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United States160 Posts
Nice OP. Broodwar and SC2 are different not only in the units they both have and the mechanics required to play each game, but the fundamental engines that made the games. The way units behave in broodwar, the stupid ai, all the things that made brood war feel like "brood war" can not be incorporated into SC2 because it is a fundamental flaw in the design of the engine. I am not saying Starcraft 2's engine is designed badly, its just not brood war. I agree with the OP that Blizzard needs to add units that give a "defenders" advantage and allows better map control, but it will still be different than brood war because of the information mentioned above. Unfortunately, I don't think the "give it time" card will make the game any different because the way it is designed. People will come up with different strategies and build orders will change...and what was popular a year ago will be completely obsolete when a new standard is figured out, but that has nothing to do with what the OP is trying to get at. Starcraft 2 in its own way is definitely a good game, but what I think it really lacks (and that is only fixable) is the units that the game has. Hopefully Blizzard have been taking the user's complaints at heart and actually devise some sweet units.
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On April 16 2011 10:52 Jibba wrote:I disagree with this almost entirely. + Show Spoiler +On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
A fundamental design flaw.
In ZvP how do you prepare for an upcoming battle? ZvT? PvT? PvZ? TvP? Chances are the answer everyone gives to that question is exactly the same. You minimize or maximize surface area, what else can you do? Units in this game don't require setup time. The function of nearly every unit in this game is simple and one dimensional, reduce or improve DPS. One of the few exceptions to this is the siege tank, I'll touch more on this later. What exactly is your counter example from BW? Vultures laying mines, lurkers and what else? Perhaps Consume, but no one ever got excited over that. Pre-fight unit positioning is more important in SC2 because there are more units in each composition with more roles, and once you're into a battle, there are actually more abilities to micro, as well as more decisions to make regarding targeting. People just aren't doing it yet, so it sucks when two people 1a2a two larger armies into each other, but eventually it won't be that way. Do you know what game flow is?
We used to have a term that was used abundantly on this board that described a pivotal aspect of competitive play. Controlling the game flow is, in essence, controlling the pace of the game. In ZvT, if a Terran wanted to push out and kill your third, you exercised your map control to slow down the Terran push by slowly moving back lurkers as they got in tank range. Conversely, if you wanted to force an engagement as Terran you unsiege and attack towards another position or drop harass his bases, forcing the Zerg to completely reposition. When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen. If he wants a big fight, you drop everywhere. If he wants a macro game, you attack him constantly. How is game flow any different? I feel like you're just using it as a non-descript buzzword and expecting people to think the BW way was automatically superior. "When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen." We don't see this happen all the time when July, qxc or AdelScott take their opponent on a tour? It doesn't always work out that way, but it didn't always work out in BW either. Players are still capable of forcing their "game flow" (again, whatever that means in your example) on the other player and on the game as a whole. The importance of map control.
Map control isn't really how much of the map you are literally covering with buildings and units, rather it is how much area can you freely move without contest. Put simply, just because you have a unit in a certain area doesn't mean you have map control of that area, it's that fact that you can actively deny movement in that area that makes it map control. It seems to me like all these ideas build upon one another and that if you want to be able to control the flow of the game you need to have map control, and if you want to have map control you need units that can do more than add DPS. You need units with map prescence. BW had units like lurkers, siege tanks, and vultures that could very effectively control sections of the map. Can you name one other than the siege tank that SC2 has? Infestors and sentries. Map control isn't as static as lurkers and spider mines once were, but why don't you see how BW Protosses feel about it? Because there are no more lurkers and spider mines, there's a lot more potential backstabs and pokes in SC2 which are exciting in their own right. Positioning and setup time.
I don't really know how to explain positioning, but thankfully there are units that personify the idea of positioning perfectly: siege tanks and lurkers. If you've ever been a victim of a lurker or siege tank contain you know how powerful these units are when they are properly setup. 5 properly setup siege tanks can mow down twice the amount of dragoons and 5 properly positioned lurkers could deny an infinite amount of marines from touching your expansion. Why does positioning make these units exciting? Unless it's lurkers at the top of a ramp. Waiting for the Irradiate vs Lurker stage of a BW game was usually the worst part. In BW there were zerg and terran sieges. In SC2, terran sieges still exist and certain variants of Z play have sieges as well (IdrA's hydra/spine crawler push comes to mind.) There's still plenty of contains that go on in SC2 and they're still just as exciting when they get broken. Another unique aspect of the siege tank and lurker was that they required time before they were useful, tanks had to siege and lurkers had to burrow. This introduced a unique dynamic in which armies weren't always doing 100% DPS and introduced the idea that you can actively seek to cost-effectively trade units BEFORE tanks or lurkers were setup. What? This the same. There's still a critical mass of certain units, where it's important for different races to pick them off before there are too many or they gain too much energy. How much tension is there when a 2rax is pushing into a zerg base while everyone is waiting for banelings or hooks to finish? This gave micromanagement a larger role to play other than simply pulling away damaged units. If you're attacking into a Terran army as Zerg, you are using lings to tank the majority of the damage and buy time for your lurkers to burrow in addition to trapping marines and killing tanks. Of course, your Terran opponent isn't just sitting there, he's microing his marines back, dodging spines, escaping lings, and picking off the lurkers that you are still advancing. As a zerg or terran in ZvT it was entirely possible to attack into the opposing army and kill almost nothing while losing everything if your control was worse. This 100% exists in SC2. Pros don't do it because current pros are bad, but there is a ton of stuff for units to do and targeting is a lot more involved in SC2 because it's ambiguous. In BW, you know exactly what unit should get killed first, while in SC2 that varies a lot more depending on the numbers and composition. What this adds up to is that it gives the person with proper positioning a significant defender's advantage so, even if you come out somewhat behind in an engagement, your opponent can't immediately attack into your remaining army without severe repercussion. This also introduced a way to delay your opponent by slowly giving up ground rather than doing what most SC2 player have to do, which is run back to their nat and turtle until they have a unit advantage. It also meant it required some finesse to get the most out of your attack. If your opponent was low on unit count, you couldn't just 1a into his army, micro a little, and still come out on top. What it really comes down to is that unit relationships were far more complex and, as a result, proper engagements required a higher level of control. Again, you're simply arguing that the requirements on a current BW pro are higher than that of a current SC2 pro. That's absolutely true, but that's not necessarily due to the game. An obvious example is July. He's been playing SC2 for 6 months now, yet if you watch his game he is awful with banelings and it took him 4+ months to start doing runbys with zerglings. He even did runbys in BW, but he didn't pick them up immediately in SC2. This point is on the players, not the game. Player-unit interaction.
If we take a moment to consider BW spellcasters, we can see that not only did BW spellcasters involve massive player-unit interaction to use properly but also player-unit interaction to combat. Psi storm required tons of apm to use effectively or to dodge; irradiate could be used to massacre high value zerg units but it could also be turned against you; and dark swarm required exquisite levels of control on both sides. When you see a dark swarm get thrown up in a TvZ you don't go, "well that sucks, I need to kill defilers faster", you unsiege your tanks, run out of lurker range and keep raining shells because dark swarm assists zerg units rather than directly hindering terran units. I mean, obviously it hinders terran units to an extent, but you are able to mitigate damage and micro out of it, there's not an instantaneous downpour of lasers down on your army because staple damage dealers required setup time. It's not like it was easy for the zerg to use properly either, it wasn't a fire and forget spell like forcefield. After it was casted both players were microing their asses off. You're glorifying BW spell casting too much. Irradiate's main purpose was an instant, long range "fuck you" to clumps of mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultras. The only situation where it was turned against you was with ultras, but that happens all the time with storm and is beginning to happen with siege tank fire. It's not like there was ever a decision to be made on whether or not to use Irradiate because of that. It was just a side effect, that has essentially been replaced by ultralisk's innate AoE ability. PDD/FF is the modern Swarm. Take plague vs fungal growth. If all my front marines plagued, I can run them behind healthier units and still use them to some degree. If I get my front marines fungal'd I get to sit there watching them die stuck in place and there's almost nothing I can do to avoid a second fungal other than running headlong into more fungals. More importantly, plague required a large amount of time to research and you could only cast one per defiler before you had to consume, and many times dark swarm was a better choice. On the other hand, fungal is the primary infestor spell and is smartcasted. This is just a micro issue, and I don't see how it adds to the excitement of BW at all. Consume made defilers instantly powerful, so no, they didn't need much time to set up. The fungal thing is the exact thing that happened with Irradiate, so I don't see how it's a downside in SC2 but not in BW. There is nothing you can do to save your initial zerglings after an ultra gets Irradiated. If anything, I think the dynamic of fungal + infested terran vs dropship is more exciting. If you're a second too slow or they're in too good of a position, all of the drop ships will fly off slightly damaged. If it's done perfectly, they're all dead. Either way, you're staring at those eggs and waiting for them to pop. Psi storm vs psi storm? A psi storm in SC2 is almost meaningless. In BW, the beauty of psi storm was purely because of the mechanics required to cast it. I don't think there is any debate here. In SC2 smartcast forced a nerf on psi storm to the point where a single psi storm means almost nothing and it requires the screen to be carpeted for it to even be effective. In BW, sequential psi storms were extremely difficult to pull off mid-battle, but had a tremendous payoff. In SC2, not only is it not impressive to see 4 psi storms casted, it's damn stupid to micro against. Microing against a storm almost always means running into 3 more storms because it's so ridiculously easy to cast. If microing against multiple storms in SC2 is so difficult, then why isn't that impressive? Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used.
The high mechanical requirement enabled extremely skilled players to use their units in ways no one ever could. It made large engagements an event in itself because of how difficult it is to maintain your composure when you are controlling 200/200 armies with a 12 unit limit. Huge army fights were a means to and end, and not and end within themselves. The final battle wasn't a formality to end the game that you knew ended minutes ago, it was a direct contest between players. It was the moment when both players go, "I don't care how big your army is, I have mine and I'm going to kill you with it". Have you noticed that during SC2 battle commentators can't say anything other than, "SO MUCH STUFF IS DYING!!", it's because there's nothing for players to do during fights other than pull back damaged units. There's no clutch psi storms, elegant spine dodging, ruthless zealot bombing, flyby reavers, or gross surrounds. It's a variation of 1a vs another variation of 1a.
Because players are bad compared to where they will eventually be. IdrA is arguably the #1 mechanical Zerg in the world and what did he do in his last two matches against MC and Cruncher? He fucked up unit control and donated large portions of his army. There is a lot to be done, players just aren't doing it yet. Most of them don't use more than 3 hotkeys for units and that's the fault of them, not the game. You can't just 1a BW units and have then attack at full effectiveness. Yeah, you can't in SC2 either. What does any of this have to do with spectators? I'm not going to go into the subjectivity of your spectating SC2 games, but you are giving far, far too much credit to the AI in SC2. Have you played zerg yet? Because even with the fancy new AI, zerglings are fucking retarded on their own. Same goes for zealots, when 16 of them decide to charge 2 or 3 units. I think the biggest tension builder that's lacking in SC2 is in the casting. There's no loud, magnificent Kim Carrier style orations (besides TB) and the public's insistence on seeing the Production tab destroys a lot of the tension that was in BW. You can't flip to a base and see 4 carriers anymore, because everyone saw the Fleet Beacon go down. Honestly, I think changing these two things would have a profound effect on everyone's excitement. I know everyone says they want the production tab open and full information all the time, but there would be a lot more drama if they weren't. And that's a particular expertise that has to be learned by casters. There are times to show different tabs, times to show players' perspectives and time to unveil the big surprises. I know I've ranted about players in most of this post, but the casters need to improve as well if you really want games to be as big and exciting as they can be.
I fully agree with Jibba. 90% of the perceived problems are just not yet fully developed player skills. When i last played Brood War, noone used irradiate, vultures were considered useless and noone built reavers because they were too g***amn slow and cost minerals per shot... Yes, you might be laughing when you read that, but it took years until people made use of those undervalued units.
Only now are Zerg starting to use Infestors more, Terrans use Ghosts for more than nuking and EMPing High Templars, Ravens for more than Mass-Raven-AT-Spam and Protoss add Phoenixes to the play (even against Terrans... 3 month ago everyone said phoenixes are useless against terrans because marines shoot them to bits).
I'm not happy with some parts of the game, but watching the games now and 6 month ago, i see that it develops. I suggest you open some VODs from shortly after release and see how much has changed... now think about how much will change in the next six month.
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On April 18 2011 15:27 Proko wrote:
I just came to say that I really like Jibba's response on page 3.
There is so much to be improved in game play here. The major difference in my mind between SC2 and BW is that the game is much, much slower. It allows for more complicated positioning and micro battles. Things in SC2 happen a lot faster and this creates a different gameplay flow. There is still a lot to be developed in this game micro wise. Watch pro matches from the beta and just marvel at how bad people were back then. Ability levels have really gone up. I hear a lot of complaining about boring sc2 from BW people, but all those complaints aside, a whole lot of people seem to be watching. That might be saying something.
As far as mechanics go, SC2 is a better designed game, better pathing, better control ui, better ai itself. People can decry the changes that this brought, but I can tell you that I would never have been interested in, or played an SC2 that only let me select 12 units at a time. Nobody would have put up with that.
Also: BW's brilliance is really the result of years and years of time and lot of luck. I don't believe that when Starcraft or even BW were made that Blizzard envisioned what people would be doing with their game 4 years later. The game took on a life of its own. Just because that hasn't totally happened in SC2 doesn't mean it won't.
To add on to this - currently, the game is all about deathball vs deathball. As it is right now, that seems to be the most effective strategy - but that doesn't mean that it will always be the most effective strategy.
We already are seeing players doing things like dropping in multiple locations, or attacking where the opponent is not - which is causing the person with his army in a ball to suffer. Spanishiwa's style essentially relies on this. Logically, the best counter to it is to also have smaller armies split up around the map - however, the vast majority of people don't have to yet as these styles haven't caught on. Were people to perfect multiple drops and attacks, I'm certain that bunching up units would become a thing of the past, as they simply would be unable to defend everything they need to. This would cause smaller battles, as you get things more like 8 marines and a medivac vs 5 stalkers, or 10 roaches versus a tank and 4 marines - and these smaller battles would allow micro to shine through to a much bigger extent, as well as last longer.
I think that it really is a product of the current metagame, as well as the lack of control everyone has, that causes us to exhibit this deathball behavior in SC2. Remember 9 months ago, when every game ended at 80 supply because everyone all-in rushed every game and no one could hold it off or expand? This is a phase of the game, and will disappear once multiple attacks become better/more common. It didn't happen in BW because unit control was so much harder - getting a deathball moving across the map was much harder than 1a2a3a due to the way units moved.
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On April 18 2011 12:11 mahnini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 11:11 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 10:45 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 09:53 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 08:35 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 08:31 mike1290 wrote:
Map control, in the sense the OP is talking about, is provided by units that have the ability to, in smaller numbers, pay for themselves many times over before they are killed. Examples of this from BW are vultures, lurkers, defilers, siege tanks, and there are probably a few more. These types of units, with the potential to do enough damage to pay for themselves many times over, are not as potent in SC2 as they were in BW. i think this is a good way to put it. i had a hard time explaining it so i called it literal map control but this is what i mean. units that when are setup you wouldn't attack into without strong reason because you would suffer massive damage, but the downside of such units is that when they are not setup they aren't anywhere near as effective. this makes it absolutely essential to not be caught out of position and let your opponent setup, which is vastly different than positioning to avoid unfavorable terrain. What to BW Protoss have in this category? i think a better question would be which bw protoss matchup lacks this dynamic. A even better question would be either 1. Why did PvP have it? 2. If it didn't, why was PvP still good? well, i would say to some extent psi storm and reavers filled that role but i didn't really enjoy watching pvp. hell, i even hated watching zvz and i played z. i didn't mind tvt as long as it wasn't a huge turtle fest.
ZvZ was my favorate matchup, probably because it was my best in BW (but I was one of those kids who did what the pros did down to the split-second timings even though my mechinics sucked. "Okay, now I make a Dragoon and plink at the Terran's depot until a tank pops out").
Anyway, I don't think Storm or Reavers filled that role at all. The idea of the "setting up" lurkers and tanks was that - while certainly good at offense - they were significantly better at defense. This is why TvT tended to have boring stalemates (the SC2 version of TvT is widely considered the best matchup, and arguably better than it's BW counterpart).
On April 18 2011 14:36 LaLuSh wrote:
SC2 is still good and plenty entertaining. Blizzard can probably eventually fix balance to the point where thigns settle down.
Problem for them is that we're expecting balance to lead to broodwar-like quality. We use bw as the benchmark.
That's probably not realistic with how the game was designed.
I think people have a blind spot to the idea that SC2 can one day be amazing in ways BW never was. Thus, when something in SC2 doesn't work out (Steppes of War), the community will declare that this is proof that Blizzard doesn't know what the hell they're doing and their stupid and Activision something something etc., and say the game should've been perfectly designed and balanced at launch, which is simply insane.
I tend to be quick to defend Blizzard. It's not so much because I'm a fanboy (Warcraft 3 was a bad game, and the campaign was awful!), but because I work at a software company and understand how these things work out, which is slowly, frustratingly, and with stops and starts.
The game has been improving. Significantly. It was only a few months ago that one-base all-ins were standard TvZ (remember GSL3? Literally 90%+ of TvZs were marine SCV all-ins!). Back then, TvP was considered an inherently fucked matchup, because T was super-OP early game, but protoss was super-OP late game. MarineKingPrime said that the marine was so ludicrously overpowered that it hid the "fact" that every single other Terran unit was garbage, so T would justify the all-ins by saying they had no chance in the late game either Zerg or Protoss. Proxy Void Rays killed everything, and SCVs would surround Thors in a rush, making the Thor invincible because it fucked up the pathing AI. It was conventional wisdom that the game was garbage because 1-base cheese was too strong and we'd never see macro games. Nothing could be done to fix this, of course. The mechanics of the game simply made one-base all-ins too powerful, and this was a fundamental flaw that nothing would overcome.
Nowadays (not counting PvP), FEs are standard, and even one-base openings transition into an expo fairly quickly. In GSTL February, MVP FE'd, saw that Squirtle FE'd as well, and reacted by taking a fast third. Today we know that's the correct response, but at the time, it blew people's minds. Watch the VOD, and listen to Tasteless and Artosis. They freak out! And that was only three months ago!
Right now, check out the Spanishiwa build, right? It's a really greedy build that's nevertheless safe from nearly all one-base pressures or all-ins except unscouted cheese. What's the big complaint that's keeping it from catching on at a pro level? According to Darkforce, it takes too long to get a third if your opponent takes his natural super fast because you can't pressure enough.
Just go back in time six months. Imagine if someone came along during GSL 3 (Marine SCV All-in! Every game!) and said "Hey, I've got a build that lets you saturate two bases in the first 6 minutes, and it's safe against Marine SCV all-ins, cloak banshees, hellion openings, and 4gates, while hard countering Void Ray rushes, the Phoenix openings that don't exist yet, and uncloaked banshhes". Can you imagine that build coming out back in November and Zerg's responding "yeah , but if the opponent goes for an FE, it takes like 3 minutes to get your third going"? Back then? Had the Spanishiwa build come out in November, it would've solved nearly every common complaint about the game for months, until P and T felt more comfortable macroing.
And what's the big complaint in SC2 now? Deathballs. Specifically, the Protoss deathball, especially against Zerg.
As we await the promised Colossus nerf which will fix that problem (and make PvT and PvZ have more of the really awesome games that happen when P doesn't go Colo tech!), I want everyone to just take a step back, and think about how weird it would've seemed just a few months ago that the big complaint was revolve around 200/200 armies with full upgrades and mostly tier 3 units. Recognize that SC2 has come a long way in a little under a year, even as we agree that it has a long way to go.
I wonder what the complaint will be next during GSL 10 or NASL 3?
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While I haven't read past page ~10 (almost 50 pages!!!!) one of the biggest issues for me, and many other people in this thread, is the one-sided nature of many of the spells.
Storm, PDD, HSM, Phoenix Lift, NP, Auto Turret, and Infested Terran are great examples of spells that encourage micro from both sides. Storm could use to be stronger or larger, but as many have pointed out smartcast makes any buff potentially break the spell. These spells allow the defender/recipient to use micro to minimize the damage that occurs from these spells, whether changing positioning, splitting to avoid splash or focusing specific units.
On the other hand we have spells like EMP, and Fungal Growth where if the caster is successful there is little or nothing the recipient can do to change his situation. Possibly these spells could be changed to encourage micro from both sides, but I'm no expect on these things. I am a spectator though, and while its pretty awesome to see BoxeR perfectly EMP a group of Phoenix or IdrA fungal a drop before it can do damage, its very one sided. I guess you could make EMP more like Storm, but with shields and energy (or instant on one but not the other), and make fungal always cause the DoT but only root units that remain in the AoE for 1.5secs or something, but yet again, I'm no expert.
Force Field is odd, it creates such a defenders advantage, but can be somewhat circumnavigated by a multidirectional attack, especially in a more open area. Not sure at all what to do about it. Maybe make it a neutral with hitpoints?
Spells like Snipe, Yamato, Feedback and 250mm cannons are mostly fine. To an extent you can counter them with composition or prepared for them (wasting energy for feedback), and they serve valuable roles for the units they are on, but they are still very one sided; however since they contribute such a portion of their respective units' DPS and require micro to use at all, they add a valuable dimension to the game.
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On April 18 2011 15:46 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 10:52 Jibba wrote:I disagree with this almost entirely. + Show Spoiler +On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
A fundamental design flaw.
In ZvP how do you prepare for an upcoming battle? ZvT? PvT? PvZ? TvP? Chances are the answer everyone gives to that question is exactly the same. You minimize or maximize surface area, what else can you do? Units in this game don't require setup time. The function of nearly every unit in this game is simple and one dimensional, reduce or improve DPS. One of the few exceptions to this is the siege tank, I'll touch more on this later. What exactly is your counter example from BW? Vultures laying mines, lurkers and what else? Perhaps Consume, but no one ever got excited over that. Pre-fight unit positioning is more important in SC2 because there are more units in each composition with more roles, and once you're into a battle, there are actually more abilities to micro, as well as more decisions to make regarding targeting. People just aren't doing it yet, so it sucks when two people 1a2a two larger armies into each other, but eventually it won't be that way. Do you know what game flow is?
We used to have a term that was used abundantly on this board that described a pivotal aspect of competitive play. Controlling the game flow is, in essence, controlling the pace of the game. In ZvT, if a Terran wanted to push out and kill your third, you exercised your map control to slow down the Terran push by slowly moving back lurkers as they got in tank range. Conversely, if you wanted to force an engagement as Terran you unsiege and attack towards another position or drop harass his bases, forcing the Zerg to completely reposition. When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen. If he wants a big fight, you drop everywhere. If he wants a macro game, you attack him constantly. How is game flow any different? I feel like you're just using it as a non-descript buzzword and expecting people to think the BW way was automatically superior. "When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen." We don't see this happen all the time when July, qxc or AdelScott take their opponent on a tour? It doesn't always work out that way, but it didn't always work out in BW either. Players are still capable of forcing their "game flow" (again, whatever that means in your example) on the other player and on the game as a whole. The importance of map control.
Map control isn't really how much of the map you are literally covering with buildings and units, rather it is how much area can you freely move without contest. Put simply, just because you have a unit in a certain area doesn't mean you have map control of that area, it's that fact that you can actively deny movement in that area that makes it map control. It seems to me like all these ideas build upon one another and that if you want to be able to control the flow of the game you need to have map control, and if you want to have map control you need units that can do more than add DPS. You need units with map prescence. BW had units like lurkers, siege tanks, and vultures that could very effectively control sections of the map. Can you name one other than the siege tank that SC2 has? Infestors and sentries. Map control isn't as static as lurkers and spider mines once were, but why don't you see how BW Protosses feel about it? Because there are no more lurkers and spider mines, there's a lot more potential backstabs and pokes in SC2 which are exciting in their own right. Positioning and setup time.
I don't really know how to explain positioning, but thankfully there are units that personify the idea of positioning perfectly: siege tanks and lurkers. If you've ever been a victim of a lurker or siege tank contain you know how powerful these units are when they are properly setup. 5 properly setup siege tanks can mow down twice the amount of dragoons and 5 properly positioned lurkers could deny an infinite amount of marines from touching your expansion. Why does positioning make these units exciting? Unless it's lurkers at the top of a ramp. Waiting for the Irradiate vs Lurker stage of a BW game was usually the worst part. In BW there were zerg and terran sieges. In SC2, terran sieges still exist and certain variants of Z play have sieges as well (IdrA's hydra/spine crawler push comes to mind.) There's still plenty of contains that go on in SC2 and they're still just as exciting when they get broken. Another unique aspect of the siege tank and lurker was that they required time before they were useful, tanks had to siege and lurkers had to burrow. This introduced a unique dynamic in which armies weren't always doing 100% DPS and introduced the idea that you can actively seek to cost-effectively trade units BEFORE tanks or lurkers were setup. What? This the same. There's still a critical mass of certain units, where it's important for different races to pick them off before there are too many or they gain too much energy. How much tension is there when a 2rax is pushing into a zerg base while everyone is waiting for banelings or hooks to finish? This gave micromanagement a larger role to play other than simply pulling away damaged units. If you're attacking into a Terran army as Zerg, you are using lings to tank the majority of the damage and buy time for your lurkers to burrow in addition to trapping marines and killing tanks. Of course, your Terran opponent isn't just sitting there, he's microing his marines back, dodging spines, escaping lings, and picking off the lurkers that you are still advancing. As a zerg or terran in ZvT it was entirely possible to attack into the opposing army and kill almost nothing while losing everything if your control was worse. This 100% exists in SC2. Pros don't do it because current pros are bad, but there is a ton of stuff for units to do and targeting is a lot more involved in SC2 because it's ambiguous. In BW, you know exactly what unit should get killed first, while in SC2 that varies a lot more depending on the numbers and composition. What this adds up to is that it gives the person with proper positioning a significant defender's advantage so, even if you come out somewhat behind in an engagement, your opponent can't immediately attack into your remaining army without severe repercussion. This also introduced a way to delay your opponent by slowly giving up ground rather than doing what most SC2 player have to do, which is run back to their nat and turtle until they have a unit advantage. It also meant it required some finesse to get the most out of your attack. If your opponent was low on unit count, you couldn't just 1a into his army, micro a little, and still come out on top. What it really comes down to is that unit relationships were far more complex and, as a result, proper engagements required a higher level of control. Again, you're simply arguing that the requirements on a current BW pro are higher than that of a current SC2 pro. That's absolutely true, but that's not necessarily due to the game. An obvious example is July. He's been playing SC2 for 6 months now, yet if you watch his game he is awful with banelings and it took him 4+ months to start doing runbys with zerglings. He even did runbys in BW, but he didn't pick them up immediately in SC2. This point is on the players, not the game. Player-unit interaction.
If we take a moment to consider BW spellcasters, we can see that not only did BW spellcasters involve massive player-unit interaction to use properly but also player-unit interaction to combat. Psi storm required tons of apm to use effectively or to dodge; irradiate could be used to massacre high value zerg units but it could also be turned against you; and dark swarm required exquisite levels of control on both sides. When you see a dark swarm get thrown up in a TvZ you don't go, "well that sucks, I need to kill defilers faster", you unsiege your tanks, run out of lurker range and keep raining shells because dark swarm assists zerg units rather than directly hindering terran units. I mean, obviously it hinders terran units to an extent, but you are able to mitigate damage and micro out of it, there's not an instantaneous downpour of lasers down on your army because staple damage dealers required setup time. It's not like it was easy for the zerg to use properly either, it wasn't a fire and forget spell like forcefield. After it was casted both players were microing their asses off. You're glorifying BW spell casting too much. Irradiate's main purpose was an instant, long range "fuck you" to clumps of mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultras. The only situation where it was turned against you was with ultras, but that happens all the time with storm and is beginning to happen with siege tank fire. It's not like there was ever a decision to be made on whether or not to use Irradiate because of that. It was just a side effect, that has essentially been replaced by ultralisk's innate AoE ability. PDD/FF is the modern Swarm. Take plague vs fungal growth. If all my front marines plagued, I can run them behind healthier units and still use them to some degree. If I get my front marines fungal'd I get to sit there watching them die stuck in place and there's almost nothing I can do to avoid a second fungal other than running headlong into more fungals. More importantly, plague required a large amount of time to research and you could only cast one per defiler before you had to consume, and many times dark swarm was a better choice. On the other hand, fungal is the primary infestor spell and is smartcasted. This is just a micro issue, and I don't see how it adds to the excitement of BW at all. Consume made defilers instantly powerful, so no, they didn't need much time to set up. The fungal thing is the exact thing that happened with Irradiate, so I don't see how it's a downside in SC2 but not in BW. There is nothing you can do to save your initial zerglings after an ultra gets Irradiated. If anything, I think the dynamic of fungal + infested terran vs dropship is more exciting. If you're a second too slow or they're in too good of a position, all of the drop ships will fly off slightly damaged. If it's done perfectly, they're all dead. Either way, you're staring at those eggs and waiting for them to pop. Psi storm vs psi storm? A psi storm in SC2 is almost meaningless. In BW, the beauty of psi storm was purely because of the mechanics required to cast it. I don't think there is any debate here. In SC2 smartcast forced a nerf on psi storm to the point where a single psi storm means almost nothing and it requires the screen to be carpeted for it to even be effective. In BW, sequential psi storms were extremely difficult to pull off mid-battle, but had a tremendous payoff. In SC2, not only is it not impressive to see 4 psi storms casted, it's damn stupid to micro against. Microing against a storm almost always means running into 3 more storms because it's so ridiculously easy to cast. If microing against multiple storms in SC2 is so difficult, then why isn't that impressive? Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used.
The high mechanical requirement enabled extremely skilled players to use their units in ways no one ever could. It made large engagements an event in itself because of how difficult it is to maintain your composure when you are controlling 200/200 armies with a 12 unit limit. Huge army fights were a means to and end, and not and end within themselves. The final battle wasn't a formality to end the game that you knew ended minutes ago, it was a direct contest between players. It was the moment when both players go, "I don't care how big your army is, I have mine and I'm going to kill you with it". Have you noticed that during SC2 battle commentators can't say anything other than, "SO MUCH STUFF IS DYING!!", it's because there's nothing for players to do during fights other than pull back damaged units. There's no clutch psi storms, elegant spine dodging, ruthless zealot bombing, flyby reavers, or gross surrounds. It's a variation of 1a vs another variation of 1a.
Because players are bad compared to where they will eventually be. IdrA is arguably the #1 mechanical Zerg in the world and what did he do in his last two matches against MC and Cruncher? He fucked up unit control and donated large portions of his army. There is a lot to be done, players just aren't doing it yet. Most of them don't use more than 3 hotkeys for units and that's the fault of them, not the game. You can't just 1a BW units and have then attack at full effectiveness. Yeah, you can't in SC2 either. What does any of this have to do with spectators? I'm not going to go into the subjectivity of your spectating SC2 games, but you are giving far, far too much credit to the AI in SC2. Have you played zerg yet? Because even with the fancy new AI, zerglings are fucking retarded on their own. Same goes for zealots, when 16 of them decide to charge 2 or 3 units. I think the biggest tension builder that's lacking in SC2 is in the casting. There's no loud, magnificent Kim Carrier style orations (besides TB) and the public's insistence on seeing the Production tab destroys a lot of the tension that was in BW. You can't flip to a base and see 4 carriers anymore, because everyone saw the Fleet Beacon go down. Honestly, I think changing these two things would have a profound effect on everyone's excitement. I know everyone says they want the production tab open and full information all the time, but there would be a lot more drama if they weren't. And that's a particular expertise that has to be learned by casters. There are times to show different tabs, times to show players' perspectives and time to unveil the big surprises. I know I've ranted about players in most of this post, but the casters need to improve as well if you really want games to be as big and exciting as they can be. I fully agree with Jibba. 90% of the perceived problems are just not yet fully developed player skills. When i last played Brood War, noone used irradiate, vultures were considered useless and noone built reavers because they were too g***amn slow and cost minerals per shot... Yes, you might be laughing when you read that, but it took years until people made use of those undervalued units. Only now are Zerg starting to use Infestors more, Terrans use Ghosts for more than nuking and EMPing High Templars, Ravens for more than Mass-Raven-AT-Spam and Protoss add Phoenixes to the play (even against Terrans... 3 month ago everyone said phoenixes are useless against terrans because marines shoot them to bits). I'm not happy with some parts of the game, but watching the games now and 6 month ago, i see that it develops. I suggest you open some VODs from shortly after release and see how much has changed... now think about how much will change in the next six month.
None of that really addresses the core issues of this thread. The things you listed are simply changes in what strategies people use, which really isn't the point. The point is that there are several fundamental things that SC2 is missing that more than likely won't be fixed by simply giving it time. No amount of time can cause players to discover something that isn't there.
Several of those fundamental things are the following:
- Much weaker (in some cases nonexistant) defender's advantage that encourages cheese builds and makes comebacks harder to pull off
- Deathball vs. Deathball syndrome
- Less micro potential for highly used units compared to their SC1 counterparts (Colossus vs. Reaver for example)
- The more widespread existence of "anti-micro" abilities (fungal growth, force field, etc.)
These things are considered fundamental problems because they are a byproduct of both the SC2 engine itself, and Blizzard's current philosophy on SC2's unit design. Pretty much all of these things have existed in SC2 since alpha, and still continue on to this day with no signs of stopping. Pro players adding more infestors into their build doesn't really do anything to stop deathball vs. deathball play, and no amount of innovation has kept 4-gate from being such a dominate build. These are things which require a hard look into the core of SC2 itself, and can't be solved with a vague promise of "give it time".
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On April 18 2011 15:58 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 12:11 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 11:11 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 10:45 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 09:53 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 08:35 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 08:31 mike1290 wrote:
Map control, in the sense the OP is talking about, is provided by units that have the ability to, in smaller numbers, pay for themselves many times over before they are killed. Examples of this from BW are vultures, lurkers, defilers, siege tanks, and there are probably a few more. These types of units, with the potential to do enough damage to pay for themselves many times over, are not as potent in SC2 as they were in BW. i think this is a good way to put it. i had a hard time explaining it so i called it literal map control but this is what i mean. units that when are setup you wouldn't attack into without strong reason because you would suffer massive damage, but the downside of such units is that when they are not setup they aren't anywhere near as effective. this makes it absolutely essential to not be caught out of position and let your opponent setup, which is vastly different than positioning to avoid unfavorable terrain. What to BW Protoss have in this category? i think a better question would be which bw protoss matchup lacks this dynamic. A even better question would be either 1. Why did PvP have it? 2. If it didn't, why was PvP still good? well, i would say to some extent psi storm and reavers filled that role but i didn't really enjoy watching pvp. hell, i even hated watching zvz and i played z. i didn't mind tvt as long as it wasn't a huge turtle fest. + Show Spoiler +
ZvZ was my favorate matchup, probably because it was my best in BW (but I was one of those kids who did what the pros did down to the split-second timings even though my mechinics sucked. "Okay, now I make a Dragoon and plink at the Terran's depot until a tank pops out").
Anyway, I don't think Storm or Reavers filled that role at all. The idea of the "setting up" lurkers and tanks was that - while certainly good at offense - they were significantly better at defense. This is why TvT tended to have boring stalemates (the SC2 version of TvT is widely considered the best matchup, and arguably better than it's BW counterpart).
Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 14:36 LaLuSh wrote:
SC2 is still good and plenty entertaining. Blizzard can probably eventually fix balance to the point where thigns settle down.
Problem for them is that we're expecting balance to lead to broodwar-like quality. We use bw as the benchmark.
That's probably not realistic with how the game was designed. + Show Spoiler +
I think people have a blind spot to the idea that SC2 can one day be amazing in ways BW never was. Thus, when something in SC2 doesn't work out (Steppes of War), the community will declare that this is proof that Blizzard doesn't know what the hell they're doing and their stupid and Activision something something etc., and say the game should've been perfectly designed and balanced at launch, which is simply insane.
I tend to be quick to defend Blizzard. It's not so much because I'm a fanboy (Warcraft 3 was a bad game, and the campaign was awful!), but because I work at a software company and understand how these things work out, which is slowly, frustratingly, and with stops and starts.
The game has been improving. Significantly. It was only a few months ago that one-base all-ins were standard TvZ (remember GSL3? Literally 90%+ of TvZs were marine SCV all-ins!). Back then, TvP was considered an inherently fucked matchup, because T was super-OP early game, but protoss was super-OP late game. MarineKingPrime said that the marine was so ludicrously overpowered that it hid the "fact" that every single other Terran unit was garbage, so T would justify the all-ins by saying they had no chance in the late game either Zerg or Protoss. Proxy Void Rays killed everything, and SCVs would surround Thors in a rush, making the Thor invincible because it fucked up the pathing AI. It was conventional wisdom that the game was garbage because 1-base cheese was too strong and we'd never see macro games. Nothing could be done to fix this, of course. The mechanics of the game simply made one-base all-ins too powerful, and this was a fundamental flaw that nothing would overcome.
Nowadays (not counting PvP), FEs are standard, and even one-base openings transition into an expo fairly quickly. In GSTL February, MVP FE'd, saw that Squirtle FE'd as well, and reacted by taking a fast third. Today we know that's the correct response, but at the time, it blew people's minds. Watch the VOD, and listen to Tasteless and Artosis. They freak out! And that was only three months ago!
Right now, check out the Spanishiwa build, right? It's a really greedy build that's nevertheless safe from nearly all one-base pressures or all-ins except unscouted cheese. What's the big complaint that's keeping it from catching on at a pro level? According to Darkforce, it takes too long to get a third if your opponent takes his natural super fast because you can't pressure enough.
Just go back in time six months. Imagine if someone came along during GSL 3 (Marine SCV All-in! Every game!) and said "Hey, I've got a build that lets you saturate two bases in the first 6 minutes, and it's safe against Marine SCV all-ins, cloak banshees, hellion openings, and 4gates, while hard countering Void Ray rushes, the Phoenix openings that don't exist yet, and uncloaked banshhes". Can you imagine that build coming out back in November and Zerg's responding "yeah , but if the opponent goes for an FE, it takes like 3 minutes to get your third going"? Back then? Had the Spanishiwa build come out in November, it would've solved nearly every common complaint about the game for months, until P and T felt more comfortable macroing.
And what's the big complaint in SC2 now? Deathballs. Specifically, the Protoss deathball, especially against Zerg.
As we await the promised Colossus nerf which will fix that problem (and make PvT and PvZ have more of the really awesome games that happen when P doesn't go Colo tech!), I want everyone to just take a step back, and think about how weird it would've seemed just a few months ago that the big complaint was revolve around 200/200 armies with full upgrades and mostly tier 3 units. Recognize that SC2 has come a long way in a little under a year, even as we agree that it has a long way to go.
I wonder what the complaint will be next during GSL 10 or NASL 3?
As a avid SC2 fan i love this post. There's way to much doom and gloom in this thread. Deathballs are now the biggest problem, and only 6 months ago protoss couldn't even defend a marine+marauder early push and everyone was doing one base all ins.
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On April 18 2011 15:58 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 12:11 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 11:11 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 10:45 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 09:53 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 08:35 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 08:31 mike1290 wrote:
Map control, in the sense the OP is talking about, is provided by units that have the ability to, in smaller numbers, pay for themselves many times over before they are killed. Examples of this from BW are vultures, lurkers, defilers, siege tanks, and there are probably a few more. These types of units, with the potential to do enough damage to pay for themselves many times over, are not as potent in SC2 as they were in BW. i think this is a good way to put it. i had a hard time explaining it so i called it literal map control but this is what i mean. units that when are setup you wouldn't attack into without strong reason because you would suffer massive damage, but the downside of such units is that when they are not setup they aren't anywhere near as effective. this makes it absolutely essential to not be caught out of position and let your opponent setup, which is vastly different than positioning to avoid unfavorable terrain. What to BW Protoss have in this category? i think a better question would be which bw protoss matchup lacks this dynamic. A even better question would be either 1. Why did PvP have it? 2. If it didn't, why was PvP still good? well, i would say to some extent psi storm and reavers filled that role but i didn't really enjoy watching pvp. hell, i even hated watching zvz and i played z. i didn't mind tvt as long as it wasn't a huge turtle fest. ZvZ was my favorate matchup, probably because it was my best in BW (but I was one of those kids who did what the pros did down to the split-second timings even though my mechinics sucked. "Okay, now I make a Dragoon and plink at the Terran's depot until a tank pops out"). Anyway, I don't think Storm or Reavers filled that role at all. The idea of the "setting up" lurkers and tanks was that - while certainly good at offense - they were significantly better at defense. This is why TvT tended to have boring stalemates (the SC2 version of TvT is widely considered the best matchup, and arguably better than it's BW counterpart). Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 14:36 LaLuSh wrote:
SC2 is still good and plenty entertaining. Blizzard can probably eventually fix balance to the point where thigns settle down.
Problem for them is that we're expecting balance to lead to broodwar-like quality. We use bw as the benchmark.
That's probably not realistic with how the game was designed. I think people have a blind spot to the idea that SC2 can one day be amazing in ways BW never was. Thus, when something in SC2 doesn't work out (Steppes of War), the community will declare that this is proof that Blizzard doesn't know what the hell they're doing and their stupid and Activision something something etc., and say the game should've been perfectly designed and balanced at launch, which is simply insane. I tend to be quick to defend Blizzard. It's not so much because I'm a fanboy (Warcraft 3 was a bad game, and the campaign was awful!), but because I work at a software company and understand how these things work out, which is slowly, frustratingly, and with stops and starts. The game has been improving. Significantly. It was only a few months ago that one-base all-ins were standard TvZ (remember GSL3? Literally 90%+ of TvZs were marine SCV all-ins!). Back then, TvP was considered an inherently fucked matchup, because T was super-OP early game, but protoss was super-OP late game. MarineKingPrime said that the marine was so ludicrously overpowered that it hid the "fact" that every single other Terran unit was garbage, so T would justify the all-ins by saying they had no chance in the late game either Zerg or Protoss. Proxy Void Rays killed everything, and SCVs would surround Thors in a rush, making the Thor invincible because it fucked up the pathing AI. It was conventional wisdom that the game was garbage because 1-base cheese was too strong and we'd never see macro games. Nothing could be done to fix this, of course. The mechanics of the game simply made one-base all-ins too powerful, and this was a fundamental flaw that nothing would overcome. Nowadays (not counting PvP), FEs are standard, and even one-base openings transition into an expo fairly quickly. In GSTL February, MVP FE'd, saw that Squirtle FE'd as well, and reacted by taking a fast third. Today we know that's the correct response, but at the time, it blew people's minds. Watch the VOD, and listen to Tasteless and Artosis. They freak out! And that was only three months ago! Right now, check out the Spanishiwa build, right? It's a really greedy build that's nevertheless safe from nearly all one-base pressures or all-ins except unscouted cheese. What's the big complaint that's keeping it from catching on at a pro level? According to Darkforce, it takes too long to get a third if your opponent takes his natural super fast because you can't pressure enough. Just go back in time six months. Imagine if someone came along during GSL 3 (Marine SCV All-in! Every game!) and said "Hey, I've got a build that lets you saturate two bases in the first 6 minutes, and it's safe against Marine SCV all-ins, cloak banshees, hellion openings, and 4gates, while hard countering Void Ray rushes, the Phoenix openings that don't exist yet, and uncloaked banshhes". Can you imagine that build coming out back in November and Zerg's responding "yeah , but if the opponent goes for an FE, it takes like 3 minutes to get your third going"? Back then? Had the Spanishiwa build come out in November, it would've solved nearly every common complaint about the game for months, until P and T felt more comfortable macroing. And what's the big complaint in SC2 now? Deathballs. Specifically, the Protoss deathball, especially against Zerg. As we await the promised Colossus nerf which will fix that problem (and make PvT and PvZ have more of the really awesome games that happen when P doesn't go Colo tech!), I want everyone to just take a step back, and think about how weird it would've seemed just a few months ago that the big complaint was revolve around 200/200 armies with full upgrades and mostly tier 3 units. Recognize that SC2 has come a long way in a little under a year, even as we agree that it has a long way to go. I wonder what the complaint will be next during GSL 10 or NASL 3?
Well consider that sc2 still has the two expansions coming out as well, as well as their patches and updates. Additionally, consider MC's non-use of colossi in his matchup against July Zerg back in the GSL in February. Protoss don't need colossi (I view them as too much of a crutch) and it'll be interesting seeing toss move into builds that feature far greater mobility and diversity (similar to the z and t armies @ the moment).
And yes, GSL 10 will be ridiculous - as will every GSL to come.
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On April 18 2011 15:58 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 12:11 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 11:11 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 10:45 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 09:53 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 08:35 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 08:31 mike1290 wrote:
Map control, in the sense the OP is talking about, is provided by units that have the ability to, in smaller numbers, pay for themselves many times over before they are killed. Examples of this from BW are vultures, lurkers, defilers, siege tanks, and there are probably a few more. These types of units, with the potential to do enough damage to pay for themselves many times over, are not as potent in SC2 as they were in BW. i think this is a good way to put it. i had a hard time explaining it so i called it literal map control but this is what i mean. units that when are setup you wouldn't attack into without strong reason because you would suffer massive damage, but the downside of such units is that when they are not setup they aren't anywhere near as effective. this makes it absolutely essential to not be caught out of position and let your opponent setup, which is vastly different than positioning to avoid unfavorable terrain. What to BW Protoss have in this category? i think a better question would be which bw protoss matchup lacks this dynamic. A even better question would be either 1. Why did PvP have it? 2. If it didn't, why was PvP still good? well, i would say to some extent psi storm and reavers filled that role but i didn't really enjoy watching pvp. hell, i even hated watching zvz and i played z. i didn't mind tvt as long as it wasn't a huge turtle fest. ZvZ was my favorate matchup, probably because it was my best in BW (but I was one of those kids who did what the pros did down to the split-second timings even though my mechinics sucked. "Okay, now I make a Dragoon and plink at the Terran's depot until a tank pops out"). Anyway, I don't think Storm or Reavers filled that role at all. The idea of the "setting up" lurkers and tanks was that - while certainly good at offense - they were significantly better at defense. This is why TvT tended to have boring stalemates (the SC2 version of TvT is widely considered the best matchup, and arguably better than it's BW counterpart). Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 14:36 LaLuSh wrote:
SC2 is still good and plenty entertaining. Blizzard can probably eventually fix balance to the point where thigns settle down.
Problem for them is that we're expecting balance to lead to broodwar-like quality. We use bw as the benchmark.
That's probably not realistic with how the game was designed. I think people have a blind spot to the idea that SC2 can one day be amazing in ways BW never was. Thus, when something in SC2 doesn't work out (Steppes of War), the community will declare that this is proof that Blizzard doesn't know what the hell they're doing and their stupid and Activision something something etc., and say the game should've been perfectly designed and balanced at launch, which is simply insane. I tend to be quick to defend Blizzard. It's not so much because I'm a fanboy (Warcraft 3 was a bad game, and the campaign was awful!), but because I work at a software company and understand how these things work out, which is slowly, frustratingly, and with stops and starts. The game has been improving. Significantly. It was only a few months ago that one-base all-ins were standard TvZ (remember GSL3? Literally 90%+ of TvZs were marine SCV all-ins!). Back then, TvP was considered an inherently fucked matchup, because T was super-OP early game, but protoss was super-OP late game. MarineKingPrime said that the marine was so ludicrously overpowered that it hid the "fact" that every single other Terran unit was garbage, so T would justify the all-ins by saying they had no chance in the late game either Zerg or Protoss. Proxy Void Rays killed everything, and SCVs would surround Thors in a rush, making the Thor invincible because it fucked up the pathing AI. It was conventional wisdom that the game was garbage because 1-base cheese was too strong and we'd never see macro games. Nothing could be done to fix this, of course. The mechanics of the game simply made one-base all-ins too powerful, and this was a fundamental flaw that nothing would overcome. Nowadays (not counting PvP), FEs are standard, and even one-base openings transition into an expo fairly quickly. In GSTL February, MVP FE'd, saw that Squirtle FE'd as well, and reacted by taking a fast third. Today we know that's the correct response, but at the time, it blew people's minds. Watch the VOD, and listen to Tasteless and Artosis. They freak out! And that was only three months ago! Right now, check out the Spanishiwa build, right? It's a really greedy build that's nevertheless safe from nearly all one-base pressures or all-ins except unscouted cheese. What's the big complaint that's keeping it from catching on at a pro level? According to Darkforce, it takes too long to get a third if your opponent takes his natural super fast because you can't pressure enough. Just go back in time six months. Imagine if someone came along during GSL 3 (Marine SCV All-in! Every game!) and said "Hey, I've got a build that lets you saturate two bases in the first 6 minutes, and it's safe against Marine SCV all-ins, cloak banshees, hellion openings, and 4gates, while hard countering Void Ray rushes, the Phoenix openings that don't exist yet, and uncloaked banshhes". Can you imagine that build coming out back in November and Zerg's responding "yeah , but if the opponent goes for an FE, it takes like 3 minutes to get your third going"? Back then? Had the Spanishiwa build come out in November, it would've solved nearly every common complaint about the game for months, until P and T felt more comfortable macroing. And what's the big complaint in SC2 now? Deathballs. Specifically, the Protoss deathball, especially against Zerg. As we await the promised Colossus nerf which will fix that problem (and make PvT and PvZ have more of the really awesome games that happen when P doesn't go Colo tech!), I want everyone to just take a step back, and think about how weird it would've seemed just a few months ago that the big complaint was revolve around 200/200 armies with full upgrades and mostly tier 3 units. Recognize that SC2 has come a long way in a little under a year, even as we agree that it has a long way to go. I wonder what the complaint will be next during GSL 10 or NASL 3?
This post and Jibbas make the most sense - i can't think of anyhthing else to add really.
Also, the high number of great games that we have watched the past 10 days (TSL in particular), with a lot of back and forth action, multiple battles on many fronts and various strategies are a proof for me at least that the OP is wrong.
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I agree with all of the main post, but I think the competitiveness and excitement of BW should be restored to SC2 in a different way to how it worked in BW. No mineral rally point, 12 unit max selection, no UBS was and is just frustrating to use in a modern day RTS. I'm not sure how they should restore it, but that's not my job, that's why blizzard are loaded, because they should sort it themselves and give us the excitement of BW!
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On April 18 2011 15:46 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 10:52 Jibba wrote:I disagree with this almost entirely. + Show Spoiler +On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
A fundamental design flaw.
In ZvP how do you prepare for an upcoming battle? ZvT? PvT? PvZ? TvP? Chances are the answer everyone gives to that question is exactly the same. You minimize or maximize surface area, what else can you do? Units in this game don't require setup time. The function of nearly every unit in this game is simple and one dimensional, reduce or improve DPS. One of the few exceptions to this is the siege tank, I'll touch more on this later. What exactly is your counter example from BW? Vultures laying mines, lurkers and what else? Perhaps Consume, but no one ever got excited over that. Pre-fight unit positioning is more important in SC2 because there are more units in each composition with more roles, and once you're into a battle, there are actually more abilities to micro, as well as more decisions to make regarding targeting. People just aren't doing it yet, so it sucks when two people 1a2a two larger armies into each other, but eventually it won't be that way. Do you know what game flow is?
We used to have a term that was used abundantly on this board that described a pivotal aspect of competitive play. Controlling the game flow is, in essence, controlling the pace of the game. In ZvT, if a Terran wanted to push out and kill your third, you exercised your map control to slow down the Terran push by slowly moving back lurkers as they got in tank range. Conversely, if you wanted to force an engagement as Terran you unsiege and attack towards another position or drop harass his bases, forcing the Zerg to completely reposition. When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen. If he wants a big fight, you drop everywhere. If he wants a macro game, you attack him constantly. How is game flow any different? I feel like you're just using it as a non-descript buzzword and expecting people to think the BW way was automatically superior. "When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen." We don't see this happen all the time when July, qxc or AdelScott take their opponent on a tour? It doesn't always work out that way, but it didn't always work out in BW either. Players are still capable of forcing their "game flow" (again, whatever that means in your example) on the other player and on the game as a whole. The importance of map control.
Map control isn't really how much of the map you are literally covering with buildings and units, rather it is how much area can you freely move without contest. Put simply, just because you have a unit in a certain area doesn't mean you have map control of that area, it's that fact that you can actively deny movement in that area that makes it map control. It seems to me like all these ideas build upon one another and that if you want to be able to control the flow of the game you need to have map control, and if you want to have map control you need units that can do more than add DPS. You need units with map prescence. BW had units like lurkers, siege tanks, and vultures that could very effectively control sections of the map. Can you name one other than the siege tank that SC2 has? Infestors and sentries. Map control isn't as static as lurkers and spider mines once were, but why don't you see how BW Protosses feel about it? Because there are no more lurkers and spider mines, there's a lot more potential backstabs and pokes in SC2 which are exciting in their own right. Positioning and setup time.
I don't really know how to explain positioning, but thankfully there are units that personify the idea of positioning perfectly: siege tanks and lurkers. If you've ever been a victim of a lurker or siege tank contain you know how powerful these units are when they are properly setup. 5 properly setup siege tanks can mow down twice the amount of dragoons and 5 properly positioned lurkers could deny an infinite amount of marines from touching your expansion. Why does positioning make these units exciting? Unless it's lurkers at the top of a ramp. Waiting for the Irradiate vs Lurker stage of a BW game was usually the worst part. In BW there were zerg and terran sieges. In SC2, terran sieges still exist and certain variants of Z play have sieges as well (IdrA's hydra/spine crawler push comes to mind.) There's still plenty of contains that go on in SC2 and they're still just as exciting when they get broken. Another unique aspect of the siege tank and lurker was that they required time before they were useful, tanks had to siege and lurkers had to burrow. This introduced a unique dynamic in which armies weren't always doing 100% DPS and introduced the idea that you can actively seek to cost-effectively trade units BEFORE tanks or lurkers were setup. What? This the same. There's still a critical mass of certain units, where it's important for different races to pick them off before there are too many or they gain too much energy. How much tension is there when a 2rax is pushing into a zerg base while everyone is waiting for banelings or hooks to finish? This gave micromanagement a larger role to play other than simply pulling away damaged units. If you're attacking into a Terran army as Zerg, you are using lings to tank the majority of the damage and buy time for your lurkers to burrow in addition to trapping marines and killing tanks. Of course, your Terran opponent isn't just sitting there, he's microing his marines back, dodging spines, escaping lings, and picking off the lurkers that you are still advancing. As a zerg or terran in ZvT it was entirely possible to attack into the opposing army and kill almost nothing while losing everything if your control was worse. This 100% exists in SC2. Pros don't do it because current pros are bad, but there is a ton of stuff for units to do and targeting is a lot more involved in SC2 because it's ambiguous. In BW, you know exactly what unit should get killed first, while in SC2 that varies a lot more depending on the numbers and composition. What this adds up to is that it gives the person with proper positioning a significant defender's advantage so, even if you come out somewhat behind in an engagement, your opponent can't immediately attack into your remaining army without severe repercussion. This also introduced a way to delay your opponent by slowly giving up ground rather than doing what most SC2 player have to do, which is run back to their nat and turtle until they have a unit advantage. It also meant it required some finesse to get the most out of your attack. If your opponent was low on unit count, you couldn't just 1a into his army, micro a little, and still come out on top. What it really comes down to is that unit relationships were far more complex and, as a result, proper engagements required a higher level of control. Again, you're simply arguing that the requirements on a current BW pro are higher than that of a current SC2 pro. That's absolutely true, but that's not necessarily due to the game. An obvious example is July. He's been playing SC2 for 6 months now, yet if you watch his game he is awful with banelings and it took him 4+ months to start doing runbys with zerglings. He even did runbys in BW, but he didn't pick them up immediately in SC2. This point is on the players, not the game. Player-unit interaction.
If we take a moment to consider BW spellcasters, we can see that not only did BW spellcasters involve massive player-unit interaction to use properly but also player-unit interaction to combat. Psi storm required tons of apm to use effectively or to dodge; irradiate could be used to massacre high value zerg units but it could also be turned against you; and dark swarm required exquisite levels of control on both sides. When you see a dark swarm get thrown up in a TvZ you don't go, "well that sucks, I need to kill defilers faster", you unsiege your tanks, run out of lurker range and keep raining shells because dark swarm assists zerg units rather than directly hindering terran units. I mean, obviously it hinders terran units to an extent, but you are able to mitigate damage and micro out of it, there's not an instantaneous downpour of lasers down on your army because staple damage dealers required setup time. It's not like it was easy for the zerg to use properly either, it wasn't a fire and forget spell like forcefield. After it was casted both players were microing their asses off. You're glorifying BW spell casting too much. Irradiate's main purpose was an instant, long range "fuck you" to clumps of mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultras. The only situation where it was turned against you was with ultras, but that happens all the time with storm and is beginning to happen with siege tank fire. It's not like there was ever a decision to be made on whether or not to use Irradiate because of that. It was just a side effect, that has essentially been replaced by ultralisk's innate AoE ability. PDD/FF is the modern Swarm. Take plague vs fungal growth. If all my front marines plagued, I can run them behind healthier units and still use them to some degree. If I get my front marines fungal'd I get to sit there watching them die stuck in place and there's almost nothing I can do to avoid a second fungal other than running headlong into more fungals. More importantly, plague required a large amount of time to research and you could only cast one per defiler before you had to consume, and many times dark swarm was a better choice. On the other hand, fungal is the primary infestor spell and is smartcasted. This is just a micro issue, and I don't see how it adds to the excitement of BW at all. Consume made defilers instantly powerful, so no, they didn't need much time to set up. The fungal thing is the exact thing that happened with Irradiate, so I don't see how it's a downside in SC2 but not in BW. There is nothing you can do to save your initial zerglings after an ultra gets Irradiated. If anything, I think the dynamic of fungal + infested terran vs dropship is more exciting. If you're a second too slow or they're in too good of a position, all of the drop ships will fly off slightly damaged. If it's done perfectly, they're all dead. Either way, you're staring at those eggs and waiting for them to pop. Psi storm vs psi storm? A psi storm in SC2 is almost meaningless. In BW, the beauty of psi storm was purely because of the mechanics required to cast it. I don't think there is any debate here. In SC2 smartcast forced a nerf on psi storm to the point where a single psi storm means almost nothing and it requires the screen to be carpeted for it to even be effective. In BW, sequential psi storms were extremely difficult to pull off mid-battle, but had a tremendous payoff. In SC2, not only is it not impressive to see 4 psi storms casted, it's damn stupid to micro against. Microing against a storm almost always means running into 3 more storms because it's so ridiculously easy to cast. If microing against multiple storms in SC2 is so difficult, then why isn't that impressive? Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used.
The high mechanical requirement enabled extremely skilled players to use their units in ways no one ever could. It made large engagements an event in itself because of how difficult it is to maintain your composure when you are controlling 200/200 armies with a 12 unit limit. Huge army fights were a means to and end, and not and end within themselves. The final battle wasn't a formality to end the game that you knew ended minutes ago, it was a direct contest between players. It was the moment when both players go, "I don't care how big your army is, I have mine and I'm going to kill you with it". Have you noticed that during SC2 battle commentators can't say anything other than, "SO MUCH STUFF IS DYING!!", it's because there's nothing for players to do during fights other than pull back damaged units. There's no clutch psi storms, elegant spine dodging, ruthless zealot bombing, flyby reavers, or gross surrounds. It's a variation of 1a vs another variation of 1a.
Because players are bad compared to where they will eventually be. IdrA is arguably the #1 mechanical Zerg in the world and what did he do in his last two matches against MC and Cruncher? He fucked up unit control and donated large portions of his army. There is a lot to be done, players just aren't doing it yet. Most of them don't use more than 3 hotkeys for units and that's the fault of them, not the game. You can't just 1a BW units and have then attack at full effectiveness. Yeah, you can't in SC2 either. What does any of this have to do with spectators? I'm not going to go into the subjectivity of your spectating SC2 games, but you are giving far, far too much credit to the AI in SC2. Have you played zerg yet? Because even with the fancy new AI, zerglings are fucking retarded on their own. Same goes for zealots, when 16 of them decide to charge 2 or 3 units. I think the biggest tension builder that's lacking in SC2 is in the casting. There's no loud, magnificent Kim Carrier style orations (besides TB) and the public's insistence on seeing the Production tab destroys a lot of the tension that was in BW. You can't flip to a base and see 4 carriers anymore, because everyone saw the Fleet Beacon go down. Honestly, I think changing these two things would have a profound effect on everyone's excitement. I know everyone says they want the production tab open and full information all the time, but there would be a lot more drama if they weren't. And that's a particular expertise that has to be learned by casters. There are times to show different tabs, times to show players' perspectives and time to unveil the big surprises. I know I've ranted about players in most of this post, but the casters need to improve as well if you really want games to be as big and exciting as they can be. I fully agree with Jibba. 90% of the perceived problems are just not yet fully developed player skills. When i last played Brood War, noone used irradiate, vultures were considered useless and noone built reavers because they were too g***amn slow and cost minerals per shot... Yes, you might be laughing when you read that, but it took years until people made use of those undervalued units. Only now are Zerg starting to use Infestors more, Terrans use Ghosts for more than nuking and EMPing High Templars, Ravens for more than Mass-Raven-AT-Spam and Protoss add Phoenixes to the play (even against Terrans... 3 month ago everyone said phoenixes are useless against terrans because marines shoot them to bits). I'm not happy with some parts of the game, but watching the games now and 6 month ago, i see that it develops. I suggest you open some VODs from shortly after release and see how much has changed... now think about how much will change in the next six month.
I agree completely with this. People are jumping to conclusions far too quickly and refusing to think outside the box. Perceived imbalance is nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy.
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I disagree completely. The two games can and should not be compared in any way (you can still play the old game and this is not a remake). Apart from baiting flame to the point you need to put a warning first, it is stillborn. When Warcraft 3 came out, not many people compared it to Warcraft 2, and the difference is less than you would think if you have an ounce of objectivity. If you want StarCraft: Brood War, play that. If you want Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, design flaws included, play that. If you want something in between, make a mod, join the community in making a mod, make your own game, start a new handheld console business, you have so many options.
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On April 18 2011 13:08 junemermaid wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 11:04 aztrorisk wrote:
I still have hope for SC2
Heart of the Swarm is going to be released. I hope blizzard makes necessary additions. ....I mean, just look at recent releases & expansions for games and you get a clear picture. Games are being streamlined, easier to play, and more appealing for a wide variety of audiences. This means that content gets diluted such that more casual gamers are still interested for future investments..... ... What's best for blizzard as a business and whats best for SC2 as a game are not necessarily linked. I mean, what sells more? Flashy lasers & big damage units/abilities or fine tuned units that require finesse? I hope I'm wrong.
I think Blizzard has done a great job balancing those two spectrum.
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On April 18 2011 16:05 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 15:46 Morfildur wrote:On April 16 2011 10:52 Jibba wrote:I disagree with this almost entirely. + Show Spoiler +On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
A fundamental design flaw.
In ZvP how do you prepare for an upcoming battle? ZvT? PvT? PvZ? TvP? Chances are the answer everyone gives to that question is exactly the same. You minimize or maximize surface area, what else can you do? Units in this game don't require setup time. The function of nearly every unit in this game is simple and one dimensional, reduce or improve DPS. One of the few exceptions to this is the siege tank, I'll touch more on this later. What exactly is your counter example from BW? Vultures laying mines, lurkers and what else? Perhaps Consume, but no one ever got excited over that. Pre-fight unit positioning is more important in SC2 because there are more units in each composition with more roles, and once you're into a battle, there are actually more abilities to micro, as well as more decisions to make regarding targeting. People just aren't doing it yet, so it sucks when two people 1a2a two larger armies into each other, but eventually it won't be that way. Do you know what game flow is?
We used to have a term that was used abundantly on this board that described a pivotal aspect of competitive play. Controlling the game flow is, in essence, controlling the pace of the game. In ZvT, if a Terran wanted to push out and kill your third, you exercised your map control to slow down the Terran push by slowly moving back lurkers as they got in tank range. Conversely, if you wanted to force an engagement as Terran you unsiege and attack towards another position or drop harass his bases, forcing the Zerg to completely reposition. When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen. If he wants a big fight, you drop everywhere. If he wants a macro game, you attack him constantly. How is game flow any different? I feel like you're just using it as a non-descript buzzword and expecting people to think the BW way was automatically superior. "When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen." We don't see this happen all the time when July, qxc or AdelScott take their opponent on a tour? It doesn't always work out that way, but it didn't always work out in BW either. Players are still capable of forcing their "game flow" (again, whatever that means in your example) on the other player and on the game as a whole. The importance of map control.
Map control isn't really how much of the map you are literally covering with buildings and units, rather it is how much area can you freely move without contest. Put simply, just because you have a unit in a certain area doesn't mean you have map control of that area, it's that fact that you can actively deny movement in that area that makes it map control. It seems to me like all these ideas build upon one another and that if you want to be able to control the flow of the game you need to have map control, and if you want to have map control you need units that can do more than add DPS. You need units with map prescence. BW had units like lurkers, siege tanks, and vultures that could very effectively control sections of the map. Can you name one other than the siege tank that SC2 has? Infestors and sentries. Map control isn't as static as lurkers and spider mines once were, but why don't you see how BW Protosses feel about it? Because there are no more lurkers and spider mines, there's a lot more potential backstabs and pokes in SC2 which are exciting in their own right. Positioning and setup time.
I don't really know how to explain positioning, but thankfully there are units that personify the idea of positioning perfectly: siege tanks and lurkers. If you've ever been a victim of a lurker or siege tank contain you know how powerful these units are when they are properly setup. 5 properly setup siege tanks can mow down twice the amount of dragoons and 5 properly positioned lurkers could deny an infinite amount of marines from touching your expansion. Why does positioning make these units exciting? Unless it's lurkers at the top of a ramp. Waiting for the Irradiate vs Lurker stage of a BW game was usually the worst part. In BW there were zerg and terran sieges. In SC2, terran sieges still exist and certain variants of Z play have sieges as well (IdrA's hydra/spine crawler push comes to mind.) There's still plenty of contains that go on in SC2 and they're still just as exciting when they get broken. Another unique aspect of the siege tank and lurker was that they required time before they were useful, tanks had to siege and lurkers had to burrow. This introduced a unique dynamic in which armies weren't always doing 100% DPS and introduced the idea that you can actively seek to cost-effectively trade units BEFORE tanks or lurkers were setup. What? This the same. There's still a critical mass of certain units, where it's important for different races to pick them off before there are too many or they gain too much energy. How much tension is there when a 2rax is pushing into a zerg base while everyone is waiting for banelings or hooks to finish? This gave micromanagement a larger role to play other than simply pulling away damaged units. If you're attacking into a Terran army as Zerg, you are using lings to tank the majority of the damage and buy time for your lurkers to burrow in addition to trapping marines and killing tanks. Of course, your Terran opponent isn't just sitting there, he's microing his marines back, dodging spines, escaping lings, and picking off the lurkers that you are still advancing. As a zerg or terran in ZvT it was entirely possible to attack into the opposing army and kill almost nothing while losing everything if your control was worse. This 100% exists in SC2. Pros don't do it because current pros are bad, but there is a ton of stuff for units to do and targeting is a lot more involved in SC2 because it's ambiguous. In BW, you know exactly what unit should get killed first, while in SC2 that varies a lot more depending on the numbers and composition. What this adds up to is that it gives the person with proper positioning a significant defender's advantage so, even if you come out somewhat behind in an engagement, your opponent can't immediately attack into your remaining army without severe repercussion. This also introduced a way to delay your opponent by slowly giving up ground rather than doing what most SC2 player have to do, which is run back to their nat and turtle until they have a unit advantage. It also meant it required some finesse to get the most out of your attack. If your opponent was low on unit count, you couldn't just 1a into his army, micro a little, and still come out on top. What it really comes down to is that unit relationships were far more complex and, as a result, proper engagements required a higher level of control. Again, you're simply arguing that the requirements on a current BW pro are higher than that of a current SC2 pro. That's absolutely true, but that's not necessarily due to the game. An obvious example is July. He's been playing SC2 for 6 months now, yet if you watch his game he is awful with banelings and it took him 4+ months to start doing runbys with zerglings. He even did runbys in BW, but he didn't pick them up immediately in SC2. This point is on the players, not the game. Player-unit interaction.
If we take a moment to consider BW spellcasters, we can see that not only did BW spellcasters involve massive player-unit interaction to use properly but also player-unit interaction to combat. Psi storm required tons of apm to use effectively or to dodge; irradiate could be used to massacre high value zerg units but it could also be turned against you; and dark swarm required exquisite levels of control on both sides. When you see a dark swarm get thrown up in a TvZ you don't go, "well that sucks, I need to kill defilers faster", you unsiege your tanks, run out of lurker range and keep raining shells because dark swarm assists zerg units rather than directly hindering terran units. I mean, obviously it hinders terran units to an extent, but you are able to mitigate damage and micro out of it, there's not an instantaneous downpour of lasers down on your army because staple damage dealers required setup time. It's not like it was easy for the zerg to use properly either, it wasn't a fire and forget spell like forcefield. After it was casted both players were microing their asses off. You're glorifying BW spell casting too much. Irradiate's main purpose was an instant, long range "fuck you" to clumps of mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultras. The only situation where it was turned against you was with ultras, but that happens all the time with storm and is beginning to happen with siege tank fire. It's not like there was ever a decision to be made on whether or not to use Irradiate because of that. It was just a side effect, that has essentially been replaced by ultralisk's innate AoE ability. PDD/FF is the modern Swarm. Take plague vs fungal growth. If all my front marines plagued, I can run them behind healthier units and still use them to some degree. If I get my front marines fungal'd I get to sit there watching them die stuck in place and there's almost nothing I can do to avoid a second fungal other than running headlong into more fungals. More importantly, plague required a large amount of time to research and you could only cast one per defiler before you had to consume, and many times dark swarm was a better choice. On the other hand, fungal is the primary infestor spell and is smartcasted. This is just a micro issue, and I don't see how it adds to the excitement of BW at all. Consume made defilers instantly powerful, so no, they didn't need much time to set up. The fungal thing is the exact thing that happened with Irradiate, so I don't see how it's a downside in SC2 but not in BW. There is nothing you can do to save your initial zerglings after an ultra gets Irradiated. If anything, I think the dynamic of fungal + infested terran vs dropship is more exciting. If you're a second too slow or they're in too good of a position, all of the drop ships will fly off slightly damaged. If it's done perfectly, they're all dead. Either way, you're staring at those eggs and waiting for them to pop. Psi storm vs psi storm? A psi storm in SC2 is almost meaningless. In BW, the beauty of psi storm was purely because of the mechanics required to cast it. I don't think there is any debate here. In SC2 smartcast forced a nerf on psi storm to the point where a single psi storm means almost nothing and it requires the screen to be carpeted for it to even be effective. In BW, sequential psi storms were extremely difficult to pull off mid-battle, but had a tremendous payoff. In SC2, not only is it not impressive to see 4 psi storms casted, it's damn stupid to micro against. Microing against a storm almost always means running into 3 more storms because it's so ridiculously easy to cast. If microing against multiple storms in SC2 is so difficult, then why isn't that impressive? Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used.
The high mechanical requirement enabled extremely skilled players to use their units in ways no one ever could. It made large engagements an event in itself because of how difficult it is to maintain your composure when you are controlling 200/200 armies with a 12 unit limit. Huge army fights were a means to and end, and not and end within themselves. The final battle wasn't a formality to end the game that you knew ended minutes ago, it was a direct contest between players. It was the moment when both players go, "I don't care how big your army is, I have mine and I'm going to kill you with it". Have you noticed that during SC2 battle commentators can't say anything other than, "SO MUCH STUFF IS DYING!!", it's because there's nothing for players to do during fights other than pull back damaged units. There's no clutch psi storms, elegant spine dodging, ruthless zealot bombing, flyby reavers, or gross surrounds. It's a variation of 1a vs another variation of 1a.
Because players are bad compared to where they will eventually be. IdrA is arguably the #1 mechanical Zerg in the world and what did he do in his last two matches against MC and Cruncher? He fucked up unit control and donated large portions of his army. There is a lot to be done, players just aren't doing it yet. Most of them don't use more than 3 hotkeys for units and that's the fault of them, not the game. You can't just 1a BW units and have then attack at full effectiveness. Yeah, you can't in SC2 either. What does any of this have to do with spectators? I'm not going to go into the subjectivity of your spectating SC2 games, but you are giving far, far too much credit to the AI in SC2. Have you played zerg yet? Because even with the fancy new AI, zerglings are fucking retarded on their own. Same goes for zealots, when 16 of them decide to charge 2 or 3 units. I think the biggest tension builder that's lacking in SC2 is in the casting. There's no loud, magnificent Kim Carrier style orations (besides TB) and the public's insistence on seeing the Production tab destroys a lot of the tension that was in BW. You can't flip to a base and see 4 carriers anymore, because everyone saw the Fleet Beacon go down. Honestly, I think changing these two things would have a profound effect on everyone's excitement. I know everyone says they want the production tab open and full information all the time, but there would be a lot more drama if they weren't. And that's a particular expertise that has to be learned by casters. There are times to show different tabs, times to show players' perspectives and time to unveil the big surprises. I know I've ranted about players in most of this post, but the casters need to improve as well if you really want games to be as big and exciting as they can be. I fully agree with Jibba. 90% of the perceived problems are just not yet fully developed player skills. When i last played Brood War, noone used irradiate, vultures were considered useless and noone built reavers because they were too g***amn slow and cost minerals per shot... Yes, you might be laughing when you read that, but it took years until people made use of those undervalued units. Only now are Zerg starting to use Infestors more, Terrans use Ghosts for more than nuking and EMPing High Templars, Ravens for more than Mass-Raven-AT-Spam and Protoss add Phoenixes to the play (even against Terrans... 3 month ago everyone said phoenixes are useless against terrans because marines shoot them to bits). I'm not happy with some parts of the game, but watching the games now and 6 month ago, i see that it develops. I suggest you open some VODs from shortly after release and see how much has changed... now think about how much will change in the next six month. None of that really addresses the core issues of this thread. The things you listed are simply changes in what strategies people use, which really isn't the point. The point is that there are several fundamental things that SC2 is missing that more than likely won't be fixed by simply giving it time. No amount of time can cause players to discover something that isn't there. Several of those fundamental things are the following: - Much weaker (in some cases nonexistant) defender's advantage that encourages cheese builds and makes comebacks harder to pull off - Deathball vs. Deathball syndrome - Less micro potential for highly used units compared to their SC1 counterparts (Colossus vs. Reaver for example) - The more widespread existence of "anti-micro" abilities (fungal growth, force field, etc.) These things are considered fundamental problems because they are a byproduct of both the SC2 engine itself, and Blizzard's current philosophy on SC2's unit design. Pretty much all of these things have existed in SC2 since alpha, and still continue on to this day with no signs of stopping. Pro players adding more infestors into their build doesn't really do anything to stop deathball vs. deathball play, and no amount of innovation has kept 4-gate from being such a dominate build. These are things which require a hard look into the core of SC2 itself, and can't be solved with a vague promise of "give it time".
The early game defenders advantage is actually a little stronger due to vision mechanics. In BW your units could shoot back when attacked from above, eventhough they missed a few shots. Now they can't even do that, so as long as you block vision, he can't attack. After the first expansion, there is no difference to BW that i can see... units still have to walk from one base to the other. Yes, protoss can use proxy pylons, but they can be scouted, sniped, prevented by killing the probes, etc. Zerg can use nydus worms, but those can be prevented unless you fail to have vision of your own base or don't watch the minimap enough.
So how exactly is the defenders advantage lower?
Deathball vs Deathball is simply a problem in player skill. Most players are not comfortable enough to use other strategies, with players like qxc being notable exceptions. This will develop over time.
Colossus vs Reaver...well, i do think there are some problems with the colossus, but the micro potential is not actually related to the colossus, but to the air units that have to be killed to protect it. So it's a positioning battle of air units vs stalkers/phoenixes/voidrays trying to snipe them. I think there will be a lot of development there as skill of the players improves.
Anti-Micro abilities... Fungal growth is not so bad, now that it just roots for 4 seconds. You can micro easily against it by splitting your forces _before_ it hits. Forcefields require some more adaption. It's an extremely powerful spell, especially vs Zerg, but i'm convinced that Zerg will adapt to it soon (hint: quick tier 3 into ultralisks and micro the ultralisk to break the FF). For terrans, it becomes a battle of "getting the EMPs off before the forcefields trap me" vs "splitting the sentries so one EMP is not enough". Protoss can 1-shot sentries with feedback (or just stomp forcefields with colossi). I see lots of micro potential to stop the anti-micro abilities.
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I just find it really hard to believe that SC2 is somehow hamstrung in its competitive potential compared to BW when threads like the "micro bot" thread exist. Sure, nobody is going to reach 15,000 APM to split and kite banelings like that, but even doing a fraction of that within the realm of human possibility is going to yield an advantage.
Say 400 efficient APM is what the upper limit to what is humanly possible - unless there is little to nothing that demands that, it doesn't matter how high the skill ceiling goes because it will still be unreachable.
If the mechanics are "too easy," people are just going to find other ways to utilize their APM to gain an advantage. Unless you're willing to argue the skill ceiling is below what is humanly possible, there is no sense looking down on SC2 as potentially less competitive.
Does anyone recall the people who cried doom and gloom back during SC1, when it was brand new and everybody was terrible at it? Does anyone remember everyone who said "SC1 just isn't as demanding as WC2, it will always be in WC2's shadow. It's just destined to be less competitive."
No? I don't either. Let's just watch SC2 develop instead of trying to make horribly irrational arguments as to why it's an inferior game.
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EDIT: Nvm. My last post said everything.
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On April 18 2011 16:28 branflakes14 wrote:I agree completely with this. People are jumping to conclusions far too quickly and refusing to think outside the box. Perceived imbalance is nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy.
This thread isn't about imbalance.
Please actually read the OP.
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Once I read the OP, I thought some days about it. Because I also feel that BW matches have something SC2 does not. But what really is it?
I think the reasion is that BW is largely figured out. At least for me it looks like. Any korean pro game is tense. I don't see "Broodwar", the game just serves as a medium, I am not seeing the players play a computer game but just doing it. "omg the two zealots advancing forward". I am already excited because the game is on the edge at any time.
Bluestorm, Bisu proxies his gate. ZOMG!! Will he find the hidden gate it time? It feels so close.
Over the time, with the expansion and evolved strategies, SC2 could provide games of same quality. Overall I feel it's less the game, it's more the players and what they are capable of.
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On April 18 2011 16:22 nvrs wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 15:58 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 12:11 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 11:11 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 10:45 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 09:53 Ribbon wrote:On April 18 2011 08:35 mahnini wrote:On April 18 2011 08:31 mike1290 wrote:
Map control, in the sense the OP is talking about, is provided by units that have the ability to, in smaller numbers, pay for themselves many times over before they are killed. Examples of this from BW are vultures, lurkers, defilers, siege tanks, and there are probably a few more. These types of units, with the potential to do enough damage to pay for themselves many times over, are not as potent in SC2 as they were in BW. i think this is a good way to put it. i had a hard time explaining it so i called it literal map control but this is what i mean. units that when are setup you wouldn't attack into without strong reason because you would suffer massive damage, but the downside of such units is that when they are not setup they aren't anywhere near as effective. this makes it absolutely essential to not be caught out of position and let your opponent setup, which is vastly different than positioning to avoid unfavorable terrain. What to BW Protoss have in this category? i think a better question would be which bw protoss matchup lacks this dynamic. A even better question would be either 1. Why did PvP have it? 2. If it didn't, why was PvP still good? well, i would say to some extent psi storm and reavers filled that role but i didn't really enjoy watching pvp. hell, i even hated watching zvz and i played z. i didn't mind tvt as long as it wasn't a huge turtle fest. ZvZ was my favorate matchup, probably because it was my best in BW (but I was one of those kids who did what the pros did down to the split-second timings even though my mechinics sucked. "Okay, now I make a Dragoon and plink at the Terran's depot until a tank pops out"). Anyway, I don't think Storm or Reavers filled that role at all. The idea of the "setting up" lurkers and tanks was that - while certainly good at offense - they were significantly better at defense. This is why TvT tended to have boring stalemates (the SC2 version of TvT is widely considered the best matchup, and arguably better than it's BW counterpart). On April 18 2011 14:36 LaLuSh wrote:
SC2 is still good and plenty entertaining. Blizzard can probably eventually fix balance to the point where thigns settle down.
Problem for them is that we're expecting balance to lead to broodwar-like quality. We use bw as the benchmark.
That's probably not realistic with how the game was designed. I think people have a blind spot to the idea that SC2 can one day be amazing in ways BW never was. Thus, when something in SC2 doesn't work out (Steppes of War), the community will declare that this is proof that Blizzard doesn't know what the hell they're doing and their stupid and Activision something something etc., and say the game should've been perfectly designed and balanced at launch, which is simply insane. I tend to be quick to defend Blizzard. It's not so much because I'm a fanboy (Warcraft 3 was a bad game, and the campaign was awful!), but because I work at a software company and understand how these things work out, which is slowly, frustratingly, and with stops and starts. The game has been improving. Significantly. It was only a few months ago that one-base all-ins were standard TvZ (remember GSL3? Literally 90%+ of TvZs were marine SCV all-ins!). Back then, TvP was considered an inherently fucked matchup, because T was super-OP early game, but protoss was super-OP late game. MarineKingPrime said that the marine was so ludicrously overpowered that it hid the "fact" that every single other Terran unit was garbage, so T would justify the all-ins by saying they had no chance in the late game either Zerg or Protoss. Proxy Void Rays killed everything, and SCVs would surround Thors in a rush, making the Thor invincible because it fucked up the pathing AI. It was conventional wisdom that the game was garbage because 1-base cheese was too strong and we'd never see macro games. Nothing could be done to fix this, of course. The mechanics of the game simply made one-base all-ins too powerful, and this was a fundamental flaw that nothing would overcome. Nowadays (not counting PvP), FEs are standard, and even one-base openings transition into an expo fairly quickly. In GSTL February, MVP FE'd, saw that Squirtle FE'd as well, and reacted by taking a fast third. Today we know that's the correct response, but at the time, it blew people's minds. Watch the VOD, and listen to Tasteless and Artosis. They freak out! And that was only three months ago! Right now, check out the Spanishiwa build, right? It's a really greedy build that's nevertheless safe from nearly all one-base pressures or all-ins except unscouted cheese. What's the big complaint that's keeping it from catching on at a pro level? According to Darkforce, it takes too long to get a third if your opponent takes his natural super fast because you can't pressure enough. Just go back in time six months. Imagine if someone came along during GSL 3 (Marine SCV All-in! Every game!) and said "Hey, I've got a build that lets you saturate two bases in the first 6 minutes, and it's safe against Marine SCV all-ins, cloak banshees, hellion openings, and 4gates, while hard countering Void Ray rushes, the Phoenix openings that don't exist yet, and uncloaked banshhes". Can you imagine that build coming out back in November and Zerg's responding "yeah , but if the opponent goes for an FE, it takes like 3 minutes to get your third going"? Back then? Had the Spanishiwa build come out in November, it would've solved nearly every common complaint about the game for months, until P and T felt more comfortable macroing. And what's the big complaint in SC2 now? Deathballs. Specifically, the Protoss deathball, especially against Zerg. As we await the promised Colossus nerf which will fix that problem (and make PvT and PvZ have more of the really awesome games that happen when P doesn't go Colo tech!), I want everyone to just take a step back, and think about how weird it would've seemed just a few months ago that the big complaint was revolve around 200/200 armies with full upgrades and mostly tier 3 units. Recognize that SC2 has come a long way in a little under a year, even as we agree that it has a long way to go. I wonder what the complaint will be next during GSL 10 or NASL 3? This post and Jibbas make the most sense - i can't think of anyhthing else to add really. Also, the high number of great games that we have watched the past 10 days (TSL in particular), with a lot of back and forth action, multiple battles on many fronts and various strategies are a proof for me at least that the OP is wrong.
Is everyone forgetting that the map pool has changed massively in the last six months, allowing for more strategic options? Too many variables (balance patches, map pool, metagame, player skill) are shifting to definitively disprove or confirm the OP. However, the OP has a lot of valid points that are being ignored or approached with ignorance.
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Options. SC2 is too one-dimensional. I feel that the races, especially zerg, need more options by means of casting or versatile units.
I think right now terran has a huge arsenal of strategic options and protoss has amazing unit composition because its units either do absurd ranged damage or can hit both air and ground. OTOH, all races could be improved by introducing more options.
I wont complain too much though simply because I am pretty certain that this is sort of by design as Blizzard will improve race options with HOTS and LOTV.
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EPT
