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On September 11 2014 17:32 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2014 14:48 usethis2 wrote:
Protoss has the easiest time macroing. It's not a secret and everyone knows it.
But as for mechanics and micros in other parts of the game, Protoss is very challenging. Those who believe Terran players with higher number of actions are more skilled than Protoss players are totally mistaken. You need to look at what tools (units) you are dealing with.
It has been discussed during early WOL days that Terran has the most units with "instant" attack types. (v. "missile," or "projectile" attacks) As a matter of fact there are very few instant attack units from Protoss and Zerg. (Toss air is somewhat of an odd ball with their moving attacks) Units with instant attacks are inherently more microable and also more rewarding.
So, it is very misleading to argue that Terran players are more skilled or whatever because you see visibly more unit movements from Terran army than from Protoss army. Protoss army requires precision, not speed. Can you imagine twitch-microing zealots and what kind of results that will bring? How about stutter-stepping colossi mid-battle when their attack animations take so long? You are more likely to waste lots of DPS doing that. Give Maru or whoever Terran Protoss units and you won't see the micro that he shows with marines and marauders.
Nevertheless, I agree that Protoss is less mechanically demanding when it comes to macro. But even here, you can kind of see why. Chronoboost is vastly inferior to mules/orbitals/larvae as the game progresses to the later stages. And yes, protoss has it easy in that their buildings require less attention. But it is not Protoss players' fault.
This easy of macro and warp gates resulted in a stunted growth in Protoss game play throughout WOL days. I am not a fan of Mothership core, but I firmly believe it is a necessary evil in HOTS. Back in the WOL days, I could not tell which Protoss players were more skilled players even in PvP mirrors. As Protoss game play is finally being developed in a serious manner, now it started to show who the better Protoss players are.
But it is still not enough. Certainly not up to the level of Terrans and Zergs. I hope Blizzard will address this in LOTV so that it is easier for spectators to actually see who the better macro players among Protoss players are. (I still remember arguing here about flavor-of-the-month Protosses who in my observation are quite lacking yet other members seemed totally believing to be the next Protoss bonjwas) How in the world is Protoss macro easier. Everything about it is more challenging, to me. Warpgates is notably harder than going through Raxes. You can't queue with warpgate. You have to actually chrono individual buildings, which may not even all be on the same screen, as opposed to just muling a single location. You also can't macro midbattle without leaving the battle. If you forget to build a depot, you have calldown, whereas toss you ... are just supply blocked. The only thing I find easier about protoss are the head on engagements, which is the micro aspect. Where are you getting that macro is easier.
Completely agree. Unless someones comes up with a better, quantitative metric to measure 'macro hardness' this discussion will go nowhere though.
"It's not a secret and everyone knows it." is never an argument.
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On September 11 2014 18:00 submarine wrote:... What i noticed lately is how often the TvP MU is decided by "information asymetry". What i mean by that is: As toss player you generally know what the terran knows about you, because scans and scouts can be seen. With cloaked observers, terrans often operate under the assumption that they were not spotted, while they actually were. At least for me that adds a bit of uneasiness to my terran play, especially in the early to midgame, where i can't scan all the time.
This is a good observation. I am diamond toss. On this level, I will often manage to get an observer with or near the terran army. When he waits in position to attack me, I sometimes get to pre-empt that attack by moving out and completely destroying his unprepared forces.
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On September 11 2014 18:48 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2014 17:47 usethis2 wrote:On September 11 2014 17:32 FabledIntegral wrote:
How in the world is Protoss macro easier. Everything about it is more challenging, to me. Warpgates is notably harder than going through Raxes. You can't queue with warpgate. You have to actually chrono individual buildings, which may not even all be on the same screen, as opposed to just muling a single location. You also can't macro midbattle without leaving the battle. If you forget to build a depot, you have calldown, whereas toss you ... are just supply blocked.
The only thing I find easier about protoss are the head on engagements, which is the micro aspect. Where are you getting that macro is easier.
Trust me in a game where macro matters like SC2 if queuing/rallying is easier you would see a lot more gateways than warp gates. ...are you serious? Rally queues ARE substantially easier to handle than Warpgates. This is blatantly apparent by comparing Stargate/Robotics Bay management with Warpgate management. The reason you don't see "a lot more gateways than warp gates" is that warpgates are strictly better than gateways, with the trade off being that they're harder to manage efficiently. Quite apart from all the arguments about reduced travel time and front-loaded production giving a time-limited advantage and the tactical flexibility they offer, there's the simple fact of the massive production cycle reductions. Every unit apart from the Sentry takes ten seconds less to produce from a Warpgate than it does from a Gateway, and the Sentry takes five less. Ten seconds per unit is HUGE. If you don't use Warpgates you are severely, severely hampering your production capability. Which is why people have suggested in the past to make faster to produce from a Gateway and make it an actual choice whether to use one or the other. Flexibility and front-loaded construction vs faster construction cycle time.
I do not think warpgates are strictly harder to use then rax. If you are active on the map as terran, managing your supply line can also be quite hard in certain situations. Spawning units were you want them makes a lot of things a lot easier. It is also not necessary to use your warpgates constantly. If you watch pro games toss players in general often have idle ones. Only if you wanna go for a certain timing real constant production is required. Ease of usage is not as black and white as some here say. Raxes are not in general easier to use.
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I think the warp in mechanics is just weird and I still cant get used to it.
The time period for waiting for the unit to get fully warped is just so awkward.
If you are terran, you would probably know this feeling:
You call down mule in an intense macro game, you missed by some pixels and you can see the mule is dropped but you can't select it yet and has to wait a small period of time where it is too short to do anything else but long enough for you to be slowed down.
If you are zerg, it is something like:
getting queens to do injects but because one or some queens ran out of energy, your inject cycle sort of get interrupted.
Or
spreading out ~10 overlords because of the rally point mistake.
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On September 11 2014 23:50 ETisME wrote:
I think the warp in mechanics is just weird and I still cant get used to it.
The time period for waiting for the unit to get fully warped is just so awkward.
If you are terran, you would probably know this feeling:
You call down mule in an intense macro game, you missed by some pixels and you can see the mule is dropped but you can't select it yet and has to wait a small period of time where it is too short to do anything else but long enough for you to be slowed down.
If you are zerg, it is something like:
getting queens to do injects but because one or some queens ran out of energy, your inject cycle sort of get interrupted.
Or
spreading out ~10 overlords because of the rally point mistake.
You get used to it after awhile. Protoss is interesting from a macro perspective because it combines some of the aspects of Zerg and Terran. Zerg is almost completely about burst production (except for Queens). Terran is almost completely like any vanilla RTS faction in terms of production cycles (except for Mules). For Toss, gateway units use burst production with a cooldown while Robo and Stargate units (and probes) are made in the traditional manner. It's an interesting mix. It forces you to be mindful of two separate macro cycles at all times.
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Download pro replay packs and see how many warp gates are idle and how much chronoboost is unused post mid-game. (oh and check out the EPMs as well)
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Of course nothing is "conclusive evidence." I know.
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On September 12 2014 01:52 usethis2 wrote:
Download pro replay packs and see how many warp gates are idle and how much chronoboost is unused post mid-game. (oh and check out the EPMs as well)
Idle gateways are a good thing in general. You want them available to warp in units when you need them, not before you need them. It's similar to how Zerg players try to never make an army until they need it because the resources (mostly larva, but also money) can be better spent elsewhere. In the Protoss context, part of the reason for this is that gateway units are pretty terrible in general. You do not want to max out on Zealot/Stalker/Sentry because those units become trash in the late game where you want almost entirely tech units. (e.g. late game PvP armies consist of Colossus/Immortal/Archon/Tempest). So it makes sense to invest as much as possible into tech while just making enough gateway units to survive or slow the other guy down.
As for Chronoboost, it gets much less useful as the game goes on. It's a really nice ability in the early and mid-game, but it simply does not scale as well as spawn larva or mules as you go into the late game. You can never have too many mules. You can never have too many larva. But Chronoboost just isn't that helpful later on once you already have upgrades and whatnot. It would be nice if Chronoboosts stacked in some way (even if there were diminishing returns) so that things like late game Macro Nexi would be useful.
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Hope they fix protoss/zerg and terran in LOTV.
Hope they make macro matter more for each race.
Zerg not having so much larva->More important
Protoss gateway/warpgate much more relevant
Terran is pretty much fine but could probably get better anyway
More micro for every race. Would love to see zerg redesigned in movementspeed across the board. AKA, trying to make lings a microunit for and against.
Hydras NEEDS to encourage atleast 300% more micro. I think its not unrealistic either.
Roach, ultralisk->More micro please
Zealot has great potential, hope they nail this unit down. Could be fun as hell if they did.
Stalker->more micro please->Nerf/Remove blink is a first step.
Immortal/colossus->Remove or tweak. They need to be cooler to use and see in play.
Sentrie->Redesign please
DT->Do something cool with this unit.
Hellions needs to be redesigned, HUGE potential here.
Siegetanks->Try and think outside the box please. More micro for mech especially with siegetanks would be cool. And try and remove the deathball syndrome of the unit.
Would love to see marines experiemented on also in the micro apartment.
And more units.
I wanna see micro battles start EARLY.
Example:
Marauders vs stalkers/zealots or both->we saw this in WOL but it ended so fast->I wanna see this encouraged further, alot further. Possible to make more marauders and start a macorwar at the same time.
MICRO and MACRO starting sooner/earlier AND LASTING the whole game. I want this for LOTV.
I wanna be on my nerves throughout the start of the action till the last.
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On September 12 2014 02:09 Don Jimbo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2014 01:52 usethis2 wrote:
Download pro replay packs and see how many warp gates are idle and how much chronoboost is unused post mid-game. (oh and check out the EPMs as well) Idle gateways are a good thing in general. You want them available to warp in units when you need them, not before you need them. It's similar to how Zerg players try to never make an army until they need it because the resources (mostly larva, but also money) can be better spent elsewhere. In the Protoss context, part of the reason for this is that gateway units are pretty terrible in general. You do not want to max out on Zealot/Stalker/Sentry because those units become trash in the late game where you want almost entirely tech units. (e.g. late game PvP armies consist of Colossus/Immortal/Archon/Tempest). So it makes sense to invest as much as possible into tech while just making enough gateway units to survive or slow the other guy down. As for Chronoboost, it gets much less useful as the game goes on. It's a really nice ability in the early and mid-game, but it simply does not scale as well as spawn larva or mules as you go into the late game. You can never have too many mules. You can never have too many larva. But Chronoboost just isn't that helpful later on once you already have upgrades and whatnot. It would be nice if Chronoboosts stacked in some way (even if there were diminishing returns) so that things like late game Macro Nexi would be useful.
I agree. Easy macro in a nutshell.
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Note that I am not saying that protoss players are less skilled or less skilled players choose to play protoss. I would never say that. I have a feeling that many people are taking my argument that way unfortunately. I suppose I should express myself better.
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On September 12 2014 03:34 usethis2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2014 02:09 Don Jimbo wrote:On September 12 2014 01:52 usethis2 wrote:
Download pro replay packs and see how many warp gates are idle and how much chronoboost is unused post mid-game. (oh and check out the EPMs as well) Idle gateways are a good thing in general. You want them available to warp in units when you need them, not before you need them. It's similar to how Zerg players try to never make an army until they need it because the resources (mostly larva, but also money) can be better spent elsewhere. In the Protoss context, part of the reason for this is that gateway units are pretty terrible in general. You do not want to max out on Zealot/Stalker/Sentry because those units become trash in the late game where you want almost entirely tech units. (e.g. late game PvP armies consist of Colossus/Immortal/Archon/Tempest). So it makes sense to invest as much as possible into tech while just making enough gateway units to survive or slow the other guy down. As for Chronoboost, it gets much less useful as the game goes on. It's a really nice ability in the early and mid-game, but it simply does not scale as well as spawn larva or mules as you go into the late game. You can never have too many mules. You can never have too many larva. But Chronoboost just isn't that helpful later on once you already have upgrades and whatnot. It would be nice if Chronoboosts stacked in some way (even if there were diminishing returns) so that things like late game Macro Nexi would be useful. I agree. Easy macro in a nutshell.
You are entitled to your opinion even though you are wrong.
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I agree that warping in units is harder then going through the Barracks/Fac/Starport production which can even be easily hotkeyed to one key. But from my own experience of playing both races at the same skill-level, I have to say that building placement, addon swapping, building walls are much harder than for protoss. So i think thats a fair trade for both sides. Whats surprising to me is that im unable to build workers as consistently when playing terran. :D
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On September 12 2014 03:46 FanaticCZ wrote:
I agree that warping in units is harder then going through the Barracks/Fac/Starport production which can even be easily hotkeyed to one key. But from my own experience of playing both races at the same skill-level, I have to say that building placement, addon swapping, building walls are much harder than for protoss. So i think thats a fair trade for both sides. Whats surprising to me is that im unable to build workers as consistently when playing terran. :D
Isn't the Protoss wall-off leaving a sentry and having perfect map vision so you can, with enough reflex speed, be able to stop ling/hellion runbys?
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Canada11355 Posts
I'm not gonna touch the subjective "Z/P/T macro is easier/harder" thing going on here.
I will, however, bring up something that bothers more people than just me. Protoss, if given any sort of forward position on the map, can reinforce that position INSTANTLY with just a pylon/warpprism.
Miss a probe that snuck into your main? Entire production cycles worth of any gateway unit in your base.
Miss a probe out on the map? Protoss aggression becomes unrelenting as they may as well have all of their production facilities outside your base.
That zealot drop you didn't notice? It's actually zealots/stalkers/DTs 5 seconds later and now your ramp is blocked.
I understand that terran gets flying medic dropships and zerg gets the infinite capacity nydus worm but neither race can build entire production cycles anywhere on the map that they decide to build a 100 mineral building, and their dropship can turn into a mobile unit warper.
Just my shit-tier opinion but I think a lot of the things people complain about regarding protoss are somehow related to the current warpgate/warp-in mechanic.
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It's unfortunate that the futuristic advanced race moves around via teleportation like it's suggested they do by vanilla starcraft. It's like they're working as intentionally designed.
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On September 12 2014 10:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It's unfortunate that the futuristic advanced race moves around via teleportation like it's suggested they do by vanilla starcraft. It's like they're working as intentionally designed.
We are in the balance discussion thread, not the sc2 storyline discussion thread.
Warpgate has already been discussed to death, and the way it eliminates a core principle of RTS design (defenders advantage) is generally viewed as a poor decision. In WoL it made PvP the dumbest matchup by far, and directly led to the mcore photon overcharge which is the most controversial addition in HOTS.
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On September 12 2014 11:04 r691175002 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2014 10:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It's unfortunate that the futuristic advanced race moves around via teleportation like it's suggested they do by vanilla starcraft. It's like they're working as intentionally designed. We are in the balance discussion thread, not the sc2 storyline discussion thread. Warpgate has already been discussed to death, and the way it eliminates a core principle of RTS design (defenders advantage) is generally viewed as a poor decision. In WoL it made PvP the dumbest matchup by far, and directly led to the mcore photon overcharge which is the most controversial addition in HOTS.
It has already been stated by Blizzard that Warpgate is staying. And so it should imho.
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On September 12 2014 11:04 r691175002 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2014 10:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It's unfortunate that the futuristic advanced race moves around via teleportation like it's suggested they do by vanilla starcraft. It's like they're working as intentionally designed. We are in the balance discussion thread, not the sc2 storyline discussion thread. Warpgate has already been discussed to death, and the way it eliminates a core principle of RTS design (defenders advantage) is generally viewed as a poor decision. In WoL it made PvP the dumbest matchup by far, and directly led to the mcore photon overcharge which is the most controversial addition in HOTS.
Then its too bad that the race with the highest on average supply cost units within their army is given a way to have the same maneuverability around the map as the other two races.
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United States9232 Posts
On September 12 2014 11:32 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2014 11:04 r691175002 wrote:On September 12 2014 10:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It's unfortunate that the futuristic advanced race moves around via teleportation like it's suggested they do by vanilla starcraft. It's like they're working as intentionally designed. We are in the balance discussion thread, not the sc2 storyline discussion thread. Warpgate has already been discussed to death, and the way it eliminates a core principle of RTS design (defenders advantage) is generally viewed as a poor decision. In WoL it made PvP the dumbest matchup by far, and directly led to the mcore photon overcharge which is the most controversial addition in HOTS. Then its too bad that the race with the highest on average supply cost units within their army is given a way to have the same maneuverability around the map as the other two races.
Protoss most definitely does not have the same maneuverability in the slightest. Recall helped, but also Protoss style as witnessed is obviously not considered to be on the same degree as the other races.
On September 12 2014 03:37 usethis2 wrote:
Note that I am not saying that protoss players are less skilled or less skilled players choose to play protoss. I would never say that. I have a feeling that many people are taking my argument that way unfortunately. I suppose I should express myself better.
No one thought you said that.
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EPT
