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On July 09 2014 00:58 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2014 00:42 Grumbels wrote:The ultimate units in Starcraft 2 aren't that extreme compared to standard infantry, the game is scaled down to the point that a handful of marines can bring down massive space ships. To contrast, in Supreme Commander 2 the higher tech units can be absurdly powerful. + Show Spoiler +The mothership never worked out and Blizzard abandoned the Odin-esque thor. And Blizzard has essentially never bothered trying to make the carrier a useful unit, and I believe they also reverted some buffs for the battlecruiser in HotS beta under the pretext of it ruining other game modes(?). They've also reduced the mothership to irrelevancy and have publicly said that they're okay with capital ships making only rare appearances. (I think the tempest is different because it's a HotS unit and therefore has special protection.) In my opinion, ultimate units slow the game down too much, feel too awkward to handle, and the infrastructure requirements are too high so that you're forced into passive play. I think better odds lie with redesigning the battlecruiser so that it has some useful ability that doesn't stack, so that you're immediately rewarded for having at least one of them. I don't think Blizzard will bother to make any of them viable in any upcoming patch though. Although I can see the reason for a capital redesign, that would have to wait until LotV. I would rather not wait so long as to fix what might be amended now. D'you have any specifics on how to redesign the BC and/or carrier?
Unit Supply Minerals Gas Build Time
Battlecruiser 6 400 300 90
Carrier 6 350 250 120
Tempest 4 300 200 60
Colossus 6 300 200 75
Note that protoss units build quicker in practice because of chronoboost.
There are a number of reasons for the colossus and tempest to see more use:
- The battlecruiser and carrier are much more expensive and slower to manufacture than even the colossus and especially the tempest. This leads to huge opportunity and infrastructure costs, which makes getting only one of those units hardly worthwhile.
- Colossus attack upgrades are also more accessible.
- The colossus and tempest also fulfill necessary roles (ground control vs light units / deterrence vs zerg late-game), so you are more often immediately rewarded for building them, despite the set-up costs.
I think looking at these factors the obvious conclusion should be that battlecruisers and carriers have a quite different function than other T3 units (that of late-game ultimate army), one which is probably not necessary in this game, and not feasible at a pro level where timings are so strict. If you want them to see use you have to make them weaker and cut down on build time and cost so that they're more in line with the tempest. It would probably also help to give them a well-defined role, for instance like carriers had in Brood War.
There is also the question of critical mass: brood lords benefit from broodlings obstructing, and therefore become exponentially more powerful in higher numbers as you can no longer shoot down all the broodlings in time to attack their sires. I think that's why you don't really see brood lords any more: it takes too long to get to critical mass without the addition of the old fungal, and you need enough brood lords that they become vulnerable to anti-air. Nevertheless, they do fulfill a certain function and can effectively space out ground armies once they reach critical mass. I don't know if exponential increase in strength for such units is specifically harmful, an argument can be made that it simply denotes the point when the unit can actually do its job -- brood lords can finally succeed at space control, and will still have numerous strategic weaknesses to offset this strength.
Battlecruisers and carriers don't really reach critical mass, but that's also because they can't really do anything so it becomes pointless to talk about critical mass. You could say that the units would be more worthwhile to build if even a few of them could change the battle, but without a well defined role they will still feel a bit pointless imo. Though if the units are too weak they will never be strong at anything obviously, and have no function in the army, so it goes both ways. (sorry if this logic is a bit vague, slightlarge headache.. )
So yeah, reduce costs...
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On July 09 2014 03:07 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2014 00:58 Spect8rCraft wrote:On July 09 2014 00:42 Grumbels wrote:The ultimate units in Starcraft 2 aren't that extreme compared to standard infantry, the game is scaled down to the point that a handful of marines can bring down massive space ships. To contrast, in Supreme Commander 2 the higher tech units can be absurdly powerful. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOhW1h4cd-Q#t=6m18s The mothership never worked out and Blizzard abandoned the Odin-esque thor. And Blizzard has essentially never bothered trying to make the carrier a useful unit, and I believe they also reverted some buffs for the battlecruiser in HotS beta under the pretext of it ruining other game modes(?). They've also reduced the mothership to irrelevancy and have publicly said that they're okay with capital ships making only rare appearances. (I think the tempest is different because it's a HotS unit and therefore has special protection.) In my opinion, ultimate units slow the game down too much, feel too awkward to handle, and the infrastructure requirements are too high so that you're forced into passive play. I think better odds lie with redesigning the battlecruiser so that it has some useful ability that doesn't stack, so that you're immediately rewarded for having at least one of them. I don't think Blizzard will bother to make any of them viable in any upcoming patch though. Although I can see the reason for a capital redesign, that would have to wait until LotV. I would rather not wait so long as to fix what might be amended now. D'you have any specifics on how to redesign the BC and/or carrier?
Unit Supply Minerals Gas Build Time
Battlecruiser 6 400 300 90
Carrier 6 350 250 120
Tempest 4 300 200 60
Colossus 6 300 200 75
Note that protoss units build quicker in practice because of chronoboost. There are a number of reasons for the colossus and tempest to see more use: - The battlecruiser and carrier are much more expensive and slower to manufacture than even the colossus and especially the tempest. This leads to huge opportunity and infrastructure costs, which makes getting only one of those units hardly worthwhile.
- Colossus attack upgrades are also more accessible.
- The colossus and tempest also fulfill necessary roles (ground control vs light units / deterrence vs zerg late-game), so you are more often immediately rewarded for building them, despite the set-up costs.
I think looking at these factors the obvious conclusion should be that battlecruisers and carriers have a quite different function than other T3 units (that of late-game ultimate army), one which is probably not necessary in this game, and not feasible at a pro level where timings are so strict. If you want them to see use you have to make them weaker and cut down on build time and cost so that they're more in line with the tempst. It would probably also help to give them a well-defined role, for instance like carriers had in Brood War. There is also the question of critical mass: brood lords benefit from broodlings obstructing, and therefore become exponentially more powerful in higher numbers as you can no longer shoot down all the broodlings in time to attack their sires. I think that's why you don't really see brood lords anymore: it takes too long to get to critical mass without the addition of the old fungal, and you need enough brood lords that they become vulnerable to anti-air. Nevertheless, they do fulfill a certain function and can effectively space out ground armies once they reach critical mass. I don't know if exponential increase in strength for such units is specifically harmful, an argument can be made that it simply denotes the point when the unit can actually do its job -- brood lords can finally succeed at space control, and will still have numerous strategic weaknesses to offset this strength. Battlecruisers and carriers don't really reach critical mass, but that's also because they can't really do anything so it becomes pointless to talk about critical mass. You could say that the units would be more worthwhile to build if even a few of them could change the battle, but without a well defined role they will still feel a bit pointless imo. Though if the units are too weak they will never be strong at anything obviously, and have no function in the army, so it goes both ways. (sorry if this logic is a bit vague, slight headache.. ) So yeah, reduce costs...
Nice reasoning. I agree too. If we see cost reduction to the level of Tempests (maybe even supply), Carriers and BCs do actually become a critical part of any late game army composition as they were in Brood War. As of now, they're barely useful and fill very very niche roles such as 'breaking siege lines' and are pretty much limited to that. These units really need to undergo some sort of improvement otherwise they'll never be useful in a direct engagement.
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4713 Posts
I'm quite pissed at Blizzard for choosing to create Tempests instead of reworking Carries slightly to fulfill that role.
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United States13143 Posts
Both carriers and battlecruisers were pretty niche in BW; against zerg, carriers were only used as the ultimate lategame transition for sair/reaver before zergs figured out how to counter it, and they were the less popular lategame transition against terran.
Battlecruisers basically only saw play in superlate TvT, generally after every base had already been taken and the map was split by turret/tank lines.
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On July 10 2014 04:15 Grumbels wrote:
Thanks for the post, LaLuSh and Grumbels, very interesting read!
Interesting to note that their discussion was similar to many going on here at TL right now.
Balance problems: 1.) Maps are too big. 2.) Terran's late game is trash. 3.) If they had let the game settle with less patches a while ago, it would be balanced now by pros figuring things out, but at this point in time the game is not balanced even remotely close enough for that to be a reality.
Design problems: 1.) Boring deathballs. 2.) Units don't have enough micro potential. 3.) The interface is much too easy and prevents great players from proving their worth vs. lesser players.
Professional player problems: 1.) Patches are too often for the game to settle, pros don't have time to constantly change things up according to the patches, so they feel annoyed at the constant patching of the game.
Interesting thing that was said, though, was that SC2 has already been figured out. Many people on these forums will say that the meta will need at least another decade to develop, but the Koreans think that with the current professional team system (players, coaches, etc) that complete game understanding has already pretty much been reached. That is SAD.
Guess everyone who is anyone is hoping LotV just does a complete and utter redesign of the game. Doubt it will happen, but here's hoping.
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double post, please delete
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On July 10 2014 04:15 Grumbels wrote:
Thanks! That's a great link.
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i think a bigger problem with any tier 3 air is the fact that tempests exist completley nullify broodlords, bc or carrier because there such a ridiculously hard counter
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This is funny. 
Even more the second graphic shown in that thread:
http://imgur.com/nQo5kgj
It's obviously not just a cause, but also a symptom of Zerg winning in the lategame vs Terran though, still funny.
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On July 10 2014 17:16 Enigmasc wrote:
i think a bigger problem with any tier 3 air is the fact that tempests exist completley nullify broodlords, bc or carrier because there such a ridiculously hard counter
BC's not quite, ravens blocking tempest shots allows BC's to become the counter to tempest by pewpewing them down in a fraction of a second with yamato.
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On July 10 2014 19:11 19Meavis93 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2014 17:16 Enigmasc wrote:
i think a bigger problem with any tier 3 air is the fact that tempests exist completley nullify broodlords, bc or carrier because there such a ridiculously hard counter
BC's not quite, ravens blocking tempest shots allows BC's to become the counter to tempest by pewpewing them down in a fraction of a second with yamato.
until you get feedbacked (which not only deplets the energy, not only deals damage, but cancels the yamato!) and suddenly you have a 300/500, 0energy giant, slow, spaceship that cannot leave the radius of PDDs.
Templar+Tempest, that's why all these Skyterran things don't work on high level. I guess on lower levels where people need 5seconds to feedback 5units its not that bad, but you are just going to get raped by someone with some mechanical capabilities.
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On July 10 2014 18:59 Big J wrote:This is funny. Even more the second graphic shown in that thread: http://imgur.com/nQo5kgjIt's obviously not just a cause, but also a symptom of Zerg winning in the lategame vs Terran though, still funny.
The mass muta ball is way too easy for control and with the overseer speed buff and widow mine nerf it's an incredible hard deathbal to kill.
A turret upgrade to do extra bio/splash damage would imho a nice addition to the game. So mutas will still be viable in the beginning but once the game goes on, the upgrade will do a bit more damage than the current ones and it wont affect to other matchups.
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Here's the latest Aligulac list (114) with pretty new formatting.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/280eKxW.png)
With regard to P, nothing seems to have changed. Just like the first half of June, P>T by a slight margin, P and Z are roughly even, and there are roughly the same number of PvP MU's in tournaments.
Z did worse in this period, while it was at >55% against T last time, it's now even in winrates.
More importantly, looking at populations, while there were 5x more ZvZ than TvT, and 2x more ZvZ than PvP, then now there are only roughly 3x more ZvZ than TvT, and a just over a fourth more ZvZ than PvPs. This suggests that Z is doing worse, and it's mainly doing worse against T (note that worse doesn't imply that they're doing bad, this is a comparison with the previous period).
Looking more closely at the population numbers, there appear to have been fewer games, the total for 114 is 1835 and for 113 it was 2379.
So for the previous 113 list Z MUs made up 72% of all MUs. P MUs made up 55% (note that the overlap is due to the fact that P plays Z...). T MUs made up 36% of all MUs.
In this list, 114, Z MUs made up 65% of all MUs. P MUs made up 57%. T MUs made up 42% of all MUs.
So Z is down 7%, P is up 2% and T is up 6%. (with rounding)
The previous lists can be found below.
On June 29 2014 05:42 Ghanburighan wrote:Sorry for the delay, here's Aligulac 113.. The previous list(s) can be found at the end of this post. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Oc9x1bJ.png) Looking at the winrates, P has extended its advantage over T, P has also gained some ground back against Z, yet TvZ has strongly turned in Z favour once gain (it's as bad as it was before the hellbat patch in April). Population numbers are also worse. Previously there were 4x more ZvZ games than TvT games, now there are more than 5x. PvP's have not changed in number, so it's mostly just less terrans and more zergs getting further that's creating the problem. All in all, balance-wise this was a very depressing period. Show nested quote +On June 12 2014 15:32 Ghanburighan wrote:Time to post the latest Aligulac list. The previous list can be found at the end of this post. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pKEYuFe.png) Regarding winrates, PvT has fluctuated back from T having a slight advantage to P having a minuscule advantage. In PvZ, P has also improved although it hasn't caught up with Z. On the other hand, T has improved in the TvZ MU (110 had 45%, 111 had 47%) and its even now. In terms of populations measured in numbers of mirror MUs, there's virtually no change compared to the last list, the proportions are very close. This means that there is no repopulation of terrans according to these numbers and there are 4 times fewer TvTs than ZvZs. As T MUs have even winrates, there cannot really be a repopulation with these numbers. Furthermore, a word of caution, I'd say that this was one of the best periods for Terran in a long while, Taeja won Hsc 9 (where Z had a comparatively weaker list of players), Maru is tearing up Code S, and Innovation is kicking as in teamleagues and the Dragon cup. I don't think they contributed overly much to the final winrates (their games are still a small fraction of all the games), but taken together they did contribute significantly. If they don't keep their winning ways going, winrates can plunge below 50% again. And, their wins aren't helping repopulate in any way. On May 29 2014 02:45 Ghanburighan wrote:Uploading the latest Aligulac list. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wem39XJ.png) Unfortunately there was a TvZ patch in the middle of the period, so those numbers could be anything now. But it looks like P is doing worse against Z in terms of winrate. But the population ratios haven't changed compared to the last list, though. It's still roughly 1/4 TvT, 2/4 PvP and 1/1 ZvZ.
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On July 10 2014 20:01 PinoKotsBeer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2014 18:59 Big J wrote:This is funny. Even more the second graphic shown in that thread: http://imgur.com/nQo5kgjIt's obviously not just a cause, but also a symptom of Zerg winning in the lategame vs Terran though, still funny. The mass muta ball is way too easy for control and with the overseer speed buff and widow mine nerf it's an incredible hard deathbal to kill. A turret upgrade to do extra bio/splash damage would imho a nice addition to the game. So mutas will still be viable in the beginning but once the game goes on, the upgrade will do a bit more damage than the current ones and it wont affect to other matchups.
I think the regen is a major problem with mutas since you can attack or even take splash and as long as its alive a few seconds later its full HP again. Maybe if there was some requirement like 10 seconds since last damaged (ie like shields) or has to be over creep.
Conversely, you could give Terran better AA against mutas some how, like you said some splash for turrets.
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On July 10 2014 20:15 Ghanburighan wrote:
More importantly, looking at populations, while there were 5x more ZvZ than TvT, and 2x more ZvZ than PvP, then now there are only roughly 3x more ZvZ than TvT, and a just over a fourth more ZvZ than PvPs.
There were more TvTs in the last period because of Code A qualifiers. There were 27 TvT series played there. (Just saying.)
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On July 10 2014 20:21 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2014 20:15 Ghanburighan wrote:
More importantly, looking at populations, while there were 5x more ZvZ than TvT, and 2x more ZvZ than PvP, then now there are only roughly 3x more ZvZ than TvT, and a just over a fourth more ZvZ than PvPs. There were more TvTs in the last period because of Code A qualifiers. There were 27 TvT series played there. (Just saying.)
A very acute, insightful and relevant observation! Guaranteed to further stimulate fruitful discussion! Well done. Bravo.
*Slow Claps*
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^Don't be a douche, while writing it up I was wondering where the proportionally higher percentage of TvTs came from.
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I made a tournament simulation for fun to check some things:
Given a randomly distributed bracket with p, t, z of equal range of skill,
- If you favor, for instance, terran in its match-up vs zerg, then zerg vs protoss will become zerg favored and protoss vs terran will become protoss favored. Although these effects are quite small compared to the advantage terran has vs zerg. Another interesting detail is that if you compare the results of favoring terran vs either only zerg, or both zerg and protoss, that you will find that TvZ is more broken in the former case just by looking at the win rate.
- If you make mirror match-ups more 'coinflippy', for instance protoss vs protoss, then protoss win rates will fall down in other match-ups as more weaker protoss players are advancing. Similarly, if you make, say, terran vs terran more skill-intensive, terran will become favored vs zerg and protoss.
- People say that only the balance at the top matters, but if you add additional good, if not great players of one race, they will produce more tournament winners, sort of depending on the values you choose. I think it matters if one race is "easier to play" than another race for tournament results even if top players are still equally matched. Obviously this is because the better player doesn't always win and as a race you're going to do well if you have more players near the top.
- On the other hand, adding just one very strong player for a race can singlehandedly save their win rate, partly because a good player will play more ranked games than a weak player and have more influence on the win rates.
- By manipulating the bracket you can give one race an almost 50% chance of winning the tournament instead of 33%. Not to encourage tournament organizers to do this, of course.
Actually, I tried looking for the effect where the win rates will self-correct to 50% over time, but I couldn't find it. Anyone knows why? (I'm just running single elimination brackets and checking win rates per match-up per round after giving one race a global rating boost. I suspected the win rates would be closer to 50 every subsequent round, but in fact the opposite happened) I think I'm misunderstanding the concept somehow, or maybe there's a problem with the simulation.
Anyway, I think that these results reinforce the idea that balance is more complex than looking purely at win rates. It's just some quick tests though, don't know how representative the results are or if I did something really dumb.
Any thoughts?
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EPT
