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The problem of sc2 balance is that blizzard have an idea about how each unit is played and counter each other, creating incredibly unbalanced unit match up.
Bw however made balanced units around stats of units. And not so much hard counters.
In essences, the blizzard design have this in mind. Bio > zergling/roach > gateway units. But because of production mechanics, you cannot have a large influx of bio suddenly as in the case for Zerg saving resource and larva or warp-gate.
But as in terran mechanics which makes as much units as you can sustain, the growth in units and fighting power is a linear increase over time. Coupled by the small sprite of bio and is ranged. The effectiveness grows much more when clumped.
Blizzard's solution to this is aoe damage. Via collosus and banes etc.
Somebody made the comment maybe a hundred pages back, that everything is balanced around bio. But that is where the problem lies. Right at the first units you make.
Back in bw. It was simple but it works. Beautifully. Pvt. Zealot<marines<dragoons<tanks<zealots<vultures<dragoons. You need to tech up. Zealot legs was actually useful. As was other upgrades. For tvz. It was similar. Zergling<marines<hydras<tanks<zerglings. For pvz. Zerglings=zealots. Dragoons=hydras.
It allows for the game to start with early fights. Slowly teching at the right time. Tech too hard. U die.
The problem today is marine marauder is too good against tier 1 units. You need to rush to aoe. Or do an allin with superior production mechanics of warp gates or larva.
This is artificial balance. Because it makes both sides laments about the strength of the other. P n Z will always think that the first unit that comes out of the barracks, requires no gas is a counter to some of their tier 3 units and 90% to their units. Terrans will always think that when 3 collosus or 30 banes builts from chrono or saved larva decimate their 60 marines marauders which they painstakingly built up from the start and cry foul.
I think the solution should be to reduce the stats of marine marauder, improve tank mobility and stats. Reduce AoE of collosus and banes. Buff zealots stalkers roach stats.
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So 4 Zergs qualified against 12 Terrans and 11 Protoss.
And the games were played on
Overgrowth LE Daybreak LE King Sejong Station LE
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On December 12 2014 10:16 sibs wrote: So 4 Zergs qualified against 12 Terrans and 11 Protoss.
And the games were played on
Overgrowth LE Daybreak LE King Sejong Station LE
6 Zergs and they did best in terms of winrates
PvT 47–41 (53.41%) PvZ 35–42 (45.45%) TvZ 44–44 (50.00%)
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On December 12 2014 14:27 keglu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 10:16 sibs wrote: So 4 Zergs qualified against 12 Terrans and 11 Protoss.
And the games were played on
Overgrowth LE Daybreak LE King Sejong Station LE 6 Zergs and they did best in terms of winrates PvT 47–41 (53.41%) PvZ 35–42 (45.45%) TvZ 44–44 (50.00%)
Really don't know how that happened tbh. There hasn't been a single ZvZ beside the WC-qualifier, therefore the "good Zerg" haven't been knocking each other out neither... The Zerg race just seems to die right now.
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On December 09 2014 02:58 Samx wrote: ...
Blizzard's solution to this is aoe damage. Via collosus and banes etc.
Somebody made the comment maybe a hundred pages back, that everything is balanced around bio. But that is where the problem lies. Right at the first units you make.
...
The problem today is marine marauder is too good against tier 1 units. You need to rush to aoe. Or do an allin with superior production mechanics of warp gates or larva.
This is artificial balance. Because it makes both sides laments about the strength of the other. P n Z will always think that the first unit that comes out of the barracks, requires no gas is a counter to some of their tier 3 units and 90% to their units. Terrans will always think that when 3 collosus or 30 banes builts from chrono or saved larva decimate their 60 marines marauders which they painstakingly built up from the start and cry foul.
I think the solution should be to reduce the stats of marine marauder, improve tank mobility and stats. Reduce AoE of collosus and banes. Buff zealots stalkers roach stats.
Indeed. I posted this months if not a year ago.
The solution is a bit more complex than just nerfing bio overall.
Especially the marauder makes bio way too versatile and allows terran to get stuck on bio in every matchup and every situation, even against its counters psi, colossus and banelings until they have reached critical numbers. And even when critical numbers of counter units are on the battlefield terran's army still consists of lets say 90% bio and 10% addition like vikings or mines or a few tanks/thors.
Therefore the counters to bio are stronger than they should and these narrow timing windows that create dumb do or die situations like scv pulls and a very limited repertory of viable alternatives in general exist. This makes the game boring as games always go very similar ways and are very predictible. Players choice of strategy is of less importance as there is not much to choose from. It is all about execution only. Boring to play and boring to watch in the long term.
The marauder has the position in the terran army that actually should have been filled with a/some factory unit(s). It is like an immortal that can be built from gateways.
As we need to wait for the impact of new LOTV units on metagame now, all this might become obsolete tho.
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I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed
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Protoss Design and Terran MMM is interesting to discuss.
Protoss' heavy Splash and Hardcounter structure in both damage (Phoenix has 50% vs non light, Immortal has 40% vs non armored, etcetera) and unit interactions makes it so they are extremely susceptible to tech switching and as such they need a powerful deathball that can handle anything.
Terran MMM is used because the other units are so specialized in what they do they are not viable. (Ghost vs Templar/Infestor, Banshee early game harass, BC vs nothing actually, Thor only vs Muta, Tank only vs Bane, Vikings only vs armored air and bad without support, Hellion light raider, Hellbat only vs slow units) Terran shit sucks in everything but one particular role. Only MMM is capable to deal with a multitude of threats by simply adding a support unit to the composition or being slightly more heavy on either marines or marauders. Terran has no mechanical/non bio composition that has the power to deal with anything decently to buy time for appropriate tech.
All in all, too many hardcounters, too few all around units (Goliath pl0x)
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On December 12 2014 20:36 FrozenProbe wrote: I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed
Protoss design is not but most people fail to see this. Terran design is for the mentioned reasons.
If you need a proof or hint then simply look at PvZ and TvZ/TvP diversity of strategies:
In PvZ there are at least a dozen viable openings and strategies that each lead into different metagames: - fe fenix - fe oracle - fe zealot/void/templar - fe immo/sentry - fe into gateway/colossi - fe 6-8 gate
just to name a few
all this (and the many more that I have not named) transtales into marine+marauder in every single game as soon as terran is involved.
On December 12 2014 20:48 SC2Toastie wrote: ... Terran MMM is used because the other units are so specialized in what they do they are not viable. ...
The relation is the other way round at the end of the day. I wonder what is necessary to make ppl understand a simple connection. 1. If bio was not as strong as it is (e. removal of marauder) then mech units could be designed to fit into this place (I suggested cheaper factories and cheaper tanks a year ago). 2. Then protoss/zerg units could be tweaked and adapted as the pressure of bio throughout the whole game would be lesser and the strict focus on aoe against terran that narrows the variety of strategies would widen alot and get more interesting by itself.
This is as short as you can put it.
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On December 12 2014 20:51 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 20:36 FrozenProbe wrote: I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed Protoss design is not but most people fail to see this. Terran design is for the mentioned reasons. If you need a proof or hint then simply look at PvZ and TvZ/TvP diversity of strategies: In PvZ there are at least a dozen viable openings and strategies that each lead into different metagames: - fe fenix - fe oracle - fe zealot/void/templar - fe immo/sentry - fe into gateway/colossi just to name a few all this (and the many more that I have not named) transtales into marine+marauder in every single game as soon as terran is involved. This all has to do with the fact Terran units in general suck, except for the 3 core units. They're soo specialized they are pidgeonholed into small niche situations. And that has for a big part to do with Terran being OP in early WOL and having pretty much every unit nerfed multiple times.
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On December 12 2014 20:51 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 20:48 SC2Toastie wrote: ... Terran MMM is used because the other units are so specialized in what they do they are not viable. ...
The relation is the other way round at the end of the day. I might have poorly phrased that; I mean that Terran MMM is used because the other -TERRAN- units are so specialized in what they do they are not viable. This is a result of balancing around a broken Protoss in early WOL.
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I think that everyone can start a discussion with "x unit/composition leads to problems", it is really hard to find the "right" answer because as I said I can think about terran's bio being so strong that Blizzard had to add a boring amove reliable AoE unit to the protoss to fix the early-mid game in PvT, but we can talk about how mass speedlings could just own every protoss and let confine them on 2 bases forever because gateway units sucks. But this nullifies my first statement, is not bio too strong but gateway tech too weak, at this point someone will join saying that zerg units sucks because marines are too strong and we return to the beginning.
There is clearly an issue with low tech units, but it isn't easy to fix and even if they want to "fix" those interactions they've to rebuild every race from scratch. I think that with LotV, and its economy changes we'll se a lot of swings into how the game will be played, and with such a different way of play that punishes one or two bases tech I think that Blizzard has to change a lot of the early game units, if not nerfing terran's just buff slightly zerg's (already done with ravagers) and protoss (nope, another t3 massive AoE unit)
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I don't think the rest of terran units suck as badly. Look at ForGG when he beat life. There was one game, with 5 strategically placed tanks, supported by 1 Thor and marines fighting fire everywhere. He was able to hold the position, which leads to his mining base for a long time. Or his Viking banshee Thor composition to wreck havoc on life. Became a fan of forGG after that series.
I agree that other terran units need tweaking, not so much in stats but maybe reduced production time, and cost. A good idea may be to increase mineral cost but reduce gas cost for mech and star port units.
But for terran pros to start using other units to their potential. The marauder have to go, or maybe nerfed where stim upgrade is only for marines. Currently it fills too many roles. It's tanky. It's fast. And with stim, it deals tons of dps especially vs armoured. And it's 6 range. But the main thing is that it is too mobile, moves too fast with stim. Why would any terran want to use tanks when they have marauders.
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On December 12 2014 20:57 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 20:51 LSN wrote:On December 12 2014 20:36 FrozenProbe wrote: I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed Protoss design is not but most people fail to see this. Terran design is for the mentioned reasons. If you need a proof or hint then simply look at PvZ and TvZ/TvP diversity of strategies: In PvZ there are at least a dozen viable openings and strategies that each lead into different metagames: - fe fenix - fe oracle - fe zealot/void/templar - fe immo/sentry - fe into gateway/colossi just to name a few all this (and the many more that I have not named) transtales into marine+marauder in every single game as soon as terran is involved. This all has to do with the fact Terran units in general suck, except for the 3 core units. They're soo specialized they are pidgeonholed into small niche situations. And that has for a big part to do with Terran being OP in early WOL and having pretty much every unit nerfed multiple times. Meh, all the Starport units plus Thors are really strong vs Zerg. It's more that bio works around never ending pressure so you never have spare money to transition because the game is so balanced around both sides investing everything in army. If you blink you lose in TvZ when both sides bring their supermobile lowtier compositions. There's no "you shall not pass" tank or infestor in HotS. It's not really the units that suck, but that frontal aggression has no real counterplay. Which is to say I'm not against aggression, but it would be better if it came from drops and mutas and burrowed infestors and hellions rather than: here are 50units, deal with it. These sorts of moves arise anyways when you got something done or your opponent tries to be too greed in tech/eco/harass and has too little at home. No need to balance around them. Also balance tends to be very unstable with that sort of gameplay as we see. Making one unit a tiny bit better or worse or making some maps a little more aggressive and suddenly it swings.
If we look at PvZ and TvT the matchups with the most countercompositions that are mostly played out of a strong defense they are much more stable and can eat various buffs/nerfs without swinging full Protoss/Zerg or Mech/Bio.
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On December 12 2014 21:45 Samx wrote: But for terran pros to start using other units to their potential. The marauder have to go, or maybe nerfed where stim upgrade is only for marines. Currently it fills too many roles. It's tanky. It's fast. And with stim, it deals tons of dps especially vs armoured. And it's 6 range. But the main thing is that it is too mobile, moves too fast with stim. Why would any terran want to use tanks when they have marauders. When we'd make Tanks actually decent units people would want to use Tanks over Marauders. Source: WOL TvZ.
What I'm trying to say is that Terran relies on MMM because nothing else fills the same role without blatant weaknesses. Big J brings up the continuous pressure, but that's already a step to far, I think.
The major problem Terran faces in games is some sort of artificial timer on their army. When the opponent has their tech developed and economy stable, Terran crumbles. Why? There is no transition to 5 rax MMM other than 8 rax MMM. There are stylistic differences in using more Mines or Thors, more Vikings or Ghost, but in the end. it's the same old composition with possibly one or two support units added.
Why this is? Because the rest of the Terran units cannot stand their own against the armies of Protoss and Zerg. You bring up ForGG. Part of those units working excellently is to blame on Life - he played pretty poorly in that series. Another part is that you reinforce what I said earlier. The banshees worked very well. However, we were in a very scrappy situation in which cloak and mobility are always excellent. This is the exact kind of niche situation I'm talking about. It happens quite often that you'd say "oh, well, in this case, >Insert Terran Unit Not Starting With M< would actually help me a lot!". However, there is production time, cost etc. associated with that.
The problem is Terran has no units that can hold their own in lategame, with the exception of Marines. Every unit has very obvious weaknesses that are easy to exploit.
It saddens me Blizzard has wasted an off season again with something stupid (Dreampool is a joke). Last year Blink started becoming problematic and we wasted 3 months doing nothing. This year, there's another 2 months of not a lot happening. Instead of doing idiotic things like Dreampool, why not try some rebalancing? Nerf Marauder (the LOTV nerf of making it a 2x5 attack instead of 1x10 is really good - Marauders scale terribly into lategame) and experiment with substantial buffs to the Siege Tank, something to make the Banshee more useful in full on combat - something that helps Battlecruisers with their weaknesses to Tempest and makes them more fearsome, try some changes to the Ghost to make it less of an anti-spellcast unit and more of a Anti-Light support. Revert the nerf to Snipe for a little bit and all of a sudden Ghost are really strong against Zealots and Zerg armies. See if there is some way we can redesign Collosi and Gateway units and Zerg anti air vs Raven. Try shit out.
But well, they've wasted their chance again... Here's to hoping LOTV is guuuuuud ^_^
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On December 12 2014 20:51 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 20:36 FrozenProbe wrote: I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed Protoss design is not but most people fail to see this. Terran design is for the mentioned reasons. If you need a proof or hint then simply look at PvZ and TvZ/TvP diversity of strategies: In PvZ there are at least a dozen viable openings and strategies that each lead into different metagames: - fe fenix - fe oracle - fe zealot/void/templar - fe immo/sentry - fe into gateway/colossi - fe 6-8 gate just to name a few all this (and the many more that I have not named) transtales into marine+marauder in every single game.....
Precisely. Pvz is such a good matchup to watch. You have to keep scouting and make changes to the composition and slowly go up the tech tree. There is ebb and flow to the game, and you try to outplay your opponents.
Compare to pvt. Protoss try to kill terran early with blink or oracle to do Econ damage. Terran build bunker and wait for stim. Protoss build collo to counter bio. Or try to build Templar for storm. Terran build MMM and pull the boys.
Zvt. Roach/banes all in. Or mutalingbling. Terran build MMM.
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On December 12 2014 21:53 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 20:57 SC2Toastie wrote:On December 12 2014 20:51 LSN wrote:On December 12 2014 20:36 FrozenProbe wrote: I remember one of the first interviews on the SC2 developement team, one of the designers were asked for wich unit he was terrified more about (balance wise) and he said "I'm terrified by the marine". I don't know if that guy is still working on Blizzard, but he was right, MMM composition is just too strong especially versus protoss and this is why protoss has tons of AoE. The problem with that is Protoss has high tech AoE, zergs instead have banes that trades really well against bio with just speed and if they're on creep, this is why TvZ is much more dynamic than TvP, and in the end we return to the same circlejerk.. protoss design is fundamentally flawed Protoss design is not but most people fail to see this. Terran design is for the mentioned reasons. If you need a proof or hint then simply look at PvZ and TvZ/TvP diversity of strategies: In PvZ there are at least a dozen viable openings and strategies that each lead into different metagames: - fe fenix - fe oracle - fe zealot/void/templar - fe immo/sentry - fe into gateway/colossi just to name a few all this (and the many more that I have not named) transtales into marine+marauder in every single game as soon as terran is involved. This all has to do with the fact Terran units in general suck, except for the 3 core units. They're soo specialized they are pidgeonholed into small niche situations. And that has for a big part to do with Terran being OP in early WOL and having pretty much every unit nerfed multiple times. Meh, all the Starport units plus Thors are really strong vs Zerg. In very specific situations, yes. Thors are bad against everything but Mutalisk if you factor in how hard they are to produce. Ravens are broken, but only en masse with a Siege Tank line beneath them. That's a niche. Banshees are a strong early harass unit. That's a niche. Vikings are only useful again in the turtle scenario (because of a lack of Mech AA, that is!). Battlecruisers ROCK if you can get them out against no good antiair or in the mass turtle deathball. Again.
The units have a role, I don't deny that. The problem I'm pointing at is: these units have such few and such specific uses that they're not worth it in normal gameplay. On December 12 2014 21:53 Big J wrote:
There's no "you shall not pass" tank or infestor in HotS. It's not really the units that suck, but that frontal aggression has no real counterplay. There's a general lack of board control in SC2. That's why people were pumped for the Widow Mine (as a 1/0 supply defensive tool, that is). In Starcraft 2, the answer to 'a large army' is usually 'a larger army'.
I don't have a lot of experience with Broodwar, but I'm going to pull the example anyways. Units like the Lurker and Siege Tank in Brood War could actually control an area. If you leave 3 Lurkers on top of a ramp no amount of Marines is going to get through anytime soon. In SC2, however, this CANNOT work. We cannot allow for Tanks and Infestors and Collosi to take the role of defensive control units. The reason? In SC2 your economy basically maxes out at 3 bases. Sure, you can take a fourth for some extra money, but that's it. If we make defensive units too strong, we make the entire game incredibly stale. This is why people have been calling for new changes to the economy (not the LOTV one) to actually encourage the expanding. More bases = more money but less defense per base. In that case, you can make some defensive units that have the power to hold of significantly larger armies.On December 12 2014 21:53 Big J wrote: Which is to say I'm not against aggression, but it would be better if it came from drops and mutas and burrowed infestors and hellions rather than: here are 50units, deal with it. These sorts of moves arise anyways when you got something done or your opponent tries to be too greed in tech/eco/harass and has too little at home. No need to balance around them. Also balance tends to be very unstable with that sort of gameplay as we see. Making one unit a tiny bit better or worse or making some maps a little more aggressive and suddenly it swings. Balance around aggression is not unstable per say. We may have that experience with Terran in WOL, but that was part Z/P being too weak and part the game being new. Aggression needs time to be dealt with. Blizzard hasn't really allowed that to show yet with HOTS and WOL (see: Mine nerf after Overseer buff. ZvT was getting really good at the time, but a nerf came (too late) and fucked shit up)On December 12 2014 21:53 Big J wrote: If we look at PvZ and TvT the matchups with the most countercompositions that are mostly played out of a strong defense they are much more stable and can eat various buffs/nerfs without swinging full Protoss/Zerg or Mech/Bio. Strong defense is partially the result of being given the time to adapt to new aggressive strategies, though.
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Sc2toastie.
I agree with you that the other terran units need tweaking. As I pointed out earlier, the production time and cost should be lowered. And because of terran production mechanism is different from p and z. The mechanically superior terran can still be differentiated from other by keeping up with mules and continuously producing from more factory or barracks. Using ravens for detection. Or even stronger macro terrans who build more orbitals for more mules and run even more production buildings.
But first, the production time and cost should be reduced so that terrans can build more units faster. The game will be much more dynamic than MMM from start to end.
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On December 12 2014 22:25 Samx wrote: Sc2toastie.
I agree with you that the other terran units need tweaking. As I pointed out earlier, the production time and cost should be lowered. And because of terran production mechanism is different from p and z. The mechanically superior terran can still be differentiated from other by keeping up with mules and continuously producing from more factory or barracks. Using ravens for detection. Or even stronger macro terrans who build more orbitals for more mules and run even more production buildings.
But first, the production time and cost should be reduced so that terrans can build more units faster. The game will be much more dynamic than MMM from start to end. Yep. Terran tech units relative to Terran lowtech units and Protoss and Zerg tech units come out too slowly. That's our consensus.
I'd vouch for making P/Z stuff harder to get out and reducing the economy of the game overall, but that might be a step too far
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hots is just one big upset
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On December 12 2014 22:27 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2014 22:25 Samx wrote: Sc2toastie.
I agree with you that the other terran units need tweaking. As I pointed out earlier, the production time and cost should be lowered. And because of terran production mechanism is different from p and z. The mechanically superior terran can still be differentiated from other by keeping up with mules and continuously producing from more factory or barracks. Using ravens for detection. Or even stronger macro terrans who build more orbitals for more mules and run even more production buildings.
But first, the production time and cost should be reduced so that terrans can build more units faster. The game will be much more dynamic than MMM from start to end. Yep. Terran tech units relative to Terran lowtech units and Protoss and Zerg tech units come out too slowly. That's our consensus. I'd vouch for making P/Z stuff harder to get out and reducing the economy of the game overall, but that might be a step too far 
As it is for Zerg, it is already hard to get out units like BL and ultra. The road to hive and then cavern/greater spire is a long one. Larva mechanics doesn't really helps for the high tech units. I think for Zerg it's fine. But for the air units, this is where sc2 sort of messed up. The idea in brood war was simple yet so finely balanced. Air units will clump and stack. To prevent the air units that can attack air and ground (muta, wraiths, carriers) from being op, anti-air flyers do AoE damage. Scourges, corsairs and Valkyries. In SC2, there are zero splash damage anti-air units. That's why, mutas are so hard to deal with. This is where the Viking was pigeonholed into its role. As a air superiority fighter, they gets overwhelmed by mutas because of larva production mechanics. This was because Viking was designed to be counter to collosus and BL.
For Protoss. The only 'power' units that do not need additional tech structure is the immortal. A good idea may be that it is less powerful when it is produced initially. But with an ability researched at the robo bay, it becomes more powerful.
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