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On May 08 2011 04:35 Iblis wrote:
I don't think this is either a good idea or needed.
SC2 is kind of based on hard counter, people may like that or hate that, that's the base. In the help menu you can see what units is good or bad against. low health/high dps multi-purpose units die fast against high burst-damage AoE. If micro alone could negate any composition advantage the base of the game would be broken and the balance of the game with it. And having that option integrated in the AI option would just be stupid from Blizzard for going the opposite way from the game fundations.
Just like in PvZ if the protoss goes High Templar with storm, the Zerg can get Roach with enough HP to not die from 1 storm and can regenerate and tank storm while burrowed.
Everything get countered, the win percentage at each metagame switch just change so much by players just discovering things by themself.
The game has 3 races and each of them has units that has strong points, and you need even stronger point to be able to deal with them.
A game with only one race or a mirror match is relying on micro/build, SC2 non-mirror is not(only).
I don't see where you want to get, make units larger so that AoE would not hit them to hard when clumped, but balance it by making AoE stronger?
Like the collossus in the beta that had double the damage but half the firerate before blizzard changed it because when you hit a critical number they just evaporated 3 layers of groud units from 9 range?
Nice theorycraft here, David Kim. X unit being good against Y unit is not a 'hard counter'. Just look at Baneling vs. Marines, or Mutalisks vs. Thors... The examples are aplenty. The game is not as simple as you make it look.
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On May 08 2011 04:35 Iblis wrote:
I don't think this is either a good idea or needed.
SC2 is kind of based on hard counter, people may like that or hate that, that's the base. In the help menu you can see what units is good or bad against. low health/high dps multi-purpose units die fast against high burst-damage AoE. If micro alone could negate any composition advantage the base of the game would be broken and the balance of the game with it. And having that option integrated in the AI option would just be stupid from Blizzard for going the opposite way from the game fundations.
Just like in PvZ if the protoss goes High Templar with storm, the Zerg can get Roach with enough HP to not die from 1 storm and can regenerate and tank storm while burrowed.
Everything get countered, the win percentage at each metagame switch just change so much by players just discovering things by themself.
The game has 3 races and each of them has units that has strong points, and you need even stronger point to be able to deal with them.
A game with only one race or a mirror match is relying on micro/build, SC2 non-mirror is not(only).
I don't see where you want to get, make units larger so that AoE would not hit them to hard when clumped, but balance it by making AoE stronger?
Like the collossus in the beta that had double the damage but half the firerate before blizzard changed it because when you hit a critical number they just evaporated 3 layers of groud units from 9 range?
You bring up a good point. I'm trying to find a way to give players the ability to micro vs AOE - in essence, hard counters shouldn't be so hard. That's when games truly become decided by skill instead of pure composition and macro.
Marines and collosus were the best example I could think of. As is, players arent truly rewarded for pre-splitting. They still have to stim and A-move (otherwise their army wouldn't be doing full DPS), and this results in bio that is very tightly packed. Even if you presplit, units will naturally attack in a shoulder-to-shoulder concave, effectively negating the split. I'm trying to come up with a non-DPS fix to this, and I was reminded of BW pathing. It was painful and sometimes outright embarrassing, but it helped splash be much less effective. There are, of course, other factors that helped out in BW - units did relatively less damage so fights lasted longer than 3 seconds, and limited group size meant better control and larger spreads.
It seems like the pathing was part of what helped people like Boxer micro against lurkers in ways that lesser players could only dream of.
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How many times does those noob diamond league players can understand: bio is not strong against gateway unit. The medic made them strong. Pure tier-1 or tier1.5 unit clash, Protoss can surely win by micro, zerg can win by outnumber, terran may only win by cost efficiency.
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Well, the solution to this unit clumping for other RTS games would be formations (think Total War series), but that's so not Starcraft style.
IMO, I think the problem is that it's frankly impossible to micro marines against colossus in any decently sized engagement. There's simply not enough APM to do that.
So what if we just slowed down the game some more - to BW speed? It would make the very early game more boring (as it is in BW), but would lead to more epic battles later on, where players can micro their units better.
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On May 08 2011 05:41 ehalf wrote:
How many times does those noob diamond league players can understand: bio is not strong against gateway unit. The medic made them strong. Pure tier-1 or tier1.5 unit clash, Protoss can surely win by micro, zerg can win by outnumber, terran may only win by cost efficiency.
Not the medivac - it's stim. And then later, medivac.
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For being a higher level player you seem to have completely missed the point. Stop fantasizing about how about control in broodwar was, this is a different game so just get over it. A game shouldn't rely on stupid units to create a need for micro, rather micro should come from positioning. It just seems like you are complaining about something that isn't even a problem, TvP as a matchup is totally fine and still changing.
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On May 08 2011 05:41 ehalf wrote:
How many times does those noob diamond league players can understand: bio is not strong against gateway unit. The medic made them strong. Pure tier-1 or tier1.5 unit clash, Protoss can surely win by micro, zerg can win by outnumber, terran may only win by cost efficiency.
Actually, stim and concussive shells [mostly] prevent the protoss from out-microing their opponent in equal-cost engagements. Protoss can win battles if they're being defensive or engaging in chokes, but they're screwed if they get caught in the open. I'm trying to suggest a solution that would make bio slightly less effective early game (though the grouping could be tightened up if micro'd correctly) while making it slightly more effective late game, where massing high-dps splash doesn't become the dominant strategy.
On May 08 2011 05:46 lbmaian wrote:
Well, the solution to this unit clumping for other RTS games would be formations (think Total War series), but that's so not Starcraft style.
IMO, I think the problem is that it's frankly impossible to micro marines against colossus in any decently sized engagement. There's simply not enough APM to do that.
So what if we just slowed down the game some more - to BW speed? It would make the very early game more boring (as it is in BW), but would lead to more epic battles later on, where players can micro their units better.
Wow, I really like that. game speed decrease to make micro more effective in large engagements? hmm...
On May 08 2011 05:51 SlipperySnake wrote:
For being a higher level player you seem to have completely missed the point. Stop fantasizing about how about control in broodwar was, this is a different game so just get over it. A game shouldn't rely on stupid units to create a need for micro, rather micro should come from positioning. It just seems like you are complaining about something that isn't even a problem, TvP as a matchup is totally fine and still changing.
Thank you for coming to this thread and pointing that out to me. Actually I never played BW, but there has been a lot of discussion lately about what they did "right" in BW, and I've tried to draw some analysis/comparisons. Actually this AI could be smarter than the current AI, just mimic BW AI in certain situations. Consider the mutalisk - if it clumped into a tiny ball when it was flying around, the thor would completely dominate TvZ and the muta would be essentially an outdated unit. It would be almost impossible to separate individual mutalisks in groups of 12 or more, especially if they were as tightly packed as marines. Because the physics implement a "natural spread" of air units with the ability to stack, micro becomes critical and players are actually punished for A-moving; their units become susceptible to splash. I'd like to see something similar with bio.
This concept is a little different because the mutalisk can fly and utilize "magic box" micro with the entire control group attacking, but the theory is the same.
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In TvT a better player will spread their marines out a little or attack from multiple angles in marine tank vs marine tank war to break the enemies tank line. This helps the more skilled player win. What your suggesting make 1a stronger vs aoe in my opinion that is bad.
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I think if you let a Protoss player tech up to Collosus and you don't make vikings to whittle them down, you deserve to lose. No decent terran player would watch a Protoss player get 3+ Collosus and not make a few vikings to counter it. The fact that you would try to just power through Collosi and gateway units solely with tier one terran units makes your play really questionable.
--you can't blame blizzard's 'pathing or aoe' when you are given other tools to deal with the problems. likewise, it's like complaining after you run 20 zealots into a line of ten tanks and watch the zealots melt, it's just a bad comparison/argument
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You bring up a good point. I'm trying to find a way to give players the ability to micro vs AOE - in essence, hard counters shouldn't be so hard. That's when games truly become decided by skill instead of pure composition and macro.
Composition is as much a part of skill as micro/macro.
The reason people want micro to be able to overcome hard counters isn't due to "skill" or even to balance, its because micro is like 90% of what makes RTS games enjoyable as a spectator sport. Think of any highlight reel or notable play in BW and SC2, and I guarantee you it is some sort of micro trick. Watching pros micro really well is just cool, in a way that macro and unit compositions aren't.
But your solution doesn't promote that kind of micro, IMO. Pre-spreading units before you engage isn't really cool to watch. When MKP spreads his marines against banelings incredibly well, its a "whoa" moment--but if he just pre-spread them, then a-moved his spread formation against the banelings, it'd be boring as hell.
We already have some of this, with Toss aginst EMP. Toss pre-spread their HTs and Immortals, so a single EMP can't take them out. Even though units do clump when you move, if you spread properly, its still possible to keep casters and immortals spread out throughout your army so they can't be hit with one EMP.
Now, undeniably there is some tactics to this, and better players do it more than worse ones.
But is it fun to watch? Do you ever go, "whoa, OMG, I can't believe how this guy pre-spread his immortals before this fight!" No, you don't, because it doesn't take that much APM, it doesn't require super quick reactions. Its just no that impressive.
What you're proposing would, essentially, turn *all* battle micro, at least as it regards counteracting AOE, into the Immortal vs. EMP dynamic. In other words, it would be boring.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 08 2011 06:09 lambchops wrote:
I think if you let a Protoss player tech up to Collosus and you don't make vikings to whittle them down, you deserve to lose. No decent terran player would watch a Protoss player get 3+ Collosus and not make a few vikings to counter it. The fact that you would try to just power through Collosi and gateway units solely with tier one terran units makes your play really questionable.
What he means is to put more skill in the game by making aoe less strong, this way it will not be a game of, hmm I should have made more marauders, but more of hmm I should have microed my marauders better(for example).
Either way, this would require a revamp of the AI, and I don't see that happening anytime soon sadly.
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On May 08 2011 05:47 lbmaian wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2011 05:41 ehalf wrote:
How many times does those noob diamond league players can understand: bio is not strong against gateway unit. The medic made them strong. Pure tier-1 or tier1.5 unit clash, Protoss can surely win by micro, zerg can win by outnumber, terran may only win by cost efficiency. Not the medivac - it's stim. And then later, medivac.
Stim is nothing compared with forcefield. It only makes ur army die faster. Only noob protoss dies of bio coz it's micro makes the difference.
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On May 08 2011 06:12 Kipsate wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2011 06:09 lambchops wrote:
I think if you let a Protoss player tech up to Collosus and you don't make vikings to whittle them down, you deserve to lose. No decent terran player would watch a Protoss player get 3+ Collosus and not make a few vikings to counter it. The fact that you would try to just power through Collosi and gateway units solely with tier one terran units makes your play really questionable. What he means is to put more skill in the game by making aoe less strong, this way it will not be a game of, hmm I should have made more marauders, but more of hmm I should have microed my marauders better(for example). Either way, this would require a revamp of the AI, and I don't see that happening anytime soon sadly.
He brings up the unit selection (like having the ability to control more than 12 at a time), i mean, no one is telling him NOT to control them twelve at a time right? no offense but it sounded like your example was more of: "hmm should i have built more units? or should i have just not a-clicked?" i don't exactly see a problem with the pathing/aoe at all, good micro/splits avoid being melted by collosus or all that.
i think what happens is, the lower level of play needs the pathing/aoe for the a-click battles they go through. but in the higher leagues, its up to the player to micro around it and kite and what not, and that comes down to, say move twelve units at a time. i don't think there's anything wrong with teh way blizzard made the gameplay.
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In most situations the clumped up mass is optimal especially for movement. The difference between clumping air units and ground units is very large because obviously air units can stack on top of each other. This would be a massive nerf to marines because they wouldn't be able to create arcs that are as good and realistically you can't expect terran players to keep their units clumped in the end game where there is tons of macro and they already have to stutter step.
At the end of the day most unit compositions want to move and stay stationary in a clumped position and only spread in reaction to certain threats. Spreading requires a lot currently, but imagine if throughout the game you had to do equivalent micro to spread at every engagement. This barrier of entry to the game is too massive.
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Just because we live in an age where entire armies can be hotkeyed to a single number doesn't mean that they have to be.
People bemoaned the lack of mechanical skill required, but perhaps there is emerging room for that to become a factor once again.
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actually gateway units are better then bio units. Plus the terran sentry is t2.5 so to say (medevac, well ghost can be considered a sentry as well). Anyway the bio upgrades are earlier, but 1 weapon upgrade or 1 armor upgrade can even switch who is stronger. Also micro will have a large effect on bio vs gateway. (while bios is weaker the easiest micro moves increases their effectivness a bit more then on gateway).
So in short, the one with better micro will win bio vs gateway. On both sides are a ton of timings though where either bio or gateway is stronger. And its not gateway is stronger lategame bio is stronger early game. Its more gateway -> bio -> gateway -> bio ... etc
So yeah i have another opinion on this. And you can see alot of tournament games where gateway dominates bio just because of this 0/1 vs 0/0. Or 1/1 bio just running through 0/0 gates
oh PS: magic box works for ground units too. And the collossi aoe abuses the ranged units forming a straight line, not the huge blobs. Plus people already abuse the weakened aoes of tanks on light units with splitting before running in  .
Without forcefields terrans could do the same on the toss and ignore colossi fire (they would end up hitting single units). The problem is the target the nearest unit ai, that makes the colossi effectiv. though autoturrets are top priority somehow for siege units.
Just give colossi air weapon upgrades and the viking mech weapon upgrades and everyone will be happy hehe. Well i would hehe thats enough.
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Bio scales much, much better than Zealot/Stalker/Sentry. Initially it seemed stronger early-game as well, but a nerf to stim timing evened things out quite a bit, and most early game bio vs. gateway fights are fairly even. But as the numbers increase, the ridiculously powerful dps of the bioball starts to outstrip what Toss can dish out--Blink/Charge help some, but chargelots still get kited by conc marauders, and at a certain point dps is way too high to blink Stalkers out of danger before they die.
Thats why Terran sticking with MMM until the lategame is fairly common, while all Toss midgame strats rely on transitioning into something that does better against it (generally, robo play)
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I'm not sure adjusting the very mechanics of the engine are a good way to address this issue. What is the issue, again? You would like to buff bio lategame and nerf them early game? Unfortunetly, I feel like if bio takes any more hits in the early game, Protoss will be able to kill me early without going all in. There are many points of potential weakness early game in TvP, many of which have not been discovered or utilized by Protoss, it's just the way I feel as a Terran player: Unable to end the game early with bio based all ins, and not implicitly more powerful with bio early game. Nerfing bio early game is.... not a good idea.
Frankly I think Bio`s weakness lategame is mostly due to having no idea when the Robotics bay is going down. If I scan and do not see when the robotics bay is started, I can have a lot of trouble.
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On May 08 2011 06:12 awesomoecalypse wrote:
But is it fun to watch? Do you ever go, "whoa, OMG, I can't believe how this guy pre-spread his immortals before this fight!" No, you don't, because it doesn't take that much APM, it doesn't require super quick reactions. Its just no that impressive.
Your opinion, champ. Don't try to pass that off as fact.
I find pre-spreading specialized units to be just as impressive as BW micro tricks. It's like positioning siege tanks just right before the engagement. It's smart. It's great preparation. It's not flashy, but it looks great to me when the battle is won thanks to that.
So, yes. It's fun to watch.
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On May 08 2011 05:47 lbmaian wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2011 05:41 ehalf wrote:
How many times does those noob diamond league players can understand: bio is not strong against gateway unit. The medic made them strong. Pure tier-1 or tier1.5 unit clash, Protoss can surely win by micro, zerg can win by outnumber, terran may only win by cost efficiency. Not the medivac - it's stim. And then later, medivac.
Last time I checked the OP it had nothing to do with balance, but since you bring it up why do three rax stim pushes stop becoming universally effective against Protoss near gold level?
OT-I find that micro separates the higher tiers of players and quite frankly would be disappointed with something nerfing that aspect of competitive play. I believe to an extent it encourages unit counters, as there are very few circumstances where marines will be cost effective against colossi, it encourages the production of a more expensive unit: Marauders.
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