces already occupied by other units. then again this would make it really hard for toss players to cast them effectively but it would be possible to prevent endless forcefielding of your ramp and your army being cut in two all the time.
There's nothing lamer in SC2 than perma forcefielding a ramp, particularly in the early game. It's incredibly effective (especially against Zerg), requires zero skill on a pro level and is completely boring. Something needs to be done.
zerg could research tunneling claws for their roaches and escape from the forcefields. zergs mostly massing roaches, terran can load his army in his dropship and can also escape
Just watched kawaiirice lose a game because a protoss dropped an ezmode forcefield on his ramp. I think map design is going to be important in stopping this. I think we need at least 2ff wide ramps (even the terminus style with rocks is cool) to really balance the FF, rather than altering it.
But don't get me started on warp gates. negating rush distance is unbelievably stupid. There's nothing a protoss can do that's genuinely risky at the moment.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
I'm sorry, but no. At that point in the game they're both still on similar economy, so it is virtually impossible for July to have amassed an army that would have been able to stop MC's army + reinforcements without any reinforcements.
I only managed to watch the first game (bday party with the only females present being jailbait, FML), but in my opinion, forcefields make for a less entertaining game. When the protoss players has a ton of sentries, you know that the ball is in HIS court. It is up to the toss to win or lose the battle. Its just not as exciting as when the outcome rests on the actions of both players
When the protoss has only one or 2 sentries, and so can only get a few forcefields off, it just seems more impressive/entertaining when they get the clutch forcefield.
Then again, I was rooting for July, so I guess I'm biased.
This is hilarious. Force fielding ramps has been in the game since the start of Beta.... It is apart of the game and you have to play around it, how long has it been, how many tournaments has it been used and people didn't call it imbalanced?
This is quite abusrd.
There is no comparison with other races because other races don't have this ability, but it is no different. The lead up is more important than the engagement. As I said before, this is like Zerg faking a macro game but end up all-in-ing the protoss, but the Protoss just doesn't have the required amount of things ready to stop it, it is too late then, you can't look for solutions to get out of that WHEN the fight happens, you had to have prepared for that before it got to that point
July just got owned by blizzard, the better player lost and there was nothing he could do about it. To bad the great game has to be ruined by little things like forcefields, fungal, concussive(not the worst thing tbh)
On March 19 2011 19:39 seiferoth10 wrote: I'm sorry, but no. At that point in the game they're both still on similar economy, so it is virtually impossible for July to have amassed an army that would have been able to stop MC's army + reinforcements without any reinforcements.
I don't see what you're getting at, that's pretty much what he said. MC's push wouldn't have worked if he couldn't have forcefielded that much, and you can't forcefield that much unless you fully invest into the strat.
I really don't think July was the better player in that series. In any case he hasn't proven it (and no, I will not accept "but July was a legend in BW you noob"). If you want to discuss the game I suggest going to the actual thread, but Ribbon made a great argument for why JulyZerg failed strategically and I much agree: he prepared for a strategy that he didn't actually receive, and his builds and timings betrayed it.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
I'm sorry, but no. At that point in the game they're both still on similar economy, so it is virtually impossible for July to have amassed an army that would have been able to stop MC's army + reinforcements without any reinforcements.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
I'm sorry, but no. At that point in the game they're both still on similar economy, so it is virtually impossible for July to have amassed an army that would have been able to stop MC's army + reinforcements without any reinforcements.
On March 19 2011 19:45 Azarkon wrote: I really don't think July was the better player in that series. In any case he hasn't proven it (and no, I will not accept "but July was a legend in BW you noob"). If you want to discuss the game I suggest going to the actual thread, but Ribbon made a great argument for why JulyZerg failed strategically and I much agree: he prepared for a strategy that he didn't actually receive, and his builds and timings betrayed it.
This. It's like people are assuming that MC just made 5 Sentries and walked across the map. MC had an extra Gateway, cut probes, and canceled a Nexus at the very last second after numerous Zergling scouts. You really can't disregard that, it was a brilliant all-in. You can't blame July for taking the bait; pretty much any other player (even MC himself) would've fallen for it (except Nestea, he cheats at that stuff).
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
Positioning is a pretty important part of SC2.
You can just as easily lose your entire army because you got caught in a choke with siege tanks, instead of already having your army outside the choke in a nice arch.
Forcefields are strong, just like cloaked banshees are strong, and roaches (production ability) and mutas (harass ability) are strong.
When I play vs. T, the #1 thing I get worried about is cloaked banshees. Do I think they're OP? No. I think if I don't respond properly I'll lose. The same goes for roaches and mutas and forcefields and colossi.
They're simply strong things that each race can pull out and that you have to handle properly. The key to forcefields is your positioning.
@OP - FG is the only one of the abilities that actually nullifies micro (and blizzard is reducing the duration by half). FF and CS still allow you to move (micro) your units - just slower or with burrow/drop ships.
On March 19 2011 19:22 Jimmeh wrote: No one's talking about removing forcefields. We're talking about balancing them so that, as an opponent, you can actually micro against forcefields. Right now if a Protoss uses FFs right you literally cannot micro against them and that is, literally, game breaking. You can modify forcefields so that they're still effective but able to be negated.
If I use medivacs to lift my units away from being trapped by FF is that not micro against FF? Also, FF CAN BE NEGATED by massive units.
On March 19 2011 19:45 Azarkon wrote: I really don't think July was the better player in that series. In any case he hasn't proven it (and no, I will not accept "but July was a legend in BW you noob"). If you want to discuss the game I suggest going to the actual thread, but Ribbon made a great argument for why JulyZerg failed strategically and I much agree: he prepared for a strategy that he didn't actually receive, and his builds and timings betrayed it.
This. It's like people are assuming that MC just made 5 Sentries and walked across the map. MC had an extra Gateway, cut probes, and canceled a Nexus at the very last second after numerous Zergling scouts. You really can't disregard that, it was a brilliant all-in. You can't blame July for taking the bait; pretty much any other player (even MC himself) would've fallen for it (except Nestea, he cheats at that stuff).
Indeed, too bad some people here are incapable of seeing it. By the time July realized it, it was over. MC pulled it off brilliantly though, he had that thing planned out down to the very last second Nexus cancel. He didn't even miss a warp gate timing (he was warping in units inside his main).
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
it obviously wasnt the perfect time then
and to all the ppl saying give it health...no because toss need FF to survive from stim pushes how r u going to hold off a stim push wen terran can kill ur FF?
Doesn't this say more about Protoss being a broken race than anything else?
If I use medivacs to lift my units away from being trapped by FF is that not micro against FF? Also, FF CAN BE NEGATED by massive units.
This is a stupid argument. In a mid/late game situation I completely agree with you. But in the early game there is literally no way to micro against decent forcefields.
Game 1 of July vs MC. Are you seriously suggesting that forcefields are okay because all July needed to do was get one of the following: 1) Roach burrow 2) Overlord drop 3) Ultralisks ?
I would add that on larger map than Meta July's spine crawlers would be finished and he had more time to get more units out and down the ramp. Maybe also flank some units so he could attack from 2 sides
Without warp and ff protoss t1 units are just too weak
I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
I don't play sc2, and thus am not aware of the exact timing windows, but can't Zerg players use Mutas to snipe Sentries the same way BW Zergs tend to get a group of Mutas to snipe HTs?
I know Sentries come earlier in tech, but is it possible to get enough Mutas to be able to one-shot them one by one (similar to picking off Medics vs. Terran in BW too) without flat-out dying to something else? Mutas seem like a decent unit ZvP wise to me (e.g. to exert map control), so their use wouldn't be limited to just countering Sentries.
On March 19 2011 19:45 Azarkon wrote: I really don't think July was the better player in that series. In any case he hasn't proven it (and no, I will not accept "but July was a legend in BW you noob"). If you want to discuss the game I suggest going to the actual thread, but Ribbon made a great argument for why JulyZerg failed strategically and I much agree: he prepared for a strategy that he didn't actually receive, and his builds and timings betrayed it.
This. It's like people are assuming that MC just made 5 Sentries and walked across the map. MC had an extra Gateway, cut probes, and canceled a Nexus at the very last second after numerous Zergling scouts. You really can't disregard that, it was a brilliant all-in. You can't blame July for taking the bait; pretty much any other player (even MC himself) would've fallen for it (except Nestea, he cheats at that stuff).
I'm just whining that once an offensive ramp forcefield is placed, it's game over. I mean, isn't it a little suspect that one race can completely block off reinforcements meanwhile bridging any terrain distance to instantly get their reinforcements into the battle? There are ways around it before it happens, but damn it's like threading a needle.
Edit: Read around, and I'm really liking giving the Queen the ability to break forcefields somehow. Food for thought.
On March 19 2011 19:52 maybenexttime wrote: I don't play sc2, and thus am not aware of the exact timing windows, but can't Zerg players use Mutas to snipe Sentries the same way BW Zergs tend to get a group of Mutas to snipe HTs?
I know Sentries come earlier in tech, but is it possible to get enough Mutas to be able to one-shot them one by one (similar to picking off Medics vs. Terran in BW too) without flat-out dying to something else? Mutas seem like a decent unit ZvP wise to me (e.g. to exert map control), so their use wouldn't be limited to just countering Sentries.
no, the push hits too early for mutas. Even if you rush mutas they are too weak in straight up fights.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
And Terran has T1 units that only need one upgrade and roll over Protoss like they are nothing. I remember that QQ by Protoss players. Now Protoss found a way to handle bio, now FF are too imba. I don't like the FF mechanic either and yeah MC's style looked very abusive, to say the least, that one might think this dominance was a sign of imbalance.
On the other hand July beat anypro in the semi finals. So if Protoss is that rediculously strong, why didn't anypro just roll over July like MC did?
I don't deny that FFs are very strong, maybe there are too strong and yeah, to me Zerg seems kinda weak in some cases.
But, dude, your post isn't that constructive, to be honest.
Just an idea I had. If queens could break force fields it would stop the early game rush / force field ramp. Queens are slow off creep so it would be hard to use this offensively early and would not change the pvt matchup. Also it might give a unique role to a zerg unit early game.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
On March 19 2011 19:52 maybenexttime wrote: I don't play sc2, and thus am not aware of the exact timing windows, but can't Zerg players use Mutas to snipe Sentries the same way BW Zergs tend to get a group of Mutas to snipe HTs?
I know Sentries come earlier in tech, but is it possible to get enough Mutas to be able to one-shot them one by one (similar to picking off Medics vs. Terran in BW too) without flat-out dying to something else? Mutas seem like a decent unit ZvP wise to me (e.g. to exert map control), so their use wouldn't be limited to just countering Sentries.
Definitely not possible.
The talk of FF being OP is a bit silly though. It's really not a problem like people are making it out to be.
In the last game, July seriously snarfed it up when he attacked with hydras and roaches off creep. It's like he was completely oblivious to the fact that MC had a bunch of sentries right there ready to FF. A total mistake on July's part.
Mistakes get punished, deal with it.
On March 19 2011 19:55 Artisan wrote: Just an idea I had. If queens could break force fields it would stop the early game rush / force field ramp. Queens are slow off creep so it would be hard to use this offensively early and would not change the pvt matchup. Also it might give a unique role to a zerg unit early game.
This would make it completely impossible to do an early push against Z as P. I find it funny that people don't understand how necessary FF is for a gateway army to be effective at all vs. anything T or Z has.
On March 19 2011 19:51 Dommk wrote: Indeed, too bad some people here are incapable of seeing it. By the time July realized it, it was over. MC pulled it off brilliantly though, he had that thing planned out down to the very last second Nexus cancel. He didn't even miss a warp gate timing (he was warping in units inside his main).
he even hid the units when that zergling scouts could have seen them July could have smelled the signs, when he saw very few units during the expand.
A scouting overlord could have given him that information, but he didn't do that....
On March 19 2011 19:52 seiferoth10 wrote:I'm just whining that once an offensive ramp forcefield is placed, it's game over. I mean, isn't it a little suspect that one race can completely block off reinforcements meanwhile bridging any terrain distance to instantly get their reinforcements into the battle? There are ways around it before it happens, but damn it's like threading a needle.
If you want to talk about threading a needle then closely follow MC's build when the VODs come up. How many times do you see a Protoss do a 2-gas Sentry-based 4-Gate? If a good Zerg player knows a 4-Gate is coming, they will hold it. July didn't know it was coming until it was too late, which no one can blame him for.
Also keep in mind that this was on Metalopolis, one of the older GSL maps (but still great). The newer GSL maps are obviously more open, which weakens the effectiveness and ease-of-use of forcefields.
I love the finals for this very reason, this discussion. I've been saying since beta that forcefields are the most broken ability in the game, from a zerg players point of view.
And I'm going to call it - Forcefields will get a nerf, one way or another. Be it Queens getting massive unit status, them having health instead of a timer, max 1 forcefield per sentry at a time, it's going to happen. It's clear how broken it is when you can cut off zerg's production in half just by placing it on a ramp. Something is going to have to change, there's not much the zerg race can do at the moment, tech lair and get a nydus JUST IN CASE? no, something else please.
I've lost so many games on DQ due to that bs.
I think such abilities, like the ones you described OP, have no place in starcraft.
Sucks that one ability can more or less shut down your opponents micro completely. What's next, an ability to punch your opponent in the face over the internet?
On March 19 2011 19:51 Dommk wrote: Indeed, too bad some people here are incapable of seeing it. By the time July realized it, it was over. MC pulled it off brilliantly though, he had that thing planned out down to the very last second Nexus cancel. He didn't even miss a warp gate timing (he was warping in units inside his main).
he even hid the units when that zergling scout was about to see them July could have gotten the sign, when he saw very few units during the expand.
A scouting overlord could have given him that information, but he didn't...
Cross positions Metalopolis = no chance of scouting overlord. MC even abused this fact by placing his gateways in such a position so that no overlord would have been able to scout it.
Game 1 MC just played an amazingly abusive game by exploiting Zerg's lack of scouting ability and the fact that forcefields, if done right, can deny reinforcements from the opponent's main as long as you want.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
it obviously wasnt the perfect time then
and to all the ppl saying give it health...no because toss need FF to survive from stim pushes how r u going to hold off a stim push wen terran can kill ur FF?
Doesn't this say more about Protoss being a broken race than anything else?
?
Yep, Protoss is broken since gateway units suck so hard. I am okay with the way it is, but as I stated above: Give us strong and fierce zealots and stalkers that can stick up to marines and marauders and you can have your colossi, HTs, Warpgate and FF nerfed all they way you want.
the point about ff being in sc2 from the beta on. hmmm im trying hard to remember the early days of the beta and the subsequent official release but from what i remember ff wasnt used to the abusive amount it is now, at least thats what i recall, since builds like 3gate expand that revolve around heavy sentry use didnt evolve right from the start. in addition, this doesnt change a thing about the fact that it irs really strong and too readily accessible. but the thread does not only revolve around the ff alone, though id say that this is the ability most players have a lot of trouble with since it is not really negatable and very easy to pull off. a lot of people say that it is NOT easy to pull off and you have to place perfect forcefields. for one i dont think that forcefielding yours or the opponents ramp is really very difficult. in addition yes in some cases it might be difficult but casting perfect forcefields is simply not necessary and its is definitely not an art in itself. its really not like its boxerisque micro that is required to lay them down. especially because no matter what you can always spam more of them even if, for instance, the lings managed to slip by them and have actually reached your troops, youre free to go ahead and lay down some more ON your own units to heavily reduce the surface area.
the longer i think about it it seems that forcefields were only implemented because during the design process, blizzard foresaw that with the new abilities to produce faster, strike faster,earlier and in greater numbers in the early game ( larva inject, chronoboost, mules ) which led to such "great" strategies as 3 rax, 4gate, speedling allin/roachpush) they decided that ff would be necessary for protoss players to be able to protect themselves from just such early game agression. terran players can of course bunker down and be safe, which kinda leaves zerg out in the open but meh, zerg being left out in the open to fend for themselves and taking the brunt of everything without any special gimmicks and abilities is nothign new :-D
On March 19 2011 19:52 maybenexttime wrote: I don't play sc2, and thus am not aware of the exact timing windows, but can't Zerg players use Mutas to snipe Sentries the same way BW Zergs tend to get a group of Mutas to snipe HTs?
I know Sentries come earlier in tech, but is it possible to get enough Mutas to be able to one-shot them one by one (similar to picking off Medics vs. Terran in BW too) without flat-out dying to something else? Mutas seem like a decent unit ZvP wise to me (e.g. to exert map control), so their use wouldn't be limited to just countering Sentries.
The only time forcefields are 'broken' is the time before drop is out. Banelings dropped from overlords kill sentries so laughably cost effective its awesome. Muta's aren't that strong versus sentries because of guardian shield, and the possible stalker buddy's with them. Overlords however don't care about guardian shields.
The only way to stop an MC style gateway push is to build a metric shit-ton of spinecrawlers, because there isn't any zerg unit aside from the upgraded hydra that can hit if the forcefields are placed correctly, so you have to build static D that has the range and non-pushed-away advantage to overcome the forcefield problem.
The trick is to scout 100% of the time. You need to know where his army is, what his army consists of, and how big it is to be able to build a sufficient counter to a protoss push. If you slip up on scouting just 2 percent, you're totally screwed because the timings of the units hatching/spinecrawlers finishing are completely turned around.
Spinecrawlers counter gateway armies. Unless the stalkers have blink and can get past the spines. But by then you should have a sufficient amount of zerglings to kill the stalkers while the sentries stand by idly outside of the base.
Though having queens being massive ( and archons too for that matter ) would be pretty sweet. Because I gotta say FF on my ramp is pretty BS.
This would make it completely impossible to do an early push against Z as P. I find it funny that people don't understand how necessary FF is for a gateway army to be effective at all vs. anything T or Z has.
Well early game zerg has usually one or two queens. The protoss can kill the queen if it comes to the front to break the force field. If the protoss has a few sentries force fields can still be effective but the zerg have an option to deal with it. I'm looking at it like a defenders advantage like Terrans have with their wall in.
Cross positions Metalopolis = no chance of scouting overlord. MC even abused this fact by placing his gateways in such a position so that no overlord would have been able to scout it.
Game 1 MC just played an amazingly abusive game by exploiting Zerg's lack of scouting ability and the fact that forcefields, if done right, can deny reinforcements from the opponent's main as long as you want.
Lack of Scouting ability? MC's strategy only worked because he let July scout his natural numerous times until the very last second of the Nexus completing.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
His units weren't out at the exact perfect time since they got FF'd inside his base? Duh? Losing.
Did he forget that MC had sentries or something? Seriously, think before you post. He reacted late and was FF'd in his base. It's as simple as that. You think MC put up his nexus and then canceled it for no reason? Of course not, July saw the expo and didn't make units until he saw MC coming. Not only did MC have more units than he thought but July didn't think he was going to move out that fast thus the units from his main weren't down the ramp before the battle ensued which is why he got beat.
I'm just going to restate once, because people need to acknowledge it, before I leave the thread: July snarfed it up, at least in the final game.
He attacked with roaches and even hydras off creep vs. blink stalker sentry after he already knew MC was using really heavy FF play in the previous games
What is the result of that, I wonder? 0 losses for P maybe? I'd hope so, because Z just made a HUGE GAME LOSING MISTAKE.
July fucked up. He's great, but he fucked up badly.
FF is required for a gateway army to be cost effective vs. anything T or Z can make, at any point in the game. The problem with FF is that players forget they need to know how to use positioning to not lose.
When you make mistakes, you SHOULD be able to be punished. Z has speedlings, T has concussive shells and stim, P has forcefields. That's how the game works.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
FF is required for a gateway army to be cost effective vs. anything T or Z can make, at any point in the game. The problem with FF is that players forget they need to know how to use positioning to not lose.
When you make mistakes, you SHOULD be able to be punished. Z has speedlings, T has concussive shells and stim, P has forcefields. That's how the game works.
^
People need to learn that you can't engage an army wherever. In game 1 July engaged in as close of a choke as it's going to get. Sure, he was pretty much forced to engage there, but half of that was due to MC's sneaky build. And there was no flanking whatsoever. What do you expect when you engage in a choke against Sentries with units that have less range?
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
Mabye, they need to make the forcefield cant stack on eatch other. So protoss need to place the forcefield perfect or they give gaps in between. Because I think giving forcefield health is not going to work, because the battles are going so fast in sc2.
On March 19 2011 20:04 mathemagician1986 wrote: I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Cutting off half of a Zerg's production isn't a problem because getting there is nearly impossible. If you somehow manage to do it, you should win because that's what the entire strat is based around. You can't exactly just run a Sentry across the map and hit F.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
You don't look for a Nydus you don't even know that is going up, you prepare for it, pylons at appropriate places. July prepared for Protoss going 3gate expand but when he found out it wasn't, MC;s units where already on his half of the map
But as the poster above me said, getting to the point where you can just force field a ramp against someone who is prepared for it is next to impossible, otherwise we would see it soo much more often
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
FF is balanced QED.
o_O. that makes like no sense on so many levels. amazing...
IdrA stopped Whitera's 4 gate at IEM, even admitting he thought Whitera was going a standard 3 gate expand, he just had most his roaches pop at the bottom natural and targeted Whitera's sentry's with he's Roaches down the ramp. Don't even know why people are trying to use the MC vs July match as an example, July didn't even scout that MC canceled, MC built nothing on the low ground and July should have been more suspicious. If he had scouted that as soon as it was canceled he would've just been able to pop down 1-2 spines with roaches.
In close positions you should already be wary of shit like that happening and try save larvae to pump out roaches.
Again, stupid to bring this match up just now when this 4 gate was used months ago, and yet no one complained, even before the 1 gas 4 gate.
And nerfing FFs will be a hard task considering if Blizzard do, then they'll probably need to nerf early Terran pushes, then that will lead to Blizzard needing to nerf other things to. It's harder than what people think.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In every single game that MC won, he killed July way before burrow ever came into effect. The one game he actually was able to obtain burrow half his army was already dead and there was no way in hell he was getting movement in time as well.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
FF is balanced QED.
o_O. that makes like no sense on so many levels. amazing...
He meant, if he was one force field too short, or if one force field weren't enough to block off that ramp, those 8-10 roaches would ahve came barreling down the ramp and killed everything that was left regardless of the amount of effort MC put into that strat. MC's sentries were all out of energy at that point, he was relying on newly warped in sentries to keep that ramp blocked (but off 6 gas you can't keep that up) as well
On March 19 2011 20:03 Buddhist wrote: He attacked with roaches and even hydras off creep vs. blink stalker sentry after he already knew MC was using really heavy FF play in the previous games
What is the result of that, I wonder? 0 losses for P maybe? I'd hope so, because Z just made a HUGE GAME LOSING MISTAKE.
Wut, Hydras is the best thing you can expect to have against blink Stalkers. Are you saying a Zerg shouldn't attack until his creep is inside the Protoss base? Which, if you didn't know, equals to never.
Why are you brining his unit composition into this?
On March 19 2011 20:11 Gigaudas wrote: Wut, Hydras is the best thing you can expect to have against blink Stalkers. Are you saying a Zerg shouldn't attack until his creep is inside the Protoss base? Which, if you didn't know, equals to never.
Why are you brining his unit composition into this?
Attacking with Hydras is considered to be one of the stupidest things you can do 99% of the time.
Hence attacking off creep into Blink Stalkers with a good number of Sentries is just a bad idea.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
But, dude, don't you see? It was only MC's brilliant and original strategy that caused July to not have units at the bottom of his ramp to defend.
Ignoring the fact that it's only because of FF that MC won that game, ignoring the fact that no other race would have been able to do that since it relied on denying reinforcements with FF to work, ignoring the fact that July would have held it since he had enough units without forcefields.... MC won because he's a genius not because his race has a T1 ability that can deny reinforcements from your own main while similtaneously having the ability to negate any rush distance with warp gates.
The races have different abilitys, strengths/weaknesses, you are not the first to discover this. You could as easily say stim won a terran a game, or inject won zerg a game, youre right, so? What bothers me about this thread is that its all a front, you're pretending that the issue with forcefield is that its "anti-micro" solely as an excuse to QQ about forcefield, guess what, FF IS micro, infact its one of the coolest and most interesting abilities in the game which is STILL rarely used optimally, if you don't want stuff like that in the game, then we are talking about creating a very very boring game indeed. You also claim that you cant micro against forcefield, this is not true, a big part of the micro is positioning, in the case of zerg you have burrow micro also, so yes, there are a number of things a player can do to limit the effectiveness of FF.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
FF is balanced QED.
o_O. that makes like no sense on so many levels. amazing...
Er, what? I'm saying MC should have won the game, and the only reason he did win was because of FF. Therefore, if FF were worse, he'd have lost, which would be bad. Therefore the strength of FF is a good thing.
If you seriously think a zerg should be able to hold off a push from P, when he's completely unaware it's coming, and has been playing as if the P was expanding the whole time, then you're biased or stupid.
Like, do you people think Z expansions should be invulnerable? Rofl. Let's just take away the one thing that lets Protoss players attack a Zerg player before the 15 minute mark. That makes sense.
On March 19 2011 20:04 mathemagician1986 wrote: I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Cutting off half of a Zerg's production isn't a problem because getting there is nearly impossible. If you somehow manage to do it, you should win because that's what the entire strat is based around. You can't exactly just run a Sentry across the map and hit F.
I think you'd be surprised how many strategies are based on getting to the opponent. It's kinda the point of the game you know, and not exactly hard. When a P is 4 gating he won't have a considerably weaker army than a Zerg, so Z can't really attack full on in the middle of the map (he can bait FFs however). Exactly how is Protoss not supposed to get to the zergs base?
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
His units weren't out at the exact perfect time since they got FF'd inside his base? Duh? Losing.
Did he forget that MC had sentries or something? Seriously, think before you post. He reacted late and was FF'd in his base. It's as simple as that. You think MC put up his nexus and then canceled it for no reason? Of course not, July saw the expo and didn't make units until he saw MC coming. Not only did MC have more units than he thought but July didn't think he was going to move out that fast thus the units from his main weren't down the ramp before the battle ensued which is why he got beat.
You're basically proving my point that forcefield is a broken ability. Not imbalanced, but broken.
The only reason July lost was because his units couldn't get down the ramp. The only reason they couldn't get down the ramp is because of an ability that allows you to wall of your opponent's ramp as long as you want. No amount of skill on July's side would have changed the game unless he was psychic, knew what was coming and thus built units earlier as a result. If July was the best player in the world it wouldn't of mattered.
Any ability which can change the architecture of a map is broken by design. It shouldn't have ever existed. In a game where chokes, ramps etc. are key to defending then having an ability to change the size of these is these is the stupidest thing ever.
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
FF is balanced QED.
o_O. that makes like no sense on so many levels. amazing...
Er, what? I'm saying MC should have won the game, and the only reason he did win was because of FF. Therefore, if FF were worse, he'd have lost, which would be bad. Therefore the strength of FF is a good thing.
If you seriously think a zerg should be able to hold off a push from P, when he's completely unaware it's coming, and has been playing as if the P was expanding the whole time, then you're biased or stupid.
I said, I'm not referring to that game in perticular. I showcased a scenario that happens very often in ZvP and has fundamental problems for the Z, which you responded to by stating "logic" that has no relevance to my post. Hence I said it makes no sense.
On March 19 2011 20:11 Gigaudas wrote: Wut, Hydras is the best thing you can expect to have against blink Stalkers. Are you saying a Zerg shouldn't attack until his creep is inside the Protoss base? Which, if you didn't know, equals to never.
Why are you brining his unit composition into this?
Attacking with Hydras is considered to be one of the stupidest things you can do 99% of the time.
Hence attacking off creep into Blink Stalkers with a good number of Sentries is just a bad idea.
But then when are you supposed to attack with Hydras? Because you do need Hydras against Blink Stalkers or Immortal Play.
On March 19 2011 20:13 mathemagician1986 wrote: I think you'd be surprised how many strategies are based on getting to the opponent. It's kinda the point of the game you know, and not exactly hard. When a P is 4 gating he won't have a considerably weaker army than a Zerg, so Z can't really attack full on in the middle of the map (he can bait FFs however). Exactly how is Protoss not supposed to get to the zergs base?
Spine Crawlers would've held even the push that MC did. July was completely oblivious to the fact that it actually was a 4-Gate instead of an expansion build, meaning he was outplayed, meaning MC earned the win. There's no strat that's uncounterable.
there is no micro counter (having build counters only are lame .. depends on scouting luck), the result of a fight depends largely of the ability of one player, this sucks. There should be some counter micro possibilities, maybe FF should not be instant ..
On March 19 2011 20:13 mathemagician1986 wrote: I think you'd be surprised how many strategies are based on getting to the opponent. It's kinda the point of the game you know, and not exactly hard. When a P is 4 gating he won't have a considerably weaker army than a Zerg, so Z can't really attack full on in the middle of the map (he can bait FFs however). Exactly how is Protoss not supposed to get to the zergs base?
Spine Crawlers would've held even the push that MC did. July was completely oblivious to the fact that it actually was a 4-Gate instead of an expansion build, meaning he was outplayed, meaning MC earned the win. There's no strat that's uncounterable.
yeah, I agree that MC should have won, he's the much better player by far. I just have a problem with the scenario that a P can FF a ramp and it's gg for the Zerg.
I will not go on about CS and FG here since my main race is toss but as far as toss goes il tell you this: July microed poorly and didn't try to "bite" those forcefield well enough, on the other hand... it was MC using them.
I agree force field need a nerf to make them less efficient since a player like MC can just ROFLSTOMP you with them, on the other hand nerfing ff would be shiting on 99,99% of the toss player, including me and all the ppl that read this thread, since we can't micro as well as MC, i don't think anyone can actually. Therefor if the force field ability is to be removed/re designed it would mean toss units need to be redesigned aswell, i.e a zealot should stand a chance vs Mara or marines w/o ff, stalkers should stand a chance vs roaches w/o ff and so on.
And that would be something around the line of changing the concept of the race itself up until late game, and even then ff are shit usefull mainly in PvZ.
I for one never liked ff and CS much aswell and i think the game would be more fun w/o them but they are not a huge problem atm. There is only one MC and only one Marine king so for the moment ff and CS isn't "overpowerd" anywhere else then in GSL so it isn't something i would change the whole game over for...
On March 19 2011 19:51 mathemagician1986 wrote: I don't get how people just say "FFs are part of the game, deal with it".
If a protoss attacks a zerg early, they have near equal economy, so they should have near equal armies aswell (if that's not the case either the game has fundamental flaws, or one of the players sucked). So, protoss attacks, constantly forcefields the ramp, cutting the zergs production in half, while having full production and no attacker's disadvantage due to warp gates. You see the problem? Protoss can easily handle an about evenly large zerg army, and as he's getting twice the reinforcements nearly instantly he'll easily crush the zerg armies one after another.
Queens should be able to break forcefields. It has no offensive implications, gives the matchup another micro mechanic and still punishes the zerg, as his production will suffer if he loses a queen while destroying FFs. I don't think it's an unfair change.
But MC didn't have equal economy, he stopped making probes and completely faked july out. He was warping in units inside his base, he made the entire thing look like a regular 3 gate expand and July reacted as if it were a 3gate expand, when he realized it was over.
This is like Protoss forge fast expanding then seing a hatchery going down at the Zergs natural, but the Zerg cancles it after the scouting probe dies then proceeds to 1base quick Nydus/Roach all-in. In that situation the Nydus all-in will come out much faster than he would ever expect it and if he waits until the Nydus worm going down in his base to react, then he losses the game.
I was talking in more general terms, not specifically this game. The problem fo cutting off half of a zergs production with forcefields is simply a fundamental problem, it doesn't really matter how the players arrived at the situation.
And the big difference is, that Protoss can actually deny Nydus play easily, but how is zerg supposed to deny a protoss forcefielding a ramp? Micro should be a competition where the best player wins, not simply casting 1 spell and it's gg.
I have to agree though that MC's play was brilliant, it's why I feel he really deserves the title.
Yet, if he couldn't have FF'd the ramp, he would have lost the game, even though his strategy was genius, and July totally fell for it.
Meaning, if FF weren't that good, July would have won, which would be completely fucking retarded.
FF is balanced QED.
o_O. that makes like no sense on so many levels. amazing...
Er, what? I'm saying MC should have won the game, and the only reason he did win was because of FF. Therefore, if FF were worse, he'd have lost, which would be bad. Therefore the strength of FF is a good thing.
If you seriously think a zerg should be able to hold off a push from P, when he's completely unaware it's coming, and has been playing as if the P was expanding the whole time, then you're biased or stupid.
I said, I'm not referring to that game in perticular. I showcased a scenario that happens very often in ZvP and has fundamental problems for the Z, which you responded to by stating "logic" that has no relevance to my post. Hence I said it makes no sense.
I guess it makes little sense when taken only as a response to your post. The point is that many people aren't acknowledging the fact that MC was supposed to win that game because he used the superior strategy. The only reason he did win was because of FF. That means that FF being weaker would be imbalanced.
On March 19 2011 20:17 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: there is no micro counter (having build counters only are lame .. depends on scouting luck), the result of a fight depends largely of the ability of one player, this sucks. There should be some counter micro possibilities, maybe FF should not be instant ..
I don't care much for the balance talk, but if SC2 wants to start having longer games and be a better e-sport then something needs to change. If all ZvP starts looking like this i don't want to watch it. Do whatever it takes so the games become longer/better.
On March 19 2011 20:13 Jimmeh wrote:No amount of skill on July's side would have changed the game unless he was psychic, knew what was coming and thus built units earlier as a result. If July was the best player in the world it wouldn't of mattered.
There were tells to the fact that MC wasn't going the standard 3-Gate Sentry expand, like the fact that he didn't build anything by his Nexus (it's standard to wall off from the ramp to the Nexus with a Forge). By the time July realized what was happening it was too late, it was simply a brilliant build by MC that no one has seen before. Now that we have seen it, people will be able to keep an eye on it.
On March 19 2011 20:15 Gigaudas wrote: But then when are you supposed to attack with Hydras? Because you do need Hydras against Blink Stalkers or Immortal Play.
When you're on creep, it's really that simple. Do a better job of spreading your creep, he can't stop it until he gets Robo tech. Now obviously there's times when you should/need to attack with Hydras off creep, but the last game wasn't an example of it.
On March 19 2011 20:18 Aterons_toss wrote: I will not go on about CS and FG here since my main race is toss but as far as toss goes il tell you this: July microed poorly and didn't try to "bite" those forcefield well enough, on the other hand... it was MC using them.
I agree force field need a nerf to make them less efficient since a player like MC can just ROFLSTOMP you with them, on the other hand nerfing ff would be shiting on 99,99% of the toss player, including me and all the ppl that read this thread, since we can't micro as well as MC, i don't think anyone can actually. Therefor if the force field ability is to be removed/re designed it would mean toss units need to be redesigned aswell, i.e a zealot should stand a chance vs Mara or marines w/o ff, stalkers should stand a chance vs roaches w/o ff and so on.
And that would be something around the line of changing the concept of the race itself up until late game, and even then ff are shit usefull mainly in PvZ.
I for one never liked ff and CS much aswell and i think the game would be more fun w/o them but they are not a huge problem atm. There is only one MC and only one Marine king so for the moment ff and CS isn't "overpowerd" anywhere else then in GSL so it isn't something i would change the whole game over for...
I don't think MC's FF usage is unique. HuK could replicate it, 0 doubt.
I also don't think what MC did was overpowered. I think what July did was flawed strategy.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
His units weren't out at the exact perfect time since they got FF'd inside his base? Duh? Losing.
Did he forget that MC had sentries or something? Seriously, think before you post. He reacted late and was FF'd in his base. It's as simple as that. You think MC put up his nexus and then canceled it for no reason? Of course not, July saw the expo and didn't make units until he saw MC coming. Not only did MC have more units than he thought but July didn't think he was going to move out that fast thus the units from his main weren't down the ramp before the battle ensued which is why he got beat.
You're basically proving my point that forcefield is a broken ability. Not imbalanced, but broken.
The only reason July lost was because his units couldn't get down the ramp. The only reason they couldn't get down the ramp is because of an ability that allows you to wall of your opponent's ramp as long as you want. No amount of skill on July's side would have changed the game unless he was psychic, knew what was coming and thus built units earlier as a result. If July was the best player in the world it wouldn't of mattered.
Any ability which can change the architecture of a map is broken by design. It shouldn't have ever existed. In a game where chokes, ramps etc. are key to defending then having an ability to change the size of these is these is the stupidest thing ever.
If I have no detection, and suddenly 2 cloaked banshees come into my base, guess what, NO AMOUNT OF SKILL CAN WIN ME THE GAME, this is where scouting becomes important, because there are simply certain situations which need to be addressed preemptively,
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
His units weren't out at the exact perfect time since they got FF'd inside his base? Duh? Losing.
Did he forget that MC had sentries or something? Seriously, think before you post. He reacted late and was FF'd in his base. It's as simple as that. You think MC put up his nexus and then canceled it for no reason? Of course not, July saw the expo and didn't make units until he saw MC coming. Not only did MC have more units than he thought but July didn't think he was going to move out that fast thus the units from his main weren't down the ramp before the battle ensued which is why he got beat.
You're basically proving my point that forcefield is a broken ability. Not imbalanced, but broken.
The only reason July lost was because his units couldn't get down the ramp. The only reason they couldn't get down the ramp is because of an ability that allows you to wall of your opponent's ramp as long as you want. No amount of skill on July's side would have changed the game unless he was psychic, knew what was coming and thus built units earlier as a result. If July was the best player in the world it wouldn't of mattered.
Any ability which can change the architecture of a map is broken by design. It shouldn't have ever existed. In a game where chokes, ramps etc. are key to defending then having an ability to change the size of these is these is the stupidest thing ever.
No, the only reason July lost was because he bit the bait, hook line and sinker. Look at the effort MC put into his builds, his DT build didn't even rely on the DT's doing damage, he prepared for complete hard counters (like if there were spore crawlers waiting for him)
When it came time to needing units down the ramp, it was too late.
This is like when Zerg Roach all-in Protoss but protoss lose because he didn't have enough Cannons or didn't have enough sentries. What do you do when there is a huge roach army staring down your throat? You can't just magic up a cannon or more sentries if your warpgates are on cooldown, you just die, but you don't start calling Roaches imbalanced
Having your army being shut out from out from defending your natural has existed since the very start of the beta, it has never been a problem because you just cannot continuously do that against someone who is prepared for that kind of stuff.
Stop trying to focus so hard on force field, you are trying to see the forest from the trees.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
His units weren't out at the exact perfect time since they got FF'd inside his base? Duh? Losing.
Did he forget that MC had sentries or something? Seriously, think before you post. He reacted late and was FF'd in his base. It's as simple as that. You think MC put up his nexus and then canceled it for no reason? Of course not, July saw the expo and didn't make units until he saw MC coming. Not only did MC have more units than he thought but July didn't think he was going to move out that fast thus the units from his main weren't down the ramp before the battle ensued which is why he got beat.
You're basically proving my point that forcefield is a broken ability. Not imbalanced, but broken.
The only reason July lost was because his units couldn't get down the ramp. The only reason they couldn't get down the ramp is because of an ability that allows you to wall of your opponent's ramp as long as you want. No amount of skill on July's side would have changed the game unless he was psychic, knew what was coming and thus built units earlier as a result. If July was the best player in the world it wouldn't of mattered.
Any ability which can change the architecture of a map is broken by design. It shouldn't have ever existed. In a game where chokes, ramps etc. are key to defending then having an ability to change the size of these is these is the stupidest thing ever.
If I have no detection, and suddenly 2 cloaked banshees come into my base, guess what, NO AMOUNT OF SKILL CAN WIN ME THE GAME, this is where scouting becomes important, because there are simply certain situations which need to be addressed preemptively,
This is exactly it. This is like Protoss faking DT's. MC's bluff wasn't some ordinary bluff, it was something that had a lot of though and planning go into it, I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of Zerg players get caught by it, but you can be darn sure that anyone who actually wants to win against MC from now will be preparing for it
On March 19 2011 20:20 Chro wrote: I don't care much for the balance talk, but if SC2 wants to start having longer games and be a better e-sport then something needs to change. If all ZvP starts looking like this i don't want to watch it. Do whatever it takes so the games become longer/better.
Did you even watch any of the other ZvP's this season? There's pleny of macro games. Besides, there's a reason that the new GSL maps are so huge.
I knew this would happen, anytime a prominent player loses in GSL we get a few topics on "Is this broken?" because people are upset about the loss and need to vent out.
Forcefields is imo a very exciting spell that is unique in what it does, MC is the best Protoss in the world and it is only fitting that he would master the use of them.
When Boxer was dropping Tanks on cliffs or just doing his drops in BW, nobody said it was overpowered, it was just a excellent micro player doing excellent micro. Same thing applies here. We are not talking about some random Protoss, we are talking about the most dominant SC2 player we have ever had.
It is a sad state when we cant even have matches anymore without kicking over the bee hive and everyone and their mother is up in arms over something.
I am not trying to take the "holier than thou" attitude here on how everyone is a whiner and etc. But it seems like complaining about Terran is "so last year bro" and its Protoss time.
MC was alot better than July, not just in that series but in SC2 as a whole, he deserves the win.
It is very superficial to say that concusive shields or forcefields "nullify" micro.
It's actually quite the opposite. They force the players who is facing them to anticipate their usage and engage fights in a perfect position all the time.
Though as a general rule I'm opposed to passive spells which are not visual (like concusive shields) because they aren't impressive from a spectator point of view and from a gamer point of view : they don't require any micro to be used. But that's another debate, if concusive shields had to be manually casted and that the missile was impressive, I would totally support the ability.
And to comment the GSL results since everyone is doing that here, there have actually been 3 totally different Zerg players entering the GSL final, while Protoss only got into the final 2 time and it was 2 time the same guy. So don't talk about protoss dominance, when it's actually MC owning alone, there is no other Protoss who would come close to 4-1 July.
On March 19 2011 20:49 TeWy wrote: It is very superficial to say that concusive shields or forcefields "nullify" micro.
It's actually quite the opposite. They force the players who is facing them to anticipate their usage and engage fights in a perfect position all the time.
If the 2 players are at an equal skill level it's pretty much useless to try anticipating an instant cast spell and definitely takes a lot more effort from the opponent than they guy holding down F and clicking a few times.
On March 19 2011 20:10 Shooks wrote: If he had scouted that as soon as it was canceled he would've just been able to pop down 1-2 spines with roaches.
He did put down two spine crawlers and he made roaches. Their armies were about even when the attack came. The only reason MC won was because he got 2 warpgate cycles of reinforcements while July's reinforcements were blocked.
I like forcefields. I think it is a cool idea and, in most situations, I think they are fine. However, in this one situation, there does seem to be a problem - that is, ramp blocking to prevent reinforcements combined with warpgate and proxy pylons. All those factors just combine to be so crazy overwhelming in this situation.
Massive queens might be the solution but, like other people have said, that might cause other problems, as forcefield is an ability for a reason.
...talking like FF-ing like MC is easy or something.
MC is a boss. His FFs are boss. and if he can pull them off the way he does, then THAT micro deserves to nullify the opponents micro. Clean and simple.
OH. and btw. the tradeoff with sentries is that 3 probes can take 1 out. i.e they're weak as balls. so stop whining please.
On March 19 2011 20:34 Tyree wrote: I knew this would happen, anytime a prominent player loses in GSL we get a few topics on "Is this broken?" because people are upset about the loss and need to vent out.
Forcefields is imo a very exciting spell that is unique in what it does, MC is the best Protoss in the world and it is only fitting that he would master the use of them.
When Boxer was dropping Tanks on cliffs or just doing his drops in BW, nobody said it was overpowered, it was just a excellent micro player doing excellent micro. Same thing applies here. We are not talking about some random Protoss, we are talking about the most dominant SC2 player we have ever had.
It is a sad state when we cant even have matches anymore without kicking over the bee hive and everyone and their mother is up in arms over something.
I am not trying to take the "holier than thou" attitude here on how everyone is a whiner and etc. But it seems like complaining about Terran is "so last year bro" and its Protoss time.
MC was alot better than July, not just in that series but in SC2 as a whole, he deserves the win.
Yeah but people are also right. I mean FF is cool ability and it's hard to use and very few can use them just as MC uses but the problem is that zerg cannot do anything about that. It does not depend on zerg at all that's why people think that this is broken.
That's why I think if keep fungal as a missile it would be better for overall gameplay - FG would be still strong but opponent can avoid it if he is fast with his unit control.
Someone mentioned that if queens could break FFs it would help zerg. I think queen could be made massive that way you can actually bring queen on creep to the battle and micro her to break FFs. And ramp blocks could be avoided also.
On March 19 2011 20:58 andrewwiggin wrote: MC is a boss. His FFs are boss. and if he can pull them off the way he does, then THAT micro deserves to nullify the opponents micro. Clean and simple.
About what micro exactly you are talking vs. forcefields? FFs cast instant and you cannot avoid them - you can just run away but it again depends on protoss, if he is good he is not going to waste them.
...talking like FF-ing like MC is easy or something.
MC is a boss. His FFs are boss. and if he can pull them off the way he does, then THAT micro deserves to nullify the opponents micro. Clean and simple.
OH. and btw. the tradeoff with sentries is that 3 probes can take 1 out. i.e they're weak as balls. so stop whining please.
Seriously, that's some utterly idiotic logic, no offence. Even if one player displays immense skill (even though I disagree here, casting FFs takes little skill with smart-cast, imo), the other player should be able to show that he's equally skilled and tie the situation, or even be able to outmicro his opponent.
A mechanic that allows one race to nullify the micro of the other race is simply broken, simple as that.
Consider this scenario:
Race A has a mechanic that nullifies micro of race B. Player X plays race A and player Y plays race B, they both have terrific micro, equally good. They engage in a battle - player A takes advantage of the mechanic that nullifies player B's micro, thus the latter's micro becomes obsolete, while player A can still take advantage of his micro.
Concerning blocking the ramp with forcefields, I imagine with a lot of effort it could be possible to balance the game in such a way it won't be a problem. Say, they can become destructable, they could require more tech, or maybe sentries could be made so absurdly expensive you just wouldn't want to get them, regardless of their effect. Regardless, all of those force the game to change a lot, which just illustrates forcefields are an ability that is so potentially powerful you have to design the game around them.
Which brings me to my point: assuming forcefield is fine the way it is now, aren't ramps broken? I think you could make a point that in a game where forcefield exists, you shouldn't have maps with small ramps that are so easy to block.
Fungal growth is another ability that is potentially broken: delaying pushes for as long as you want to, instantly shutting down all harass, all with an instant-cast and long-range spell. I don't think many would argue it is overpowered though, because infestors are 'squishy' and expensive, so these problems don't come into place a lot. I still find it a pity they revoked the missile attack for FG, however, since it would fix some of these situations where infestors are incredibly useful, if only you had them. Instead, they could be less useful and as a result could be made stronger in other areas, or just more accessible.
If I have no detection, and suddenly 2 cloaked banshees come into my base, guess what, NO AMOUNT OF SKILL CAN WIN ME THE GAME, this is where scouting becomes important, because there are simply certain situations which need to be addressed preemptively,
Let's say I play a zvp and I see him going 3gate expand with a lot of sentries/zealots. I scout that he moves out and are about to make a 3-5gate pressure with zealots/sentries. Even if I scout this, how am I going to avoid forcefield from my ramp? Put down a ultralisk carvern or what did you have in mind? So you are saying I MUST rely on my current army and not any reinforcement.
If protoss scout cloaked banshees you actually have options to annihilate them completely with either cannons or obs + stalkers. Zerg doesn't have the same luxary against force fields because they can be thrown upon units so you can't block ramp with drones/w/e.
I don't understand your reasoning. Force fields can't be compared to cloaked banshees. Yes, there are possibilities force protoss to cast ff and you can engange from many sides, but you have to be realistic. I'm diamond player and not a 300apm programer.
I agree with changing Queen to massive being a good idea, spreading creep would be more crucial in zvp.
Kind of a pity this thread degenerated into Zerg whining about FF, had so much potential.
In any case, I do think abilities that limit movement of a player's units in such a direct way shouldn't be as common and easily available as they are in SC2. Fungal isn't that much of a problem, because of the required time and resource investment - it comes at a point in the game where it's nigh impossible to "abuse". FF and CS, on the other hand, just make the game less fun to play for the player on the receiving end.
Now, I played a lot of games as P, and quite a few as Z, and yet I still rage when I see marauders kite my zealots forever without getting hit at all, or being unable to save stalkers with a bit of micro (and the stalker is a unit that really screams "please micro me so I don't die"). It just feels wrong, and is frustrating as hell. Makes the game less fun, even if it's balanced per se.
Conversely, getting FFed as Zerg in the early game is just sad. You're like "hey, I have awesome mobility, let me set up flanks and surrounds on his slow ball of units", and then he puts down 10 FFs, and you can't do a thing about it. Again, one of the most fun thing about RTS gameplay - controlling your units well - is removed by an in-game ability. This is just not fun.
A good "movement restricting" ability can be witnessed in BW's spider mines. Mines had the opportunity for great damage, but also the opportunity for great control against them. They didn't completely lock the player down, but they slowed their advance even when dealt with efficiently. As an added bonus, they could be used against the Terran player, if they got careless with their placement.
Sadly though, changing FF would probably necessitate a complete redesign of Protoss, so it won't happen, not in an expansion, not ever.
Abilities like that stop a-clicking, keep them in the game just for that reason. I don't understand July. While MC might be terrifying, mass sentry force field play is what he's been doing all the time.
Focusing those sentries down, using flank attacks, why do people keep trying to a-move into mass sentry armies?
On March 19 2011 20:58 bahl sofs tiil wrote:
I like forcefields. I think it is a cool idea and, in most situations, I think they are fine. However, in this one situation, there does seem to be a problem - that is, ramp blocking to prevent reinforcements combined with warpgate and proxy pylons. All those factors just combine to be so crazy overwhelming in this situation.
Massive queens might be the solution but, like other people have said, that might cause other problems, as forcefield is an ability for a reason.
Probe sniping works, as July showed on Shakuras, so does killing the pylon.
Alright, check this out. What if forcefields became slow fields, kind of like that bad ass original idea for the mothership to slow and stop bullets? So when units get forcefielded, they can still escape, but REALLY slow (going through water? That's how I'd imagine it. Can't shoot when going through?). That also helps with ffing ramps. Kind of like stationary concussives. I think this would be enough to help toss early game with protecting their own ramp, but still make things fairer for everyone.
EDIT: I'm fine with them as they are, but they can still be frustrating every now and then.
On March 19 2011 21:22 eLiE wrote: Alright, check this out. What if forcefields became slow fields, kind of like that bad ass original idea for the mothership to slow and stop bullets? So when units get forcefielded, they can still escape, but REALLY slow (going through water? That's how I'd imagine it. Can't shoot when going through?). That also helps with ffing ramps. Kind of like stationary concussives. I think this would be enough to help toss early game with protecting their own ramp, but still make things fairer for everyone.
Mass roaches/zerglings and all kind of rushes would be pretty much unstoppable for protoss.
I think that one simply thing that can help balancing FF is making it a channeling spell... when you kill the sentry, or if the sentry moves, the FF disappear...
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.
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.
Of course skill ceiling is a good thing. But what I'm arguing here is that players can partially negate the ability of the opponent to use his skill (micro). The 'input skill' (skill required to use the ability) is not the same as the 'output skill' (negative effect on the opponent), it is a lot lower. Also with a high enough 'input skill' (like MC) you can almost completely negate the opponent's ability to micro.
Essentially, the higher the skill for player x (ff/concussive/fg user), the more lower the skill ceiling (ability to use his skill) for player y.
And yes my post was quite general and I could've made it bigger, but I thought that this was enough.
Furthermore, please stop whining and start discussing more. I see I've been called a whiny zerg player, truth is, I actually play random (but protoss is my favorite race).
Trust me when I say that using FF properly IS HARD. And trust me when I say that protoss loses without it, but it still is a problem in my eyes, same for concussive and FG, because when used correctly it is very hard/nearly impossible for the opponent to do something about it.
However, it has such a big role in the game that doing anything about it would be very hard. The only way I can see it removed is with a complete redesign for protoss and some changes to the other races. Like said before it's absolutely vital for stopping certain rushes or all in builds.
I think this quote sums it up:
The problem lies deeper with FF. FF is so strong, as is warpgate-tech, that gateway units are in a head to head fight cost for cost worse than their terran and zerg counterparts. Zealots and Stalkers are balanced around FF and Warpgate, resulting in them being shitty. Furthermore Protoss thus needs these super-lol units like colossi and HTs.
-- Again please stop whining or QQing, I don't want to see this thread closed.
Instead of whining how about people learn how to refine their play and beat it? Once you get trapped in thinking you have no control over a situation then you will always lose. So to the people in this thread..cry all you want, I'll be here practicing and refining to beat whatever tactic or strategy employed against me.
On March 19 2011 21:41 Wegandi wrote: Instead of whining how about people learn how to refine their play and beat it? Once you get trapped in thinking you have no control over a situation then you will always lose. So to the people in this thread..cry all you want, I'll be here practicing and refining to beat whatever tactic or strategy employed against me.
im a zerg player and i dont feel a need to qq ill just watch and let things cool over.
but i will comment on this..
no matter how much you refine your play. no matter how fast you micro your units. no matter how hard you try. once you have your ramp blocked.
It would be nice if there was a way out of concussive and forcefield. I wouldn't be upset if FF had a slightly smaller radius (but still somehow blocked a ramp) and also if it had a shorter duration but only a tiny decrease. Less than 10% ideally
Cuntcussive shells should have a cooldown, be more expensive, take longer to research or come with less damage with the shot (a combination of these is fine)
I would love to see even more micro and specifically more per unit micro. I also wouldn't have a major complaint with the queen being able to cast a spell on the forcefield to drop it, that feels a little evil and cheap as a tactic. Maybe spawn larvas goo dissolves it or something.
On March 19 2011 21:51 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: It would be nice if there was a way out of concussive and forcefield. I wouldn't be upset if FF had a slightly smaller radius (but still somehow blocked a ramp) and also if it had a shorter duration but only a tiny decrease. Less than 10% ideally
Cuntcussive shells should have a cooldown, be more expensive, take longer to research or come with less damage with the shot (a combination of these is fine)
I would love to see even more micro and specifically more per unit micro. I also wouldn't have a major complaint with the queen being able to cast a spell on the forcefield to drop it, that feels a little evil and cheap as a tactic. Maybe spawn larvas goo dissolves it or something.
FWIW I play P, not T or Z
Nice language. And how can you make forcefields smaller without making them pointless?
I don't feel like any of these abilities really nullify micro.
As I'm sure other people have said, you can burrow and drop under/over forcefields, and spread units out to minimise fungals. And you can still micro units hit by concussive, it's just harder.
Very much agree, atleast on fungal, shells and forcefields, abilities that actually remove gameplay and removes micro from the opponent when used - you can't actually do anything once it happens -- you're just watching yourself get detroyed without you being able to DO anything.
And that to me, is poor game design.
In SC:BW there was queen slow, and that was actually a spell so thats a bit more fair as you don't run around with 20 queens like 20 sentries or 20 marauders - because its a high tech niche unit.
Arbiters had crystalize that made units freeze BUT cannot be attacked - this is good design, make everything good have a drawback. The unit is expensive and high tech so the impact of the spell is far less than a early game unit like the marauder and sentry.
On March 19 2011 21:51 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: It would be nice if there was a way out of concussive and forcefield. I wouldn't be upset if FF had a slightly smaller radius (but still somehow blocked a ramp) and also if it had a shorter duration but only a tiny decrease. Less than 10% ideally
Cuntcussive shells should have a cooldown, be more expensive, take longer to research or come with less damage with the shot (a combination of these is fine)
I would love to see even more micro and specifically more per unit micro. I also wouldn't have a major complaint with the queen being able to cast a spell on the forcefield to drop it, that feels a little evil and cheap as a tactic. Maybe spawn larvas goo dissolves it or something.
FWIW I play P, not T or Z
Nice language. And how can you make forcefields smaller without making them pointless?
Oh sorry that was a complete mistake, you have to believe me, all Z and P players love coming up against those shells, honest! My sincerest apologies.
On March 19 2011 22:02 Senx wrote: Very much agree, atleast on fungal, shells and forcefields, abilities that actually remove gameplay and removes micro from the opponent when used - you can't actually do anything once it happens -- you're just watching yourself get detroyed without you being able to DO anything.
And that to me, is poor game design.
Agreed and I know the rocks will start getting thrown but that's why I loved Warcraft 3 having so many ways to nullify a spell. Collapsing FF for example is far too difficult for most races.
You guys do realize that only roaches can burrow move and roaches lose pretty badly to large numbers of stalkers ( especially with blink ). Also burrow moving is even worse than doing nothing at all if he has an obs over his army as your roach takes about 5 sec to move completely under a FF and will die almost every time before it completes the movement. More over with the number of sentry's MC had if you did burrow move under his FF he could just FF you again delaying you another 5 sec. Also theres is literally no spot on any map where MC couldn't have completely FF'd the zerg army away from his army, they could have been fighting in just a giant open field and MC still could have FF'd the zerg army into pieces, he just had that many sentrys. I mean did no-one else see him split the middle of Shakuras in half, and then drop even more FF's right after. Once you have that many sentrys you can just FF as much as your finger can hit the F key it seems.
I'd also like to add, that abilities like these don't just nullify micro, they also make retreating a lot harder. This is one of the reasons why we see people move their armies in huge balls, instead of having skirmishes all around the map. Splitting off a part of your army to harass/pressure an outlying expo is really risky when they can just get FFed/slowed/fungaled and owned by a larger amy without being able to withdraw.
It's also why most battles are so one-sided. Normally, the weaker side could engage, stall for a bit, and then retreat, but it just too costly in SC2.
1. What if FF duration was lowered from 15 to 10 seconds? 15 seconds seems way too long.
orand
2. Have FF become a channeled ability that drains energy (for example 15 energy per second) and the sentry can't attack while channeling
or/and
3. Make FF an aoe ability that surronds said sentry at it's current position? Sort of like a static field that makes the sentry immune to damage, but also takes the sentry out of the battle for the duration? This way they are still viable defensively as the sentry must be in position, say ramp, to turn on or cast it's FF. Offensively the sentry would be need to get in position before opponents notice and opponents would have to snipe or retreat accordingly, making it more of a micro race?
Very new to RTS and sc2 in general, would love some feedback
Finally, Dommk proved Jimmeh wrong. His posts were "der". Of course you die if you can't respond to the strategy. The guy who talked about the cloaked banshees brought up that point. No amount of skill can save you if you fail hard.
Forcefields are one of the things that destroy the game. When skill ceiling is reached at this state of the game, zerg won't be able to touch protoss... soooo many microable units for protoss.
zealots so great when they come up close. forcefields allow that sentry's... u know it HT's best spell unit in the game after sentry and work so well with sentry's and kills all other spell casters if microed archons just so strong + a splash unit blinkstalkers annihilate drops + very microable dt's your dead without spotters immortals annihilate zergs only unit that can take down forcefields collosi such a long rance splash unit warp in, yeah make your units anywhere phoenix very microable and totally own zergs most microable unit the hydralisk
+ all these units have very great synergy
zerg
infestors stop a chunk for 8 secs soon to be reduces to 8, veeery fragile zerglings in late game only usefull for fast reinforcing and counterattacking can do nothing behind a forcefield roach short range so almost useless behind ff, but can burrow under forcefields, but most of the time theyre just too slow underground to make it viable. hydra, good on creep but nullified by splash and forcefields ultra easily killed with microing any unit but collosi and sentry mutalisk zergs most microable unit but can only take out an army supported my less microable units curropters... broodlords hard to get to good for a minute but easily killed by blink/air very slow banelings decent for drops in this matchup
On March 19 2011 22:20 mumming wrote: Forcefields are one of the things that destroy the game. When skill ceiling is reached at this state of the game, zerg won't be able to touch protoss... soooo many microable units for protoss.
zealots so great when they come up close. forcefields allow that sentry's... u know it HT's best spell unit in the game after sentry and work so well with sentry's and kills all other spell casters if microed archons just so strong + a splash unit blinkstalkers annihilate drops + very microable dt's your dead without spotters immortals annihilate zergs only unit that can take down forcefields collosi such a long rance splash unit warp in, yeah make your units anywhere phoenix very microable and totally own zergs most microable unit the hydralisk
+ all these units have very great synergy
zerg
infestors stop a chunk for 8 secs soon to be reduces to 8, veeery fragile zerglings in late game only usefull for fast reinforcing and counterattacking can do nothing behind a forcefield roach short range so almost useless behind ff, but can burrow under forcefields, but most of the time theyre just too slow underground to make it viable. hydra, good on creep but nullified by splash and forcefields ultra easily killed with microing any unit but collosi and sentry mutalisk zergs most microable unit but can only take out an army supported my less microable units curropters... broodlords hard to get to good for a minute but easily killed by blink/air very slow banelings decent for drops in this matchup
anyone up for a microwar?
You just made protoss units sound like a boss while making zerg units look like crap. a) That's not fair. b) You must QQ a lot.
Put zealots/stalkers together. Now put that against a ~40 food bio ball. Great synergy my ass.
Even with sentries, you can barely survive. Why? Sentries cost 100 gas. I HOPE it does something.
Dt's you're dead without spotters. Cloaked banshees you're dead without spotters. HERP DERP. Ghosts can EMP and make toss units useless and casters useless just as well as HT's can, so don't talk about that.
I bet the rest of your post is just garbage, so I won't continue to prove you wrong.
i think it requires a lot of skill to use forcefields properly without blocking your own units away from the enemy. it's not as easy as it may look when some pros do it.
but i already thought about making the ffs a bit smaller. don't know how that would work out though.
On March 19 2011 22:28 jhNz wrote: i think it requires a lot of skill to use forcefields properly without blocking your own units away from the enemy. it's not as easy as it may look when some pros do it.
but i already thought about making the ffs a bit smaller. don't know how that would work out though.
That would be really different because you then have to use 2 forcefields per small ramp (a couple of hexes makes a different), and all-ins would be that much more powerful. Unlike other races, protoss can't stop all-ins with pure "fighting" (cough) units, so that's why we rely on sentries and the versatile cannon. Well, unless we're on 2 bases with a lot of upgrades.
On March 19 2011 22:28 jhNz wrote: i think it requires a lot of skill to use forcefields properly without blocking your own units away from the enemy. it's not as easy as it may look when some pros do it.
but i already thought about making the ffs a bit smaller. don't know how that would work out though.
I know i made zerg look silly.. but we are talking lategame here
im both zerg and protoss yeah if you get a chunk of zerg food close on to the protoss you will prolly win, but with enough skill from the protoss' side, that shouldnt happen
edit: we are talking zerg vs protoss and we are talking about microability + ht's have more range than ghost and feedback is instant.
With that logic you might as well remove all spells and abilities in the game and have a completely bland and empty game...
In BW abilities is what made the game dynamic, Dark Archon's vs Z where insane as maelstrom could stun entire armies and Archon splash + storm could then clean up everything without the opposing player being able to do diddly squat.
On March 19 2011 22:31 mumming wrote: we are talking zerg vs protoss and we are talking about microability + ht's have more range than ghost and feedback is instant.
You're kidding right?
HT vs Ghost has been talked to death in the past few weeks and you don't remember one thing from that?
It was one series. Only one and there are already at least 3 threads about FFs being OP.
If it was so easy and everyone could do, what MC did, wouldn't the finals be PvP?...
Lets just make all races the same with the exact same units, stats and abilities so people would shut the fuck up about game balance. It would be a boring game to watch but hey at least its balanced right
If I have no detection, and suddenly 2 cloaked banshees come into my base, guess what, NO AMOUNT OF SKILL CAN WIN ME THE GAME, this is where scouting becomes important, because there are simply certain situations which need to be addressed preemptively,
Let's say I play a zvp and I see him going 3gate expand with a lot of sentries/zealots. I scout that he moves out and are about to make a 3-5gate pressure with zealots/sentries. Even if I scout this, how am I going to avoid forcefield from my ramp? Put down a ultralisk carvern or what did you have in mind? So you are saying I MUST rely on my current army and not any reinforcement.
If protoss scout cloaked banshees you actually have options to annihilate them completely with either cannons or obs + stalkers. Zerg doesn't have the same luxary against force fields because they can be thrown upon units so you can't block ramp with drones/w/e.
I don't understand your reasoning. Force fields can't be compared to cloaked banshees. Yes, there are possibilities force protoss to cast ff and you can engange from many sides, but you have to be realistic. I'm diamond player and not a 300apm programer.
I agree with changing Queen to massive being a good idea, spreading creep would be more crucial in zvp.
The person was using the fact that you couldn't respond properly AFTER being FFed to prevent reinforcements from the main to argue that they were unfair, the fact is that in starcraft you sometimes need to take preventative measures to ensure something doesnt happen. Often you cant completely prevent the main ramp FF from being somewhat effective, but you can make it less effective by having lots of units guarding your expo, july was just completely not expecting a 4gate, so of course he lost.
On March 19 2011 22:31 mumming wrote: I know i made zerg look silly.. but we are talking lategame here
im both zerg and protoss yeah if you get a chunk of zerg food close on to the protoss you will prolly win, but with enough skill from the protoss' side, that shouldnt happen
edit: we are talking zerg vs protoss and we are talking about microability + ht's have more range than ghost and feedback is instant.
I'm sorry to say that EMP range is 10 and psionic storm AND feedback range is 9.
On March 19 2011 22:45 Torumfroll wrote: Lets just make all races the same with the exact same units, stats and abilities so people would shut the fuck up about game balance. It would be a boring game to watch but hey at least its balanced right
Trolling?
July deserved to lose in game one, but july vs mc is just an example of a game. The fact that july couldn't do anything in game 2 4 and 5 against mc's quality forcefields (the games where he did 6gate) is just bad. I would estimate july's micro on par or close to mc's, but july could not show his micro, because he was forcefielded all the time. The only way to dodge those forcefields is to not engage, which is hard because mc was the one attacking.
On March 19 2011 22:45 Torumfroll wrote: Lets just make all races the same with the exact same units, stats and abilities so people would shut the fuck up about game balance. It would be a boring game to watch but hey at least its balanced right
Trolling?
July deserved to lose in game one, but july vs mc is just an example of a game. The fact that july couldn't do anything in game 2 4 and 5 against mc's quality forcefields (the games where he did 6gate) is just bad. I would estimate july's micro on par or close to mc's, but july could not show his micro, because he was forcefielded all the time. The only way to dodge those forcefields is to not engage, which is hard because mc was the one attacking.
Don't think it is. When July hydra dropped MC he didn't even bother to use overlords to save and micro hydras over force fields. All MC had were like 7 Sentries and 3 stalkers, no way he could have killed those overlords. Moon did it in IEM, no excuse for July to not do it.
On March 19 2011 22:31 mumming wrote: I know i made zerg look silly.. but we are talking lategame here
im both zerg and protoss yeah if you get a chunk of zerg food close on to the protoss you will prolly win, but with enough skill from the protoss' side, that shouldnt happen
edit: we are talking zerg vs protoss and we are talking about microability + ht's have more range than ghost and feedback is instant.
I'm sorry to say that EMP range is 10 and psionic storm AND feedback range is 9.
However, observers show where the ghosts are permanently, which allows the templar to get the first hit in, whereas the terran needs an active scan to do it.
There is a quote I like. I don't know the origin of it or the author, it's said Einstein said it but I could not confirm it and loosely translated it goes like this :
When everyone knows that something is impossible, there's someone who doesn't know, and do it.
I did not play SC1, I am from the weave of people that flooded TL in SC2 beta, but I strongly believe that some of you are too rooted in the old ways of SC1. What I mean by that, it's just that SC1 and SC2, although they share same concept and lore are totally different games. SC2 is typical modern game, by that I mean, simple, trivial tasks like movement, automining, rally, attack are done automatically. Basically the mechanics of the game, which as many of pros stated is very very easy compared to SC1. All the new things are moved towards spells and more and more complex abilities that are possible because game engine and computing power of modern hardware makes it possible. That makes game more shinny and all that jazz. That also change the metagame tremendously, and maybe I am naive but I believe we barely scratched the surface of what is possible through different combinations of units, spells etc.
I myself get very frustrated as a Zerg, when toss slices my army in half and rapes me, HOWEVER there is not a single game after which I analyzed my replay and I could say: "holly shit, this is imba and impossible for me to beat". There is always something that I could have done differently and not even by changing my build order and unit comp, just by little tweaks here and there, like positioning, place to fight, static defense etc.
And if you think that what your opponent is going for is totally imba imba, then scout like hell and try to kill him before he does it... Well if you know your destiny is death by rape, then why not change the rules of the game and try something else before the doomsday ? You are dead anyway right?
it's weird, because on the one hand, forcefield is totally skillful in the open ground. mc was accounting for the open ground disadvantage by getting like 3-4 more sentries than most people normally get, but nonetheless it is skillful. i don't really see forcefield as 'nullifying micro,' forcefield is micro itself and you can invest in tech to circumvent it and allow you to micro back in a reasonable amount of time. if you get caught with your pants down every game like july did, sure, it sucks, but he could've done something about it most of the time.
the only game where i felt like july got completely crushed by forcefield abuse was metalopolis, which is just a crazy abusive map for forcefields in general. the truth is july should've studied mc's style, and realized that while he has lots of timings, they often involve a lot of sentries, and he should've favored faster lairs with burrow or drop. he was doing it much slower than you would if you were going to be worried about such a thing.
but at the same time, even though i think it's a completely valid tool for protoss and frankly can't even be taken out of the game at this point for how much early game timings rely on it, i think the reward for doing them as well as you could with as many sentries as mc managed to make, ends up creating a disproportionate value that you get out of units. then again, that's kind of how a lot of protoss units work, and there's ways to deal with each of those situations as well, and they're all equally frustrating and seemingly ridiculously imbalanced until a solid solution is discovered
it's funny because i noticed mc really liked 11 sentries. that's somewhere around 20 forcefields depending on how long he waits and assuming a few are full energy. i can't imagine ever beating that without deliberately teching to an anti-forcefield option. i think that's a fair trade too, with over 1000 gas into a couple abilities essentially. the issue i have, mainly one out of ignorance for studying mc's timings, is how can you possibly scout a mass sentry build so deceptively hidden the way mc did? i know how to read a 6 gate, i can get burrow for that, but what happens when all i see is pylons at the natural, and a new nexus nearly complete with a normal amount of sentries for such a build? mc was very clever about it, i'm not sure how i'd deal with that without overcompensating or blindly teching at this point.
On March 19 2011 22:52 H0i wrote: July deserved to lose in game one, but july vs mc is just an example of a game. The fact that july couldn't do anything in game 2 4 and 5 against mc's quality forcefields (the games where he did 6gate) is just bad. I would estimate july's micro on par or close to mc's, but july could not show his micro, because he was forcefielded all the time. The only way to dodge those forcefields is to not engage, which is hard because mc was the one attacking.
Can you somehow support the fact, that July lost only because of the perfect usage of Force Fields?
This whole thing looks more like people being upset, that MC crushed July so easily. And because MC can't possibly be better than him, then some sort of game breaking mechanic must be found. If he somehow managed to go Carriers every single game, then they would obviously be OP.
On March 19 2011 23:00 Dalavita wrote: However, observers show where the ghosts are permanently, which allows the templar to get the first hit in, whereas the terran needs an active scan to do it.
Or they could do the unthinkable and build a *gasp* Raven.
On March 19 2011 22:52 H0i wrote: July deserved to lose in game one, but july vs mc is just an example of a game. The fact that july couldn't do anything in game 2 4 and 5 against mc's quality forcefields (the games where he did 6gate) is just bad. I would estimate july's micro on par or close to mc's, but july could not show his micro, because he was forcefielded all the time. The only way to dodge those forcefields is to not engage, which is hard because mc was the one attacking.
Can you somehow support the fact, that July lost only because of the perfect usage of Force Fields?
This whole thing looks more like people being upset, that MC crushed July so easily. And because MC can't possibly be better than him, then some sort of game breaking mechanic must be found. If he somehow managed to go Carriers every single game, then they would obviously be OP.
On March 19 2011 23:00 Dalavita wrote: However, observers show where the ghosts are permanently, which allows the templar to get the first hit in, whereas the terran needs an active scan to do it.
Or they could do the unthinkable and build a *gasp* Raven.
No I actually am an MC fan and feel like he would've taken the game, even without FF.
The sad thing about his amazing use of FF is that july just didn't have a chance to micro and do something about it. Without the abuse of FF to nullify july's micro, I think the finals would have been much more exciting, with longer games, and a different score like 4-3 for mc. I think mc played better and deserved the win, but july didn't have the opportunity to show anything, because mc is able to forcefield so well that july was unable to micro.
- Starting Energy +25 - Forcefield mana cost increased to 75. (Guardian Shield and Hallucination cost tweaked)
fixed ezpz
In all seriousness, the spells listed in the OP are micro abilities which take 'some' skill to use, I think it's great to see such kind of stuff - just not to a point when it completely overwhelms the other player, without him being to able to have a proper response.
I myself get very frustrated as a Zerg, when toss slices my army in half and rapes me, HOWEVER there is not a single game after which I analyzed my replay and I could say: "holly shit, this is imba and impossible for me to beat".
That's not what imbalanced means.
Let's assume that skill is perfectly quantifiable. That is, you can assign a number to skill, and you can therefore have an objective basis to say that person A has greater, less, or equal skill to person B.
A game is perfectly balanced if two players of equal skill play the game and they both win 50% of their games against each other. A game is perfectly balanced if a person of greater skill wins more games against a person of less skill.
Given players of equal skill, if the side with FF wins more often than the side without FF, then the game is imbalanced. And considering how neutralizing FF can be against many abilities, it is very possible that dealing with FF-based strategies requires a lot more skill.
Does that mean that there's nothing you can do? No. If you have more skill than your opponent, then perhaps you might go back to a 50:50 win ratio. But it's still imbalanced because you have to have more skill than your opponent does in order to achieve 50:50.
I'm not saying that oGsMC and July are of equal skill. But there is an argument to be made that FF can neutralize a great deal of an enemy's skill very quickly and effectively.
I don't even get why most of you people think that the only thing julyzerg could've done is a-move into mcs army and get forcefielded. There's plenty of things you can do to negate/lessen the effect of force fields. Of course you're going to get raped if you fight in a choke, instead battle him in big open areas on his way to your base. It negates him force-fielding your ramp so you can defend and he has to use loads more force fields wasting his sentrys energy and rendering them useless when they wear off. Now I know this doesn't really apply to the metalopolis game because july got tricked and deserved to lose, but imagine if he had roach/ling with burrow and engaged MCs army in the middle of the map. Force him to use half of his sentrys energy and then just burrow. Do it again and he has no more force fields left and gets raped.
I do think they should make some changes to force fields, f.ex. making EMP remove them or something like that. If you want to nerf them to the ground/remove them completely then you'd had to buff the stalker/zealot so much that 4-gate would become ridicolusly overpowered and then something else would have to change. I do also agree that force-fielding a ramp becomes kind of stupid sometimes so maybe making the queen a massive unit would be a good change aswell.
I was gutted july lost, I imagine a lot of people were. But arguing that MC relied on FF to get those wins isn't really fair.
Honestly, only one of the games last night was actually decided by FF play (game 1) but even that was only because MC faked an expo and hid part of his army to make july overdrone.
All the other games MC simply had way too much stuff... his macro was just better (which is seemingly the only way to get a respectable win according to some on here). It wasn't really exiting to watch but it wasn't some great injustice either. MC was the better player by some distance.
Obviously the fact that protoss is perceived to be at an advantage in pvz currently is coloring the discussion somewhat. There was no complaint when FD beat rainbow in an equally one-sided final or when MC beat rain as in both cases the winners race was seen to be weaker in the matchup (and rain was clearly out of MCs league).
I mean look at the games, not a single robo was made and all the games MC won was by pure gateway units and just having a lot more of them. When a protoss player has more gateway units than a zerg player has roaches/lings there is clearly a bit of a gap in skill.
I'm not going to comment on if its imba or not but if you think about it, the concept of an early game ability that can completely block areas off is bound to have far reaching implications as people work it out more. Not just in Protoss's favour, as people pointed out, they rely on them early games for defence as well. But doesn't this just seem like bad design for the early game? Like reapers before nerf, early game units that can go up cliffs and harass the shit out of Zerg. Not only does that not exactly fit into the concept of Terran, it was pretty ridiculous. Regardless of balance maybe this just isn't actually a good idea for an ability at this stage of the game.
Btw lol at the guy who said Dark Archons were insane. What game were you playing?
On March 19 2011 23:08 H0i wrote: No I actually am an MC fan and feel like he would've taken the game, even without FF.
The sad thing about his amazing use of FF is that july just didn't have a chance to micro and do something about it. Without the abuse of FF to nullify july's micro, I think the finals would have been much more exciting, with longer games, and a different score like 4-3 for mc. I think mc played better and deserved the win, but july didn't have the opportunity to show anything, because mc is able to forcefield so well that july was unable to micro.
Oh, ok.
Sure, I would have loved to see some great macro game too, but this was also amazing on its own merit. I had no problem enjoying the games fully. We haven't seen games like that in the GSL and people generally weren't aware, that aggressive toss can be this dangerous early in the game. Especially if he goes against the most aggressive player in the tournament or so we thought.
I was even thinking, that if MC haven't lost the two Phoenixes in game 3, he might have actually be able to defend. Not win, but possibly defend that drop.
Also judging from the interview, MC's preparation was just superb. Who comes up with a strategy and not only practices it, but also asks people to hard counter it blindly, so he does have a follow up? That must have seriously taken a while.
On March 19 2011 20:03 Buddhist wrote: I'm just going to restate once, because people need to acknowledge it, before I leave the thread: July snarfed it up, at least in the final game.
He attacked with roaches and even hydras off creep vs. blink stalker sentry after he already knew MC was using really heavy FF play in the previous games
What is the result of that, I wonder? 0 losses for P maybe? I'd hope so, because Z just made a HUGE GAME LOSING MISTAKE.
July fucked up. He's great, but he fucked up badly.
FF is required for a gateway army to be cost effective vs. anything T or Z can make, at any point in the game. The problem with FF is that players forget they need to know how to use positioning to not lose.
When you make mistakes, you SHOULD be able to be punished. Z has speedlings, T has concussive shells and stim, P has forcefields. That's how the game works.
He was dead if he didnt attack anyway. It was 3 base vs 3 base when the hydra rape happened in the middle. So
On March 19 2011 19:51 DusTerr wrote: @OP - FG is the only one of the abilities that actually nullifies micro (and blizzard is reducing the duration by half). FF and CS still allow you to move (micro) your units - just slower or with burrow/drop ships.
On March 19 2011 19:22 Jimmeh wrote: No one's talking about removing forcefields. We're talking about balancing them so that, as an opponent, you can actually micro against forcefields. Right now if a Protoss uses FFs right you literally cannot micro against them and that is, literally, game breaking. You can modify forcefields so that they're still effective but able to be negated.
If I use medivacs to lift my units away from being trapped by FF is that not micro against FF? Also, FF CAN BE NEGATED by massive units.
You can't expect July to have Ultras when the timing attack hits, also Z's and T's massive units suck really hard against P.
Just because something is hard to use, doesn't mean it's not imbalanced. Force fields have been abused since day one from beta however and we have seen quite a few builds to deal with them (e.g. quick burrow/tunneling claws or a focus on spine crawlers for defense).
Maybe there is a problem with force fields if used as well as MC does it but July didn't even try to counter them, so that series is of pretty much no consequence for that discussion. As a Terran player it's not as bad but I am still annoyed by force fields and it's really not much fun playing against a good ff user, so I would welcome a change like force fields not being able to actively split and move around my forces by placing them right inside my army.
If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting! He knew perfectly about the Forcefields on the ramp, but still he tried to defend with only 2 Spine Crawlers and Roaches, and that was a huge mistake.
It's like a Protoss who's facing a Mass Mutalisk Player and tries to defend with BlinkStalkers only. Doesn't work
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
There is no reason why a player who early expands+drones and only has a few units should be able to beat a player who 1 bases+cuts probes AND manages to decieve his opponent should not win.
Then you factor in that MC is not a player who is known for his many macro oriented games, thus July should have been more suspicious of this guy.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I myself get very frustrated as a Zerg, when toss slices my army in half and rapes me, HOWEVER there is not a single game after which I analyzed my replay and I could say: "holly shit, this is imba and impossible for me to beat".
That's not what imbalanced means.
Let's assume that skill is perfectly quantifiable. That is, you can assign a number to skill, and you can therefore have an objective basis to say that person A has greater, less, or equal skill to person B.
A game is perfectly balanced if two players of equal skill play the game and they both win 50% of their games against each other. A game is perfectly balanced if a person of greater skill wins more games against a person of less skill.
Given players of equal skill, if the side with FF wins more often than the side without FF, then the game is imbalanced. And considering how neutralizing FF can be against many abilities, it is very possible that dealing with FF-based strategies requires a lot more skill.
Does that mean that there's nothing you can do? No. If you have more skill than your opponent, then perhaps you might go back to a 50:50 win ratio. But it's still imbalanced because you have to have more skill than your opponent does in order to achieve 50:50.
I'm not saying that oGsMC and July are of equal skill. But there is an argument to be made that FF can neutralize a great deal of an enemy's skill very quickly and effectively.
I wasn't talking about balance, well it wasn't my intention, maybe the fact that English is not my first language mad it look like. I don't know shit about the game compared to those on the pro level. I was talking more about broad spectrum. As far as "balance" goes by that I mean equilibrium of two things, You just cannot compare two different things with one parameter. They will never be equal. You need a lot of parameters, and even more, and I mean a lot more, events (games played in our case). World wide, not just BO5. I may be wrong but what I am thinking is that if you cannot beat something don't call it imbalance at first just a counter, you cannot beat it this way. Like 150 energy infestor is a counter to a nice bunch of marines without medevacs. Call it imbalanced only when You take all the shit that is in game combine it with all the possible scenarios and then lose.
OK, how about this solution: FF is now a channeling spell - it costs 50 energy to cast, meaning Sentry would be left with 150. Maintaining FF would drain 15 energy per second, allowing each Sentry to sustain one for 15 seconds (their current duration). By killing the Sentry you can make his FF disappear.
That way Sentries can't maintain FFs indefinitely, as they'll quickly run out of energy. Using FF will require good energy management, and microing against FF will now be possible (by sniping Sentries even during the battle; their casting range is just 3). Landing EMPs on Sentries results in cancelling FFs.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I doubt he knew, had he known he would have made a few more Spines, defended the push and be ahead while MC would have to rebuild his expansion and be behind the entire game.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I doubt he knew, had he known he would have made a few more Spines, defended the push and be ahead while MC would have to rebuild his expansion and be behind the entire game.
Watch the game again. Watch the production tab. Now shut up and stop talking shit.
my solution, move the ghost's EMP and give it to raven and give the ghost an ability that destroys a forcefield and any touching it, and any touching them. its nice as it makes it harder for the toss to nullify micro apart with really good ff placement. for zerg.....erm.... give brood lords an ability to like burrow from the air, smaching all force feilds in the way??
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
Well, one of the biggest problems zerg has is early game scouting. July really had to rely on blind luck to spot the gates.
Though the fact that MC's second unit was a stalker should have been a tell, MC wouldn't waste the minerals if he really wanted a FE. But that still relies on guesswork, so it's hard to blame july since he had no way of 100% knowing if a 4 gate was coming.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I doubt he knew, had he known he would have made a few more Spines, defended the push and be ahead while MC would have to rebuild his expansion and be behind the entire game.
Watch the game again. Watch the production tab. Now shut up and stop talking shit.
No Zerg player in the world believes 2 half done Spines and a few Roaches+Lings will stop a 1 base Protoss push, its common sense you need significant defenses to stop that.
And here is the real beauty: if you do manage to stop it, you will win, because July would have been so far ahead MC wouldnt be able to catch up to him.
And there is no reason to talk like that, however angry you are right now, you should calm down.
Imo nerfing force fields isn't a good idea. They should instead give zerg some kinda counter. For example a spell that removes force fields. I know this is very bad example but something that zerg can do to counter without completely removing ff.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I doubt he knew, had he known he would have made a few more Spines, defended the push and be ahead while MC would have to rebuild his expansion and be behind the entire game.
Watch the game again. Watch the production tab. Now shut up and stop talking shit.
No Zerg player in the world believes 2 half done Spines and a few Roaches+Lings will stop a 1 base Protoss push, its common sense you need significant defenses to stop that.
And here is the real beauty: if you do manage to stop it, you will win, because July would have been so far ahead MC wouldnt be able to catch up to him.
And there is no reason to talk like that, however angry you are right now, you should calm down.
If you actually watch the game you will see that he had more than enough units to hold and the only reason he couldn't was due to being forcefielded on his ramp. The moment MC pushed out July built nothing but units. At all. What else was he supposed to do other than possibly building a couple more spine crawlers which he wouldn't have needed if he could actually get down the ramp?
On March 19 2011 18:51 wonderwall wrote: Forcefield requires impossible amounts of micro from one player to deny the other player the ability to micro. Forcefield is probably bringing more micro into the game just from the other player. It also requires the receiver of the forcefield to consider positioning and how he is going to engage much more. If there is one thing forcefield isn't doing its dumbing down the game.
Although forcefield does require micro, it is considerably less micro-intensive compared to Terran micro. I mean, all you have to do to make forcefields is simply press a button and click. Compared to the mm stutter step or marine splits or tank leap frogging or even multidrops, FF is nothing.
On March 19 2011 23:32 Binabik wrote: If July just built 2 more spine Crawlers instead of the 5 Roaches he built at his main base, he would've been able to defend easily. But there is a reason why he didn't to that: He failed at scouting!
Having seen the game, what exactly could have July done to not "fail at scouting?" The gates were where they couldn't be spotted, the army back away from the ramp and that nexus was building for a long time.
He could have had a Overlord in the deadzone at MCs expansion, there is always a possiblity that a player might cancel their expansion and go for the kill. Against Zerg this can work very well when you think about how larva works in the game.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
I doubt he knew, had he known he would have made a few more Spines, defended the push and be ahead while MC would have to rebuild his expansion and be behind the entire game.
Watch the game again. Watch the production tab. Now shut up and stop talking shit.
No Zerg player in the world believes 2 half done Spines and a few Roaches+Lings will stop a 1 base Protoss push, its common sense you need significant defenses to stop that.
And here is the real beauty: if you do manage to stop it, you will win, because July would have been so far ahead MC wouldnt be able to catch up to him.
And there is no reason to talk like that, however angry you are right now, you should calm down.
If you actually watch the game you will see that he had more than enough units to hold and the only reason he couldn't was due to being forcefielded on his ramp. The moment MC pushed out July built nothing but units. At all. What else was he supposed to do other than possibly building a couple more spine crawlers which he wouldn't have needed if he could actually get down the ramp?
I have watched the game.
MC is not the first Protoss in SC2 history to forcefield another players ramp, it is something even Gold players do from time to time, a common "trick" to get enough time to kill their expansion. No reason July should not have taken this into account
If your opponent is the best Protoss in the world and he 1 bases you, then you absolutely need Spines to defend that, especially since they are great for fending off Gateway units.
And July knows this, the reason he did not make more Spines is because contrary what you say, July did not know about the cancelled Nexus. He was making Roaches and Lings because that is how he plays Zerg, he does not play like Idra.
I only really feel that Zergs have a much harder time with forcefields than say Terran because they lack a lot of options to deal with it (Burrowed roaches...maybe Ovie drops...and Ultras?)
I feel we'll see ways around FF abusing in the future. I do think allowing Queens to stomp FF's would help the Zerg somewhat have a defenders advantage. Or at least not have a bunch of units herp derping at the top of the ramp wishing they could fight. It also seems Zerg has to make more of an educated guess with scouting more so than T or P which can result in a lot of metagaming shenanigans. Though that's just more of a feeling I have.
The Zerg in me was raging about FF's while watching the game however after sitting back and objectively thinking about the situations July was in and the possible tilt he may have been on after game 1 I have a more calm approach to it. What if the Aquanda style of zvp is the answer, mass ling/bling with upgrades and aggressive expanding while baiting FF's with ling balls and countering attacking? What if July had different positioning and not chase MC into a choke point and get FF'd or ball up and get a donut of FF's by spreading his units out more. A bunch of "what-ifs" don't make for actual scenarios but they aren't impossible.
I just dislike how something needs to be nerfed after every GSL final.
I never liked force field, I'll say that right away. It never seemed Starcraft-like. However I don't think it should be nerfed. Just remember SC2 is an incomplete game, in terms of units, abilities, and maps. Everything gravitates towards perfect balance. In the mean time, my suggestion would be for anyone upset by this to switch to Protoss and enjoy the ride.
i just dont like how ppl are talking like its obvious that ur gonna block him all the time...even mc in game 1 almost screwed up, barely kept the block going with 1 sentry @ max range while his army was pressured.
July failed at scouting because he was only ready to defend against a Zealot/Sentry push, but after MC cancelled the Nexus he was able to add Stalkers, which completly own 2 Spine Crawler.
they can make force fields have shorter casting range, and sentry have range 4 (same as roach) instead of 5. That way trapped roaches are isolated but can still attack the sentries. Also this would not break the early game, force fields are really essential to protoss to hold off 1 base rushes.
whatever the changes are, they should not be drastic. SC2 is a pretty well-balanced game thus far and you don't want to eff it up because of a few whiners.
Why would this have mattered at all? July knew that it was a fake before the nexus was cancelled as evidenced by the fact he stopped producing drones and started producing pure ling/roaches instead.
Actually, his ling at the bottom Tower scouted his huge army, and that's probably when he realized MC (or became 100% sure rather) was going to push.
I think the real solution to the problem is giving forcefield a cooldown. That way they retain their offensive usefulness, but at the same time their placement actually matters and you can no longer just cast FFs semi randomly and win.
Although, I'd also beg to look at this the other way around. MC and ONLY MC has been able to successfully abuse sentries in this way. Huk's build is not nearly as powerful or well executed, as seen in code A. No one else has been able to pull this kind of push off this effectively, which also speaks volumes of how powerful a player MC is. Otherwise everyone would do this, which doesn't happen.
I have an idea, let's as a community try to figure out how to beat good forcefield use rather than trying to change the spell design so it's not "OP." Forcefield has been used and abused since the beta, and if you watch the GSL finals critically (and without bias), there were several decisions July made that lost him the series. + Show Spoiler +
engaging hydras off creep, few to no spine crawlers for defense, engaging at his natural rather than in the middle of the map
This thread is filled with viable suggestions of what July could have done. After game 1 when he had about 10 roaches waiting in his main for the forcefields to go away- he should learn from it and prepare in the future. MC forcefielded him up his ramp constantly, and July was not reacting and avoiding that potential circumstance. MC is well known for his 2base timing pushes, a few extra preemptive spine crawlers is not out of the question or necessarily a bad idea to protect you to the midgame- it's just one idea July didn't invest in.
JulyZerg is the God of War- he's most known for his aggressive style, yet decided to sit back macroing, and we're shocked he got stomped by MC? Or blaming anything and everything but July (or crediting MC?) When MarineKing got rolled by MVP for playing away from his style, nobody questioned the series, it was understood that in those matches he was simply outclassed and outplayed. The same is true here, July straight up got beaten, this fact is just being veiled by the screams of imba from bronze leaguers.
I read only about 6-7 pages.. It's just amazing, the 'logic' used in this thread.
There's no getting around that Protoss ABSOLUTELY needs FF's, unless if Zealot/Stalker is buffed to be on-par with MM and roach/ling. And an FF nerf.. for HP? Really? I'm pretty sure those who are saying "give it HP", you haven't played a game of Protoss. It only takes 1 FF to be gone and it's GG for you. I've lost some games before from purely having only a little crevice inbetween an FF or two; it's sad that someone would even mention this. Furthermore, it IS a talent/skill to have to make good FF's. What MC can do is not what every other toss can do - same goes for MKP's marine splitting.. No other Terran can do it how he does it. And i've also been noticing a trend.. Whoever tends to win the GSL, or whatever race that makes it to the final stages, is immediately imbalanced >.>; i've seen this uproar occur each time after a GSL is taken. Oh, the humor, if football fans were like this "Steelers lost? Oh, wow, packers are so imbalanced"
And a question to Zerg players, as i'm curious. Why can't Z players over maynard their workers to their natural, drone off of both hatches but only slightly on the natural, and save up larva if they expect any pushes? I've been wondering this for awhile - if FFing your ramp is this big of a problem, work around it? Please answer me, as i'm pretty curious.
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......
Excellent post, +1.
I like, the idea of increasing ht ecost of forcefield simply because this prevents a protoss from looking at an army on the otherside of his ramp and then warping in 2 sentries to defend isnstantly. I feel like an ability that strong should be more pro-active.
This is the thing about forcefields. It makes or breaks your army. If you have bad/none forcefields you lose early and mid game. Gateway units are so weak once people start getting upgrades thats why forcefields are necessary. They are a little strong at times that we can see but nerfing FF's could make gateway units weaker n it becomes a big yellow snowball
The number of people advocating the removal of force fields is _so wierd_. Makes it obvious that a lot of you guys are posting without really thinking. The force field is one of two things that makes protoss able to win any engagement beyond the first 8 minutes of the game (second being collossi) assuming it's against an opponent with equal macro.
The fact is that Protoss ground forces are expensive, all 2 supply, and extremely weak for their high cost. A few marines and marauders can kill twice their cost in Protoss units very easily. A single medivac full can annihilate so many freaking units! This pretty much means warping in units for drop defense doesn't work. Protoss ground armies are just pathetic for their cost. They get raped by pretty much every unit composition from both races. Force field allows you to split your enemy's army and thus make the fight EVEN, as well as opening a plethora of strategies.
Forcefields felt terribly wrong from the moment I first learned about the spell. Sure, on the surface they can make some dramatic moments, but the dynamic itself is just flawed imo.
In BW you had to work little wonders like using a fucking arbiter to freeze a unit that's crossing the ramp. In SC2 you use a tier 1 unit and a single click. Wrong.
Everyone watches the GSL and notes the amazing FFs and how they owned up July, but what people dont notice is that its REALLY REALLY hard to do that. And forcefields are unforgiving in that if you mess them up, you are more than dead. There is a tiny margin for err.
Pros are Pros, and things that might be slightly OP for pros are not a balance issue for many of us, because we just suck at placing FFs.
On March 20 2011 00:41 niteReloaded wrote: Forcefields felt terribly wrong from the moment I first learned about the spell. Sure, on the surface they can make some dramatic moments, but the dynamic itself is just flawed imo.
In BW you had to work little wonders like using a fucking arbiter to freeze a unit that's crossing the ramp. In SC2 you use a tier 1 unit and a single click. Wrong.
Except that once you get to 2 base and leave your main base, one forcefield is useless. You need several sentries (usually minimum 3-4). That's at least a 400 gas investment just to defend yourself against something as simple as mass lings, which in spite of your huge gas investment, one misclick still loses you the game.
The flawed understanding in this thread hurts my brain. People here should go play 100 games as Protoss and get a real understanding of the sentry/FF dynamic before posting potential balance changes.
On March 20 2011 00:38 42x10 wrote: The number of people advocating the removal of force fields is _so wierd_. Makes it obvious that a lot of you guys are posting without really thinking. The force field is one of two things that makes protoss able to win any engagement beyond the first 8 minutes of the game (second being collossi) assuming it's against an opponent with equal macro.
The fact is that Protoss ground forces are expensive, all 2 supply, and extremely weak for their high cost. A few marines and marauders can kill twice their cost in Protoss units very easily. A single medivac full can annihilate so many freaking units! This pretty much means warping in units for drop defense doesn't work. Protoss ground armies are just pathetic for their cost. They get raped by pretty much every unit composition from both races. Force field allows you to split your enemy's army and thus make the fight EVEN, as well as opening a plethora of strategies.
You make it sound so complicated. If blizzard wanted to remove forcefields, all they'd need to do is buff the units a bit, end of story.
The reasoning behind making Protoss units weak in the first place was probably counting on forcefields to make up for it.
4gate is already whined about incessantly, let's buff gateway units and make 4gate even more standard? No thanks.
On March 20 2011 00:38 42x10 wrote: The number of people advocating the removal of force fields is _so wierd_. Makes it obvious that a lot of you guys are posting without really thinking. The force field is one of two things that makes protoss able to win any engagement beyond the first 8 minutes of the game (second being collossi) assuming it's against an opponent with equal macro.
The fact is that Protoss ground forces are expensive, all 2 supply, and extremely weak for their high cost. A few marines and marauders can kill twice their cost in Protoss units very easily. A single medivac full can annihilate so many freaking units! This pretty much means warping in units for drop defense doesn't work. Protoss ground armies are just pathetic for their cost. They get raped by pretty much every unit composition from both races. Force field allows you to split your enemy's army and thus make the fight EVEN, as well as opening a plethora of strategies.
You make it sound so complicated. If blizzard wanted to remove forcefields, all they'd need to do is buff the units a bit, end of story.
The reasoning behind making Protoss units weak in the first place was probably counting on forcefields to make up for it.
On March 20 2011 00:42 Sanguinarius wrote: Everyone watches the GSL and notes the amazing FFs and how they owned up July, but what people dont notice is that its REALLY REALLY hard to do that.
it's not hard if somebody's already mastered it, and the game has been out for less than a year.
On March 20 2011 00:25 DuckS wrote: I read only about 6-7 pages.. It's just amazing, the 'logic' used in this thread.
There's no getting around that Protoss ABSOLUTELY needs FF's, unless if Zealot/Stalker is buffed to be on-par with MM and roach/ling. And an FF nerf.. for HP? Really? I'm pretty sure those who are saying "give it HP", you haven't played a game of Protoss. It only takes 1 FF to be gone and it's GG for you. I've lost some games before from purely having only a little crevice inbetween an FF or two; it's sad that someone would even mention this. Furthermore, it IS a talent/skill to have to make good FF's. What MC can do is not what every other toss can do - same goes for MKP's marine splitting.. No other Terran can do it how he does it. And i've also been noticing a trend.. Whoever tends to win the GSL, or whatever race that makes it to the final stages, is immediately imbalanced >.>; i've seen this uproar occur each time after a GSL is taken. Oh, the humor, if football fans were like this "Steelers lost? Oh, wow, packers are so imbalanced"
And a question to Zerg players, as i'm curious. Why can't Z players over maynard their workers to their natural, drone off of both hatches but only slightly on the natural, and save up larva if they expect any pushes? I've been wondering this for awhile - if FFing your ramp is this big of a problem, work around it? Please answer me, as i'm pretty curious.
Hi. I am a random player. I understand your frustration that Protoss needs forcefield for defence. But please understand it from their standpoint as well.
Zerg is really a disadvantaged race. Scouting from Zerg is really REALLY hard. Overlords move far too slow and maps are getting bigger. Zerglings are prevented by both forcefields and wall-ins whilst Zerg bases are open for all to see. The only advantage Zerg has is economy and even that, chronoboost and mules with safe FE like forge FE and 2 rax expand has eroded that.
I agree that FF is indeed too hard on Zerg as playing blind with your opponent going for either 4 gate, 6 gate sentry, stargate play or dt play is extremely tiring. IF and only IF zergs can know what the opponent is up to, then can you argue that July played badly. The fact is, July didn't. MC was just too good at abusing the Zerg race's scouting disadvantage. Not to discredit MC as he is a solid player, but it remains that July didn't play shabby. He was just running out of options and playing blind against a great protoss.
Forcefields are a must for protoss. But i feel tweaking is needed. Enabling forcefield to only be able to be placed on empty hexes would be best. It rewards forward planning by the protoss and does not disadvantage a protoss's defence.
On March 20 2011 00:41 niteReloaded wrote: Forcefields felt terribly wrong from the moment I first learned about the spell. Sure, on the surface they can make some dramatic moments, but the dynamic itself is just flawed imo.
In BW you had to work little wonders like using a fucking arbiter to freeze a unit that's crossing the ramp. In SC2 you use a tier 1 unit and a single click. Wrong.
Except that once you get to 2 base and leave your main base, one forcefield is useless. You need several sentries (usually minimum 3-4). That's at least a 400 gas investment just to defend yourself against something as simple as mass lings, which in spite of your huge gas investment, one misclick still loses you the game.
The flawed understanding in this thread hurts my brain. People here should go play 100 games as Protoss and get a real understanding of the sentry/FF dynamic before posting potential balance changes.
On March 20 2011 00:38 42x10 wrote: The number of people advocating the removal of force fields is _so wierd_. Makes it obvious that a lot of you guys are posting without really thinking. The force field is one of two things that makes protoss able to win any engagement beyond the first 8 minutes of the game (second being collossi) assuming it's against an opponent with equal macro.
The fact is that Protoss ground forces are expensive, all 2 supply, and extremely weak for their high cost. A few marines and marauders can kill twice their cost in Protoss units very easily. A single medivac full can annihilate so many freaking units! This pretty much means warping in units for drop defense doesn't work. Protoss ground armies are just pathetic for their cost. They get raped by pretty much every unit composition from both races. Force field allows you to split your enemy's army and thus make the fight EVEN, as well as opening a plethora of strategies.
You make it sound so complicated. If blizzard wanted to remove forcefields, all they'd need to do is buff the units a bit, end of story.
The reasoning behind making Protoss units weak in the first place was probably counting on forcefields to make up for it.
4gate is already whined about incessantly, let's buff gateway units and make 4gate even more standard? No thanks.
1st part: just because something's imba at one point in the game, and then reverse imba at another doesn't make it balanced.
2nd part: I'm not offering ultimate solutions. SC2 was built on wrong foundations from the beginning. I don't know about you, but I've been in anticipation for Heart of the Swarm in hope it brings changes as radical as BW did to SC vanilla for at least a few months now. So many things are inherently wrong.
FF is a great spell, and very Starcraft-y. The ability to create chokes, trap units, and manipulate the battlefield is very exciting, strong, and dynamic. It by no means "nullifies micro," any more than Dark Swarm from BW nullified micro. Like Dark Swarm, it cannot be "countered" in such a way as to completely nullify the advantage of its use* (which is what many people seem to think should be happening); but it can be responded to in many ways which make it less effective and less devastating than it would be.* This is a good thing, not a bad thing; and saying it makes the game not fun is stupid, and wrong-headed. DS is also similar to FF in that it's a spell which is almost necessary for their given race to be able to survive in certain stages of the game. And like DS it serves to isolate and almost completely "nullify" certain groups of units, and helps when attacking fixed fortifications. Yes, it makes you work harder and can devestate you playing against it; but it's a good spectator spell, it's exciting, and it should stay in the game. So there.
Removing FF or weakening it significantly would be like removing or weakening DS; it would take away excitement factor, remove skill, and make the game blander. Give the other races tools to deal with FF, if they really can't deal with it; but don't remove it or weaken it, because the design of the spell is actually very good, and very Starcraft-y.
And anyway, FF is still nowhere near as powerful as DS; now THAT was a spell so imba that if it was in SC2 in its BW form, we'd have at least a dozen threads whining about it...
*Admittedly, if the Protoss does a bad job placing his forcefields, it can be pretty much 100% useless...but we're assuming that that's not going to happen at high levels.
*No doubt people will respond by saying that DS is a Hive-tech level spell while Sentry is T1.5. However, the fact that Sentries are very, very vulnerable, don't have infinite energy with Consume, are very gas heavy in the early game where you don't have much gas, and take many more clicks and skillful placement to be useful mitigates this.
On March 20 2011 00:52 Captain Peabody wrote: FF is a great spell, and very Starcraft-y. The ability to create chokes, trap units, and manipulate the battlefield is very exciting, strong, and dynamic. It by no means "nullifies micro," any more than Dark Swarm from BW nullified micro. Like Dark Swarm, it cannot be "countered" in such a way as to completely nullify the advantage of its use* (which is what many people seem to think should be happening); but it can be responded to in many ways which make it less effective and less devastating than it would be.* This is a good thing, not a bad thing; and saying it makes the game not fun is stupid, and wrong-headed. DS is also similar to FF in that it's a spell which is almost necessary for their given race to be able to survive in certain stages of the game. And like DS it serves to isolate and almost completely "nullify" certain groups of units, and helps when attacking fixed fortifications. Yes, it makes you work harder and can devestate you playing against it; but it's a good spectator spell, it's exciting, and it should stay in the game. So there.
Removing FF or weakening it significantly would be like removing or weakening DS; it would take away excitement factor, remove skill, and make the game blander. Give the other races tools to deal with FF, if they really can't deal with it; but don't remove it or weaken it, because the design of the spell is actually very good, and very Starcraft-y.
And anyway, FF is still nowhere near as powerful as DS; now THAT was a spell so imba that if it was in SC2 in its BW form, we'd have at least a dozen threads whining about it...
*Admittedly, if the Protoss does a bad job placing his forcefields, it can be pretty much 100% useless...but we're assuming that that's not going to happen at high levels.
*No doubt people will respond by saying that DS is a Hive-tech level spell while Sentry is T1.5. However, the fact that Sentries are very, very vulnerable, don't have infinite energy with Consume, are very gas heavy in the early game where you don't have much gas, and take many more clicks and skillful placement to be useful mitigates this.
FF has no place in SC2 imo. I agree that its defensive use great but it is way too versatile. Preventing reinforcements by blocking ramps, splitting armies, defending scouting, being the one to decide the engage and terrain. It is all too strong in the hands of a player like MC's calibre.
Maybe the game is balanced at our lower levels. BUT in the top tier, it has no place. Dark swarm has been taken out, irradiate taken out. All abilities in SC2 has been watered down , thus it is not fair to compare forcefield to dark swarm.
It can be tweaked to reduce its versatility instead of outright removal. Favour more planning and defensive usage by disallowing placement over units and buildings. Thus u cannot split armies but still can choose whether u want to trap the enemy in or deflect enemy melee. Also, ramp blocking can be detered with more micro from the zerg by zergling blocking. It causes for a better game in general.
Peace =) . btw im a random player not some zerg QQ whiner TL-ers like to point fingers of accusations at
...to everyone saying FF's are "hard" to pull off effectively, go try and blanket storms in BW, then come back to me. You have NO clue what you're talking about. I'm not taking anything away from MC, because god knows I can't FF like that, but it really is almost too easy to rip apart a Zerg with FF which requires relatively little actual micro ability. I mean, sweet Jesus, his army was almost pure sentry at some points.
Edit: I'm not saying that anything should be changed, just that people need to realize that how "hard" something is, is a relative measure and that when compared to their yield, FF's are very simple to pull off.
On March 20 2011 00:42 Sanguinarius wrote: Everyone watches the GSL and notes the amazing FFs and how they owned up July, but what people dont notice is that its REALLY REALLY hard to do that. And forcefields are unforgiving in that if you mess them up, you are more than dead. There is a tiny margin for err.
Pros are Pros, and things that might be slightly OP for pros are not a balance issue for many of us, because we just suck at placing FFs.
IMO, this approach is wrong. We should look at the maximum potential as much as possible. Balance should be for the pros. WE all watch and want to emulate the pros and the general skill level of SC2 players will always increase. We dont want to seek to balance the games at all levels even bronze. its just not possible.
I can outright tell u as a random player, Zerg has the hardest mechanics and strategies due to blind playing and less versatility. In this case, it takes a zerg player more skill in mechanics to win a lower skilled player. Is this balance? Well please reconsider your ideas in that
On March 19 2011 19:17 Skyze wrote: to anyone who says FF is imbalance.. I have a simple challenge for you.
Try to play Protoss at Masters WITHOUT using one forcefield.. I dare you. See how badly forcefield is required.
And even if you do use it, 99.9999% chance you will get no where near as good as forcefields as MC.. He is the best in the world, point blank. Watch every other "pro" Protoss player, they dont win every game simply by going mass sentries.. If it was that easy, every protoss would be winning every single game like nothing. Forcefield "placing" is a large talent, trust me.. I have over 2000 protoss games so far, and I still land shitty forcefields once in awhile. It really is an art, and put it this way; you miss one forcefield vs terran, its gg.
This doesn't mean anything. I could easily just say I dare you to play Zerg and try to get around what MC did. Because the truth is, the only direction is that everyone will get better and get closer to MC's level of FF use. And then when that happens, what is Zerg suppose to do? You can't get better at getting out of FF because it's completely dependent on the Protoss placing them well or horribly.
I agree that Protoss would be absolutely horrible without FF, but they're arguably too strong in the early-mid game stages too. They're already trying to make fungal a projectile, why not experimenting with making FF a projectile? Or even maybe adding a CD to FF so you can't just spam the crap out of it.
On March 19 2011 23:55 epoc wrote: Imo nerfing force fields isn't a good idea. They should instead give zerg some kinda counter. For example a spell that removes force fields. I know this is very bad example but something that zerg can do to counter without completely removing ff.
A guy in the other thread had the idea of making queens massive so they can stomp through Forcefields. This would also make them un-liftable by pheonix however which would have to be considered. I for one believe this is the perfect solution for our forcefield issues.
The problem is that FF is not so OP against terran compared to zerg. Well maybe it is in the sense that it makes a gateway army go from useless to somewhat effective vs bio. I think if FF's are taken out toss will be too weak against early-mid game terran.
Someone suggested making queens massive units and it sounds like a good idea. Concussive shells imo should be taken out of the game and tanks should be 2 supply to encourage more mech based play instead.
FF's are powerful. And to all those who suggest that it resembles swarm from BW, think for a moment: can you escape swarm? Yes.
can you retreat or reinforce through a FF? no.
The effect this has may not just be "imba" but I think it just removes gameplay excitement. Imagine the future, where all toss in the GSL are least as good as MC is now. (shudder...) perfect FF's would destroy zergs. A sentry push definitely would come before any burrow+burrow movement shenanigans.
I know I would be far more excited by perfect storms or swarms rather than perfect FF's, because with storms and swarms, there are ways to brilliantly micro your units around them and THIS is a reason for excitement, but for FF's, if they cover an entire choke, there is very little that one can do excepting burrow micro or getting massive units to walk over them.
I think that 1 of 3 options are necessary to help the ZvP MU against FF's:
-make them have health (which, however, would spoil the nature of impassable terrain creation) -make them require more energy, and increase sentry starting energy to that amount (to help block rushes, but to reduce their power late game -make them unplaceable on creep (this would encourage toss to try to prevent creep spread more actively, and would force toss to chose where to engage more)
what do you think about these ideas? Just a note, I don't believe they are IMBA, or anything... I just feel that they make matches so boring when you see a FF blocking a ramp from reinforcements -> GG
On March 19 2011 23:55 epoc wrote: Imo nerfing force fields isn't a good idea. They should instead give zerg some kinda counter. For example a spell that removes force fields. I know this is very bad example but something that zerg can do to counter without completely removing ff.
A guy in the other thread had the idea of making queens massive so they can stomp through Forcefields. This would also make them un-liftable by pheonix however which would have to be considered. I for one believe this is the perfect solution for our forcefield issues.
On March 20 2011 01:47 Kimaker wrote: ...to everyone saying FF's are "hard" to pull off effectively, go try and blanket storms in BW, then come back to me. You have NO clue what you're talking about. I'm not taking anything away from MC, because god knows I can't FF like that, but it really is almost too easy to rip apart a Zerg with FF which requires relatively little actual micro ability. I mean, sweet Jesus, his army was almost pure sentry at some points.
Edit: I'm not saying that anything should be changed, just that people need to realize that how "hard" something is, is a relative measure and that when compared to their yield, FF's are very simple to pull off.
Yeah, anyone who's played BW knows how ridiculously easy force fields and storms are to pull off in sc2. I wouldn't change anything either, but it's intruguing to think if the game would actually be better with a poorer user interface...
its one of the basic design issues sc2 has. lots of situations/abilities make it that one player is the one microing and depending on how well he does the fight gets decided on that with the other guy mostly just watching.
new fungal will be just another thing in that direction.
i just hope that over the next 2 years blizz tries to bring more of the "powerbalance" (the shifting of power within one game that happened so much in bw) and "micro" balance into sc2. since both are very important for more exciting and less onesided games.
On March 20 2011 01:47 Kimaker wrote: ...to everyone saying FF's are "hard" to pull off effectively, go try and blanket storms in BW, then come back to me. You have NO clue what you're talking about. I'm not taking anything away from MC, because god knows I can't FF like that, but it really is almost too easy to rip apart a Zerg with FF which requires relatively little actual micro ability. I mean, sweet Jesus, his army was almost pure sentry at some points.
Edit: I'm not saying that anything should be changed, just that people need to realize that how "hard" something is, is a relative measure and that when compared to their yield, FF's are very simple to pull off.
but it's intruguing to think if the game would actually be better with a poorer user interface...
well im sure tons of bw players would love to see the game get harder with a worse interface.
i fully understand that we need a easy to use interface in 2010. but no one can deny that it took ALOT of excitement out of the game in many situations.
i could go nuts about a Z flanking with a huge army in bw cause i know its sick hard to execute that well. i would scream in amazement when i saw good carpet storms winning a game. now i just go " meh he aclicked 2 times" or " spamming storm... something evry silver guy can do...".
its way easier to find exciting stuff when you know evrything they do is hard. and its hard to get excited when you watch a top pro level game and think "well that looks like one of my laddergames".
dunno if it would be a better game and i doubt it. but it sure as hell would be more exciting to watch in lots of situations.
I think forcefields need changed but I don't think there is a good solution. I play terran so I won't speak on pvz but all I know it toss needs them vT for early pushes, without them the early game would be the only part of the game tvp. However they can also be exploited by blocking a terran's ramp forcing T to tech to drops just to leave his base just so he can make the toss retreat and take his really really late expo. Just like the marine I think forcefield needs something about it changed but I really don't think there is anything you can do to it without drastically changing the game.
I don't understand?, Forcefields are strong for sure, but so are alot of abilities. there is nothign wrong with them as far as I can see. There is a way to deal with it it's not broken, July just got a third spire tech hydra AND Burrow, no way he can afford enough roaches to hold a 2 base all in, let alone he didn't make any spines. Soon everyone will figure this out the same way everyone figured out kyrixs low tier Aggression and Nestea Stopped MKP's Reign with marines back in Season 2.
Removing FF is a terrible idea... have you seen a zealot/stalker army without forcefields vs an equal size MM ball or roach/ling that gets a half decent surrond? It's a slaughter..
And for the people that say "FF is easy you just point and click"... you can boil ANY action in this game to that...
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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.
From my perspective, it is obvious that the Force Field, as it is at the moment is breaking the game. The very simple reasons are as follows :
- There is nothing that can be done to mitigate their effect until late game (massive units, high-level upgrades, decent amount of flying units, etc.). - They allow a good protoss to utterly destroy any opponent with little effort. - They allow "unfair" tactics way too easily : blocking ramps instantly. (imagine if a terran could instantly bunker-block a ramp...). - Comparable abilities are not available to either zerg or terran.
I'm glad that MC showcased this fact in such a brilliant fashion, which will hopefully make Blizzard react. Will anyone argue that MC is unbeatable (at least vs zerg) as it is at the moment? QED
On March 20 2011 02:21 Exstasy wrote: I don't understand?, Forcefields are strong for sure, but so are alot of abilities. there is nothign wrong with them as far as I can see. There is a way to deal with it it's not broken, July just got a third spire tech hydra AND Burrow, no way he can afford enough roaches to hold a 2 base all in, let alone he didn't make any spines. Soon everyone will figure this out the same way everyone figured out kyrixs low tier Aggression and Nestea Stopped MKP's Reign with marines back in Season 2.
How can u "figure" it out? The whole point of FF is that u cant do anything about it. Only hydras with range upgrade can counter them but the rush comes at a timing before u can get them out. The problem is that zerg t1 units are melee or short range so when FF's are cast the majority of the army cant attack and the stalkers outrange the roaches (and the roaches cant move into range). Terran units on the other hand are ranged so they can still fight back even if blocked.
Also game 1 was just impossible, what can u do when u cant even reinforce ur army. The roaches dont even have the range to attack from the cliff.
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.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
gettting put speed instead of burrowed movement is the standard. for a reason too. you wanan be able to outrun stalkers and other toss units and be faster on the map, for reasons of map control and agression. burrowed movement comes after that and even then its situational , especially if you base your army around roaches AND hydras, which do not profit from burrowed movement at all. in addition theres the fact that you need another uprade in order to make burrowed movement feasible, namely burrow.
apart from that, the thread has already deviated far from the july-mc example and now seems to revolve mostly around forcefields in general. and a 4gate that hits with 4-5 sentries can still ff your ramp forever while burrowed movement can not even be thought about at that point of the game.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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 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.
Stop copying and pasting your rubbish on 20 different threads. There is nothing wrong with these abilities like forcefield or fungal growth. They add flavour to the game and make it interesting to play. You can admire players like IdrA who use perfect fungals and MC who uses perfect forcefields. These are what make the game a worthy e-sport. Noone wants a simple a-move fest.
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.
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 02:34 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.
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 02:34 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.
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.
You can split your units but not dodge emp ,lol
I meant that by splitting you can dodge...sorry, poorly worded on my part.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
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.
That's pretty much the important factor in that statement. Yes what marineking did with marines against banelings was great, but the player with banelings could have done the same with banelings to counter his counter (and a lot do now).
As far as the difficulty of using force field like mc did...I don't really feel there is as much art to it as people making sound. I random in team games so I've used my share of forcefield...and supposing you're not freaking out at the time with a good amount of sentries isolating units is not in my opinion overly difficult...isolating them perfectly yeah sure that takes some skill, but doing it enough to nulify at least some units ability to micro really isn't. I'm by no means a high level protoss player and I've had my moments of completely entombing my opponents army in a circle of forcefields.
A high level protoss in my opinion should have no problem what so ever doing what MC did to july with forcefields.
However, that's not to say forcefields are broken or anything like that...as their is plenty of really really good ways to punish a player for having that many sentries on the fields, as they are extremely weak combat units when you take away their force field advantage. I've seen a lot of good games where the tosses opponent spots the heavy early sentry count and quickly techs to ghosts/lair+burrow to completely ruin the day of the toss player. Or uses strats that will force the protoss to force field a ton all the way across the map so by the time the toss gets to their base they are extremely low on sentry energy (see banelings / small terran hit squads).
Overall I think July's rather underwhelming response to the mass sentry play of MC overly emphasized the power of forcefields more then forcefields being that amazing.
In my opinion, these "micro stoppers" you mentioned should require more skill somehow than it takes to micro out of them. I'm not really sure how this is possible, but the game would be a whole lot better if it took crazy good micro to be able to zone an army with FFs, like managing defilers or science vessels was in BW. Maybe disabling smart casting would help.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
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
The main thing that you have to take into consideration is where Toss would be without FF's.
We would get stomped...Everygame before the 11 minute mark. Our units are cost innefficient until we start getting out the T3 and make the switch to more efficient units. Taking away/nerfing FF's, would just nullify our earlygame and force us to...cannon..or something.
If you wanna buff gateway units, and remove/nerf FF, then have fun holding off 4 gates.
Personally i think more mistakes were made by July then MC, obviously. July consistently retreated into tiny chokes/worse areas then attempt to draw his opponent out into wider areas, and wasnt it said that he was trying a new "style" that he thought up that night or something? Do people really expect to win a Bo7 vs a prior champion using an unpracticed style? We saw amazing stuff out of July prior to this, personally i think he just dropped the ball, regardless of FF's, burrow+move/not opening pool first on every map could've helped July when he saw heavy FF usage everygame.
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
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.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
Yeah, Zelniqtotally 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 start 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.
Force fields are a tricky spell because the way the game works is without them protoss can't hold off shit and would die to so much. If you want force fields gone than blizzard will have to restructure the protoss race completely, and asking for that is just not realistic.
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
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.
But then you cannot split armies. Completely useless.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
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
My lack of knowledge? You play this game at a high level? I'm not questioning your authority, maybe you are a skilled player but your replies shows one of non zerg understanding. I play random 3200 masters SEA, 3500 NA.
Roaches do get ripped apart from a 6 gate stalker ball. Try it yourself with decent blink micro in a realistic non wide area situation.
second, you need burrow movement to negate forcefield's effects of dictating the rules of engagement. Proper burrow micro reduces your effective army count in an important battle which negates the fact whether u have a bigger army or not.
You can afford to deflect a stargate, IF u can get lair faster than he gets a stargate expand off. Do u know that zergs have been getting lair later and later because its instalose against 4 gate?
Last, DT and immortals it would be easy to counter. If I know whats going on in the first place in your base. Constant poking is negated by effective hiding of units in your main. At high level, denying zerg scout is all too easy. The fact is that the game has taken it to the extent that zergs are playing blind for the first 5 minutes and are getting punished too heavily. resulting in blind countering of 4 gate or overgreedy macro.
The other races just need a way to kinda counter FF. Sure once Terran has Thors and Zerg gets Ultras they break through FF but we need another mechanic that comes earlier in the game. So far zerg can burrow move roaches under FF but with a single observer it can at times do more harm than good. Zerg may also be able to better utilize baneling drops against FF but I think it still gives Protoss a bigger advantage. Terran can at least EMP the sentries before too many FF are on the field and Terran units typically have much more range than Zerg units (siege) making them less susceptible to FF.
Possible changes if FF becomes too strong are nerfs to how long a FF stays on the field or perhaps the presence of creep prevents the use of FF all together (preventing offensive ramp blocking and promotes more anti-creep play).
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
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.
But then you cannot split armies. Completely useless.
I disagree that it would be completely useless. You can still use them defensively, and preemptively, or even trapping an army from running away. Which are still key things forcefields are used for.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
Yeah, Zelniqtotally 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.
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.
Man, I totally agree. My friends and I were watching the GSL last night and actually felt BAD for July..forcefields are way too good at the moment, and even though MC is the best protoss in the world, it seems like it doesnt take a lot of skill just to lay some forcefields.
Yes, MC is smart getting sentries out first to build up some energy, but a spell to completely nulify an entire zergs army is somewhat...yes ok OP!
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
Yeah, Zelniqtotally 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.
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.
Don't think anyone other than someone as good as him would be successful. Just because you have the means to stop high sentry warpgate play doesn't mean you have the means to stop him
I'm not combing through all the pages in this thread to check, so I hope this hasn't been mentioned...if so +1! What I think would be a good solution is to simply add HP to FF. A large amount would be good, maybe 500? It would require a lot of testing to find a balanced number. If people are finding this is too much of a nerf another possibility would be to have FF start with HP, say 500 again, then have an upgrade available that makes them invulnerable like they are now.
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
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.
Bad idea, it makes ramps impossible to defend early game against lightning fast zerglings and stimmed marines*. I'll hold position a marauder in the ramp and deny all hope of protoss surviving early game against terran.
I think my idea beats yours. IF there's one nerf I'd apply on FF, it would be giving it a cooldown.
*Considering an average mid-skilled dude. MC could definitely pull it off on perfect timing
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
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
1. Couldn't agree more with what you said.
2. I wish you'd just closed this thread lol.. the ignorance on display is making my head hurt
edit; The idea of not being able to FF where units are is terrible. How would one propose forcefielding against mass zerglings if you can't place a single FF where one ling is? Or trying to catch half the terran bio as they stim up your ramp?
I was talking about that with Slush right now and he said that forcefield should be a channeling ability in his opinion. This change would make forcefield counterable by killing the sentry that is channeling it, it would also stop the sentry from attacking while putting down a forcefield prison but would still be viable to block your ramp / the other player's ramp / his army trying to retreat, etc. But the forcefielded player would have to micro to snipe the sentries that are channeling forcefields. I completly agree with that idea.
On March 20 2011 02:44 Zelniq wrote: 1. roaches do not get ripped up apart by 6 gate blink stalker ball
I'm sorry but that's just not true. Well microed blink stalker absolutely destroy roaches. I haven't seen pure roach ever work against it outside of low tier play. Hydras work. A combination of lings and roaches with speed aren't cost effective but they can work if u can heavily outproduce the stalkers. Roaches alone tho, definitely not.
"Terran beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? MARINES IMBA!" "Protoss beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? COLLOSSI, FORCE FIELD IMBA!" "Zerg wins GSL and has tournament success? A TRIUMPH OF INDIVIDUAL SKILL THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS IMBALANCE!" It's really frustrating how people refuse to be objective about this. The game isn't imbalanced, just play and get better. Stop letting your opinions on the game be influenced by which group of people cries the loudest and stop telling me my race is OP every time i beat you in a ladder game.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
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
My lack of knowledge? You play this game at a high level? I'm not questioning your authority, maybe you are a skilled player but your replies shows one of non zerg understanding. I play random 3200 masters SEA, 3500 NA.
Roaches do get ripped apart from a 6 gate stalker ball. Try it yourself with decent blink micro in a realistic non wide area situation.
second, you need burrow movement to negate forcefield's effects of dictating the rules of engagement. Proper burrow micro reduces your effective army count in an important battle which negates the fact whether u have a bigger army or not.
You can afford to deflect a stargate, IF u can get lair faster than he gets a stargate expand off. Do u know that zergs have been getting lair later and later because its instalose against 4 gate?
Last, DT and immortals it would be easy to counter. If I know whats going on in the first place in your base. Constant poking is negated by effective hiding of units in your main. At high level, denying zerg scout is all too easy. The fact is that the game has taken it to the extent that zergs are playing blind for the first 5 minutes and are getting punished too heavily. resulting in blind countering of 4 gate or overgreedy macro.
I love it when someone who has no idea of who people are, un-intentionally talks down to one of the best US players of their race as if they have no idea what they are talking about.
" you are a skilled player but your replies shows one of non zerg understanding."
On March 20 2011 03:02 42x10 wrote: "Terran beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? MARINES IMBA!" "Protoss beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? COLLOSSI, FORCE FIELD IMBA!" "Zerg wins GSL and has tournament success? A TRIUMPH OF INDIVIDUAL SKILL THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS IMBALANCE!" It's really frustrating how people refuse to be objective about this. The game isn't imbalanced, just play and get better. Stop letting your opinions on the game be influenced by which group of people cries the loudest and stop telling me my race is OP every time i beat you in a ladder game.
Amen. Most concise and correct post in this thread.
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
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.
Bad idea, it makes ramps impossible to defend early game against lightning fast zerglings and stimmed marines*. I'll hold position a marauder in the ramp and deny all hope of protoss surviving early game against terran.
I think my idea beats yours. IF there's one nerf I'd apply on FF, it would be giving it a cooldown.
*Considering an average mid-skilled dude. MC could definitely pull it off on perfect timing
We'll agree to disagree. I mean I don't really think FF's need to be nerfed anyways, though I will acknowledge a good idea just for the sake of it being a good idea.
when blizzard say they REALLY REALLY like forcefields as #2 said, i must say, i too. For me the mistake was on Julys site always, fighting with hydras offcreep on the smallest position on shakuras .... RLY ??? no ...
On March 20 2011 02:44 Zelniq wrote: 1. roaches do not get ripped up apart by 6 gate blink stalker ball
I'm sorry but that's just not true. Well microed blink stalker absolutely destroy roaches. I haven't seen pure roach ever work against it outside of low tier play. Hydras work. A combination of lings and roaches with speed aren't cost effective but they can work if u can heavily outproduce the stalkers. Roaches alone tho, definitely not.
L3gendary it sounds like you're talking about a 1 base blink stalker build, not an expo build where the timing comes much later and you can have speed and burrow and plenty of roaches in time. if that is what you're talking about, yes just pure roaches can work vs blink stalkers, i've experience playing vs Kiwi who's got probably the best protoss micro in NA, which certainly falls "outside of low tier play"
On March 20 2011 02:59 Fredz wrote: I was talking about that with Slush right now and he said that forcefield should be a channeling ability in his opinion. This change would make forcefield counterable by killing the sentry that is channeling it, it would also stop the sentry from attacking while putting down a forcefield prison but would still be viable to block your ramp / the other player's ramp / his army trying to retreat, etc. But the forcefielded player would have to micro to snipe the sentries that are channeling forcefields. I completly agree with that idea.
The problem is, that you wouldn't be able to get away without losing every single sentry. The Protoss army is the slowest one compared to Zerg (2 Speed Upgrades) and Terran (Stim).
And I'm not sure if you could still defend you 3-Gate FE against zerg,
also think that this is NOT wc3, there is more then micro there is multitask, macro etc etc so much to do and i dont see any "abuse" yet, just mistakes by opponents and july did ALOT BIG mistakes this time (it hurts me as july fan BUT he just did them ... stupid decisions from god of war i know it hurts me even saying it )
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
Yup. Funny to see people atribute a win / loss to a in game ability but they forget all the rest that lead up to it. It's like MC getting carriers / voids, July doing nothing, and then at the end losing to them. I come here and bitch about how OP voids and carriers are. Kinda makes you wonder the leagues of the players that are commenting.
So what you're saying is that July has to have 100 food worth of army already down the ramp when MC arrives? MC rolled up with ~50 food, then forcefielded for a while and reinforced with more army, while it was impossible for July to reinforce.
Do people not understand that the forcefields made it impossible for July to reinforce? Had he had the ability to reinforce he would have held it.
No way in hell he would have held that with the build order he chose.
On March 20 2011 02:59 Fredz wrote: I was talking about that with Slush right now and he said that forcefield should be a channeling ability in his opinion. This change would make forcefield counterable by killing the sentry that is channeling it, it would also stop the sentry from attacking while putting down a forcefield prison but would still be viable to block your ramp / the other player's ramp / his army trying to retreat, etc. But the forcefielded player would have to micro to snipe the sentries that are channeling forcefields. I completly agree with that idea.
If this is the case a protoss army cannot retreat from an offensive manoeuvre or unfavourable fight without sacrificing 2-5 free sentries to his opponent. Toss units are just too slow to retreat.
How about making the sentry's attack beam cost energy to attack. 1 Energy per attack. Means you cannot rely on sentry damage if you want enough forcefields to pull off early FF shenanigans and forces you to have more stalkers in your army early.
It'd make the units ridiculously unforgiving for its cost though.
yet another thread of people seeing one person with godly micro make something look OP. You know what? Complain enough that blizzard nerfs ff's so theyre completely useless. But if they do that, there is a 100% chance that they will buff zealot and stalker to compensate. If they do that, have fun getting rushed at 6 minutes every XvP matchup.
It's absolutely silly how so many people post that something is broken the second someone dominates a match with that unit/skill. Instead of trying to figure out how to work-around, people just say "ff op/ka op/marine op/marauder op/concussive op/etc" and cry enough/theorycraft nerfs until blizzard hears your woes. All in the name of balance though! Disgusting.
Fungal would be more dynamic if it slowed instead of stopped. Concussive shells sucks, and should be nerfed to 33% or 25% instead of 50%. Force field - I don't really have a problem with it, except I think burrow should be hatch tech. Maybe nerf the duration or the cost?
Oh I read some more comments and I do like the idea of FF not being able to "push" units away. Or maybe they can only push "light" units away? This way it still maintains its defensive purpose and prevents cutting the other army in half.
I'm not here to whine or complain (though, god, I hate getting ramp-FF'd), I'm just trying to pull some potential solutions to situations like what occurred in Game 1. Let's take a look at the scouted information available to July.
Given that MC showed at least 1 Stalker and multiple Sentries, does that alone lead to "fake expo"? I don't think so, I feel as if more Protoss players have been doing a good job of trying to cover up their strategy by grabbing one of each these days.
MC did not throw down a Forge at the Pylon at his natural. Potentially telling as someone like MC should not forget that. At the very least, that is suspicious.
You can tell July is desperately trying to sneak a ling up and almost succeeds but only after he runs into a few more units. I don't think that alone is telling as these units were all sentries.
July did leave a ling down south, but not right outside MC's natural. This could have given him maybe enough time to have his 2 spines finish and ideally thrown down more.
July did not have an Overlord placed in the "dead-zone" behind MC's natural. This would have been the ultimate boon to him as he could have perfectly seen the 3 extra gates and the cancel (maybe, but that wouldn't be necessary as he has seen the gates). Then again, July might not expect to need an Overlord there as he had his lings in MC's natural. However, July did have an idle Overlord to the NE of MC's main which had plenty of time to get into position behind the natural.
With that high Sentry count, FF push is the only option once July scouts it. This basically (in my very inexperienced opinion) would necessitate a larger ground force in the Zerg's natural (which could handle the push on their own), a flanking force which could go for the probe or pylon, 3-4+ spines at the natural, or Roach burrow. I don't think he'd have had enough time for Lair->Burrow+Burrow Move unless he be-lined straight for it, and in that case he would not have been able to afford enough Roaches.
So, July lost because he was not able to scout everything. The FF at his ramp was extraneous to his loss IMO as he could still win if his ramp was FF'd and he had, say, 4+ spines at his natural.
On March 20 2011 03:10 0neder wrote: Fungal would be more dynamic if it slowed instead of stopped. Concussive shells sucks, and should be nerfed to 33% or 25% instead of 50%. Force field - I don't really have a problem with it, except I think burrow should be hatch tech. Maybe nerf the duration or the cost?
What if Fungal was altered to do more damage and more slow the more the opponent moves their units instead of just freezing them? For example, for every certain distance a fungal'd unit is moved during the duration of the spell, it takes more damage and is slowed more. So it might take 35 damage total when standing still and have a 50% move speed reduction , but 70 damage total and 75% move speed reduction if it continues to move throughout the whole duration of the spell.
I disagree about Concussive. It's how Terran can punish an enemy engaging unwisely, just like Protoss and force fields.
For example MC vs July. Because of the huge number of forcefields, and MC's skill to place them, there was nothing july could do.
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)
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
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
My lack of knowledge? You play this game at a high level? I'm not questioning your authority, maybe you are a skilled player but your replies shows one of non zerg understanding. I play random 3200 masters SEA, 3500 NA.
Roaches do get ripped apart from a 6 gate stalker ball. Try it yourself with decent blink micro in a realistic non wide area situation.
second, you need burrow movement to negate forcefield's effects of dictating the rules of engagement. Proper burrow micro reduces your effective army count in an important battle which negates the fact whether u have a bigger army or not.
You can afford to deflect a stargate, IF u can get lair faster than he gets a stargate expand off. Do u know that zergs have been getting lair later and later because its instalose against 4 gate?
Last, DT and immortals it would be easy to counter. If I know whats going on in the first place in your base. Constant poking is negated by effective hiding of units in your main. At high level, denying zerg scout is all too easy. The fact is that the game has taken it to the extent that zergs are playing blind for the first 5 minutes and are getting punished too heavily. resulting in blind countering of 4 gate or overgreedy macro.
I love it when someone who has no idea of who people are, un-intentionally talks down to one of the best US players of their race as if they have no idea what they are talking about.
" you are a skilled player but your replies shows one of non zerg understanding."
I'm a SEA competitive player as well. I do not talk down a person's skill but a person's idea. I mean just cause you are good doesn't make it like you KNOW what you are talking about. I believe i did not insult nor did i deride him for his opinions. I just felt his opinions are not correct. and by the way I said I play random and I try put my ideas off as objective and not whine. Peace
Anybody else think that a Zerg can just send a wave of lings at his opponent to soak up some FFs before these timing pushes? I know that usually keeps my sentry energy low but then again, it only takes one FF to block a ramp. I should know, it's one of my favorite attacks against FE anything.
Basically, if you see a lot of sentries, you kinda have to try and bait FFs and lings are great FF bait if he doesn't want to lose any of his gas units to your mineral only cheap units. Then again, what do I know. I'm only theorycrafting here.
MC deserved to win that final as July simply made too many mistakes, but at the same time I agree with the fact that "anti-micro" abilities like FF and concussion shells need to be changed in some way.
It does take skill to use force fields as well as MC did, but I still find it a hell of a lot more boring than most things you see in BW. What made BW balance so good was that there was skill involved for BOTH sides when it came to spells. It takes a lot of effort to cast good storms with the old UI, but it can also be countered with good unit spread and prediction. Same goes for BW EMP, dark swarm, and irradiate. That doesn't happen with SC2. EMPs can no longer be dodged in SC2. Neither can fungal growth, concussive shells, or force fields. The micro is purely dependent on the player casting it, and is almost completely independent of anything the opposing player can do.
How do you counter good storm usage in SC1? You spread out your units and control them well. How do you counter good force field usage in SC2? You research burrow. Don't have burrow? You lose.
See the difference there? With SC1 storms, even if you don't have the optimal unit composition and upgrades, you can still survive and win just by out-controlling your opponent. You can't out-control force fields though. Any unit that gets a good force field on them is dead, end of story. MC showed just how hopeless it to fight against good FFs when the opponent doesn't have the scissors (burrowed roach) to counter MC's paper. And strict rock-paper-scissors gameplay is precisely what SC2 should keep away from. I still commend MC's amazing skill, but at the same time I found the finals utterly boring. If games like these are the future of SC2 e-sports, then I'm going to be very worried.
On March 19 2011 18:51 wonderwall wrote: Forcefield requires impossible amounts of micro from one player to deny the other player the ability to micro. Forcefield is probably bringing more micro into the game just from the other player. It also requires the receiver of the forcefield to consider positioning and how he is going to engage much more. If there is one thing forcefield isn't doing its dumbing down the game.
This guy is spot on.
Forcefields TAKE more "mirco" then simply backing up your concusive shell stimmed marauders.
We should be talking about how amazing it is to turn an unfavorable battlefield into an advantageous one through MIRCO.
This spell is also great entertainment, if you carefully watch the positioning of them.
Bonus: EGIncontrol has great forcefielding, so fun to watch.
On March 19 2011 19:12 Gingerninja wrote: Wider Chokes. Simple really. Protoss would need to wall off with buildings still but probably need the sentries to FF to defend. Would take a lot more FF to block a zergs ramp, and you couldn't indefinably keep them there like game 1 showed. Ofc if you get doughnutted in open field then that's your own fault.
Then Protoss would die to fast rushes. Protoss need FFs for defense early game to counter fast roach rushes and concussive shell attacks. It's absolutely necessary in pretty much all match-ups if you get rushed super fast.
On March 19 2011 18:51 wonderwall wrote: Forcefield requires impossible amounts of micro from one player to deny the other player the ability to micro. Forcefield is probably bringing more micro into the game just from the other player. It also requires the receiver of the forcefield to consider positioning and how he is going to engage much more. If there is one thing forcefield isn't doing its dumbing down the game.
This guy is spot on.
Forcefields TAKE more "mirco" then simply backing up your concusive shell stimmed marauders.
We should be talking about how amazing it is to turn an unfavorable battlefield into an advantageous one through MIRCO.
This spell is also great entertainment, if you carefully watch the positioning of them.
Bonus: EGIncontrol has great forcefielding, so fun to watch.
I am sure if streaming was popular (and around) in the early days of WoW griefing with Rogues would be fun to watch for other Rogue players...
Each time I watched some Zerg streamer lose a game because of a infinite main ramp FF while natural hatchery dies made me not want to play Zerg or SC2 at all.
On March 20 2011 03:51 Kyuss420 wrote: i think forcefield just needs to last for a shorter period.
I think if there were ever to be a nerf to forcefield, then making forcefields last for a shorter period of time would be the only justifiable nerf.
-Making them smaller would really make them useless (they wouldn't block anything, and they'd especially provide no defense on ramps against early pushes where they're necessary). -Making them breakable (a.k.a. if they had hp) would make them useless in the mid-to-late game (think of how fast a 150-200 food army would kill off a few forcefields, regardless of the hp). -Making them crushable by more units wouldn't work because of how frequently we already see so many units in SC2. Unless perhaps you made it like the archon, infestor, and siege tank?
That being said, I don't think forcefield needs to be nerfed at the moment anyway.
On March 20 2011 03:51 Kyuss420 wrote: i think forcefield just needs to last for a shorter period.
I think if there were ever to be a nerf to forcefield, then making forcefields last for a shorter period of time would be the only justifiable nerf.
-Making them smaller would really make them useless (they wouldn't block anything, and they'd especially provide no defense on ramps against early pushes where they're necessary). -Making them breakable (a.k.a. if they had hp) would make them useless in the mid-to-late game (think of how fast a 150-200 food army would kill off a few forcefields, regardless of the hp). -Making them crushable by more units wouldn't work because of how frequently we already see so many units in SC2. Unless perhaps you made it like the archon, infestor, and siege tank?
That being said, I don't think forcefield needs to be nerfed at the moment anyway.
if, IF there was a change to FF I'd suggest the spell range go from 9 to 7 or something. (needing to get sentries closer to the target area would definitely make a difference but not totally nerf the value)
the other ideas that aren't aweful. *reduce duration and cost by a % + Show Spoiler +
this might actually BUFF FF by allowing it to be used more often but require more micro
OR *making it a channeled spell - this would however severely (possibly overly so) limit the number of FF that could be used.
On March 20 2011 04:26 DusTerr wrote: OR *making it a channeled spell - this would however severely (possibly overly so) limit the number of FF that could be used.
That would also indirectly make forcefields destructible, since if you kill the sentry, the forcefield would disappear. So no, that wouldn't work.
I personally think July just played VERY poorly vs MC's Forcefields, especially during that last game. He pushed into the FFs, and fought off creep with hydras. He was obviously frustrated or something.
I just think MC had a perfect strat that July just didn't know how to counter. Not that Forcefields are OP or imba.
I think that abilities that prevent micro are pretty boring to watch; the finals were just forcefields, except for the one game that july won. There was no "OMG MC MIGHT LOSE" moments (outside of the one match july won), it was "welp he has 12 sentries and july can't reinforce his expansion because his ramp is permafielded, I guess that's GG".
Wether or not they're unbalanced is a different story, but it's definately something that takes away from the viewing experience. Same with fungal growth. When I see a bunch of banes chasing marines, it's kinda like a scourge chasing a shuttle. But when fungal goes off on a group of marines, there's no excitement; they're dead because he could hit F and plant a beacon down on the marines. It's really, really, boring to see that happen.
I wouldn't fault the players for using them extensively; they're playing for money. By all means, abuse your opponent as much as you can, even if it creates boring matches. It's up to blizzard to change stuff so it's a little funner to watch. Maybe add in a catagory of unit that can break FF's besides massive? But that would basically kill protoss', who rely on FF's for early game defense.
Or make ultras t1 >.> that'd be fun to watch, right?
I haven't read through the entire thread, but I browsed the beginning and end, and it seems like most people arguing for force fields are missing the point. its not that force fields don't require micro to use, but that it limits the ability for your opponent to micro.
perfect force fields take a lot of skill but they also make it so your opponent cannot micro in return outside of roaches burrow movement. this is opposite of what a lot of abilities in bw did.
as a quick example, dark swarm and devour took a good amount of skill by the zerg. the counter took even more micro to move your units out of the way to minimize damage.
The ability to spawn infinite health buildings wherever you want(ff's) is ridiculous and never should have made it past alpha t.t, protoss will need to be compensated but sentries even have guardian shield, which is almost as good.
But there is also the problem of protoss needing to forcefield their ramp to survive certain rushes. Also something that should not happen, it just sounds and feels lame/unintuitive.
Maybe Protoss just needs to start scouting, just like Zerg has to. But FFing the ramp just feels cheap.
This FF on the ramp while taking the natural is complete bs imo. On Xel Naga for instance. You cannot reinforce from your main because of that. It's so lame and with 3 sentries you can already FF the ramp indefinitely. Make it 75 energy for fairness.
On March 20 2011 03:02 42x10 wrote: "Terran beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? MARINES IMBA!" "Protoss beats Zerg in the GSL and has tournament success? COLLOSSI, FORCE FIELD IMBA!" "Zerg wins GSL and has tournament success? A TRIUMPH OF INDIVIDUAL SKILL THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS IMBALANCE!" It's really frustrating how people refuse to be objective about this. The game isn't imbalanced, just play and get better. Stop letting your opinions on the game be influenced by which group of people cries the loudest and stop telling me my race is OP every time i beat you in a ladder game.
Michael J. Fox, lrn2walk. Stop crying 'Parkinson's IMBA,' you're not UP, you just need to learn how to play Parkinson's better, and you'd walk just as well as the rest of us.
Your reply is predicated on the notion that the match-ups *are* balanced and that the Zerg *doesn't* need to be significantly better than thon's opponent. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence here, but how likely is it that after one year of testing, a handful of patches, and a new devteam, we stumble upon the second completely balanced RTS in history? Not all cries of Imba are unfounded.
I'm in Bronze, and I'm not trying to justify my poor league placement through imbalance. My late-game macro needs a lot of work. I sometimes get supply blocked. I can't micro for *shit.* I have trouble with TvP, yes, but that's more a factor of me being unable to macro than imbaimba Force Fields.
That it's not a legitimate complaint for my level of play, however, doesn't mean that legitimate complaints of Imbalance don't exist. It took an amount of mechanical skill, yes, but not the same amount of overwhelming skill that it would take to do anything close to that in BW, and as the game progresses, this sort of 'perfect' Force Fielding will become commonplace among the elite echelon of players.
I don't think I need to emphasize how bad that is. When you have anyone being able to do something consistently perfect in an RTS, it means a skill ceiling has been achieved. If meeting that skill ceiling means you can kill your opponent without him having any reasonable recourse, as I think this series demonstrated, you have a serious balance problem. A compelling RTS should not be based on 'Well, if MC fucks up, July has a shot.' This 'L2P' nonsense becomes meaningless when spells like Force Field, Conc, and Fungal are doing their damnedest to prevent that. The difference between the three is that FF is absolutely pivotal to Protoss success. Concussive's removal would harm Terran, yeah, but not to the degree that the removal of FF would harm Protoss. It's a function of flawed design, and you can't nerf FF without buffing the crap out of other gateway units.
The best solution I can think of, stop-gap though it is, would be to buff Burrow/Burrow Move in some way. Either decrease research time or cost. Either that or decreasing Zerg drops cost. Probably would increase the popularity of baneling mines in ZvT and the necessity for Ravens in that MU (which needs to happen, because Ravens are awesome - HSM + one-sided Dark Swarm? mmmm).
ZvP is messed up. Perhaps July was worse than MC. Very plausible, as it is absolutely foolish to say MC isn't skilled. That said, I don't entirely understand the insistence that because the better player won *this particular match* that the game is balanced. Correlation does not imply causation. The better player winning does not imply that this occurred *because* the game encourages the better player winning. The better player can indeed win despite (or because of the cushion created by, depending on which end they're on) imbalance.
The game will grow, people will get better, but if balance issues do exist, they won't go away on their own. That's why we need to determine whether imbalance exists. Because if imbalance isn't resolved within a year or so after the release of the final expansion, it never will be.
So we have time. We have time to fix imbalance. This post is less about current imbalances than about the fallacious mindsets that lead people to out-of-hand deny that imbalance exists. L2P is at times useful in addressing lower-level complaints of '2-stargate-Phoenix Imba' or some other ridiculous shit. But for strats that haven't actually been beaten when executed correctly, L2P is a cop-out that avoids addressing the issue at question. Is this the case for FFs? Possibly not. But people seem far too eager to use 'L2P' than provide any sort of logical rebuttal to the existence of imbalance. And much like Michael J. Fox playing Jenga, this is bad.
But there is also the problem of protoss needing to forcefield their ramp to survive certain rushes. Also something that should not happen, it just sounds and feels lame/unintuitive.
Maybe Protoss just needs to start scouting, just like Zerg has to. But FFing the ramp just feels cheap.
This FF on the ramp while taking the natural is complete bs imo. On Xel Naga for instance. You cannot reinforce from your main because of that. It's so lame and with 3 sentries you can already FF the ramp indefinitely. Make it 75 energy for fairness.
Actually, you need six sentries to hold a ramp indefinitely.
Protoss has no easy way to scout; solo gateway units get eaten by zerglings and barracks units, and GL getting a probe into your opponent's base when he's got speedlings or marines out on the field. Zerg have overlords, which they can camp near your base so that they can sac it to get info, and terran have scans if they have a dire need to get info. Protoss has the observer after they get a robo, and most timing attacks that threaten protoss are going to come out before your observer, or you'll need an immo to survive, so no obs. Protoss kinda does need FF to help with rushes.
It'd just be nice if 12 sentries and 4 stalkers couldn't kill infinity roaches.
So I'd like to point out a real inconsistency in a lot of these posts. For months, on and off people have been complaining about a lack of "Overpowered' spells in Starcraft. The examples people brought up in BW were often things like dark swarm, irradiate, BW psi storm, stasis field etc.
This could be the start of exactly what you've been asking for. A spell that seems absolutely ridiculous, and will take time to develop counters too. With that in mind, the thing you should all be asking for isn't for a nerf to FF, but rather some sort of micro based answer for zerg. Is that adding a spell to overseers to disable casters? Is that giving burrow movement to more units like zerglings and hydras? I don't know, but what I do know is the last thing SC2 needs is more nerfs.
But there is also the problem of protoss needing to forcefield their ramp to survive certain rushes. Also something that should not happen, it just sounds and feels lame/unintuitive.
Maybe Protoss just needs to start scouting, just like Zerg has to. But FFing the ramp just feels cheap.
This FF on the ramp while taking the natural is complete bs imo. On Xel Naga for instance. You cannot reinforce from your main because of that. It's so lame and with 3 sentries you can already FF the ramp indefinitely. Make it 75 energy for fairness.
Actually, you need six sentries to hold a ramp indefinitely.
Protoss has no easy way to scout; solo gateway units get eaten by zerglings and barracks units, and GL getting a probe into your opponent's base when he's got speedlings or marines out on the field. Zerg have overlords, which they can camp near your base so that they can sac it to get info, and terran have scans if they have a dire need to get info. Protoss has the observer after they get a robo, and most timing attacks that threaten protoss are going to come out before your observer, or you'll need an immo to survive, so no obs. Protoss kinda does need FF to help with rushes.
It'd just be nice if 12 sentries and 4 stalkers couldn't kill infinity roaches.
by the time zerg has speedlings, you should be very close to having hallucination researched. Until then you should be able to get all the scouting information you need with a couple of probes.
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
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.
Bad idea, it makes ramps impossible to defend early game against lightning fast zerglings and stimmed marines*. I'll hold position a marauder in the ramp and deny all hope of protoss surviving early game against terran.
I think my idea beats yours. IF there's one nerf I'd apply on FF, it would be giving it a cooldown.
*Considering an average mid-skilled dude. MC could definitely pull it off on perfect timing
My only problem with the CD fix is that it still only takes 1 FF to block a ramp.
On March 20 2011 05:00 eluv wrote: So I'd like to point out a real inconsistency in a lot of these posts. For months, on and off people have been complaining about a lack of "Overpowered' spells in Starcraft. The examples people brought up in BW were often things like dark swarm, irradiate, BW psi storm, stasis field etc.
This could be the start of exactly what you've been asking for. A spell that seems absolutely ridiculous, and will take time to develop counters too. With that in mind, the thing you should all be asking for isn't for a nerf to FF, but rather some sort of micro based answer for zerg. Is that adding a spell to overseers to disable casters? Is that giving burrow movement to more units like zerglings and hydras? I don't know, but what I do know is the last thing SC2 needs is more nerfs.
I do like this idea. Granted, it would require innovation only likely to be found in expansions - rather than any sort of nerfing/buffing that we're discussing - but that's the basic sort of concept I want to see in an eSport.
I think that at this point just the forcefield spell is too strong + Show Spoiler +
especially ZvP as we saw in the finals last night it almost seemed like mc just needed to throw a few good FF and he won and I know the forcefields were pretty well placed but you could tell he was just spamming them to trap any units he could in almost every game except the first one
point being it is so hard for any sort of ground unit to do anything against a heavy sentry army, maybe we'll need to see a more air based composition in the future but I strongly believe that much like the void ray the sentry isn't that great untill you hit a critical mass and than the endless forcefields seem very OP, but early game they aren't that great so it is a tough thing to balance
On March 20 2011 02:21 Exstasy wrote: I don't understand?, Forcefields are strong for sure, but so are alot of abilities. there is nothign wrong with them as far as I can see. There is a way to deal with it it's not broken, July just got a third spire tech hydra AND Burrow, no way he can afford enough roaches to hold a 2 base all in, let alone he didn't make any spines. Soon everyone will figure this out the same way everyone figured out kyrixs low tier Aggression and Nestea Stopped MKP's Reign with marines back in Season 2.
How can u "figure" it out? The whole point of FF is that u cant do anything about it. Only hydras with range upgrade can counter them but the rush comes at a timing before u can get them out. The problem is that zerg t1 units are melee or short range so when FF's are cast the majority of the army cant attack and the stalkers outrange the roaches (and the roaches cant move into range). Terran units on the other hand are ranged so they can still fight back even if blocked.
Also game 1 was just impossible, what can u do when u cant even reinforce ur army. The roaches dont even have the range to attack from the cliff.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
Marine vs Baneling micro is WAY different from "FF micro" M v B micro has both players microing intensely. Zerg has to split their banelings and lings up to deal with tanks and marauders. Terran then skilfully splits everything up to counter zerg's play and then it becomes a micro battle, seeing who can out micro the other player.
On March 20 2011 05:00 eluv wrote: So I'd like to point out a real inconsistency in a lot of these posts. For months, on and off people have been complaining about a lack of "Overpowered' spells in Starcraft. The examples people brought up in BW were often things like dark swarm, irradiate, BW psi storm, stasis field etc.
This could be the start of exactly what you've been asking for. A spell that seems absolutely ridiculous, and will take time to develop counters too. With that in mind, the thing you should all be asking for isn't for a nerf to FF, but rather some sort of micro based answer for zerg. Is that adding a spell to overseers to disable casters? Is that giving burrow movement to more units like zerglings and hydras? I don't know, but what I do know is the last thing SC2 needs is more nerfs.
I'm for this idea.
I don't want the game to remove more abilities. I happy when i read : make it like broodwar and balance the imbalance.
Really I like your post, give zerg a way to deal with energy, or disable spells or with burrow it's really a better way to find solutions.
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
Marine vs Baneling micro is WAY different from "FF micro" M v B micro has both players microing intensely. Zerg has to split their banelings and lings up to deal with tanks and marauders. Terran then skilfully splits everything up to counter zerg's play and then it becomes a micro battle, seeing who can out micro the other player.
With FF its: He split the army...
Splitting isn't that hard. I don't play T but can do it almost as well as pro players.
July made some very bad choices that cost him 3 out of 4 games.
The game on Metalopolis was somewhat of an upset, but the thing is: he could have build more spine crawlers, rewatch the game, A SINGLE ADDITIONAL SPINE CRAWLER and he could have held this off long enough for his reinforcements to get down the ramp. The first battle was actually pretty dam close.
He sees a push with seven sentries + zealots is incoming and decides to make...drumroll...almost 20 ZERGLINGS. Here's a question, why not make two additional spine crawlers and only 12 zerglings? Sorry to say this, I'm a huge July fan and a zerg player myself, but that is just plain retarded decision making. You're setting yourself up for fail with a decision like this.
Also, he made FOUR overlords right before the attack came in. He was at 48/60 supply when he made those four overlords. That extra supply never saw any use. You build overlords in pairs of two after you get to 50 supply, not four at a time. Sloppy macro, wasted minerals that could have been used to defend MC's push instead. Sloppy macro at that specific point of time (right before a potential 4gate attack) will cost you the game.
He decided to get an extremely early evo chamber (before he had even confirmed the fast expand with his zerglings), aiming for a long macro game, again: plain bad decision making, If he had started that evo chamber AFTER he confirmed the fake fast expand with his zerglings, he could have canceled it in time, giving him even more income to defend this.
The thread of a 4gate attack is so big that you need to play it safe until that specific timing window has expired. If you play it greedy, if you invest too much into macroing it up, you will not be able to succesfully hold off a 4 gate attack. Especially if you decide to mass zerglings vs. a sentry and zealot heavy army...AFTER you scout said army composition.
On March 20 2011 05:00 eluv wrote: So I'd like to point out a real inconsistency in a lot of these posts. For months, on and off people have been complaining about a lack of "Overpowered' spells in Starcraft. The examples people brought up in BW were often things like dark swarm, irradiate, BW psi storm, stasis field etc.
This could be the start of exactly what you've been asking for. A spell that seems absolutely ridiculous, and will take time to develop counters too. With that in mind, the thing you should all be asking for isn't for a nerf to FF, but rather some sort of micro based answer for zerg. Is that adding a spell to overseers to disable casters? Is that giving burrow movement to more units like zerglings and hydras? I don't know, but what I do know is the last thing SC2 needs is more nerfs.
I don't think people wanted those spells to be in the game, everyone knows why they aren't, because of easy spellcasting.
They had abilties which slowed or froze your oponents in sc1 but those abilities were rarely casted and would give a big OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH moment. Its quite different with sc2 where sentries come out very quickly in tier 1.5. Changing FF seems a bit drastic, but July didn't really play perfectly in all those games where he had many drones and could had spent those on units. In the 2nd game I believe, July was going for a 3rd base when he could have made more army units.
On March 20 2011 06:16 infinity2k9 wrote: I don't think people wanted those spells to be in the game, everyone knows why they aren't, because of easy spellcasting.
None of these abilities stop micro unless the opposing play lets them go off. Yes, if you are cumpling your marines and you get hit by fungal, you can't move them. Yes, if you let your stalker get you by a marauder then you can't micro it, and yes, if your army is split and a choke is connecting them, half can be FF'd off. However, these things are all avoidable. So basically I disagree with your premise - you can totally out micro these moves.
The finals had nothing to do with ff imba. MC could have just done different builds and still slaughtered July. He was just outplaying the guy, in every way possible. July was leaving his units in easily FF'd positions, fighting with Hydras off creep, and getting out metagamed.
Uh i mean exactly what i said. Everyone knows why very powerful spells like dark swarm are not in the game, because they would be too ridiculous with easy spellcasting. Same for psi-storm nerf.
just so people know you forcefield faster by ignoring smartcast than by using it, reselecting the sentries and FFing again allow forcefields to go up simultaeously unless smartcasting shift clicks which wait for each FF to finish casting before the next starts.
EDIT: the only issue i've found with forcefield is sometimes if you tell your units to move away, if they are touching a FF they get bugged and just stand next to it to die.
On March 20 2011 06:16 infinity2k9 wrote: I don't think people wanted those spells to be in the game, everyone knows why they aren't, because of easy spellcasting.
Wait - what?
Please explain exactly what you mean here.
He means that the addition of auto-cast makes spell-casting much simpler. In BW powerful spells were partially balanced out by taking very high apm to use effectively. In SC2 if you have a group of casters selected, only one will cast every time you use the spell, while in BW they will all try to cast. None of that changes the fact that people complain about the lack of these sort of awesome spells in SC 2 though.
I'm of the opinion that casters should always be countered by other casters, preferably on different tiers. It leads to really amazing back and forth fights where a player holds out just barely, until suddenly he gets that key unit, and everything turns around, till his opponent gets the counter, and eventually we get up to epic 5 base games.
The dynamic right now with sentry/HT vs ghost is a perfect example of the kind of situation that creates excitement, something like Vessel vs Defiler/Scourge in BW.
On March 20 2011 05:00 eluv wrote: So I'd like to point out a real inconsistency in a lot of these posts. For months, on and off people have been complaining about a lack of "Overpowered' spells in Starcraft. The examples people brought up in BW were often things like dark swarm, irradiate, BW psi storm, stasis field etc.
This could be the start of exactly what you've been asking for. A spell that seems absolutely ridiculous, and will take time to develop counters too. With that in mind, the thing you should all be asking for isn't for a nerf to FF, but rather some sort of micro based answer for zerg. Is that adding a spell to overseers to disable casters? Is that giving burrow movement to more units like zerglings and hydras? I don't know, but what I do know is the last thing SC2 needs is more nerfs.
I don't think FF needs a nerf, but it sure is boring as hell to watch
Now, you use the examples of OP spells in BW; thing is, you can micro to counter these things.
Irradiate? Split. Dark Swarm? run or irradiate if you're terran Psi Storm? run or snipe if you have mutas Stasis? Spread or EMP the arbiter (doesn't get used in PvZ, so meh).
You also have to consider, all those spells you named come out very late into the game. FF comes as soon as your cyber core is done. Often, zerg would just snipe Scivessels and templar with scourge and mutas respectively. Zerg can't snipe sentries until they get mutas, which is way after the timings which MC was using. Now, I'm not saying we need to be able to snipe sentries to handle it, I'm just showing that the comparison between the OP spells in BW is slightly flawed, since there's nothing you can do to out-micro FF.
But there is also the problem of protoss needing to forcefield their ramp to survive certain rushes. Also something that should not happen, it just sounds and feels lame/unintuitive.
Maybe Protoss just needs to start scouting, just like Zerg has to. But FFing the ramp just feels cheap.
This FF on the ramp while taking the natural is complete bs imo. On Xel Naga for instance. You cannot reinforce from your main because of that. It's so lame and with 3 sentries you can already FF the ramp indefinitely. Make it 75 energy for fairness.
Actually, you need six sentries to hold a ramp indefinitely.
Protoss has no easy way to scout; solo gateway units get eaten by zerglings and barracks units, and GL getting a probe into your opponent's base when he's got speedlings or marines out on the field. Zerg have overlords, which they can camp near your base so that they can sac it to get info, and terran have scans if they have a dire need to get info. Protoss has the observer after they get a robo, and most timing attacks that threaten protoss are going to come out before your observer, or you'll need an immo to survive, so no obs. Protoss kinda does need FF to help with rushes.
It'd just be nice if 12 sentries and 4 stalkers couldn't kill infinity roaches.
by the time zerg has speedlings, you should be very close to having hallucination researched. Until then you should be able to get all the scouting information you need with a couple of probes.
Not saying that make your point moot, but still.
Never thought of that, for some reason. And I love me some hallucinate :D
I think forcefields are fine, its just that zerg might need a better way to deal with it. I'm no pro but I notice that using them vs terran or protoss isnt so bad since Thors/ghosts can be made and Collossi. Zerg can make ultras to cancel forcefields but that just seems way too far, where as collossi and thors can come out fairly early.
All I'm saying is when i mass sentries vs terran and they see it they usually make a thor/ghosts and then my ff's dont mean much midgame. But vs zerg i can keep using them almost all game long. Maybe if there was a way to get ultras out faster, like if the cavern only required the lair or something. That way ultras would still be too expensive to make many of but you could at least make 2 or 3 to lead your army vs toss.
The dynamic right now with sentry/HT vs ghost is a perfect example of the kind of situation that creates excitement, something like Vessel vs Defiler/Scourge in BW.
i don't see any excitement in ghosts owning P casters
On March 20 2011 06:48 pzea469 wrote: I think forcefields are fine, its just that zerg might need a better way to deal with it. I'm no pro but I notice that using them vs terran or protoss isnt so bad since Thors/ghosts can be made and Collossi. Zerg can make ultras to cancel forcefields but that just seems way too far, where as collossi and thors can come out fairly early.
All I'm saying is when i mass sentries vs terran and they see it they usually make a thor/ghosts and then my ff's dont mean much midgame. But vs zerg i can keep using them almost all game long. Maybe if there was a way to get ultras out faster, like if the cavern only required the lair or something. That way ultras would still be too expensive to make many of but you could at least make 2 or 3 to lead your army vs toss.
Thors can only destroy one FF at a time and when they do(walk against FF) they stop shooting. they are also slow and big. in big battles, every second counts and you lost half of your army before thors destroy the FFs.
On March 20 2011 06:32 infinity2k9 wrote: Uh i mean exactly what i said. Everyone knows why very powerful spells like dark swarm are not in the game, because they would be too ridiculous with easy spellcasting. Same for psi-storm nerf.
Dark Swarm IS in the game. It's called PDD. =d
Terran would be sooooo strong if they could use raven more, but it's quite hard to pull off good raven builds for the moment.
On March 20 2011 06:30 Gentleman7 wrote: None of these abilities stop micro unless the opposing play lets them go off. Yes, if you are cumpling your marines and you get hit by fungal, you can't move them. Yes, if you let your stalker get you by a marauder then you can't micro it, and yes, if your army is split and a choke is connecting them, half can be FF'd off. However, these things are all avoidable. So basically I disagree with your premise - you can totally out micro these moves.
The finals had nothing to do with ff imba. MC could have just done different builds and still slaughtered July. He was just outplaying the guy, in every way possible. July was leaving his units in easily FF'd positions, fighting with Hydras off creep, and getting out metagamed.
Show me how to:
- Engage a protoss army that has sentries without getting forcefielded - Engage infestors without getting fungal'ed - Engage marauders without being slowed
(when playing vs pro's)
So, no, these things are NOT avoidable. That's my whole problem with the mechanic.
And yeah mc was better, but still, july didn't get a chance to show anything, because mc placed his forcefields so well.
On March 19 2011 18:53 RiceRiceRice wrote: ^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
or rather, how much micro do you need with you have 15+ FF available, and all you have to do is click in the middle of a ramp?
Try do it as well as MC does as quick as he does it. So absurd that people just try down play it like this. How many people other than MC do you see force fielding like that? Other than MC, NO one, no one as actually used Force Field that well in any type of tournament, not even SanZenith or HuK when they did a 6gate push.
HuK can throw down forcefields with great precision, but his builds tend to be weaker on the macro side so he has less of everything for his pushes.
Huk's forcefields are pretty good, but they're not at MC's level.
On March 20 2011 06:30 Gentleman7 wrote: None of these abilities stop micro unless the opposing play lets them go off. Yes, if you are cumpling your marines and you get hit by fungal, you can't move them. Yes, if you let your stalker get you by a marauder then you can't micro it, and yes, if your army is split and a choke is connecting them, half can be FF'd off. However, these things are all avoidable. So basically I disagree with your premise - you can totally out micro these moves.
The finals had nothing to do with ff imba. MC could have just done different builds and still slaughtered July. He was just outplaying the guy, in every way possible. July was leaving his units in easily FF'd positions, fighting with Hydras off creep, and getting out metagamed.
Show me how to:
- Engage a protoss army that has sentries without getting forcefielded - Engage infestors without getting fungal'ed - Engage marauders without being slowed
(when playing vs pro's)
So, no, these things are NOT avoidable. That's my whole problem with the mechanic.
And yeah mc was better, but still, july didn't get a chance to show anything, because mc placed his forcefields so well.
-Engage in open, retreat fast and often -split -Micro back (this one is less avoidable but also doesn't totally negate micro upon cast...slightly different than the other two I think).
I just don't think we've seen someone play zerg like MC plays protoss. The potential is still there in units like banelings, and infestors, but MC is just much better than most zerg players.
I wouldn't Include concussive shells as they don't really negate micro they increase it... Fungal to isnt really as big. I think FF is the only one that really destroys micro hopefully they make a good change to it because it looked way OP in the GSL.
On March 20 2011 06:30 Gentleman7 wrote: None of these abilities stop micro unless the opposing play lets them go off. Yes, if you are cumpling your marines and you get hit by fungal, you can't move them. Yes, if you let your stalker get you by a marauder then you can't micro it, and yes, if your army is split and a choke is connecting them, half can be FF'd off. However, these things are all avoidable. So basically I disagree with your premise - you can totally out micro these moves.
The finals had nothing to do with ff imba. MC could have just done different builds and still slaughtered July. He was just outplaying the guy, in every way possible. July was leaving his units in easily FF'd positions, fighting with Hydras off creep, and getting out metagamed.
Show me how to:
- Engage a protoss army that has sentries without getting forcefielded - Engage infestors without getting fungal'ed - Engage marauders without being slowed
(when playing vs pro's)
So, no, these things are NOT avoidable. That's my whole problem with the mechanic.
And yeah mc was better, but still, july didn't get a chance to show anything, because mc placed his forcefields so well.
-Engage in open, retreat fast and often -split -Micro back (this one is less avoidable but also doesn't totally negate micro upon cast...slightly different than the other two I think).
I just don't think we've seen someone play zerg like MC plays protoss. The potential is still there in units like banelings, and infestors, but MC is just much better than most zerg players.
Are you serious? Lol?
Just look at some games, it's basically impossible to avoid these moves. Sure you can split but still you'll be hit, and when you attack all units bunch up. Even if you would make every unit attack individually it will still be easy to hit the units with ff/cs/fg. Maps don't have a lot of open space but if you look at the finals you'll see that MC used his ff's against july's units on many open spots (for example on shakuras). Besides that micro-ing back against CS is exactly what a terran wants you to do, because it will allow him to kill quite a large part of your army (the slowed units) for free, which costs you the game.
But please don't forget this thread is about more than just MC vs July.
As a zerg player, I don't see how much different this is than speedling surrounds. If speedlings are on the field, then you essentially cannot move out unless you know you can win, lest you get surrounded and destroyed.
The main difference in my opinion is that forcefield can be baited to waste sentry energy, and the fact that sentries are so gas heavy.
I'm sorry but just because they're awesome doesn't mean they're imbalanced or really problematic.
Food for thought. What if funal growth lasted 15 seconds without damaging the enemy. Simply held them in their place unable to do anything while you had a field day picking apart their army and dancing in front of your opponent. This would be ridiculous. Similarly, constant FF's on a ramp is ridiculous. Defensively they are needed but offensivley, they completely negate micro and army positioning and reinforcements.
On March 20 2011 07:33 Disarm22 wrote: Food for thought. What if funal growth lasted 15 seconds without damaging the enemy. Simply held them in their place unable to do anything while you had a field day picking apart their army and dancing in front of your opponent. This would be ridiculous. Similarly, constant FF's on a ramp is ridiculous. Defensively they are needed but offensivley, they completely negate micro and army positioning and reinforcements.
how are you supposed to win as protoss without forcefields. Protoss sadly is balanced around that FF both in defense and offense
Zerg is fast and can retreat Terran can stim and retreat Protoss can never retreat (most units are as fast as hydras off creep), if P goes out he has to be sure, that his base is safe, and that he judged the enemy army right, cause if not he has to have enough FF to hold himself or he just dies and loses the game.
look at the other way around, terran defends easily with bunkers Zerg has the mobility to defend, protoss has to have enough FF to hope to defend long enough to get "strong" techunits (colossus) out. How is that balanced?
It isn't, at least it isn't meant to be from what we see Blizzard wanted protoss to play out.
Forcefields are fine as they are right now...if you play Protoss then you know why we need the spell just as it is now...how can we expand safely against Z without...how do we hold off aggressive T pushes? We rely on forcefields...people say it's easy...all youhave to do is hold F and click everywhere...then you try copying MC...it's just like watching people split their marines...how hard can that be...you just box a couple and right click somewhere
July didn't stand a chance on Metal. I really don't see any way he could've taken army, even if he had maphack. MC's ability to literally change the terrain at whim to make any engagement favorable even against reinforcements overrides any amount of preparation short of total prescience. There's no rationalization for the idea that sentries aren't a gamebreakingly lopsided unit.
Am I wrong to think that this is just isolated? In reality it was just 1 best of 7. On the grandest of scales yes.
I just don't recall anybody having the amount of success with that ability that MC was able to have. If this is really a game breaker, then perhaps next season it will be more evident now that we see how it can be used to it's current maximum potential.
One thing to remember, is that Starcraft has a huge MetaGame behind it. You can't make drastic changes to game mechanics, because you see a player of July's caliber get dominated in one best of 7. We need to relax just a little bit and let the MetaGame evolve before we can make any conclusive decisions on what really needs to be done. Being to hasty to make changes will ultimately dilute game play.
I think everyone needs to relax right now, and just observe how the MetaGame unfolds over the next couple of months.
The problem with forcefields lie in the fact that they create situations where the outcome of a game is in the hands of only the protoss player rather than both players.
My suggestion:
Make it so that you can't place forcefields in spots where a unit is already standing like with buildings. This means that the protoss can still block their ramp, and still somewhat use forcefields effectively in battle, but other races have a chance to nullify the strategies that are bad for the game like a protoss blocking the other player's ramp or cutting an army in half whenever they feel like it.
Block enemy ramp + warp in your units at the enemies base and you have yourself a recipe for something crazy. Neither Terran nor Zerg can do something like that. Negate defenders advantage and abuse small chokepoints to cut armies and get free kills.
As a protoss player, I agree that force fields may be slightly too powerful. The balance concept behind being able to snip snap the battlefield into pieces like MC did to July is that a.It requires skill and b.Messing it up is a massive disadvantage to the protoss player. a is fulfilled, and any terran or zerg who claims that it's nothing more than spamming f in a circle is probably terrible at starcraft, but b is not so much. If you invest in 10 sentries while doing a 3gate expand, and you throw out 6 forcefields to catch some lings but completely botch it, it's not actually that big of a blow when you're regenerating force fields that quickly. I think a reasonable change would be to increase forcefield energy to 75, guardian shield to 100, and starting energy to 75. This would not in any way remove these heavy sentry pushes from the game (10 sentries with 2 forcefields each is still a crapton). If anything, it would make them more exciting; MC still would have won most of those pushes with half as many forcefields in the bank, it would just have been a lot more impressive knowing that if he messed it up, he was going to get rolled over by the counter instead of being able to retreat and ff his way to safety.
I think the unit pathing AI makes forcefields a lot worse than they should be. I don't understand why units get stuck on 2 forcefields when they can just walk around. Instead they stand in place and move back and forth rapidly.
I also think 1 sentry being able to cast 4 forcefields is silly. The energy should be around 75. Each one lasting 15 seconds is very high as well. One sentry can lock down a ramp for a minute. How long does it take for a toss army to rape your natural.
Games should be decided by peoples skill as well as their choices. If there's an ability that doesn't let skill or choice into consideration for the opposition then it is broken. I believe forcefield falls under that category.
i like these skills because they force pre battle micro, also like those skills because they force some micro(as the ai gets beaten up by a certain skill in discussion here). Just because the standard micro doesn't work her doesn't mean they stop micro completly. Anyway I don't really care since forcefields will be kept anyway, maybe not the concussiv but any other ability will be better anyway and will get more tears. Btw stasis on your own units on a ramp ftw, with a recall follow up. Now thats a super sentry or also called mr arbiter for you.
WTF is people saying FF takes tons of skill? yes it uses SOME skill and SOME thougt, but all you need is mediocre reaction, mediocre precision, and some basic knowledge on when and how to FF.
Anyone who gets gold on psionic defense should be able to use forcefields to 80-90% efficency. The extra 10% good players use FF with does not make a world of difference, it's a problem at all levels of play for exactly the reason that it's effect's are not balanced with the skill to use it.
FFs should last for less time and/or be attackable destructibles, that way with god micro units can break the ridiculous walls that are being imposed on them that they can otherwise do almost nothing about.
HONESTLY, maybe they wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't last 100years when you lay them, 3-5 seconds would be good, or give them recharge/cost more energy.
i think the best idea is to make the sentry energi pool lower, because like every toss say, the early game all in/cheese would be really really really hard to deal with and you gonna see alot more 4 gate play since toss won't be able to fast or relativly soon expand. That mean if they reduce the energy pool, it will be less forcefield and even less with the GS. And for help the def for zerg against FF why no make the queen massif, that will make phoenix easier to deal with too
On March 20 2011 11:38 KhAlleB wrote: i think the best idea is to make the sentry energi pool lower, because like every toss say, the early game all in/cheese would be really really really hard to deal with and you gonna see alot more 4 gate play since toss won't be able to fast or relativly soon expand. That mean if they reduce the energy pool, it will be less forcefield and even less with the GS. And for help the def for zerg against FF why no make the queen massif, that will make phoenix easier to deal with too
I totally agree, your mention is very good idea. hmmm specially about the queen and phoenix.
Easiest way to "fix" the forcefield. Make overlapped forcefields negate each other. I hate to even give an example... but seriously, what is wrong with forcefields? It simply forces other tech to quash, just like everything else in this game.
Giving the forcefield health would be a disaster because of the units that it's meant to zone. Either it would have to have an inordinately huge amount of health, or little health and a bazillion armor... and neither would help vs a ball of marines. (unless it had thousands of HP and then it wouldn't even matter.
Adapt to it. Don't complain. Don't ask for horrendous balance changes because your favorite player lost.
On March 20 2011 11:31 HoT wrote: HONESTLY, maybe they wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't last 100years when you lay them, 3-5 seconds would be good, or give them recharge/cost more energy.
I'd love to see 25 energy forcefields at 1/2 the duration and see how that works. At least in that case if players FF, but get their sentries sniped then it's a big deal. Likewise players would be forced to have to place FFs properly multiple times during a battle increasing the chance they place poor force fields.
On the other hand there's possible issues with 25 energy FF meaning a few sentries can completely lock down large areas and 1/2 duration might still be long enough to give the P too good of an advantage.
On March 20 2011 11:31 HoT wrote: HONESTLY, maybe they wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't last 100years when you lay them, 3-5 seconds would be good, or give them recharge/cost more energy.
3-5 seconds would be a pretty huge change, so blizzard wouldn't implement that. It would be nice though if they reduced it to 8-10 seconds. FF would still be powerful but at least not ridiculous like it is now.
I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
LOL Are you trolling? FG is better than FF?!?!?
LOL
Also terran has concussive shells and stim, meaning the opponent can't retreat.
On March 20 2011 11:58 ShatterZer0 wrote: Easiest way to "fix" the forcefield. Make overlapped forcefields negate each other. I hate to even give an example... but seriously, what is wrong with forcefields? It simply forces other tech to quash, just like everything else in this game.
Giving the forcefield health would be a disaster because of the units that it's meant to zone. Either it would have to have an inordinately huge amount of health, or little health and a bazillion armor... and neither would help vs a ball of marines. (unless it had thousands of HP and then it wouldn't even matter.
Adapt to it. Don't complain. Don't ask for horrendous balance changes because your favorite player lost.
Nothing to do with July being my favorite to be honest, this type of thing happens quite a bit GSL or not, even in beta. It'd be different if it didnt last forever in a day. Hard to adapt to it especially when you are vesred with someone that is as skill as MC, seriously bro...
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
LOL Are you trolling? FG is better than FF?!?!?
LOL
Also terran has concussive shells and stim, meaning the opponent can't retreat.
No. If Sentries had FG the Protoss army would be just as difficult to face, probably more difficult. The new FG after the patch would be worse for protoss, but just think about colossi ripping through your paralyzed forces that it easily outranges, one line of troops at a time. Protoss wouldn't even need the zealot meatshield, major encounters would be a roflstomp either way.
A bit off topic, why don't the hydralisk have hydralisk speed anymore, that type of thing saddens me deeply, I'm a broodwar fanatic, but some things i feel they should have left in the game...
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
FG is great if you have banelings and is fighting bio, and against some air units, not so much against anything else. Concussive shells are awesome, and extremely good for control - units can't retreat from marauders, melee can't come close. No idea what you're talking about there.
As for FF's - I don't find them imbalanced at all. They can be annoying, yes, but can be negated with baiting and proper spread. + Show Spoiler [GSL spoiler] +
July vs MC is a good example of how to NOT fight against FF's; July rushing in with clumped up roaches against 11 sentries. The more clumped up units are, the stronger FF's get. Splitting up a concave is harder, more units can retreat if necessary, and sentries waste tons of energy with extra fields casted.
Forcefields have been discussed to death since beta, and it always resurfaces now and then. But fact is protoss needs them for both defense and offense to get any use for their gateway units.
MC maybe more skilled of the two players in the finals. But being more skilled does not mean u totally drop an opponent into desperation. Clearly in many of MC's pushes july had no option of micro or retaliation. It makes alot of people angry because they start to notice that it is FF which comes out too early in the game, amass-able and abusive. Did u see the last game where pure sentries dissected a pure hydra drop by july? Sentries used by a skill player dissect armies in such a way that for the zerg or terran player, having a economy or larger army does not really matter because he can take minimal losses whilst slicing your army apart.
Being more skilled =/= total thrashing of another highly skilled player. The games have shown how abusive FF is and how much of the outcome of the game lying in the hands of protoss and not the zerg. I play random so I feel for both races when I say that forcefield needs a tweak. Also, dont give some BS about FF taking alot of skill to utilize. If u haven't tried BW blanket storms or dark swarm usage, then dont bother saying such stuff; just because you lack the skill to use FF properly doesn't mean others can't too.
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
FG is great if you have banelings and is fighting bio, and against some air units, not so much against anything else. Concussive shells are awesome, and extremely good for control - units can't retreat from marauders, melee can't come close. No idea what you're talking about there.
As for FF's - I don't find them imbalanced at all. They can be annoying, yes, but can be negated with baiting and proper spread. + Show Spoiler [GSL spoiler] +
July vs MC is a good example of how to NOT fight against FF's; July rushing in with clumped up roaches against 11 sentries. The more clumped up units are, the stronger FF's get. Splitting up a concave is harder, more units can retreat if necessary, and sentries waste tons of energy with extra fields casted.
Forcefields have been discussed to death since beta, and it always resurfaces now and then. But fact is protoss needs them for both defense and offense to get any use for their gateway units.
But if you are going to talk about Conc Shells you might as well talk about blink, it has nearly the same effect of preventing retreat. Examining things in a box continues to be done, and it continues to be done poorly.
On March 20 2011 12:59 StateOfZerg wrote: MC maybe more skilled of the two players in the finals. But being more skilled does not mean u totally drop an opponent into desperation. Clearly in many of MC's pushes july had no option of micro or retaliation. It makes alot of people angry because they start to notice that it is FF which comes out too early in the game, amass-able and abusive. Did u see the last game where pure sentries dissected a pure hydra drop by july? Sentries used by a skill player dissect armies in such a way that for the zerg or terran player, having a economy or larger army does not really matter because he can take minimal losses whilst slicing your army apart.
Being more skilled =/= total thrashing of another highly skilled player. The games have shown how abusive FF is and how much of the outcome of the game lying in the hands of protoss and not the zerg. I play random so I feel for both races when I say that forcefield needs a tweak. Also, dont give some BS about FF taking alot of skill to utilize. If u haven't tried BW blanket storms or dark swarm usage, then dont bother saying such stuff; just because you lack the skill to use FF properly doesn't mean others can't too.
And yes being better should translate into a total dismantling of the opponent.
Force fields, concussive shells and fungal growth are all absolutely awful for the game.
It's 99% of the reason why we see people massing up armies in their natural all game instead of moving around the map and engaging in skirmishes all over the place. If you push out and try to do any prodding at all before you have an economic advantage, you risk losing the entire game because of getting a portion of your units trapped by one of these 3 abilities.
Regardless of how "cool" Blizzard thinks they are, they make the game a million times more boring than it would be without them in the long run.
On March 20 2011 13:04 Angra wrote: Force fields, concussive shells and fungal growth are all absolutely awful for the game.
It's 99% of the reason why we see people massing up armies in their natural all game instead of moving around the map and engaging in skirmishes all over the place. If you push out and try to do any prodding at all before you have an economic advantage, you risk losing the entire game because of getting a portion of your units trapped by one of these 3 abilities.
Regardless of how "cool" Blizzard thinks they are, they make the game a million times more boring than it would be without them in the long run.
Again, I fail to see how that is any different from getting surrounded with speedlings. These abilities let people punish mistakes much more. I see that as a good thing, especially as not only zerg can do it now.
On March 20 2011 13:04 Angra wrote: Force fields, concussive shells and fungal growth are all absolutely awful for the game.
It's 99% of the reason why we see people massing up armies in their natural all game instead of moving around the map and engaging in skirmishes all over the place. If you push out and try to do any prodding at all before you have an economic advantage, you risk losing the entire game because of getting a portion of your units trapped by one of these 3 abilities.
Regardless of how "cool" Blizzard thinks they are, they make the game a million times more boring than it would be without them in the long run.
Again, I fail to see how that is any different from getting surrounded with speedlings. These abilities let people punish mistakes much more. I see that as a good thing, especially as not only zerg can do it now.
the difference is ling surround can't cut off army unlike FF
On March 20 2011 13:04 Angra wrote: Force fields, concussive shells and fungal growth are all absolutely awful for the game.
It's 99% of the reason why we see people massing up armies in their natural all game instead of moving around the map and engaging in skirmishes all over the place. If you push out and try to do any prodding at all before you have an economic advantage, you risk losing the entire game because of getting a portion of your units trapped by one of these 3 abilities.
Regardless of how "cool" Blizzard thinks they are, they make the game a million times more boring than it would be without them in the long run.
Again, I fail to see how that is any different from getting surrounded with speedlings. These abilities let people punish mistakes much more. I see that as a good thing, especially as not only zerg can do it now.
I was actually just about to edit my post and include speedlings in there too as a lesser form of the other 3. :p I definitely think they should tone down speedling movespeed but up their dps in other ways.
The thing is, it's not even just punishing mistakes. It's punishing movement, prodding, and aggression at ALL outside of your protected natural. There's a huge difference between attacking right into someone's natural and getting punished for it, and walking around the middle of the map trying to find an opening, encountering the other army, and then not being able to retreat half of your army because they get trapped just for moving it out of your natural.
This is a silly discussion. When you see a ton of sentries, you avoid engaging them, or try to force the forcefields out early. The same goes for marauders. You just avoid engaging them if you don't have enough units to either win the battle or secure a retreat.. It's that simple. You just micromanage your units and decision-making before the forcefields, fungals, concussive shells.
On March 20 2011 13:17 Wolf wrote: This is a silly discussion. When you see a ton of sentries, you avoid engaging them, or try to force the forcefields out early. The same goes for marauders. You just avoid engaging them if you don't have enough units to either win the battle or secure a retreat.. It's that simple. You just micromanage your units and decision-making before the forcefields, fungals, concussive shells.
People will learn eventually rather than complaining. All of this will take time though.
On March 20 2011 13:17 Wolf wrote: This is a silly discussion. When you see a ton of sentries, you avoid engaging them, or try to force the forcefields out early. The same goes for marauders. You just avoid engaging them if you don't have enough units to either win the battle or secure a retreat.. It's that simple. You just micromanage your units and decision-making before the forcefields, fungals, concussive shells.
Regardless of how you can or can't beat it, is it even fun at all to watch or play? I really don't think so. I mean look at the ways to beat these mechanics that you just said: "avoid engaging" in two different situations. How does that make for an exciting esport at all? That's why you see GSL matches end up with two armies camped at naturals for 20 minutes, instead of 20 minutes of exciting skirmishes and movement all across the map.
I think it would be interesting if force fields could be attacked. Maybe 100 hp? That way if you have a huge army blocked off you can just target the ff's down and keep moving. And at the same time, it still delays the army from pushing and works for protoss in the early game.
For EMP, I think it would be interesting to see either a missile animation or a DOT effect. Either one of these allows the opponent to micro out of at least some damage.
Man that final was awful i love gomtv and the production was truly amazing but zerg is soo broken at the moment its insane. FF is completely retarded as it stands really the only thing i see could be either:
1 : Queens = Massive = break FF and give the Queen a buff so they can actually kill a zealot considering a queen is more expensive than a zealot and 10x more important than a zealot.
2 : FF lasts far far far too long and costs pretty much zero energy giving the ability to protoss that roaches cant actually hit you all the while you just lol and use stalkers.
3 : Switch hydra to T1 and roach to T2 with hydra range upgrade actually can negate alot of sentry FF spam because they can still actually shoot at the enemy.
4 : Nerf warpgates they come FAR FAR FAR too early in the game for such an amazing ability, protoss dont have to learn to macro gateways anymore only robo's and stargates. This would actually fix PvP if warp gates costs 200-200 and build time increase they might actually see more back and forth play in PvP
Protoss has become this ezmode button and its really boring to watch their games because yeah they can be super tactical and sneaky but really their units are just amazing and if you play zerg and go to play protoss your scouting is 10x better than pure protoss players alot of the time and you can hit so many really disgusting timming attacks that simply just crrrripple zerg soooo hard. I have very little respect for protoss players anymore i used to like ogsmc but really this final was truely pathetic. Showing how strong warpgates and FF is vs zerg.
On March 20 2011 13:17 Wolf wrote: This is a silly discussion. When you see a ton of sentries, you avoid engaging them, or try to force the forcefields out early. The same goes for marauders. You just avoid engaging them if you don't have enough units to either win the battle or secure a retreat.. It's that simple. You just micromanage your units and decision-making before the forcefields, fungals, concussive shells.
Regardless of how you can or can't beat it, is it even fun at all to watch or play? I really don't think so. I mean look at the ways to beat these mechanics that you just said: "avoid engaging" in two different situations. How does that make for an exciting esport at all? That's why you see GSL matches end up with two armies camped at naturals for 20 minutes, instead of 20 minutes of exciting skirmishes and movement all across the map.
Not every game is just sitting at your natural building up. A season or two ago.... All we saw was marine rushes. That was super exciting, wasn't it! Nope... but it spawn more marine micro and eventually better maps. As he said above, you have to micro your army until you can get an advantage, whether it be: wasting his energy or just bad positioning. The game is new and still evolving. It's similar to SC:BW... but it is NOT SC:BW. You will learn new things every day just like everyone else. People will figure it out... so get use to it.
realistically its crazy how good forcefield with blink stalker micro can be. But the key is to not let your opponent get into that comfort zone, which really makes this really challenging for zerg.
On March 20 2011 13:36 Ponyo wrote: realistically its crazy how good forcefield with blink stalker micro can be. But the key is to not let your opponent get into that comfort zone, which really makes this really challenging for zerg.
Ya, it reminds me of just letting zerg mass drone into mass mutas. Can't let that happen *rocks back and forth*
people should consider the maps that the GSL is played on, all of them HEAVILY favor protoss there's a reason they aren't on the ladder. 3 expansions and only one tiny choke point???? OK THX. there's a reason they widened paths on temple and removed shakuras, protoss fast expansion is too freaking good and most of the GSL maps let protoss fast expand for free. people were invariably going to QQ but seriously MC could have won with carrier/mothership if he wanted to because giving protoss 4-6 free geysers early on means they will win.
this game is designed by idiots and the whole problem is terran bio. why are force fields so strong and cheap? because toss needs tons of them placed perfectly just to stop a herp derp 3 rax. if terran bio weren't so damn strong there wouldn't be a need for huuuuuuuuuuge maps just for zerg to survive a freaking marine scv push, and guess what u suddenly balanced tvz and pvz is a huge mess now. gj blizz. the core terran units being glaringly overpowered is what is throwing this game into a horrible balance spiral and the fools at bliz's inability to realize it is starting to get on my nerves.
I think you are wrong. Forcefields FORCE a micro-oriented play for both the players. Instead of just a-moving like most people would be tempted to do, they have to constantly watch their units.
If you get all of your roaches in a single ball, in a narrow choke, then you deserve to die by forcefields. But if you provoke the Protoss in a wide area (e.g. The Shattered Temple middle), there is no way he's gonna win because of his forcefields, and then you are rewarded because of that. Also, roaches heal very fast underground, and they can move. If you time it correctly, you can quickly get out of forcefields and escape the protoss who just lost a lot of energy and being stuck with useless sentries. There again, you are awarded for your micro.
In TvP, terrans can easily bait forcefields with stimmed bio. If the protoss reacts fast enough, thus has superior micro skills and succeeds in COMPLETELY blocking the retreating path, then he is awarded because of his micro. On the other hand, if they terran is quick enough and run back before he's completely blocked, he wins by making sentries waste energy. This is the same pattern as Muta harrass VS stimmed marines + medivacs in TvZ.
On March 20 2011 13:20 CookieMaker wrote: One word about FF's: Ultras.
-->try them. shockingly good synergy with roach/hydra
Ultra rush at 6:00? Sounds like a plan.
Sure, if zerg players are smart enough, and I'm not being sarcastic, but 1 ultra in the late game with the army at all times... actually, more than one, works wonders with an army. But most of what the qq'ing, mixed in with actually logical and competent remarks... is the early push. 6 gate hits before hive. 4 gate hits before hive. Any 2 base semi-mid to early game from protoss side is before hive, if not, just getting started.
Early - mid, it's just not ideal.
Edit: Just gonna add, actually straight up ultra hydra is amazing. the roaches and ultras tending to bug themselves out. Just have good creep spread, and then you can actually get away.
Edit2: Actually, there's a point that a lot of people are missing, I think. Everyone is talking about mid to late game answers on how to deal with this type of play, and that's fine. But it seems like that every zerg player is trying to say is that OUR EARLY GAME SUCKS. Which, it honestly does. We have little to no options in terms of what we want to do without going super all in.... basically, we have 2 different openings that people need to watch out for that our opponent, and that is all in and macro based play... if our opponent sees all in , they either have to (talking about one base play here for zerg):
Terran: Wall with bunker. Protoss: Wall with ff's.
Pretty simple, right? Once they're up, zerg all ins are nullified, unless the opponent is just bad.
The amount of flexibility is immense for the other two races. Zergs have to know exactly which all in is coming to prepare for it... otherwise, you're dead.
Forcefield'd into a corner? Just because you can't micro your way out, does that mean you can't micro anymore at that point in time because you're in a corner, forcefield trapped?
No, you're just tactically fucked. Fungal/Forcefields aren't always as easy as it seems. You're zerg, going to attack a stimmed group of marines that are nearly dead. They're running at you (whatever reason) and you're about to fungal they're ass and win that fight. You click on a spot where they'll run into and they JUST SO HAPPENS to turn back and avoided that fungal and for some reason you die.
Two things: -The major thing happened here is that you lost in the mindgames where the terran ran at you, tried to bait out that fungal and ran. This scenario, it worked and you got screwed over with a bad fungal. -The second thing is, the micro was always there. It's just that, both players have a set of goal in mind and they got a plan. And everything went according to plan.
Zerg wanted to fungal, so zerg went up or whatever and fungal'd where he wants to fungal to trap the marines and screw him over. Terran on the other hand, wants to juke the zerg player into wasting a fungal and runs in, baits it out and run.
Point being is that (in my opinion, this should be the better definition) micro isn't moving shit around or nice storms, it's your overall (army) control and execution. Blinking dying stalkers back is a nice parlor trick, burrowing dying roaches is nice, but that isn't the epitome of micro, it's your control and execution of a plan to win the game
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
LOL Are you trolling? FG is better than FF?!?!?
LOL
Also terran has concussive shells and stim, meaning the opponent can't retreat.
No. If Sentries had FG the Protoss army would be just as difficult to face, probably more difficult. The new FG after the patch would be worse for protoss, but just think about colossi ripping through your paralyzed forces that it easily outranges, one line of troops at a time. Protoss wouldn't even need the zealot meatshield, major encounters would be a roflstomp either way.
Edit.
P.S. FG to Storm > FF to Storm as well
Too bad zerg doesn't have a colossus, so your argument is void.
With the patch, FG will last 4 seconds. Compared to 15 for FF. FG can't cut off reinforcements. FG costs 75 energy and is really only viable late game when zerg's army is going to be weaker than toss's. Infestors cost more than sentries. I could keep listing reasons
But anyways, I'm not saying FG is bad, but FF is definately better. And all your doing is theorycrafting. Can you give an example of a game between good players where FG effectively wins zerg a game vs toss?
On March 20 2011 13:20 CookieMaker wrote: One word about FF's: Ultras.
-->try them. shockingly good synergy with roach/hydra
I think Ultra's are underused, but the argument is around the early game right now, and Ultra's are only viable to get late game. Plus if you ever get to that point in a game, the zerg has probably killed off most of the sentries and toss is focusing on collossus/stalker/immortal/archon.
I don't think FF is too horrible late game, it's FF in the early/mid game where it gets ridiculous(on a pro level ofc)
On March 19 2011 19:03 Durn wrote: I'm not trying to sound offensive here, but you really can't just look at one BO and call out the ability as being OP or needing to be removed. If you've watched any PvT lately, you'd know that FF are absolutely pertinent to staying alive through early stim pushes. So... to outright remove the ability from the game would leave a gaping hole in Protoss defense. I'm trying to speak impartially (I am a Zerg player) so I think it's unbiased when I say the ability has its place.
That being said, in the capable hands of MC and his weird fast 4gas into 6gate Stalker/Sentry, it's ludicrous. I guess my question to you is, rather than just point out its flaws, how would you go about balancing the situation? My suggestion would be to make FF cost more energy or perhaps make it a Twilight Council upgrade?
If you make it a TC upgrade then then it wont be out for early stim pushes and it will basically force protoss into one-base tech plays since toss need FFs to expo early. The FF is not broken in the slightest because terran can can simple hold down "A" all game long and never lose. And zerg can spam tier 1 ultras (roaches) and force tier 3 from toss. Toss has to tech to win, and they need FF to tech. FF is not OP and you can't look at one game and decide that.
On March 20 2011 13:27 redbrain wrote: Man that final was awful i love gomtv and the production was truly amazing but zerg is soo broken at the moment its insane. FF is completely retarded as it stands really the only thing i see could be either:
1 : Queens = Massive = break FF and give the Queen a buff so they can actually kill a zealot considering a queen is more expensive than a zealot and 10x more important than a zealot.
2 : FF lasts far far far too long and costs pretty much zero energy giving the ability to protoss that roaches cant actually hit you all the while you just lol and use stalkers.
3 : Switch hydra to T1 and roach to T2 with hydra range upgrade actually can negate alot of sentry FF spam because they can still actually shoot at the enemy.
4 : Nerf warpgates they come FAR FAR FAR too early in the game for such an amazing ability, protoss dont have to learn to macro gateways anymore only robo's and stargates. This would actually fix PvP if warp gates costs 200-200 and build time increase they might actually see more back and forth play in PvP
Protoss has become this ezmode button and its really boring to watch their games because yeah they can be super tactical and sneaky but really their units are just amazing and if you play zerg and go to play protoss your scouting is 10x better than pure protoss players alot of the time and you can hit so many really disgusting timming attacks that simply just crrrripple zerg soooo hard. I have very little respect for protoss players anymore i used to like ogsmc but really this final was truely pathetic. Showing how strong warpgates and FF is vs zerg.
Queens are not a military unit, they are an econ unit. qqing about your race is not going to change the fact that too many zergs do not take advantage of timings since their builds are based around finding timings to drone and not timings to build attacking units. The goal of the game is kill your opponent, not get seven bases. Gateways build units SO SLOW that they are useless after 2:00 minutes. PvP cannot be fixed. Ever. It would simply become 2 gate vs. 2g gate. Protoss is not an easy mode. You just have to be a good player. Zerg is statistically OP even more than terran cause their units are hulk smashers which require NO MICRO just positioning. Do you have any idea how hard it is for toss to beat a fast roach zerg? It requires tons of micro while the zerg just 1 "a"s. And hydras are so good against GW units its not even funny. Finally, if FF didnt last that long toos would just simply die to any baneling bust and stim push that came by.
It is time that zergs everywhere start becoming better at micro and stop complaining.
On March 20 2011 12:24 cLutZ wrote: I don't see why this game has spurred such an incredibly intense debate. The better player won. The (arguably) BEST SCII player won. Also I don't know how FF became the focus of the debate, when it is (again arguably) weaker than FG (also why is Conc shells part of this? it takes micro to a whole new level).
In reality, Protoss has 2 ways to control where engagements are (FF, Storm), zerg has 1 (FG), Terran 0 (siege maybe) thus we are really only left with another example of how the races are different.
LOL Are you trolling? FG is better than FF?!?!?
LOL
Also terran has concussive shells and stim, meaning the opponent can't retreat.
No. If Sentries had FG the Protoss army would be just as difficult to face, probably more difficult. The new FG after the patch would be worse for protoss, but just think about colossi ripping through your paralyzed forces that it easily outranges, one line of troops at a time. Protoss wouldn't even need the zealot meatshield, major encounters would be a roflstomp either way.
Edit.
P.S. FG to Storm > FF to Storm as well
Too bad zerg doesn't have a colossus, so your argument is void.
With the patch, FG will last 4 seconds. Compared to 15 for FF. FG can't cut off reinforcements. FG costs 75 energy and is really only viable late game when zerg's army is going to be weaker than toss's. Infestors cost more than sentries. I could keep listing reasons
But anyways, I'm not saying FG is bad, but FF is definately better. And all your doing is theorycrafting. Can you give an example of a game between good players where FG effectively wins zerg a game vs toss?
No, just because Zerg does not have Collosus or High Templar does not make the argument void. Protoss has Colossus and HT because FF is WORSE than FG. The fact that you admit that Toss with FG would be ridiculous makes my point totally clear.
FG>FF, Storm>Baneling, Colossus>Ultra (For pure aoe damage situations) IT makes perfect sense.
I can give you an example of a game where FG wins a game: delaying until Ultras pop. But in any other situation the point is invalid. Roach/Hydra beats Zealot/Stalker/Sentry even with good FF placement, its only when T3 units get put into the mix that Protoss win (for the most part).
why are people always jumping to redesign / rebalance units instead of talking about possibly counterplay?
If you see in the early, he masses sentries, and doesn't go to much other units, build spine crawlers at your natural for instance. Spine crawler are immensly strong, they don't take up larva, and in the later stage you can even move them on the creep to defend new expansion / fortify positions.
So if you see he builds a massive sentry count, build like 8 or 9 spine crawlers, and don't go roaches?Build Spine Crawler / lings in the early game, and then tech to hydras. Get your third base, and react to what the protoss is doing.
Just an example, it doesn't have to be THE solution to the problem, but you can get around certain problems. I've got the feeling that sc2 has dumbed down everyone with it's easier functions. We mostly think about crushing the enemy army head-on. 1-aing our way to victory, with our army that counters the enemy army.
Watch at the forge expansion into air protoss play that ace did at iem, everyone was buffled how to beat it. Then moon showed up and hydra dropped him. The same with july vs mc. Yeah, he hydra dropped against an air build. Unreasonable, but it works very well.
Thats one thing I noticed about July's play vs other zergs who never lose to 4gates.. No spine crawlers..
I dont think July realizes that these are not SC1 spines.. they are MUCH stronger. And if he would of made afew of them, he would of probably held off every attack except for the one where he was softened by DTs first.
Seriously, the hardest thing in the world to fight in PvZ for me, is when the zerg gets spine crawlers. It basically forces you to get collosus, because stalker/sentry/zealots are so fragile that spines take them out so fast.. AND still have to deal with the lings/roach/hydra after that.
Oh.. and guess what.. You cant forcefield spine crawlers! If you have 4 of them (after seeing a 4gate obviously coming).. the Protoss HAS to deal with them first, then tackle the units too! Even 2 spine crawlers, make a much bigger difference than 4 roaches would.
Not saying this would of changed the game, there was many other major mistakes July made.. but seriously; is any other zerg losing to 4gates?? No. No other protoss does such ultra mindf*cks as MC in which he waits til the expo nexus is 99% done before cancelling, or DTs into a 6gate push... but in a standard game, this whole conversation of Forcefield being imbalanced is fucking stupid. Learn how to defend a rush, Everytime a protoss forge fast expos vs a zerg who gets an early roach warren, they REQUIRE cannons to hold.. how come zergs cant learn to get 2 spines after seeing a 4gate??
From beta, as many others, I've been saying force fields are too powerful. The reason: there is not early to early/mid game counter.
The suggestions in this thread are abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous. "oh just get burrow on roaches."
Okay so zergs should be expected to tech to lair, get burrow, and get tunneling claws before protoss can make his first attack at the, what, 6:30 minute mark?
Yeah, people have a point, burrow and burrow movement, as well as massive units are ways to counter FF and that's acceptable. But as we clearly have seen, these counters do not come early enough to be viable against early to early/mid game rushes, that simple.
Let's take a look at warcraft 3 spells for a moment: the tier two unit sorceress has a default (much like sentry's default FF) slow ability, that will slow one unit's movement speed an attack speed. this can become a major problem for mostly tier one units making them ineffective and inefficient when fighting, and making retreating next to impossible. This unit, with its slow ability, is also seen as most effective against orc, as most of their units are slow moving and slow attacking to begin with. Orc can have a tough time against this unit without the proper counter, the tier two spell disenchant from the tier two unit the spirit walker.
Why do I mention that disenchant is a tier two ability? Because it will take time for the ability to upgrade, where as slow is a default ability. I like to make this comparison to zerg and dealing with FF. Sentries gain the default ability FF. Sorceresses gain the default ability slow. Disenchant is a tier two ability which must be researched. Burrow and burrow movement are tier two abilities which must be researched.
But wait, how does orc deal with slow before disenchant finishes? Orc has speed scrolls, which can make retreating from sorcerer's slow completely viable. Speed scrolls are a cheap, and effective way to retreat from this slow ability (slow essentially makes fighting/retreat impossible much like FF).
My question is, why doesn't zerg have a way to counter FF at tier one. (Much as orc has a way to counter slow at tier one). It really makes no sense. Speed scrolls are only effective up to a certain point in the game, so the better alternative is needed eventually. So why not something like queens smashing FFs? It would only be effective on your own turf and would only work up to a certain point in the game, similar to speed scroll, which only works up to a certain point in the game as well.
FF being a basic tier one ability, needs a basic tier one counter that's all there is to it. And none of this "but FF is hard to use" bullshit. If protoss has an ability that zerg cannot counter before a certain time, then protoss has the advantage before zerg has the counter. End of story.
Another point: abilities that PREVENT movement altogether (to more than one unit at a time) do not belong in this game. Concussive shells make sense, because they SLOW but they do not PREVENT movement. In warcraft 3, the very fell spells that PREVENT movement to more than one unit at a time (as FFs do), last less than one and a half seconds. FFs last 15.
"Durr but FFs dont prevent movement" you're wrong, yes they do. when your army gets cut in half, half of your army can either run into their army to their certain doom, or fight to the death. Sure, they can move, but they might as well not be able to.
"Well dont fight in chokes stupid, durrr" when protoss has this ability, they get to choose where to engage, not zerg. And zerg is even further hindered by this because zerg wants to fight away from their base, so they can continue to make reinforcements, this lowers zerg's choices of where to fight even more so.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
The only reason Force Fielding the ramp was so effective was because July's response was late.
Why was his response so late? MC faked an expansion and canceled it at the last second. This cause July to drone up too hard..
Sure, those FF were damn good, but the scenario leading up to them is much more important. Imagine July had properly scouted a 4 gate and not relied to "signs", he would have already had his army down the ramp since he wouldn't have made that round of drones.
He got outplayed.
He got outraced.
You can be all fanyboy you want about MC's AMAZING STRATEGY but, at the end of the day, if Terran or Zerg tried to do some sort of shenanigans like that then July would have still been able to defend because he would have had units in time.
The only reason July couldn't defend is not because he didn't have the right amount of units, not because he played bad, not because MC played well, not because July over droned or any other reasons that involved "skill". The only reason July lost is because he literally couldn't get down the ramp to defend. July made units at the perfect time; they came out exactly as the attack actually started. However, because of forcefields, it didn't matter.
There's a great word to describe the timing of units that spawn just in time to get blocked at a ramp: late. July should have built more units earlier. He was totally faked out. That's just how the game is.
I also felt that July let MC control the battlefield way to much. If you fight toss in small, cramped areas with tiny ramps, of course you lose. If you fight against walls, cliffs, or buildings, you're at a disadvantage. Once again, that's just how it is. MC played beautifully, July's response was weak and ineffective. I was really hoping for a July win, but MC made him look like a scrub.
On March 20 2011 17:45 Authweight wrote: There's a great word to describe the timing of units that spawn just in time to get blocked at a ramp: late. July should have built more units earlier. He was totally faked out. That's just how the game is.
heres the thing, he wasnt faked out. tasteless and artosis made a point ot of july not seeing the cancel because they're commentators, but july knew what was happening the second mc moved out. he had cut drones by the time mc's army cleared the choke between his main ledge and thirds ledge.
and he was outraced.
how exactly was he supposed to react faster when ovie scouting is impossible against a warm opponent in those spawns? if zergs have to react faster, there has to be a means to see whats happening earlier.
how was july supposed to know mc wasnt building probes?
I think FF's are fine, there just needs to be a small tweak for zerg to handle it. Terran can handle sentries because they can get ghosts REALLY early, OR they can get siege tanks with their superior range or Thors to break the FF. Zerg on the other hand, needs Lair and either of the following, Burrow + burrow movement OR Overlord Speed + Drops. Yea you can use just burrow, but that doesn't help your chances of getting down the ramp. Zerg has no unit like the siege tank at 4 gate or 6 gate timings or a massive unit like the thor to break the FF or a Tier 1.5 spell caster like the ghost.
Think of it this way, the Toss is getting a shit ton of sentries for a reason, generally to defend your natural expansion and they can move out if they want to. If they see a bunch of spine crawlers they run away and suddenly the Zerg is behind on economy because they had to use drones for spines and larva for units, meanwhile the toss is continuing probe production and can just defend infinitely with all those sentries, get a robotics and observer and counter your unit composition perfectly. I'm not saying zerg can't do the same thing, but larva is the main factor here, you have to pump drones like a madman when toss takes his expansion and you get punished when he moves out and just cuts your army in half.
My suggestion? Don't nerf FF, I think they are necessary, just buff Zerg in a way that ZvT is unaffected. Making Queens massive is one way, although It's too easy to make a lot of queens off two hatch and then FF would be useless. Maybe allow queens to evolve into a massive unit like they had in Alpha stages of SC2, where it costs gas to morph them and they lose their defensive abilities like Transfusion, spawn larva and creep tumors. Maybe burrow at hatchery after spawning pool? Possibly increase the research time so that it's almost to the point where it would take as much time to get a lair and burrow as it is now. I'm just throwing ideas out there but I think MC really showed how abusive you can be with FF.
burrow at hatch would be the perfect way to give t and p motivation to keep a respectful distance from a zerg in the early game and force a zerg gas commitment to limit zergs growth while defending, but i fear it would be much to prone to complaints when 2 burrowed banelings end every sub plat push ever.
On March 20 2011 17:45 Authweight wrote: There's a great word to describe the timing of units that spawn just in time to get blocked at a ramp: late. July should have built more units earlier. He was totally faked out. That's just how the game is.
heres the thing, he wasnt faked out. tasteless and artosis made a point ot of july not seeing the cancel because they're commentators, but july knew what was happening the second mc moved out. he had cut drones by the time mc's army cleared the choke between his main ledge and thirds ledge.
and he was outraced.
how exactly was he supposed to react faster when ovie scouting is impossible against a warm opponent in those spawns? if zergs have to react faster, there has to be a means to see whats happening earlier.
how was july supposed to know mc wasnt building probes?
I don't pretend to understand the balance involved precisely, and I'm not saying its balanced. I do know that saying July built units in time to defend the push is ridiculous when the whole reason he lost is that he didn't have units out in time to defend the push. The argument I responded to was essentially this: 1) July built units in time 2) FF stopped those units from being used 3) Therefore FF is broken
My point is that its not that July built units quickly enough but FF unfairly blocked them at the ramp, its that because of FF July didn't build units quickly enough. Changing FF would alter the required timing, but so would changing build times, or changing scouting possibilities, or any of a hundred other possible changes. I don't know if it was possible for July to counter the push or not, I suck to much at this game to try and figure that out.
On March 19 2011 18:51 theBOOCH wrote: 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.
This. I was thinking exactly this when I saw those games last night. The early game use of sentries would not be compromized, and Sentries could still be used to micro during other stages of the game, though not to the same extent. I think 75-80 starting energy/ ff requirement would be better. Otherwise Hallucination might not see as much play; and I really like what some people are doing with hallucinations right now (using them to blink onto high ground w/o an observer; warp in dts etc.)
On March 20 2011 18:40 Authweight wrote: I don't pretend to understand the balance involved precisely, and I'm not saying its balanced. I do know that saying July built units in time to defend the push is ridiculous when the whole reason he lost is that he didn't have units out in time to defend the push. The argument I responded to was essentially this: 1) July built units in time 2) FF stopped those units from being used 3) Therefore FF is broken
My point is that its not that July built units quickly enough but FF unfairly blocked them at the ramp, its that because of FF July didn't build units quickly enough. Changing FF would alter the required timing, but so would changing build times, or changing scouting possibilities, or any of a hundred other possible changes. I don't know if it was possible for July to counter the push or not, I suck to much at this game to try and figure that out.
i would think the argument 'july built his units on time' is actually something closer to 'july built his units within a reasonable time of the pushes start'. the timing argument depends on scouting as much as it does the race across the map vs the race down the ramp. if july couldn't be expected to practically scout out the fake sooner, than there is a problem.
I haven't seen the match the OP has brought up, but I did see boxer play in the TSL. Unfortunately, I didn't see the boxer that I knew I would see. There were no creative plays in almost the entire rounds, and it made me qq a bit..I miss the bw days.
If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, it was a tvp matchup and both players played standard: Terran went bio ball w/medvacs+vikings; toss, gateway units/colo/phoenix. Honestly, I have to admit there was some micro, but it wasn't what I expected. I think the majority of the micro was Boxer individually destroying colossus with his vikings and a few storms and forcefields. That's it, and it really made me wonder why Boxer's still playing sc2.
Consequently, I think that micro is really a small part of sc2. This is the reason why I believe Blizzard came up with forcefields and whatnot. But still, anyone with a keyboard and mice and do it.
Personally, I don't think abilities will ever replace the role of micro.
Oh blizzard, just give us back our stone-age commands and limited highlight selections. Maybe a few tweaks here and there. You're killing the competition for the pros out there..
Forcefielding an army apart is fine, forcefielding so much everywhere that units are squished and bugged together and can do nothing until their death is kind of lame, both to watch and to play.
On March 20 2011 07:20 DoubleReed wrote: As a zerg player, I don't see how much different this is than speedling surrounds. If speedlings are on the field, then you essentially cannot move out unless you know you can win, lest you get surrounded and destroyed.
The main difference in my opinion is that forcefield can be baited to waste sentry energy, and the fact that sentries are so gas heavy.
I'm sorry but just because they're awesome doesn't mean they're imbalanced or really problematic.
Of the posts on the thread, I feel like this is the best opinion.
Though I do wonder at times about midlate game. It gives zerg an incentive to get ultras out to negate FF to some degree. Lategame ff is necessary and disgusting at the same time. It's necessary because otherwise you'll never see a gateway army deal with the horde. It's disgusting because it feels like the impetus is entirely on one player to win or lose the game and that momentum is kept by the FF player.
Collosi deathballs you can conceive of ways to find a solution. ultra efficient forcefield armies... unless a way of baiting them or better eco hatch timings are developed it's going to be difficult.
On March 19 2011 19:17 Skyze wrote: to anyone who says FF is imbalance.. I have a simple challenge for you.
Try to play Protoss at Masters WITHOUT using one forcefield.. I dare you. See how badly forcefield is required.
And even if you do use it, 99.9999% chance you will get no where near as good as forcefields as MC.. He is the best in the world, point blank. Watch every other "pro" Protoss player, they dont win every game simply by going mass sentries.. If it was that easy, every protoss would be winning every single game like nothing. Forcefield "placing" is a large talent, trust me.. I have over 2000 protoss games so far, and I still land shitty forcefields once in awhile. It really is an art, and put it this way; you miss one forcefield vs terran, its gg.
No one's talking about removing forcefields. We're talking about balancing them so that, as an opponent, you can actually micro against forcefields. Right now if a Protoss uses FFs right you literally cannot micro against them and that is, literally, game breaking. You can modify forcefields so that they're still effective but able to be negated.
It's literally game breaking? Does your SC2 DVD snap in half when you get FFed? Do your game filee get corrupted?
On March 20 2011 19:04 billy5000 wrote: I haven't seen the match the OP has brought up, but I did see boxer play in the TSL. Unfortunately, I didn't see the boxer that I knew I would see. There were no creative plays in almost the entire rounds, and it made me qq a bit..I miss the bw days.
If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, it was a tvp matchup and both players played standard: Terran went bio ball w/medvacs+vikings; toss, gateway units/colo/phoenix. Honestly, I have to admit there was some micro, but it wasn't what I expected. I think the majority of the micro was Boxer individually destroying colossus with his vikings and a few storms and forcefields. That's it, and it really made me wonder why Boxer's still playing sc2.
Consequently, I think that micro is really a small part of sc2. This is the reason why I believe Blizzard came up with forcefields and whatnot. But still, anyone with a keyboard and mice and do it.
Personally, I don't think abilities will ever replace the role of micro.
Oh blizzard, just give us back our stone-age commands and limited highlight selections. Maybe a few tweaks here and there. You're killing the competition for the pros out there..
Boxer is scared of TvP and his opponent was one of the most passive protosses ever.
Don't read to much into it.
Also, there was a guy above me who said that Terran can get ghosts, siege tanks with siege mode and Thors so they had no problem with force fields, but poor zergies HAD to get burrow and maybe burrow movement/OL drops.
The hell, do you think burrow takes longer to get than siege tech or a thor?
MC used 1k+ gas on sentries in that push. It's not a 4gate rush that comes 5 minutes in. It took him 8 minutes to get there. By that time I can get a cloaked banshee off one gas...
He does that push often enough that zergs should know it's coming. Get your lings and roaches out on the field and prepare to flank, get an early burrow if you see more than 3 sentries and you're playing MC.
It's like dying to a proxy void ray while spamming marauders and going on about IMBA.
On March 20 2011 15:40 Skyze wrote: Thats one thing I noticed about July's play vs other zergs who never lose to 4gates.. No spine crawlers..
I dont think July realizes that these are not SC1 spines.. they are MUCH stronger. And if he would of made afew of them, he would of probably held off every attack except for the one where he was softened by DTs first.
Seriously, the hardest thing in the world to fight in PvZ for me, is when the zerg gets spine crawlers. It basically forces you to get collosus, because stalker/sentry/zealots are so fragile that spines take them out so fast.. AND still have to deal with the lings/roach/hydra after that.
What are you talking about ? I strictly remember july throwing down 2-3 spines at least on metalpolis, as soon as he realized Nexus was canceled (like....the second it was even possible to realize).
On March 20 2011 15:40 Skyze wrote: Thats one thing I noticed about July's play vs other zergs who never lose to 4gates.. No spine crawlers..
I dont think July realizes that these are not SC1 spines.. they are MUCH stronger. And if he would of made afew of them, he would of probably held off every attack except for the one where he was softened by DTs first.
Seriously, the hardest thing in the world to fight in PvZ for me, is when the zerg gets spine crawlers. It basically forces you to get collosus, because stalker/sentry/zealots are so fragile that spines take them out so fast.. AND still have to deal with the lings/roach/hydra after that.
What are you talking about ? I strictly remember july throwing down 2-3 spines at least on metalpolis, as soon as he realized Nexus was canceled (like....the second it was even possible to realize).
Yeah, he did that.
Also I feel that SC1 sunkens where much more powerful then our Spine crawlers now days.
On March 20 2011 13:04 Angra wrote: Force fields, concussive shells and fungal growth are all absolutely awful for the game.
It's 99% of the reason why we see people massing up armies in their natural all game instead of moving around the map and engaging in skirmishes all over the place. If you push out and try to do any prodding at all before you have an economic advantage, you risk losing the entire game because of getting a portion of your units trapped by one of these 3 abilities.
Regardless of how "cool" Blizzard thinks they are, they make the game a million times more boring than it would be without them in the long run.
Again, I fail to see how that is any different from getting surrounded with speedlings. These abilities let people punish mistakes much more. I see that as a good thing, especially as not only zerg can do it now.
I was actually just about to edit my post and include speedlings in there too as a lesser form of the other 3. :p I definitely think they should tone down speedling movespeed but up their dps in other ways.
The thing is, it's not even just punishing mistakes. It's punishing movement, prodding, and aggression at ALL outside of your protected natural. There's a huge difference between attacking right into someone's natural and getting punished for it, and walking around the middle of the map trying to find an opening, encountering the other army, and then not being able to retreat half of your army because they get trapped just for moving it out of your natural.
So you think opponent's should be able to constantly prod and be aggressive without the defender being able to punish that? And yes, it is punishing mistakes. It encourages scouting a lot more.
Tone down speedling speed? You realize speedlings literally don't work properly without surrounds for the most part. I'm sorry, but it just simply sounds like you want to take out a fundamentally important part of the game.
it would be nice if they made the queen a massive unit so it could stomp over the ff. It'd help with ramp blocking but wouldn't render ff completely useless
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
I beg to differ, casting forcefields is NOT difficult and is in no way similar to marine king splitting marines.
Forcefield is definitely a very powerful spell but there are ways to negate it. Blizzard addressed some of the concerns by making massive units break them, but i say why stop at that? EMP should break it as well as fungals, maybe even storms. I think this idea would be incredibly effective and would require more dynamic play.
Other than using abilities and size of units to stop forcefield, there are tons of ways that i think you could get around it. Burrow move is a known work around for zerg, terran can use medivacs to pick up units trapped around FF and carry them out, but im not sure how plausible this is.
I have a cool idea though: What about even making FF's have life so that you can attack it and 'break' the forcefield?
If FF isn't difficult to cast I'd love to watch a replay of you doing MC forcefields. Yeah it's not the same as MKP micro but they still require skill especially since sentries are never the only unit in the army and you have to micro other units as well. Like someone said before, if GOOD forcefield casts were really that easy, why can't everyone do it? I've seen pros mess up forcefields.
I do think that giving FF's life might be interesting, but I don't know how much life would be viable. I think it would have to be something that could still negate early Terran pushes but also something that would still have some use in the mid game and late game. I think that if they were given health, the ability of massive units to break them instantly should be removed.
On March 20 2011 13:17 Wolf wrote: This is a silly discussion. When you see a ton of sentries, you avoid engaging them, or try to force the forcefields out early. The same goes for marauders. You just avoid engaging them if you don't have enough units to either win the battle or secure a retreat.. It's that simple. You just micromanage your units and decision-making before the forcefields, fungals, concussive shells.
Regardless of how you can or can't beat it, is it even fun at all to watch or play? I really don't think so. I mean look at the ways to beat these mechanics that you just said: "avoid engaging" in two different situations. How does that make for an exciting esport at all? That's why you see GSL matches end up with two armies camped at naturals for 20 minutes, instead of 20 minutes of exciting skirmishes and movement all across the map.
I totally agree, honestly think why i like broodwar better atm. I cant stand 20min of people jus macroing....zzzzzzzz makes this esport soo lame to watch/play no doubt. almost makes me want to play g dub again
On March 21 2011 01:43 HigoSeco wrote: it would be nice if they made the queen a massive unit so it could stomp over the ff. It'd help with ramp blocking but wouldn't render ff completely useless
I've thought about this myself, not sure if I like the idea that phoenix could no longer lift them though..
With all the games were protoss barely survives early game with sentries using forcefield, what do you expect protoss players to do if forcefield is removed?
secondly, why penalize a race when ONE individual (MC) is able to utilize an ability to its utmost potential, isn't that what being a professional gamer is about? that's almost akin to making the three point line 4 feet farther because Ray Allen is an excellent 3 point shooter.
everyone is now blaming forcefield for their losses, I can almost guarantee that anyone on this forum short of the pros here are losing due to other reasons.
I have seen hundreds of protoss players at all levels do decent forcefields - its NOT hard to do really good forcefields, the difference is MC specifically practices forcefield placements and has mastered it. Eventually, people will do the same and be at that skill level, and that will lead to unbalanced matches where people are just using abusive strats because of forcefield.
The thing about marine micro is that I have almost never seen anyone besides the best terrans in the world and very other few high APM players do ridiculously good marine splits. I personally can do amazing marine micro, and it took me days of losing to zerg because I could not split marines as good as MKP or MVP. I even have 250~ apm average, which is just as high as those guys.
No matter what, there will never be a time where every good terran player is an amazing marine splitter. However, there will be a time where all the good protoss players have learned to do really good and abusive forcefields and that will break the game too much.
Concussive shells doesnt prevent micro...it only helps to maybe 1-2 units from retreating extremely easily from an entire army. If that didn't exist, it would be retarded how easy it is to have your mistakes with micro not punish you at all in the early game. You would be able to retreat units so easily that it would be a joke.
Fungal growth IMO should've became a missile again. It causes for more exciting and preemptive use and probably intense micro from both players. However, not being able to move obviously means no micro which is dumb. Change it to a slow effect and fungal with the new change will be great.
IMO, I think that FFs are necessary as a defensive measure to block ramps, because protoss has no early defensive structures early on. Terrans can get bunkers and zergs can get spine crawlers and have fast unit production. Protoss cannot get photon cannons unless they invest in a forge early on.
But I also think that the tactical advantage of FFs in large battles, especially in higher skill levels is a bit too powerful. Toss players usually get about 5 sentries early on and pool a ton of energy so they can cast like 15 FFs instantaneously later on. This effectively traps half the opponents units and gives the protoss a free victory if done correctly.
That said, here are are my possible options to reduce the tactical advantage while also maintaining its defensive advantages: -Make a cooldown for FFs like psionic storm. FFs last pretty long so making it cooldown would not hurt its ability to block ramps. But it will prevent toss from instantaneously casting a bazillion FFs and leaving the opponent with nothing they can do. -Make the cast range shorter. This can also block ramps but will make it harder to use in large battles. -Remove its ability to displace units. This can block ramps, but it cannot split an enemy in half. This might be too big of a nerf, so it might be reasonable to buff it a little bit too. -Make FF breakers more accessible; all the massive ground units that can break FFs are higher tier units that are harder to get. Terrans can get thors in tier 2 which is reasonable, but they are so immobile and such a large investment that they will hinder the army a lot. For example, making a queen a FF breaker would allow it to step cover zerg ramps to prevent reinforcements against a 4 gate.
BTW, for the toss players whining that good FFs are hard to execute, and thus should not be nerfed to reward skill, WE SERIOUSLY DO NOT GIVE A FUCK!! Nobody cares about the bronze level games that you play. If u cannot FF properly u can just get better and learn to FF properly. On the other hand, at higher levels tosses FF perfectly almost every single time, and making it impossible to avoid is just ridiculous.
I think I just had a pretty sick idea on how to fix the issue of forcefield without giving up the early game survivability of toss. Give sentries DISRUPTION WEB from BW. Yes, at first this sounds silly but think about it.
If a zerg tries to bust a toss in any way early game, he can throw down disruption webs to stay alive till more units come out (the duration and energy cost would have to be tweaked of course). BUT! The big thing this would fix is that it would not allow a toss to prevent a zerg from getting down his ramp, it would just screw up his roaches and zerglings from doing any damage to your army, however, it also allows the zerg to micro against like dodging storms.
This would allow for tense early game battles that don't wind up extremely one sided. and would probably allow for more macro games because games wouldn't end up with toss just FF raping a zerg in his base all the time.
I've always thought it would be a better game mechanic if they were to just make forcefield an AOE spell that slows like 75% and buffed guardian shield balancing the sentry
Concussive and Fungal both can be microed against, exactly like any other ability you micro away FROM BEING HIT. The fact that they slow/stop your micro IF HIT makes them no different from Ensnare/Lockdown in BW.
Forcefield is the only true micro-problematic move. Destiny used to make this point a lot, and it was one of the few complaints he made I strongly agreed with. Forcefield should not be able to move units like it does. The result of that is that no matter how perfect your micro the opponent can just plop FFs wherever he feels like with 0 micro and counteract your machinations.
On March 21 2011 04:35 Faranth wrote: I hope that Blizzard makes some gradual experimental adjustments on PTR to see if changing force fields would have a dramatic effect on the game. Watching MC vs. July was rather depressing, simply because July never had the chance to show off his skill. Even MC seemed to have the attitude of "I have force fields, therefore I win." Roach burrow unfortunately isn't enough to counter in most battles that I've seen, if the Zerg manages to get it at all.
I don't think the solution is to increase the range of the Hydra or Roach. I would like to see them try to increase the energy required for a force field to 60. This would substantially reduce the number of force fields from a max energy sentry - either 3 force fields or 2 and a guardian shield. Players would have to be much more thoughtful about their placement and in protracted battles the Zerg could eventually break through.
I hope Blizzard keeps tweaking, regardless of what they think, just to see what happens. The development of a game is never finished.
The problem is not the cost, its the concept iteself, didn't you see game 1? What killed July the most was the SINGLE forcefield on the ramp.
On March 21 2011 01:43 HigoSeco wrote: it would be nice if they made the queen a massive unit so it could stomp over the ff. It'd help with ramp blocking but wouldn't render ff completely useless
That's an interesting idea, but would unfortunately make Void Rays WILDLY powerful (as they would destroy Zerg's lone AA option). I do like the idea of FFs having life (so they can be attacked/killed) and essentially being temporary destructible rocks. That way they'll still be very good in battles (as it takes time to refocus fire to break down a wall) but would prevent cheesily perma-walling someone's ramp to isolate part of their army automatically.
I think the reason that Forcefield is getting so much heat right now is you watch that particular set of games and it looks like There is NOTHING that july can do / could of done. Is Forcefield too good? Maybe, Maybe not. No body who isn't pro really can answer that and even then. MC played the game PERFECT. I'm guessing if you go watch games 1 2 4 5 you can't find a mistake that MC made.
On March 21 2011 04:39 hadoken5 wrote: The problem is not the cost, its the concept iteself, didn't you see game 1? What killed July the most was the SINGLE forcefield on the ramp.
no it was Julys decision not to make units (to get more economic advantage) until MC was going out. That is the sole reason he got caught pants down, cause obviously July was following a "just it time" production. He misjudged the aggression potential (unitsize), and lost the game.
if you only watch at the forcefield you don't see the forest before the trees.
These abilities are fine for the most part because they still allow micro, the problem as I see it is that zerg doesn't really have anything microable in zvp.
Make FF non castable on creep.... zergs will creep ramp asap to deny the 1 FF garbish and Protoss will not be able to rush to the front of zergs base and FF off a group of roaches to slaughter with his ball.
On March 21 2011 05:07 aka_star wrote: Make FF non castable on creep.... zergs will creep ramp asap to deny the 1 FF garbish and Protoss will not be able to rush to the front of zergs base and FF off a group of roaches to slaughter with his ball.
and how is protoss supposed work when creep is spreaded half across the map to your base...that's makes no sense.
Reduce the duration of force fields from 15 seconds to 10 or 12 seconds to increase the energy drain of Force fields without affecting the ability of sentries to cast the same amount of them.
On March 21 2011 05:07 aka_star wrote: Make FF non castable on creep.... zergs will creep ramp asap to deny the 1 FF garbish and Protoss will not be able to rush to the front of zergs base and FF off a group of roaches to slaughter with his ball.
and how is protoss supposed work when creep is spreaded half across the map to your base...that's makes no sense.
Use your observer and some units to push the creep back?
What's entertaining about these threads is that they cover everything that enables Protoss to win games.
FF IMBA Cuts up armies into killable sizes Collosi IMBA Does too much damage High templar IMBA Storm is ridiculous especially having it fully upgraded in the lategame and able to deploy everywhere Warpgates IMBA why can protoss reinforce with such powerful gateway units anywhere? Voidrays (less so) imba Once they get momentum they dont die.
Took me awhile to realise how silly and ridiculous all of these threads are.
As to the op, FG, ensnare concussive lings. In both games there were ways to really hamper any sort of retreat. Imo Concussive is the most brutal since it neutralizes quite a bit of aggression early on in the open field. Very powerful abilities are fine if there's a little tension with them.
Also, Zergs can respond by... having units at the bottom of the ramp when the push hits or emergency spines.
On March 21 2011 04:24 Juddas wrote: I've always thought it would be a better game mechanic if they were to just make forcefield an AOE spell that slows like 75% and buffed guardian shield balancing the sentry
On March 21 2011 03:17 Kallo wrote: I think I just had a pretty sick idea on how to fix the issue of forcefield without giving up the early game survivability of toss. Give sentries DISRUPTION WEB from BW. Yes, at first this sounds silly but think about it.
If a zerg tries to bust a toss in any way early game, he can throw down disruption webs to stay alive till more units come out (the duration and energy cost would have to be tweaked of course). BUT! The big thing this would fix is that it would not allow a toss to prevent a zerg from getting down his ramp, it would just screw up his roaches and zerglings from doing any damage to your army, however, it also allows the zerg to micro against like dodging storms.
This would allow for tense early game battles that don't wind up extremely one sided. and would probably allow for more macro games because games wouldn't end up with toss just FF raping a zerg in his base all the time.
On March 21 2011 02:57 thegamer wrote: IMO, I think that FFs are necessary as a defensive measure to block ramps, because protoss has no early defensive structures early on. Terrans can get bunkers and zergs can get spine crawlers and have fast unit production. Protoss cannot get photon cannons unless they invest in a forge early on.
But I also think that the tactical advantage of FFs in large battles, especially in higher skill levels is a bit too powerful. Toss players usually get about 5 sentries early on and pool a ton of energy so they can cast like 15 FFs instantaneously later on. This effectively traps half the opponents units and gives the protoss a free victory if done correctly.
That said, here are are my possible options to reduce the tactical advantage while also maintaining its defensive advantages: -Make a cooldown for FFs like psionic storm. FFs last pretty long so making it cooldown would not hurt its ability to block ramps. But it will prevent toss from instantaneously casting a bazillion FFs and leaving the opponent with nothing they can do. -Make the cast range shorter. This can also block ramps but will make it harder to use in large battles. -Remove its ability to displace units. This can block ramps, but it cannot split an enemy in half. This might be too big of a nerf, so it might be reasonable to buff it a little bit too. -Make FF breakers more accessible; all the massive ground units that can break FFs are higher tier units that are harder to get. Terrans can get thors in tier 2 which is reasonable, but they are so immobile and such a large investment that they will hinder the army a lot. For example, making a queen a FF breaker would allow it to step cover zerg ramps to prevent reinforcements against a 4 gate.
BTW, for the toss players whining that good FFs are hard to execute, and thus should not be nerfed to reward skill, WE SERIOUSLY DO NOT GIVE A FUCK!! Nobody cares about the bronze level games that you play. If u cannot FF properly u can just get better and learn to FF properly. On the other hand, at higher levels tosses FF perfectly almost every single time, and making it impossible to avoid is just ridiculous.
On March 21 2011 02:56 emidanRKO wrote: I have seen hundreds of protoss players at all levels do decent forcefields - its NOT hard to do really good forcefields, the difference is MC specifically practices forcefield placements and has mastered it. Eventually, people will do the same and be at that skill level, and that will lead to unbalanced matches where people are just using abusive strats because of forcefield.
The thing about marine micro is that I have almost never seen anyone besides the best terrans in the world and very other few high APM players do ridiculously good marine splits. I personally can do amazing marine micro, and it took me days of losing to zerg because I could not split marines as good as MKP or MVP. I even have 250~ apm average, which is just as high as those guys.
No matter what, there will never be a time where every good terran player is an amazing marine splitter. However, there will be a time where all the good protoss players have learned to do really good and abusive forcefields and that will break the game too much.
Concussive shells doesnt prevent micro...it only helps to maybe 1-2 units from retreating extremely easily from an entire army. If that didn't exist, it would be retarded how easy it is to have your mistakes with micro not punish you at all in the early game. You would be able to retreat units so easily that it would be a joke.
Fungal growth IMO should've became a missile again. It causes for more exciting and preemptive use and probably intense micro from both players. However, not being able to move obviously means no micro which is dumb. Change it to a slow effect and fungal with the new change will be great.
On March 21 2011 01:43 HigoSeco wrote: it would be nice if they made the queen a massive unit so it could stomp over the ff. It'd help with ramp blocking but wouldn't render ff completely useless
When will people realize that no one cares about your very own personal suggestion on a magical balance fix that will solve the game?
If I had a dollar for every SC2 balance suggestion then Scrooge McDuck would look like a hobo in comparison to me.
EDIT: Oh wow looky here 2 more balance suggestions above me that I forgot to quote. surprise surprise
^ how much micro does holding down F and clicking your mouse in a circle take?
Doing forcefield micro like a pro such as mc or huk is difficult and requires skill. If you don't consider this true then try emulating what they are doing. It's the same as Marineking splitting his marines to negate banelings. He makes it work through his own skill as a player.
I beg to differ, casting forcefields is NOT difficult and is in no way similar to marine king splitting marines.
Forcefield is definitely a very powerful spell but there are ways to negate it. Blizzard addressed some of the concerns by making massive units break them, but i say why stop at that? EMP should break it as well as fungals, maybe even storms. I think this idea would be incredibly effective and would require more dynamic play.
Other than using abilities and size of units to stop forcefield, there are tons of ways that i think you could get around it. Burrow move is a known work around for zerg, terran can use medivacs to pick up units trapped around FF and carry them out, but im not sure how plausible this is.
I have a cool idea though: What about even making FF's have life so that you can attack it and 'break' the forcefield?
If FF isn't difficult to cast I'd love to watch a replay of you doing MC forcefields. Yeah it's not the same as MKP micro but they still require skill especially since sentries are never the only unit in the army and you have to micro other units as well. Like someone said before, if GOOD forcefield casts were really that easy, why can't everyone do it? I've seen pros mess up forcefields.
I do think that giving FF's life might be interesting, but I don't know how much life would be viable. I think it would have to be something that could still negate early Terran pushes but also something that would still have some use in the mid game and late game. I think that if they were given health, the ability of massive units to break them instantly should be removed.
Protoss units require micro? Besides sentries and HTs, the entire Protoss army is all about the A-move.
FF isn't hard, or at least it isn't hard compared to all the various micro tricks Terran is forced to pull off just to be on even ground with brotoss.
Balance suggestions won't help. What will help is people experimenting with builds and units they have in the game to deal with good strategies rather than relying on Blizzard as some magical crutch that listens to all your suggestions and will patch the game so you don't have to work to beat good strategies. Ignoring the fact that most of these balance suggestions don't consider the other two match-ups beyond the direct problems of FFs, Concussive, Fungal, etc, and ignoring the fact that patching to fix problems that aren't actually problems hurts the game in the long term by reducing the layers of strategy in it, it doesn't help that everyone decides to whine and not try to advance the game.
By thinking the only way to beat something is to change the game entirely, you're handicapping your creativity and problem solving, and you're preventing yourself from getting better at the game.
Chill out guys. I'm pretty sure moderators don't like stupid "my race is more micro than your race" arguments.
Though I am a little confused by Rashid. I mean it's almost universally claimed that bio > gateway units. So I don't know what you mean by needing micro tricks to stay above. Maybe to stay above forcefield, but that means it coming down to who has the best micro. So that's a good thing.
But again, I don't see these elements as "nullifying micro" so much as being very punishing to mistakes. Baiting FF is micro. Focus-Fire is micro. Surrounding with lings is micro...
On March 21 2011 08:08 DoubleReed wrote: Chill out guys. I'm pretty sure moderators don't like stupid "my race is more micro than your race" arguments.
Though I am a little confused by Rashid. I mean it's almost universally claimed that bio > gateway units. So I don't know what you mean by needing micro tricks to stay above. Maybe to stay above forcefield, but that means it coming down to who has the best micro. So that's a good thing.
But again, I don't see these elements as "nullifying micro" so much as being very punishing to mistakes. Baiting FF is micro. Focus-Fire is micro. Surrounding with lings is micro...
of course bio > gateway units. but that isn't really a problem, since toss can simply FF and easily tech to robo.
people say that T is stronger than P in early game, but what does it matter if i got a billion marines and marauders when P can simply FF the ramp until they can get a good unit combo to deal with my raiding party.
that is why i'd rather see blizz heavily buff zealots and remove FF altogether. Zealots already serve as walls on their own, and they at least take some skill to micro instead of spamming FF.
Again, I feel like the reason FF stands out against other moves it actually is unmicro-able against because even with perfectly positioned, perfectly grouped, perfectly microed, perfectly composed units someone can just lazily cast FFs on top of them with one hand while eating Doritos with the other. It needs to either be uncastable atop units (which would make it a very different spell and would be a rather violent change) or something like making FFs destructible to make it possible to react to them.
On March 20 2011 13:20 CookieMaker wrote: One word about FF's: Ultras.
-->try them. shockingly good synergy with roach/hydra
Yeah i heard ultra's are pretty good at stopping the 4 warp gate push.
not only that but quite literally, almost every single protoss unit hard counters ultralisks, stalker, immortals, colossus, zealot, archon, void ray. its pathetic, ultralisks BLOW zvp
Even with a beautiful drop into MC's main, MC almost held the drop sentries vs hydras.
Then again, MC's forcefields are truly phenomenal so in my opinion they aren't broken until you reach the truly highest level of play. His forcefields were almost a work of art.
My concern is: Even in places where there didn't seem to be a choke, MC made one (example: the middle of Shakuras Plateau where he literally built a wall of forcefields to split July's army in half). At one point July had pure Hydralisks that would have dominated MC's army if his forcefields weren't placed well. Now because his forcefields WERE literally perfect, MC was able to kill the army and lose only a few units.
I don't claim to know the answer but a lot of people are saying that Zerg needs to engage in a better spot (and micro better) but the middle of Shakuras technically was a great spot for July to engage but it turned into a terrible spot because of forcefields. In my opinion, July chose a good spot to engage but because of forcefields, it became an extremely one sided fight. To me that doesn't seem fair because at the one point in time, there didn't seem to be an answer for those sentries except for overlord drop and banelings.
If Zerg were really forced into that kind of play against heavy sentry count, that would really take away from my experience watching pro games =/
rofl this thread is rich. seems to me like 40% theorycrafters, 50% people that are mad that they got ff'd, and 9% people that just want the game to be dumbed down more and more. (EDIT: FORGOT MY 1% BROTOSS) How about everyone just tries to get together and figure out how to get around it. Everyone mad because protoss has developed the most as a race in the past 2-3 GSL seasons cause they were forced to. Now, instead of attempting to further terran or zerg or w/e, its just a big QQ fest everywhere. I understand zerg is relatively UP right now, but come on, don't sit around and cry about it. Just play the damn game. Also,
On March 20 2011 13:43 carbon_based wrote: people should consider the maps that the GSL is played on, all of them HEAVILY favor protoss there's a reason they aren't on the ladder. 3 expansions and only one tiny choke point???? OK THX. there's a reason they widened paths on temple and removed shakuras, protoss fast expansion is too freaking good and most of the GSL maps let protoss fast expand for free. people were invariably going to QQ but seriously MC could have won with carrier/mothership if he wanted to because giving protoss 4-6 free geysers early on means they will win.
this game is designed by idiots and the whole problem is terran bio. why are force fields so strong and cheap? because toss needs tons of them placed perfectly just to stop a herp derp 3 rax. if terran bio weren't so damn strong there wouldn't be a need for huuuuuuuuuuge maps just for zerg to survive a freaking marine scv push, and guess what u suddenly balanced tvz and pvz is a huge mess now. gj blizz. the core terran units being glaringly overpowered is what is throwing this game into a horrible balance spiral and the fools at bliz's inability to realize it is starting to get on my nerves.
More importantly, if you have a hotkey full of, let's say, high templars and you have them all selected and you storm a location, only one HT storms, instead of all of them storming. This reduces the necessary micro for all units with similar abilities, thus lowering the skill required to use these powerful spells and makes spamming them way too easy, which can be led to them seeming overpowered. Now THIS needs to be fixed.
i seriously think the main problem is zerg scouting in early game, crawlers pretty much own sentries but if your overlord / lings don't get the needed info on time you are pretty much screwed, for a reactionary race we are given little to no time to react. Simply put zerg options at beginning are limiting and you need to plan ahead to react to attacks. Getting Lair + burrow + roach movement + tunneling claws is not something you can just do on the spot, takes time, same as getting mutalisks out or drops (which are only 3 options that really counter FF in any non 4-gate scenario).
On March 21 2011 11:21 Terranium wrote: July did not get hydra range upgrade in that Shakuras game, thats why he got raped in the midfield.
As a Terran I never had problems with FF because I mech every TvP game. Guess zerg is going to need some playstyle innovations.
Getting thors are relatively easy for terrans, getting ultras on the other hard, is very difficult for zerg. Since mutas get owned by stalkers, its difficult for zerg to counter the tosses forcefields without massive units
Uh... there are plenty of counters to all those items. If u didn't build/research any and your army is weak to it, what did you expect? forcefields have lots of weaknesses... like AIR, blink, burrow, massive units, long range units, drops, and your own counter spells.
Bit of a Starcraft nub question: but doesn't Brood War have a LOT of abilities which negate micro?
Anyway, I don't think people are viewing "micro" in the right way. Forcefields don't "nulify" micro, they nulify retreating or advancing past the forcefield.
Pretty sure micro isn't just the ability to have all your attacking units on one hotkey, and then trying to retreat whilst half your units cannot and thus spend the better duration of a forcefield trying to get away as opposed to attacking or doing something more useful whilst stuck.
I find fungals "nulify" micro more, because then you are totally unable to move. Forcefields mainly useful in high numbers. As far as I've seen, Terrans learned to out-micro banelings over time, perhaps we'll see players react to the increased skill cap of Forcefield usage by increasing the skill cap of their ability to avoid forcefields.
Don't think it needs a nerf, I just think Zerg needs Hydra buffs. I know that's very specific, but sometimes the best way to balance is to, rather than nerfing the offender, buff appropriate "response" to said counter.
My 2 cents. Starcraft nub though, take it with a grain of salt.
Forcefield negates micro once it's cast and on the field. Using a forcefield requires a sentry with energy, which is an investment from protoss in a weak fighting unit, a very expensive investment (100 gas on a unit that does terrible dps). You can micro and position to try to deal with forcefields BEFORE they are down, which most people forget. Your opponent has sentries? Don't fight in small areas. Bait the forcefields by splitting small groups up and being very careful to hug the range of the sentries. EMP those sentries: your micro with the ghost just countered the forcefields.
Yeah, once the fields are out, they're set. Try preventing the situations though. Sometimes, the best tactic to beat an enemy tactic is to stop them from utilizing it, not power through it after they're done.
Obviously a crucial part of 'micro' is unit positioning BEFORE spells go off.
A simple example, but a lot of Protoss players would bitch that Zealot/Stalker couldn't win against Concussive Shells in the early game, because they'd position their units wrongly. However, if you properly screen the Stalker(s) with the Zealots, you can use 1 Gateway against 1 Rax + Tech Lab without a problem and without a ramp.
Of course, if you a-move and THEN try to rearrange your units AFTER the battle has begun, the Marauders will tag your Stalker and kill it before your Zealots can properly punish them.
On March 21 2011 12:57 Whitewing wrote: Forcefield negates micro once it's cast and on the field. Using a forcefield requires a sentry with energy, which is an investment from protoss in a weak fighting unit, a very expensive investment (100 gas on a unit that does terrible dps). You can micro and position to try to deal with forcefields BEFORE they are down, which most people forget. Your opponent has sentries? Don't fight in small areas. Bait the forcefields by splitting small groups up and being very careful to hug the range of the sentries. EMP those sentries: your micro with the ghost just countered the forcefields.
Yeah, once the fields are out, they're set. Try preventing the situations though. Sometimes, the best tactic to beat an enemy tactic is to stop them from utilizing it, not power through it after they're done.
July engaged in the middle of Shakuras and MC still had enough sentries and forcefields to forcefield his way out of that situation.
Have to admit MC's forcefields were amazing but your advice on "engage in a better position" doesn't really help when July was beat with forcefields (he would have won the fight if the forcefields weren't perfect) in one of the most wide open areas in the whole map pool.
Here's my herpderp advice: If everyone is concerned about mass forcefields being overpowered, why dont they add a function into the game so that for every X sentries, each forcefield lasts N seconds less.
But in all honesty, the 3-rax comment above is actually correct. Without FF, it is so hard to stop marauder spam early game as toss.
I admit that the forcefield block in game one of MC vs July was a bit unfair, but you can also credit for faking him out and showing up with a LOT more units than he thought would be coming at that point, which means by the time they popped at that point, MC would have blocked the ramp.
On March 21 2011 22:00 ct2299 wrote: Here's my herpderp advice: If everyone is concerned about mass forcefields being overpowered, why dont they add a function into the game so that for every X sentries, each forcefield lasts N seconds less.
But in all honesty, the 3-rax comment above is actually correct. Without FF, it is so hard to stop marauder spam early game as toss.
I admit that the forcefield block in game one of MC vs July was a bit unfair, but you can also credit for faking him out and showing up with a LOT more units than he thought would be coming at that point, which means by the time they popped at that point, MC would have blocked the ramp.
Rather than that, which is complicated. (If you played WoW PVP you should be familar with this term) Have Diminishing Returns for Forcefields lol. Every Sentry can only have 4 forcefields up at any given time. (With Max EN) First FF is 15s 2nd will last shorter and one after that will last even shorter until Xseconds has passed. But that'll suck for the protoss player... having to keep track of all that shit timing >.<
lol i thought this was going to be about the new fungal growth. can't move and take damage, not counting the units that just swarmed around you. storm at least takes time and can be dodged.
I think forcefields should be destructable... how much HP or what armor class are they? I don't know, but I feel like if they are destructable, they still have the strength they should, without being "overpowered"
Another idea someone else mentioned, lower the cast range, so the sentries have to put themselves in peril in order to cast the FF.
On March 21 2011 12:50 bittman wrote: Bit of a Starcraft nub question: but doesn't Brood War have a LOT of abilities which negate micro?
the only main one that comes to mind is stasis freeze, but units frozen become invincible. there's also lockdown but thats per unit. ensnare slows down units. you can use lurker egg to block ramp.
these are just the ones i remember atm. i think the game could be more exciting if it was the same, very limited micro nullifying stuff.
For Brood War, there was also lockdown from ghosts, and queens had ensnare. However, both of these abilities weren't used very often, because lockdown was very hard to use without autocasting, and queens were rarely used at all.
That being said, it was very exciting to see them when they were used in pro matchups (i.e. boxer's gosu lockdowns vs carriers).
Their's slot of skill/micro with Forcefields/fungul/Con shell Ov not just spam forcefielding someones ramp but your couldn't do anything in PvT without them. I think they all have a place in the game even if fungul was a really underused ability that was quite frankly amazing. ff are strong but get nullified in mid/late game with massive units, Fungul used to get nullified by medivacs (new patch) and con shell is still useful all the way through the game for the same price as a sentry nearly I like these abilitys their the "lets not just A move into someone abilitys"
But then again its a pretty huge investment too. Sentries can pretty much be massed early game and have like 150 energy each pooled up so I think thats where part of the problem is
In my opinion, the things that counter FF come too late for zerg.
Overlord pickup is useless without Ovie speed. To get both of these upgrades takes a long time, by then well controlled FFs have already won the game. Again with burrow, then even further tunnelling claws.. Its all too late for zerg.
Another difference with the abilities OP pointed out.
You can spread to avoid fungal. To control Mauraders to conc shell A LOT of units is impossible. Inevitably they will focus fire the same targets. Also Conc shell is an upgrade, which requires a tech lab.
Have a look at the new fungal growth on Infestors. It is a VERY powerful spell, but the infestors are about 4x the size as sentries, and much softer, both of which aide in focus firing against the spell caster.
I would like to see range of FF lowered by 1, or to have the sentries a bunch softer. Allow them to get the first wave of FFs off, and if they don't micro back, they really need to die. There shouldn't be WAVE after WAVE after WAVE of FFs, not allowing a player to micro for a full 2 minutes game time. Thats just game destroying.
I liken it to WoW when I used to play as a shadow priest.... Where Rogues could stun me for an entire fight, leaving NOTHING for me to do, while I sit their and have my face raped. Regardless of control from each player (simply because I had none, whether I was gosu or not.)
On March 25 2011 10:23 BrahCJ wrote: In my opinion, the things that counter FF come too late for zerg.
Overlord pickup is useless without Ovie speed. To get both of these upgrades takes a long time, by then well controlled FFs have already won the game. Again with burrow, then even further tunnelling claws.. Its all too late for zerg.
Another difference with the abilities OP pointed out.
You can spread to avoid fungal. To control Mauraders to conc shell A LOT of units is impossible. Inevitably they will focus fire the same targets. Also Conc shell is an upgrade, which requires a tech lab.
Have a look at the new fungal growth on Infestors. It is a VERY powerful spell, but the infestors are about 4x the size as sentries, and much softer, both of which aide in focus firing against the spell caster.
I would like to see range of FF lowered by 1, or to have the sentries a bunch softer. Allow them to get the first wave of FFs off, and if they don't micro back, they really need to die. There shouldn't be WAVE after WAVE after WAVE of FFs, not allowing a player to micro for a full 2 minutes game time. Thats just game destroying.
I liken it to WoW when I used to play as a shadow priest.... Where Rogues could stun me for an entire fight, leaving NOTHING for me to do, while I sit their and have my face raped. Regardless of control from each player (simply because I had none, whether I was gosu or not.)
Reduce max energy of sentries would do a large amount to help the complaints about ridiculous amounts of force fields for sustained periods of time.
Currently 200 energy max and 50 energy cost of force fields, 4 force fields per sentry. Reduce the max energy to 150 allows a max of 3 force fields per sentry.
This would also gimp the hallucination use of sentries though, so it might be nice to reduce the usage energy of hallucinate to 75 so the sentries could still get 2 hallucinates out from max energy. This might make hallucinate scouting a bit too powerful though so it might be better off leaving it at 100 energy.
I'm was talking in a broad sence of every conceivable match up, your saying sentrys need to be a lot "softer" how much softer could they be? 40 shields 40 life They only seem to be hard to kill because they usually have back up or have to ff themselfs not to get destroyed is not exatly a Ultra. Your talking like Sentrys are walking around the map one shotting everything which is far from the case you have bad micro your sentrys die your screwed 50 minerals 100 gas is a massive investment early game yes they are usually are a solid investment
If we're talking ZvP for the forcefields how the hell would a toss hold off the droves and droves of zerg. you've oviously died to ff in the past have so i the difference seems to be i can see the need for the sentry/ff and what i did wrong you seems to be pissed and you oviously did nothing wrong. If the Toss is at your nat ff'ing your ramp how did the game get to that? He didn't just appear. Their was a series of events that led to your ramp getting ff'd that the Zerg didn't adequately prepare for not scouting/over droneing and dont say Mc vs July we all kno july played like crap. The only thing Zerg needs that they don't currently have is a good scouting unit without major upgrades
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
Your are forgetting he was up to MC, not just any protoss that could do the same. I bet if it was another player the things will have played out differently. If you take MC as the base player for analyzing a race, its obvious that the race would seem OP. You cant say that Marines are OP just because there is a player, MKP, that is a genius using them. Same thing. Ask what could july have done against MC, not against forcefields.
I agree about FF and Vortex but I'd also add HT and DT in the same group. This is because I'm not focusing on the really micro-micro, but on the more macro micro, which means basically the fact that the enemy's army is smart-cast in half and picked off by long-range units or rushes are totally negated in a very cheap way etc. In this light also HT and DT belong here, as well as some other cheese in Protoss' repertoire, which surpasses that of other races and is easier to to do or to get away with, and more intutitive. I tend to think the whole race relies on this kind of thing as of SC2.
As for kiting, I have an overall negative sentiment toward the thing in general and I particularly dislike playing against players who never leave you alone the whole game, never accept battle, never allow you to go at peace, run from smaller armies than theirs, chase bigger armies than theirs etc. This was very popular in WC3, thankfully less so in SC2 but still present.
Fungal is pretty ridiculous right now (wrong way to buff zerg, but that's a separate discussion); but in terms of pure game design there is nothing really wrong with it.
The reason is that it's performed by a specialized caster unit that is pretty high up in the tech tree and gas intensive.
Force fields and concussive shells are an entirely different beast. They are extremely early and it's easily possible to mass marauders. Sentries can't be massed to the same extent. Still, they are such an early tech that you can get up quite a few before any battle takes place.
Concussive shells is without a doubt the worst game design issue in StarCraft 2. It's the type of thing that makes you go "what were they thinking!?". It's so ani-starcraft. It disables micro in the early game PvT => early game PvT is so boring and dumb.
So yes, abilities that nullify micro can be dangerous, but nobody complained about Dark Archon maelstorm. Again, it was a pretty late tech and casted by a specialized casting unit. Nobody complained about Arbiters. For the same reason. Concussive shells however should just be removed ASAP if you want to make a good, fun game. If that causes balance issues, then address them, I don't care.
Parasit, I've lost enough PvT when going marauders. They are already relatively bad vs zealots, a zealot and stalker mix will generally do well and immortals slaughter marauders to the point it's not even funny. The counter to immortals is marines, but it's silly building marines at that time in the game, when the Prot can easily be building colossi at the same time. The Terran can surely go for tanks to be safer from colossi, but it takes time and immortals laugh at tanks, as do zealots when tanks aren't many enough. Perhaps you just need to put more immortals in your game. Obviously, if you think immortals are bad, I'll happily listen to whatever Terran can do to make them so.
On March 26 2011 01:27 NewbieOne wrote: Parasit, I've lost enough PvT when going marauders. They are already relatively bad vs zealots, a zealot and stalker mix will generally do well and immortals slaughter marauders to the point it's not even funny. The counter to immortals is marines, but it's silly building marines at that time in the game, when the Prot can easily be building colossi at the same time. The Terran can surely go for tanks to be safer from colossi, but it takes time and immortals laugh at tanks, as do zealots when tanks aren't many enough. Perhaps you just need to put more immortals in your game. Obviously, if you think immortals are bad, I'll happily listen to whatever Terran can do to make them so.
In a kind of funny twist, stimmed marauders (even 3 of them, which is about cost efficient) can beat an immortal. Likewise, 3 marauders will beat 2 stalkers (same price as immortals) and can beat 4 zealots with some kiting. They also can beat Colossi that have no backup cost efficiently.
I'm not arguing they're op, I've also beaten mostly marauder compositions as Protoss with good forcefields.
On the point you made about making marines - you always want marines as Terran, even if there are some Colossi on the field. Protoss also have to choose between Immortals and Colossi, as they both build out of the same building.
With forcefields, I'd argue that they require baiting to deal with, as otherwise they build up. Having 1 forcefield block your ramp for 30 seconds is a much smaller deal than 1 for 2 minutes as your expo dies.
Imo, the problem with force field is not that it limits micro, rather how MUCH it limits micro in that a handful of sentries could cut a large army in fractions of itself multiple of times. So let me run this past the community: make force field a channeled ability. Limits how large an army can be portioned off from their current seemingly overpowered way but still keeps them a viable option for protoss. This also raises their skill cap since each placement wouldn't be a spam anymore but instead be what it should have been.. careful placement with some forethought.
Best fix I think is possible to tell you the truth.
I agree completely that mass sentries is WAY too powerful, but setting balance aside, they make for some extremely boring games from a spectator perspective. The finals sucked IMO, July could not fight, could not run away, could not do anything but die. MC might be the best FF user, but other toss players will catch up to him and surpass him (I'm sure he will surpass himself as well) and that is the really sickening part to me - FF still has a ton of potential, as powerful as it is right now, and mass sentry with some sick FF can destroy nearly all zerg ground.
You can argue July made some bad decisions and was already "behind" and that is exactly why I think FF are so stupid, because in almost all cases if you are behind you can actually TRY to get ahead, but not after your whole army is trapped by FF. He was not that behind.
It's also hilarious how OP some people think colossus is and protoss might not even need it in PvZ with mass sentry, MC certainly didn't.
I like how the OP was about abilities that can negate micro (i.e ff, concussive shell, fungal.) Yet somehow it's turned into a "omg zerg can't handle FF, nerf them please." Is it just me or did the thread derail, and kind of needs to get back on the topic of ALL micro reducing abilities.
That aside, good points have been made about FF potentially needing tweaking. But, there aren't many clear cut ways to do it as protoss absolutely need forcefields early, mid, and late... period. Maybe there is a way to nerf/tweak FF while still allowing protoss to be able to defend their ramp early, or not have collossus sniped by stim marauder run arounds. But, if it was THAT overpowered, then MC would not have been the ONLY protoss to make it to the GSL finals thus far. It's still very beatable. P aren't the only ones winning showmatches and tournaments
Sometimes, i think people should just post videos and show the player's keyboards with the actual game as a small panel int he corner. Most people here are idiots and, since they see something done, they instantly assume that it is easily done. "Forcefield placement is easy" or "Splitting marines is easy" are terrible statements. GOOD forcefield placement and GOOD marine splitting take tons of micro and skill.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
Your are forgetting he was up to MC, not just any protoss that could do the same. I bet if it was another player the things will have played out differently. If you take MC as the base player for analyzing a race, its obvious that the race would seem OP. You cant say that Marines are OP just because there is a player, MKP, that is a genius using them. Same thing. Ask what could july have done against MC, not against forcefields.
I give credit to the man, not to the weapon.
That makes no sense. You are acting like no other person in the world could block a ramp with forcefields. And comparing it the marines from marineking is wrong as well, wanna 1 the one small difference? Even when its used correctly you can still do something against it it if you practice enough. A forcefield on your ramp will always will be a forcefields on your ramp wich shuts down all reinforcements no matter how many million games you play. The best thing you can possibly do is try to prevent.
On March 26 2011 05:14 Treemonkeys wrote: I agree completely that mass sentries is WAY too powerful, but setting balance aside, they make for some extremely boring games from a spectator perspective. The finals sucked IMO, July could not fight, could not run away, could not do anything but die. MC might be the best FF user, but other toss players will catch up to him and surpass him (I'm sure he will surpass himself as well) and that is the really sickening part to me - FF still has a ton of potential, as powerful as it is right now, and mass sentry with some sick FF can destroy nearly all zerg ground.
You can argue July made some bad decisions and was already "behind" and that is exactly why I think FF are so stupid, because in almost all cases if you are behind you can actually TRY to get ahead, but not after your whole army is trapped by FF. He was not that behind.
It's also hilarious how OP some people think colossus is and protoss might not even need it in PvZ with mass sentry, MC certainly didn't.
Yeah MC doesn't think Protoss needs to tech up to kill Zerg either
-_-
EDIT: Concussive shells doesn't take micro to perform, you just a-move. Force Fields and Fungal need proper placment to be most effective. Doesn't that force micro? Mass sentries is actually super terrible, you have no map control, no DPS, and you lose gas so it slows down your tech. The only time it's decent is when you get 8-9 to defend your expansion from early Zerg aggression. You cannot kill someone with only sentries. MC abused the hell out of Force Fields when he beat July, but that's what happens when you tech to mutas/go fast hydras/drone up too hard.
Force Fields don't do damage, but Fungal does. Hmm...
Having watched that epic fail maelstrom video, it reminds me of another point - it is very possible to handicap yourself with forcefields as Protoss, but much harder to handicap yourself with concussive shells (save accidentally attacking one of your own units) and impossible with fungal growth.
I have literally, at points, cut my zealots off from attacking the MMM ball, so they get tragically cut to bits as my stalkers vainly attempt to shoot down some marauders from the far side of the forcefields.
This probably won't happen in this degree to a player like MC, but it is still possible to handicap yourself with poor forcefields. If we're discussing their power in relation to the other two "micro reducing" abilities, that is something we have to take into account.
On March 26 2011 01:39 Aequos wrote: In a kind of funny twist, stimmed marauders (even 3 of them, which is about cost efficient) can beat an immortal. Likewise, 3 marauders will beat 2 stalkers (same price as immortals) and can beat 4 zealots with some kiting. They also can beat Colossi that have no backup cost efficiently.
True but it takes more time and supply to train three marauders and a badly damaged surviving immortal still does much damage than a single surviving marauder. And I'm not sure I'd be able to pull off the kiting with my level of skill, maybe not on every day.
I'm not arguing they're op, I've also beaten mostly marauder compositions as Protoss with good forcefields.
I've generally lost quite a number of games when relying on marauders.I used to have a funny move creating 3 marauders with concussive shells and maybe stim (but not necessarily) without even getting a single marine. It stopped being effective at some point. Some time ago, I returned after 2 weeks of not playing solo and, suddenly, after beating pretty much every Protoss, I suddenly couldn't win any. Something must've changed in the way TvP works. I'd guess the Protoss early macro has improved, as well as integration of colossi in bigger armies on the tactical level.
On the point you made about making marines - you always want marines as Terran, even if there are some Colossi on the field. Protoss also have to choose between Immortals and Colossi, as they both build out of the same building.
Thanks, that's worth noting. I generally bring some vikings along and/or use tanks in case of colossi. More skilled Protoss players make good use of cliffs, though, using colossi to harass armies and that's a pain when executed well.
With forcefields, I'd argue that they require baiting to deal with, as otherwise they build up. Having 1 forcefield block your ramp for 30 seconds is a much smaller deal than 1 for 2 minutes as your expo dies.
True. Personally, I just feel cheated when a couple of smart-cast forcefields enable the Protoss to kill half my army, costs me the game most of the time. Ramp blocking is actually more subjectively annoying but is more rationally understandable. But it does work me up when I know that while I'm waiting for tanks to build and arrive, he's getting colossi or some other nastiness while having full knowledge of my army composition... or when I'm pushing up the ramp knowing what I'm risking. I know medivacs are a solution but they delay the attack and reduce the number of infantry available for the attack.
To all those stating this isn't easy...it is. I don't even play toss, but I am quite good at FPS. I have absolutely zero practice doing this, and I can walk through with ease. If I did it better I have no doubt I'd lose no units.
I think the biggest issue here is that FF can actually compress units into a space that they couldn't occupy otherwise.
This balance arguments are ob-fucking-noxious. It's always the person who's the loudest and most bias that wins (I've seen some ppl post 8 times on this thread just repeating the same damn thing.
So from what I've seen so far it's a few ppl who were dumb enough to have all they're units fought on the wrong side of a ramp (get better map presence...). Also the idea of giving FFA hp is a damn joke. How much hp should hey be given. 100ish (that will hold back the mm stim timing for what 2-3 seconds).
Do you REALLY need FF to stop some types of rushes? I don't really see how that could possibly be the case. By the time you get a FF out, that's a cybercore+build time+100 gas. By that time you should have had ample time to scout for said undefendable rush.
What about making FF an upgrade and make them like temps in that they are a late game caster unit you have to make a decision to make. IDK if that would be broken in that late tier massive units break FF just by walking on them, but a thought.
What about making conc shells like stim, in that its an activate with a downside. Perhaps when conc is on their damage is lowered, or the mara moves slower too.
Make fungal growth a slow rather than a root?
I quite dislike sents. I hate when toss will just spam block their ramp for a couple mins straight. Makes early roach pressure useless. And the fear of going up the ramp is even worse, make it half way up, blocked off, half army slaughtered, GG? Why even pressure at all at that point?
The best change to FF imo is to lessen the SICK range of 9 to something like 5-6. Ramps would still be easy to protect, but abusing it vs an army would require you to put the sentries in a more risky position. That way the opponent by microing well might be able to focus them down, making it a micro-war.
The best change to FF imo is to lessen the SICK range of 9 to something like 5-6. Ramps would still be easy to protect, but abusing it vs an army would require you to put the sentries in a more risky position. That way the opponent by microing well might be able to focus them down, making it a micro-war.
Thats probably the best/only change that could come to FF. which i still don't see happening. if they hit toss with another nerf they'll in turn buff the other gateway units and thats going to make 4gate just roll over ppl,
I think they need to disallow casting FF when a unit is in that area. It should be either block enemy from getting closer or block them from running away (which require the sentry to move close to enemy). FF in the middle of a group of army and cut them to half is ridiculous, almost impossible to avoid that
To all those stating this isn't easy...it is. I don't even play toss, but I am quite good at FPS. I have absolutely zero practice doing this, and I can walk through with ease. If I did it better I have no doubt I'd lose no units.
I think the biggest issue here is that FF can actually compress units into a space that they couldn't occupy otherwise.
Agreed. I also think that people really overstate how much skill it takes to use FF. Yea, it takes skill, but not that much.
In all honesty I feel that FF is problematic due to how unstoppable it is when a person casts proper forcefields. When a person botches their FFs, then it's possible to respond or move away, but when the FFs are properly cast then it's literally impossible to do anything about it. The only real way to counter FFs is just to get the proper counter unit, which are burrow roaches, EMP, and massive units. The problem with this of course is that any protoss player with half a brain knows to push early before any of those things are available, which is one of the many reasons 4/6 gate is so powerful.
To be perfectly honest though, I just find forcefields to be bad for e-sports. BW was entertaining because it had units/spells that felt overpowered but could be countered with proper micro. That doesn't happen with FFs because they are completely dependent on the person casting it, and not how the opponent responds. You can't "respond" to FFs: either they trap your units or they don't. The only way to respond is to pray that your opponent screws up, or to get the counter unit, but getting forced to build the counter unit only encourages the rock-paper-scissors feel in SC2. In BW, we constantly see units win against their supposed counter by having good micro (infantry vs. lurkers for example). I can almost guarantee you that will never happen with say, non-burrow roaches vs. forcefields simply because of how FFs nullify micro.
I think this problem really shows when you see how angry people become when they see forcefields dominate a game. People should be amazed when they see something used well, but instead they are getting pissed off, so much in fact that mods are now having to routinely monitor tournament threads so balance whining doesn't get out of hand. And interestingly enough, the balance whines are almost always about the following things: forcefields, marauders (concussive shells), colossi, warp-in, void rays. Pretty much anything that is extremely powerful while also being easy to use and hard to counter. I'm sure race bias is a factor, but to me it's a symptom of a greater problem with this game.
I think this problem really shows when you see how angry people become when they see forcefields dominate a game. People should be amazed when they see something used well, but instead they are getting pissed off, so much in fact that mods are now having to routinely monitor tournament threads so balance whining doesn't get out of hand. And interestingly enough, the balance whines are almost always about the following things: forcefields, marauders (concussive shells), colossi, warp-in, void rays. Pretty much anything that is extremely powerful while also being easy to use and hard to counter. I'm sure race bias is a factor, but to me it's a symptom of a greater problem with this game.
I think some of it has to do with the community shift. If everyone from the SC2 community was playing BW you would still hear tons of balance whining, outrage, and people trying to chop each other down.
I don't think the fact that the ability nullifies micro is the issue, it's just that it's such a decisive ability. If you get rushed with forcefields, and the forcefields are good, it's often game over. The game was lost because of 1 second in the game where the forcefields were dropped. It just feels like a player should be able to make a mistake, get behind, but continue to fight back.
It can definately be argued that a good player should avoid getting into a bad position, and that would be my opinion too, but it seems kindof wrong to me that one mistake can be game over. Similarly with fungal, it feels so abusive when I fungal a big patch of marines and watch them explode, but the difference is that fungal comes so late into the game that even if I hit a perfect fungal, it doesn't end the game, it just puts me ahead.
I think the main difference between fungal and forcefield is the level of tech required. If you get hit by fungal, you could lose 20 marines, but at this late stage of the game it's not such a big deal. If you get rushed and lose your army to forcefield, or have forcefield on your ramp, it's game over. You can't have drop tech in time to save your natural, you can't have any air units, you can't nydus out - you're just dead.
I think they're definately good abilities, and do add a lot to the game, but I feel that they shouldn't be available so easily so early in the game.
On March 28 2011 22:59 Grezzz wrote: It can definately be argued that a good player should avoid getting into a bad position, and that would be my opinion too, but it seems kindof wrong to me that one mistake can be game over. Similarly with fungal, it feels so abusive when I fungal a big patch of marines and watch them explode, but the difference is that fungal comes so late into the game that even if I hit a perfect fungal, it doesn't end the game, it just puts me ahead.
Well it is the same for Protoss the otherway around, one mistake (misplaced,timed) Forcefield and it is Game over. No Protoss would complain a FF Nerf if Gateway Units wouldn't suck so much.
On March 28 2011 22:59 Grezzz wrote: It can definately be argued that a good player should avoid getting into a bad position, and that would be my opinion too, but it seems kindof wrong to me that one mistake can be game over. Similarly with fungal, it feels so abusive when I fungal a big patch of marines and watch them explode, but the difference is that fungal comes so late into the game that even if I hit a perfect fungal, it doesn't end the game, it just puts me ahead.
Well it is the same for Protoss the otherway around, one mistake (misplaced,timed) Forcefield and it is Game over. No Protoss would complain a FF Nerf if Gateway Units wouldn't suck so much.
Yeah absolutely, infact I've had plenty of games where my opponent was looking away when I engage with my roaches, or I go for a speedling counter attack and my speedlings make it into his main base. I definately feel for my opponent when this happens.
The reason the complaints are usually targetted towards protoss is that at the top level, the bad forcefield mistakes are happening less and less, and the perfect game ending forcefields are happening more and more.
The problem is, how would you change forcefield? It looks like such a hard skill to balance. How can you nerf forcefield without destroying protoss' early game? How can you buff gateway units without making them totally dominant? There are already a few examples of gateway units being used effectively without mass forcefields, would these strategies become too powerful?
People keep bringing up the MC vs July game, but there are two reasons they should stop if they're going to QQ over FF:
1) It just shows that good examples of OPed FFs are few and far between that you only have one concrete example to quote. Bring me 50 replays and I'll agree that something needs to be done. 1 game isn't warranting of a major game dynamic overhaul.
2) The game gets a lot of QQ from zergs, but the fact remains that it was a damn amazing game to watch. The entertainment potential for good FF play is the only thing that keeps toss games interesting (especially since the HT nerf).
Forcefield is onesided micro, while it is indeed powerfull and perhaps sometimes impressive how one uses forcefield, the opponent can not do anything against it. You can't micro your way out of forcefield because there is an impenetrable wall standing between your units. That is infact that problem for Zerg, it has no proper real counter aside from burrow roaches, which are at this moment quite subpar to the risk/reward a Protoss does.
I think a fairly simple change to forcefield that could make a big difference is to shorten a FF lifespan. Perhaps make forcefield last 500-1000ms less time. This would still allow all of the cool and nifty forcefield micro (doughnut, block ramps, etc), but not make it quite as detrimental to the opponent--e.g, all your roaches can still be trapped helplessly on top of each other, but you may be able to retreat before they are "all" dead. It would cause sentries to use up energy slightly faster (=slightly less FF overall), but not really enough to cause major changes to gameplay.
Another advantage to this is that it wouldn't require any changes to the programming of the sentry mechanics, just the adjustment of one number.
On March 28 2011 23:30 Grezzz wrote:The problem is, how would you change forcefield? It looks like such a hard skill to balance. How can you nerf forcefield without destroying protoss' early game? How can you buff gateway units without making them totally dominant? There are already a few examples of gateway units being used effectively without mass forcefields, would these strategies become too powerful?
I have thought about this for a long time, and I believe I have the rough workings for a solution.
Basically, there are two reasons why you can't nerf forcefields:
1) Protoss will just DIE to early pressure 2) Gateway tech won't be viable in midgame (eg 6gate, so Muta/ling will have more dominance)
There are two reasons why you can't buff the other Gateway units to compensate:
1) 4gates without Sentries are already good, buffing Gateway units will just exaggerate that 2) Gateway units alone are intended to die to some builds (eg Burrowed Roaches), which they wouldn't otherwise die to.
The solution to this isn't particularly wacky or weird, but will change games a lot.
1) Nerf the FF range/duration 2) Buff Gateway units (increase Stalker damage to Armoured, increase Zealot attack speed etc) 3) Increase the cost of Warp Gates to 100/100 or 50/100 and multiply the time taken for it to complete by 1.2 or 1.3
EDIT: I'd also like to add some input about the 4gate vs T or Z. At the moment, the problem with the 4gate is NOT the units themselves. Zealot/Stalker are relatively weak, and Sentries are only used for FF and GS. Instead, it is the mechanic of Warp Gates that gives the trouble. It comes pretty fast, and basically gives Protoss a 'free' cycle of units (time-wise) when Warp Gates finishes, and completely nullifies the reinforcement time. This would be solved using the increase to Warp Gate timing and cost, but I'd like to keep Warp Gates themselves as I think they kick ass.
Not wildly gamechanging, but will require adjusting to. Gateway units need to be able to compete with other low tech units to be viable as defense without Sentries being a 'crutch' unit (like the Colossus, but that is a whole other can of worms). Forcefields and Sentries will have to be weaker to compensate for this, as at the moment they do seem slightly exploitable. Lastly, 4gate is already too fast in PvP and the timing of it makes it extremely difficult to deal with, to the point where it is standard. Increasing the time and gas cost of it makes Korean 4gate less viable (but not impossible), and also would allow decent tech units to come out before the standard 4gate is done, so that using Immortals or Void Rays for early defense is more viable. As a side effect, the 2gate will get slightly more powerful, but that is never really a problem in higher leagues anyway (which I assume Blizzard is balancing around, E-SPORTS etc).
If there are enough responses to this, I might make a new thread about it, but at the moment I don't feel it deserves one.
To all those stating this isn't easy...it is. I don't even play toss, but I am quite good at FPS. I have absolutely zero practice doing this, and I can walk through with ease. If I did it better I have no doubt I'd lose no units.
I think the biggest issue here is that FF can actually compress units into a space that they couldn't occupy otherwise.
Agreed. I also think that people really overstate how much skill it takes to use FF. Yea, it takes skill, but not that much.
In all honesty I feel that FF is problematic due to how unstoppable it is when a person casts proper forcefields. When a person botches their FFs, then it's possible to respond or move away, but when the FFs are properly cast then it's literally impossible to do anything about it. The only real way to counter FFs is just to get the proper counter unit, which are burrow roaches, EMP, and massive units. The problem with this of course is that any protoss player with half a brain knows to push early before any of those things are available, which is one of the many reasons 4/6 gate is so powerful.
To be perfectly honest though, I just find forcefields to be bad for e-sports. BW was entertaining because it had units/spells that felt overpowered but could be countered with proper micro. That doesn't happen with FFs because they are completely dependent on the person casting it, and not how the opponent responds. You can't "respond" to FFs: either they trap your units or they don't. The only way to respond is to pray that your opponent screws up, or to get the counter unit, but getting forced to build the counter unit only encourages the rock-paper-scissors feel in SC2. In BW, we constantly see units win against their supposed counter by having good micro (infantry vs. lurkers for example). I can almost guarantee you that will never happen with say, non-burrow roaches vs. forcefields simply because of how FFs nullify micro.
I think this problem really shows when you see how angry people become when they see forcefields dominate a game. People should be amazed when they see something used well, but instead they are getting pissed off, so much in fact that mods are now having to routinely monitor tournament threads so balance whining doesn't get out of hand. And interestingly enough, the balance whines are almost always about the following things: forcefields, marauders (concussive shells), colossi, warp-in, void rays. Pretty much anything that is extremely powerful while also being easy to use and hard to counter. I'm sure race bias is a factor, but to me it's a symptom of a greater problem with this game.
That is exactly my point, you can push with 4-6 sentries and just a few Stalkers or Zealots before someone can get Lair+Burrow+Tunneling Claws, and even if they were to get those things they would be giving up a lot of army to get them. Add to the fact that lings can't move while burrowed, and you are still going to lose to it. As far as I'm concerned you are basically praying the toss screws it up, because if they are good at it then you basically auto lose.
As the OP stated the worst thing about forcefield is Protoss NEEDS it to survive early game. I've experimented and tried tons of other builds to survive early Terran pressure and you just come out too far behind if you do manage to fight it off.
I do think forcefield is too powerful as well. I won't list the reasons why because we all know about them. I would like to mention how bullshit they are against Zerg though just for the sake of it.
i'm sure i'm not the first person to notice this, but brood war wasn't exactly devoid of spells that stopped micro. what about lockdown? or stasis field? stasis field shuts down units for 40 seconds. lockdown shuts down units for 60 seconds. sure they couldn't be attacked, but the point was the whole divide-and-conquer aspect - you could get rid of part of your opponents army until you killed whatever was left, then kill the part that you temporarily removed. sounds a bit like the strategy with force fields, huh? except force fields are just walls that last for 15 seconds, while fungal lasts for 4, and concussive shells lasts for a whopping 1.5. i'll admit that the sc2 spells are lower tier, but look at the spells themselves. i'd rather be able to guarantee that my opponents units are gonna be out of the battle for 40 seconds than have to micro correctly to cut my opponents army in half (for 15 seconds).
On April 20 2011 18:58 Cellophane wrote: i'd rather be able to guarantee that my opponents units are gonna be out of the battle for 40 seconds than have to micro correctly to cut my opponents army in half (for 15 seconds).
force fields are really easy to do, im a zerg and my force fields were perfect when i tried out protoss the first time
you dont have to micro correctly, you just have to spend 0,5 seconds of doing something different than 1a and you automatically win the battle
On April 20 2011 18:58 Cellophane wrote: i'm sure i'm not the first person to notice this, but brood war wasn't exactly devoid of spells that stopped micro. what about lockdown? or stasis field? stasis field shuts down units for 40 seconds. lockdown shuts down units for 60 seconds. sure they couldn't be attacked, but the point was the whole divide-and-conquer aspect - you could get rid of part of your opponents army until you killed whatever was left, then kill the part that you temporarily removed. sounds a bit like the strategy with force fields, huh? except force fields are just walls that last for 15 seconds, while fungal lasts for 4, and concussive shells lasts for a whopping 1.5. i'll admit that the sc2 spells are lower tier, but look at the spells themselves. i'd rather be able to guarantee that my opponents units are gonna be out of the battle for 40 seconds than have to micro correctly to cut my opponents army in half (for 15 seconds).
Stasis was late game and expensive to do. It was also quite easy to deal with with units like scourge (not that it was a problem vs zerg in the first place) and science vessel. Lockdown could be cured (in TvT), but aside from that, ghosts were rather rare units to be used anyway as far as I remember. You also didn't mention ensnare, which was hard to aim, on a unit that was weak/expensive, and maybe didn't slow enough.
Not only all that stuff, but the abilities in starcraft 2 took a lot more skill to use. There was no smart casting for stuff like stasis so you couldn't just hold down a key and click away — that is pretty big.
I'm not against forcefield overall, I am just terribly against them the way that they are now. They need to be channeled (I don't think this is the best solution) and/or a destructible/targetable unit with health. Nothing seriously wrong with concussive shells or fungal growth I'd say.
On April 16 2011 11:34 AKspartan wrote: neural parasite
Neural parasite doesn't belong on that list because it can be countered by killing the infestor, which isn't hard considering they have only 90 health and can't move or burrow while doing it.
On April 20 2011 18:58 Cellophane wrote: i'm sure i'm not the first person to notice this, but brood war wasn't exactly devoid of spells that stopped micro. what about lockdown? or stasis field? stasis field shuts down units for 40 seconds. lockdown shuts down units for 60 seconds. sure they couldn't be attacked, but the point was the whole divide-and-conquer aspect - you could get rid of part of your opponents army until you killed whatever was left, then kill the part that you temporarily removed. sounds a bit like the strategy with force fields, huh? except force fields are just walls that last for 15 seconds, while fungal lasts for 4, and concussive shells lasts for a whopping 1.5. i'll admit that the sc2 spells are lower tier, but look at the spells themselves. i'd rather be able to guarantee that my opponents units are gonna be out of the battle for 40 seconds than have to micro correctly to cut my opponents army in half (for 15 seconds).
this.
abilities that negate micro aren't anything new people... -_-
On April 20 2011 18:58 Cellophane wrote: i'm sure i'm not the first person to notice this, but brood war wasn't exactly devoid of spells that stopped micro. what about lockdown? or stasis field? stasis field shuts down units for 40 seconds. lockdown shuts down units for 60 seconds. sure they couldn't be attacked, but the point was the whole divide-and-conquer aspect - you could get rid of part of your opponents army until you killed whatever was left, then kill the part that you temporarily removed. sounds a bit like the strategy with force fields, huh? except force fields are just walls that last for 15 seconds, while fungal lasts for 4, and concussive shells lasts for a whopping 1.5. i'll admit that the sc2 spells are lower tier, but look at the spells themselves. i'd rather be able to guarantee that my opponents units are gonna be out of the battle for 40 seconds than have to micro correctly to cut my opponents army in half (for 15 seconds).
I wouldn't count lockdown on this, since it is MUCH harder to use it on BW than use FF on SC2.
beside that, i agree with pretty much everything that you said.
EPT
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