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Austria24417 Posts
On May 29 2013 16:48 5unrise wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:43 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
Like... literally everything in this post is wrong. Except that immortal range was buffed to deal with 1/1/1. Explain. I have gone some distance to say why i am right... now it's your turn.
Okay.
-> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. Also the immortal range is essential when dealing with large amount of roaches. The range buff was essential in helping protoss deal with eventual max roach, etc. strategies. And immortals against whatever unit composition are no longer stuck behind stalkers, not actually firing.
Immortals are really important in PvP. Making them close the distance to colossi is essential in lategame fights. Nerfing their range only further strenghtens the already dominant colossus.
-> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS.
-> Observers cost 75 GAS. You really don't seem to understand how much that is. Protoss in PvT for example get 5 observers for vision around their map to be safe from medivac drops. That's 375 gas invested in being safe that actually cuts into their tech/gas heavy unit production/upgrades (another reason why protoss upgrades cannot be any more expensive). Annnnd observers can be taken out easily by scanning or by zergs with AA and an overseer. Observers are absolutely not too cheap.
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On May 29 2013 16:59 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:19 DarkLordOlli wrote:
^ Completely disagree. You can't design a game around spectators. That is exactly what Blizzard is trying to do. Spectators and progamers was the focus which David Kim recently admitted to have in SotG ... + Show Spoiler +It was already quite obvious from the get go with all the changes they introduced since the game is basically designed around MASSIVE ARMIES and those will overwhelm a casual player, so any opposing opinion of "a game is designed for fun" can only be wrong. The neat "if you dont get that super harrassment you lose" mechanics / units which were in the game from the start made it pretty much clear. Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:43 Orek wrote:On May 29 2013 15:50 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 15:09 SsDrKosS wrote:On May 29 2013 13:39 ETisME wrote:On May 29 2013 12:38 larse wrote:
The first reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is that they add two other very a-move units, immortal and colossus, to the already a-move protoss BW composition, which is zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon. Plus colossus can stand upon other units. This creates Protoss's 'panacea unit composition' with the most a-move units in the game: zealot, dragoon (stalker), archon, immortal, and colossus. So it's a 5 unit-type ground deathball. And the problems come from here. In BW, even though zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon are kinda a-move as well. But the lack of immortal and colossus, plus the presence of shuttle and reaver, make protoss composition less a-move and more multitasking.
The second reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is the cliche, warpgate. In theory, it should create interesting plays and multitasking. But in practice and how the game turned out, warpgate gives too much incentives for all kinds of Protoss all-in plays. So we get a lot of 'kill your opponent in one big push or GG' type of play from Protoss. It's not back and forward, so it's boring. Another reason that warpgate doesn't produce interesting play in practice is that the nature of warpgate negates the existence of distance, which is one of the most important thing in a RTS game. The interaction effects and exchange of distance and time, distance and resources, plus different unit movement speed, etc are one of the reason that RTS is an interesting genre. I agree with this. A few problems I have identified are: 1. blink stalker works counter intuitive in the protoss deathball. the power of blink stalkers come from the mobility and speed but the protoss deathball cannot afford the stalkers to be somewhere else. I think out of all the sc2 tournament matches, only one toss has ever pulled his other units quite far back while using stalkers to snipe the ghosts that tries to emp/snipe the HTs. 2. Protoss drops only comes at late game. The excess amount of minerals and the amazing scaling of upgrades for zealots makes protoss drop only available in late game where at least 3 bases are secured. 3-3 zealots drop/warp in must be one of the most annoying thing to deal with, the amount of attention required for the protoss to drop is much lesser than terran drop or zergling run by. This is due to the chargelot not able to catch up with the scvs/drones without their charge. With their extremely high durability, having 8 chargelot can often bring down a zerg/terran tech structures with little attention. Unlike terran which requires some micro with positioning and pick up, those chargelots are warped to do some damage and die. the difference between chargelot and speedling run by is that speedling drops/runby can: choose to chase scvs or not split and burrow their low health but high dps questions the player whether he has enough amount of bring down that tech structure before the enemy army kills them off. 3. Power of the ball I really honestly think that the power of the deathball is why protoss is not entertaining to watch. Chargelot, HTs/DTs morph into archons, Stalkers and sentries are all very interesting units to each of their own. But in a deathball situation, these units (other than HTs) suddenly becomes merely meatshield and provide little extra DPS. if we look at zerg or terran, every ling banelings muta are important for the engagement, just like terran where the marines marauders mines and medivac are all extremely important. There are no high priority units that either break or make the engagement. In a way protoss deathball function is similar to that of a Terran mech army, where once you lose the army, it becomes hard to rebuild. But the terran mech is only available in certain maps due to tanks function and to win with mech you need to be extremely careful with positioning with siegning and unsieging and is much more immobile and vulnerable to timings AND actually needs to respond to whatever toss/zerg is building because of the lack of anti air. For example in the MVP vs stephano game, MVP sac-ed all the tanks because stephano has muta and he has no anti air. It just doesn't happen to protoss army because it is so well rounded overall. umm... Davie just posted a test on Warp prism STARTING OFF WITH THE UPGRADED SPEED http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/8920191947?page=1Any thoughts, guys? David Kim (and all the other lunatics at Blizzard) havent realized yet that "more more more" only makes the game "more and more and more unstable" for the non-professional players. Watching the game of Innovation vs. Soulkey from their recent Proleague encounter in the ace match really showed that the game is already at the limit of "what is watchable" with drops happening at several places constantly and an army approaching as well; the observer didnt know which fight to focus on and as a result jumped far too fast to "enjoy" any of it visually. Progamers and competitive players dont need to watch stuff - they just have to know what is happening - but spectators and casual players do need / want to watch. Blizzard ... you are doing it WRONG! Speed is NOT the solution; it is the problem. Occasional "OMG this player is so fast that the observer can't catch all the drops." is fine and even entertaining. Having such situation nearly every game is not. It's OK for "unwatchable games" to happen between top players like Innovation vs Soulkey, but not between some mediocre guys in Code B or foreigner scene IMO. As for WP speed, until making multiple WPs become standard, I think it's not that hard for the observer to follow the game. The thing is that the top progamers are good enough to catch a Speed Medivac with Hellbats which switches between main and third, but a code B (or worse) player is less able to do that. So SPEED is the reason why it is harder to play and there will be a time when speed isnt manageable anymore. Introducing even more speed is bad ... really bad for the game at its "fun" and "lower" levels. The only question is: Are we there now or not? Personally I think we are already wayyy too far beyond what is good for the game.
Personally I really think it has more of an influence at high levels than at lower levels. Harassing at several locations at the same time is simply something done much more at higher levels than lower levels. Sneaking in a speedprism is also something I expect to be more important at higher levels than lower levels. Only thing I worry about is possible new all-ins: a speed prism is only slightly slower than speedvac on boost, but is significantly stronger.
And for example the speedvacs with hellbats, if a lower level player simply queues 3 of them to drop in 3 mineral lines, they will literally do no damage whatsoever if the defender invested a little bit in defense: workers have lower priority than static defense.
-> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead.
The 1-1-1 vs toss has been dead for over a year, at least the kind where immortal range has an effect. How many years have to pass before it isn't too early to say anymore?
Tbh I wouldnt lower immortal range, but I do think they can be tweaked, it would be fine if they just tanked a shitload of high damage shots, which they do, but do they also need to have such a huge anti-armored dps at the same time? Personally I would do something with their hardened shields, for example halving the damage received above X damage.
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On May 29 2013 16:59 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:19 DarkLordOlli wrote:
^ Completely disagree. You can't design a game around spectators. That is exactly what Blizzard is trying to do. Spectators and progamers was the focus which David Kim recently admitted to have in SotG ... + Show Spoiler +It was already quite obvious from the get go with all the changes they introduced since the game is basically designed around MASSIVE ARMIES and those will overwhelm a casual player, so any opposing opinion of "a game is designed for fun" can only be wrong. The neat "if you dont get that super harrassment you lose" mechanics / units which were in the game from the start made it pretty much clear. Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:43 Orek wrote:On May 29 2013 15:50 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 15:09 SsDrKosS wrote:On May 29 2013 13:39 ETisME wrote:On May 29 2013 12:38 larse wrote:
The first reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is that they add two other very a-move units, immortal and colossus, to the already a-move protoss BW composition, which is zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon. Plus colossus can stand upon other units. This creates Protoss's 'panacea unit composition' with the most a-move units in the game: zealot, dragoon (stalker), archon, immortal, and colossus. So it's a 5 unit-type ground deathball. And the problems come from here. In BW, even though zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon are kinda a-move as well. But the lack of immortal and colossus, plus the presence of shuttle and reaver, make protoss composition less a-move and more multitasking.
The second reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is the cliche, warpgate. In theory, it should create interesting plays and multitasking. But in practice and how the game turned out, warpgate gives too much incentives for all kinds of Protoss all-in plays. So we get a lot of 'kill your opponent in one big push or GG' type of play from Protoss. It's not back and forward, so it's boring. Another reason that warpgate doesn't produce interesting play in practice is that the nature of warpgate negates the existence of distance, which is one of the most important thing in a RTS game. The interaction effects and exchange of distance and time, distance and resources, plus different unit movement speed, etc are one of the reason that RTS is an interesting genre. I agree with this. A few problems I have identified are: 1. blink stalker works counter intuitive in the protoss deathball. the power of blink stalkers come from the mobility and speed but the protoss deathball cannot afford the stalkers to be somewhere else. I think out of all the sc2 tournament matches, only one toss has ever pulled his other units quite far back while using stalkers to snipe the ghosts that tries to emp/snipe the HTs. 2. Protoss drops only comes at late game. The excess amount of minerals and the amazing scaling of upgrades for zealots makes protoss drop only available in late game where at least 3 bases are secured. 3-3 zealots drop/warp in must be one of the most annoying thing to deal with, the amount of attention required for the protoss to drop is much lesser than terran drop or zergling run by. This is due to the chargelot not able to catch up with the scvs/drones without their charge. With their extremely high durability, having 8 chargelot can often bring down a zerg/terran tech structures with little attention. Unlike terran which requires some micro with positioning and pick up, those chargelots are warped to do some damage and die. the difference between chargelot and speedling run by is that speedling drops/runby can: choose to chase scvs or not split and burrow their low health but high dps questions the player whether he has enough amount of bring down that tech structure before the enemy army kills them off. 3. Power of the ball I really honestly think that the power of the deathball is why protoss is not entertaining to watch. Chargelot, HTs/DTs morph into archons, Stalkers and sentries are all very interesting units to each of their own. But in a deathball situation, these units (other than HTs) suddenly becomes merely meatshield and provide little extra DPS. if we look at zerg or terran, every ling banelings muta are important for the engagement, just like terran where the marines marauders mines and medivac are all extremely important. There are no high priority units that either break or make the engagement. In a way protoss deathball function is similar to that of a Terran mech army, where once you lose the army, it becomes hard to rebuild. But the terran mech is only available in certain maps due to tanks function and to win with mech you need to be extremely careful with positioning with siegning and unsieging and is much more immobile and vulnerable to timings AND actually needs to respond to whatever toss/zerg is building because of the lack of anti air. For example in the MVP vs stephano game, MVP sac-ed all the tanks because stephano has muta and he has no anti air. It just doesn't happen to protoss army because it is so well rounded overall. umm... Davie just posted a test on Warp prism STARTING OFF WITH THE UPGRADED SPEED http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/8920191947?page=1Any thoughts, guys? David Kim (and all the other lunatics at Blizzard) havent realized yet that "more more more" only makes the game "more and more and more unstable" for the non-professional players. Watching the game of Innovation vs. Soulkey from their recent Proleague encounter in the ace match really showed that the game is already at the limit of "what is watchable" with drops happening at several places constantly and an army approaching as well; the observer didnt know which fight to focus on and as a result jumped far too fast to "enjoy" any of it visually. Progamers and competitive players dont need to watch stuff - they just have to know what is happening - but spectators and casual players do need / want to watch. Blizzard ... you are doing it WRONG! Speed is NOT the solution; it is the problem. Occasional "OMG this player is so fast that the observer can't catch all the drops." is fine and even entertaining. Having such situation nearly every game is not. It's OK for "unwatchable games" to happen between top players like Innovation vs Soulkey, but not between some mediocre guys in Code B or foreigner scene IMO. As for WP speed, until making multiple WPs become standard, I think it's not that hard for the observer to follow the game. The thing is that the top progamers are good enough to catch a Speed Medivac with Hellbats which switches between main and third, but a code B (or worse) player is less able to do that. So SPEED is the reason why it is harder to play and there will be a time when speed isnt manageable anymore. Introducing even more speed is bad ... really bad for the game at its "fun" and "lower" levels. The only question is: Are we there now or not? Personally I think we are already wayyy too far beyond what is good for the game. That is right, and my answer is "No, but we are getting there." I understand your concern, though.
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On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:48 5unrise wrote:On May 29 2013 16:43 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
Like... literally everything in this post is wrong. Except that immortal range was buffed to deal with 1/1/1. Explain. I have gone some distance to say why i am right... now it's your turn. Okay. -> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. Also the immortal range is essential when dealing with large amount of roaches. The range buff was essential in helping protoss deal with eventual max roach, etc. strategies. And immortals against whatever unit composition are no longer stuck behind stalkers, not actually firing. Immortals are really important in PvP. Making them close the distance to colossi is essential in lategame fights. Nerfing their range only further strenghtens the already dominant colossus. -> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS. -> Observers cost 75 GAS. You really don't seem to understand how much that is. Protoss in PvT for example get 5 observers for vision around their map to be safe from medivac drops. That's 375 gas invested in being safe that actually cuts into their tech/gas heavy unit production/upgrades (another reason why protoss upgrades cannot be any more expensive). Annnnd observers can be taken out easily by scanning or by zergs with AA and an overseer. Observers are absolutely not too cheap.
immortal range was needed in wol against roach max, nowadays just no. mothership core, force field, wall. still, i don't think immortals are a problem at all. and i think it's pretty safe to say that 1-1-1 now is completely dead. what little chances it had to succeed in WOL are now completely gone thanks to mothership core.
rest i totally agree with.
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On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:48 5unrise wrote:On May 29 2013 16:43 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
Like... literally everything in this post is wrong. Except that immortal range was buffed to deal with 1/1/1. Explain. I have gone some distance to say why i am right... now it's your turn. Okay. -> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. Also the immortal range is essential when dealing with large amount of roaches. The range buff was essential in helping protoss deal with eventual max roach, etc. strategies. And immortals against whatever unit composition are no longer stuck behind stalkers, not actually firing. Immortals are really important in PvP. Making them close the distance to colossi is essential in lategame fights. Nerfing their range only further strenghtens the already dominant colossus. -> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS. -> Observers cost 75 GAS. You really don't seem to understand how much that is. Protoss in PvT for example get 5 observers for vision around their map to be safe from medivac drops. That's 375 gas invested in being safe that actually cuts into their tech/gas heavy unit production/upgrades (another reason why protoss upgrades cannot be any more expensive). Annnnd observers can be taken out easily by scanning or by zergs with AA and an overseer. Observers are absolutely not too cheap.
1. The Stephano style roach max really doesn't work anymore due to the prevalence of mass air toss plus the nexus cannon. It only works after protoss failed with an allin and then tried his cheesy luck at grabbing the third, but at that point you don't need to necessarily make roaches to win the game, and protoss certainly should lose the game. The fact that the +1 immortal range exist is why the 3 immortal sentry allin against zerg is stupidly powerful, indeed to the point of imbalance. Zerg has to know it is coming to have any chance of stoppign the push, and even then it requires the perfect engagement and perfect forcefield baiting. It is also why forecefield + army is still so strong vs roach hydra at the highest level, to say nothing of what happens when colossus enters the field. Immortal range buff is why we have an imbalanced allin from protoss that zerg players can't stop properly even if they know 100% it is coming. It needs to be reverted.
2. ALL races rely heavily on upgrades. If you play terran and protoss is ahead in upgrades by two points you are definitely dead, in the same way that protoss is dead in the same position. The point of disagreement here is that you say upgrade is more important for protoss than other races, which is completely wrong. Because upgrades are equally crucial for all races, protoss should not get any advantage in cost in this regard, espcially given they have the tools (MSC) that allow them to play so greedily tech-wise.
3. 75 gas isn't much given that in PvT you have such an effective mineral sink in zealots. The problem is that nowadays protoss insists on greedily getting both colossi and HT BEFORE they grab a third, and then find themselves gas-starved on two bases. Moreover, observers were 100/100, that's only 25 more gas than the silly cost efficient unit we have now. The main offset comes in the minerals, which may mean that toss can't just warp in zealots at will when getting dropped. Basically, I am saying that reverting the costs wouldnt actually cost that much more gas, and protoss simply need to make a tiny tiny non-relevant adjustment in their playstyle to afford that (i.e stop being so tech-greedy).
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On May 29 2013 16:25 willstertben wrote:
why do people still read and even respond to rabiators posts?
If only you could be bothered into explaining why I am wrong because the facts support my opinion ...
1. David Kim has stated that they look to make the game appealing to viewers and balanced on a progamer level.
2. The human body and mind are limited in the speed they can achieve and this automatically puts a limit on any "response time" in a game, so going faster than this response time is just as good as putting an "I win" button in the game for casuals and the only question for them is who will have built his one first.
The logical conclusion is that Blizzard is "doing it wrong", but at least they are doing it wrong systematically so the collapse will come eventually when games are determined randomly by "you didnt scout X or you didnt defend Y" stuff which is very efficient.
On May 29 2013 17:19 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:59 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 16:19 DarkLordOlli wrote:
^ Completely disagree. You can't design a game around spectators. That is exactly what Blizzard is trying to do. Spectators and progamers was the focus which David Kim recently admitted to have in SotG ... + Show Spoiler +It was already quite obvious from the get go with all the changes they introduced since the game is basically designed around MASSIVE ARMIES and those will overwhelm a casual player, so any opposing opinion of "a game is designed for fun" can only be wrong. The neat "if you dont get that super harrassment you lose" mechanics / units which were in the game from the start made it pretty much clear. On May 29 2013 16:43 Orek wrote:On May 29 2013 15:50 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 15:09 SsDrKosS wrote:On May 29 2013 13:39 ETisME wrote:On May 29 2013 12:38 larse wrote:
The first reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is that they add two other very a-move units, immortal and colossus, to the already a-move protoss BW composition, which is zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon. Plus colossus can stand upon other units. This creates Protoss's 'panacea unit composition' with the most a-move units in the game: zealot, dragoon (stalker), archon, immortal, and colossus. So it's a 5 unit-type ground deathball. And the problems come from here. In BW, even though zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon are kinda a-move as well. But the lack of immortal and colossus, plus the presence of shuttle and reaver, make protoss composition less a-move and more multitasking.
The second reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is the cliche, warpgate. In theory, it should create interesting plays and multitasking. But in practice and how the game turned out, warpgate gives too much incentives for all kinds of Protoss all-in plays. So we get a lot of 'kill your opponent in one big push or GG' type of play from Protoss. It's not back and forward, so it's boring. Another reason that warpgate doesn't produce interesting play in practice is that the nature of warpgate negates the existence of distance, which is one of the most important thing in a RTS game. The interaction effects and exchange of distance and time, distance and resources, plus different unit movement speed, etc are one of the reason that RTS is an interesting genre. I agree with this. A few problems I have identified are: 1. blink stalker works counter intuitive in the protoss deathball. the power of blink stalkers come from the mobility and speed but the protoss deathball cannot afford the stalkers to be somewhere else. I think out of all the sc2 tournament matches, only one toss has ever pulled his other units quite far back while using stalkers to snipe the ghosts that tries to emp/snipe the HTs. 2. Protoss drops only comes at late game. The excess amount of minerals and the amazing scaling of upgrades for zealots makes protoss drop only available in late game where at least 3 bases are secured. 3-3 zealots drop/warp in must be one of the most annoying thing to deal with, the amount of attention required for the protoss to drop is much lesser than terran drop or zergling run by. This is due to the chargelot not able to catch up with the scvs/drones without their charge. With their extremely high durability, having 8 chargelot can often bring down a zerg/terran tech structures with little attention. Unlike terran which requires some micro with positioning and pick up, those chargelots are warped to do some damage and die. the difference between chargelot and speedling run by is that speedling drops/runby can: choose to chase scvs or not split and burrow their low health but high dps questions the player whether he has enough amount of bring down that tech structure before the enemy army kills them off. 3. Power of the ball I really honestly think that the power of the deathball is why protoss is not entertaining to watch. Chargelot, HTs/DTs morph into archons, Stalkers and sentries are all very interesting units to each of their own. But in a deathball situation, these units (other than HTs) suddenly becomes merely meatshield and provide little extra DPS. if we look at zerg or terran, every ling banelings muta are important for the engagement, just like terran where the marines marauders mines and medivac are all extremely important. There are no high priority units that either break or make the engagement. In a way protoss deathball function is similar to that of a Terran mech army, where once you lose the army, it becomes hard to rebuild. But the terran mech is only available in certain maps due to tanks function and to win with mech you need to be extremely careful with positioning with siegning and unsieging and is much more immobile and vulnerable to timings AND actually needs to respond to whatever toss/zerg is building because of the lack of anti air. For example in the MVP vs stephano game, MVP sac-ed all the tanks because stephano has muta and he has no anti air. It just doesn't happen to protoss army because it is so well rounded overall. umm... Davie just posted a test on Warp prism STARTING OFF WITH THE UPGRADED SPEED http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/8920191947?page=1Any thoughts, guys? David Kim (and all the other lunatics at Blizzard) havent realized yet that "more more more" only makes the game "more and more and more unstable" for the non-professional players. Watching the game of Innovation vs. Soulkey from their recent Proleague encounter in the ace match really showed that the game is already at the limit of "what is watchable" with drops happening at several places constantly and an army approaching as well; the observer didnt know which fight to focus on and as a result jumped far too fast to "enjoy" any of it visually. Progamers and competitive players dont need to watch stuff - they just have to know what is happening - but spectators and casual players do need / want to watch. Blizzard ... you are doing it WRONG! Speed is NOT the solution; it is the problem. Occasional "OMG this player is so fast that the observer can't catch all the drops." is fine and even entertaining. Having such situation nearly every game is not. It's OK for "unwatchable games" to happen between top players like Innovation vs Soulkey, but not between some mediocre guys in Code B or foreigner scene IMO. As for WP speed, until making multiple WPs become standard, I think it's not that hard for the observer to follow the game. The thing is that the top progamers are good enough to catch a Speed Medivac with Hellbats which switches between main and third, but a code B (or worse) player is less able to do that. So SPEED is the reason why it is harder to play and there will be a time when speed isnt manageable anymore. Introducing even more speed is bad ... really bad for the game at its "fun" and "lower" levels. The only question is: Are we there now or not? Personally I think we are already wayyy too far beyond what is good for the game. Personally I really think it has more of an influence at high levels than at lower levels. Harassing at several locations at the same time is simply something done much more at higher levels than lower levels. Sneaking in a speedprism is also something I expect to be more important at higher levels than lower levels. Only thing I worry about is possible new all-ins: a speed prism is only slightly slower than speedvac on boost, but is significantly stronger. And for example the speedvacs with hellbats, if a lower level player simply queues 3 of them to drop in 3 mineral lines, they will literally do no damage whatsoever if the defender invested a little bit in defense: workers have lower priority than static defense.
The problem for lower levels isnt drops at several locations, but a drop at one location at all. Casuals can have problems of dealing with any kind of harrass and such harrass has been made really efficient for progamers. What if there are suddenly 3-4 Reapers inside your base and you only have an equal amount of Marines? Progamers have maximum scouting skill and prepare for this, but such a bunch of Reapers will make you lose if you arent prepared ... and at lower levels are are going to be unprepared for quite a lot! Since there are many basic units which circumvent any cliffs or walls at the basic level already it is really not a game for casuals to enjoy for fun.
First you have to notice it (many casuals will have problems there) and then you have to react properly (which requires a decision to be made about pulling workers or moving in the defensive forces) and in the case of Hellbats this is a very very deadly drop which can eradicate an undefended mineral line easily. The speed at which that happens is just too fast and much faster than its counterpart in BW for example, where the Reaver only shoots every once in a while and the shots travel too.
So I would stick to my opinion that speed isnt as much a problem for progamers but becomes a nightmare for lower league ones.
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On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
I don't really understand how you come to this conclusion. Only thing I can partly agree with is, I don't think the upgrade buff needed to happen in the first place, but it didn't really change *that* much, so it won't change that much being taken away either.
Other than that, protoss is just like in WoL way to gimmicky. Protoss is way way to reliant on their power units such as immos, hts, colossi, sentry(not really power unit, but it's energy works similarly). All these units are rather gimmicky, and once they die(or in the case of ht/sentry energy is empty) the protoss army has a huge hole in it, and the other army better have been crushed, else the protoss will get crushed. It's way to much hard counter centric, where if T/Z hard counter these units the protoss is screwed.
Stalker and zlot need to become a bigger threat at the cost of some strength of these power units(note: not saying gateway units should stand toe to toe with MMM or zergling/hydra, but rather that they wouldn't get decimated as hard, they'd just loose slightly and add in these power units it'd tip the scale slightly in toss favor).
I'm not a big fan of BW comparisons(and I'm no BW expert), but if you compare protoss in BW to SC2, in BW PvT/PvZ toss was using primarily zlot, goons in their primary armies, with storms mixed in. Atleast from what I gathered watching BW, money storms weren't *needed* to win, you probably could count on storms being cost effective, but it didn't atleast seem to me either you get good storms off you win, if you don't you die. I'd argue that is because zlot goon on their own were strong enough to not get totally crushed without money storms. Note: This would also allow the protoss to actually split up their army.
Ofcourse the big problem with touching gateway units is, it all comes down to warp gates. The only way for blizzard to balance warp gates was to leave gateway units in the dirt and have these power units which either don't come from warp gate or don't come combat ready from warp gates(archons, hts, and while sentry has enough energy for single ff, single ff isn't really combat ready for sentries). The unit to buff that I'm mostly looking at is the stalker, since while it hasn't lost strength straight up(compared to goons), the other race just got better tools/AI to fight them. Admittedly with a stalker buff they'd probably need to remove/change blink too...
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On May 29 2013 17:37 5unrise wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:48 5unrise wrote:On May 29 2013 16:43 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
Like... literally everything in this post is wrong. Except that immortal range was buffed to deal with 1/1/1. Explain. I have gone some distance to say why i am right... now it's your turn. Okay. -> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. Also the immortal range is essential when dealing with large amount of roaches. The range buff was essential in helping protoss deal with eventual max roach, etc. strategies. And immortals against whatever unit composition are no longer stuck behind stalkers, not actually firing. Immortals are really important in PvP. Making them close the distance to colossi is essential in lategame fights. Nerfing their range only further strenghtens the already dominant colossus. -> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS. -> Observers cost 75 GAS. You really don't seem to understand how much that is. Protoss in PvT for example get 5 observers for vision around their map to be safe from medivac drops. That's 375 gas invested in being safe that actually cuts into their tech/gas heavy unit production/upgrades (another reason why protoss upgrades cannot be any more expensive). Annnnd observers can be taken out easily by scanning or by zergs with AA and an overseer. Observers are absolutely not too cheap. 1. The Stephano style roach max really doesn't work anymore due to the prevalence of mass air toss plus the nexus cannon. It only works after protoss failed with an allin and then tried his cheesy luck at grabbing the third, but at that point you don't need to necessarily make roaches to win the game, and protoss certainly should lose the game. The fact that the +1 immortal range exist is why the 3 immortal sentry allin against zerg is stupidly powerful, indeed to the point of imbalance. Zerg has to know it is coming to have any chance of stoppign the push, and even then it requires the perfect engagement and perfect forcefield baiting. It is also why forecefield + army is still so strong vs roach hydra at the highest level, to say nothing of what happens when colossus enters the field. Immortal range buff is why we have an imbalanced allin from protoss that zerg players can't stop properly even if they know 100% it is coming. It needs to be reverted. 2. ALL races rely heavily on upgrades. If you play terran and protoss is ahead in upgrades by two points you are definitely dead, in the same way that protoss is dead in the same position. The point of disagreement here is that you say upgrade is more important for protoss than other races, which is completely wrong. Because upgrades are equally crucial for all races, protoss should not get any advantage in cost in this regard, espcially given they have the tools (MSC) that allow them to play so greedily tech-wise. 3. 75 gas isn't much given that in PvT you have such an effective mineral sink in zealots. The problem is that nowadays protoss insists on greedily getting both colossi and HT BEFORE they grab a third, and then find themselves gas-starved on two bases. Moreover, observers were 100/100, that's only 25 more gas than the silly cost efficient unit we have now. The main offset comes in the minerals, which may mean that toss can't just warp in zealots at will when getting dropped. Basically, I am saying that reverting the costs wouldnt actually cost that much more gas, and protoss simply need to make a tiny tiny non-relevant adjustment in their playstyle to afford that (i.e stop being so tech-greedy).
All of the metagame is being built around Protoss having those stats... I don't see were you are coming from, saying that they "don't need them anymore". Also, those kind of things piss me off. "at the beginning of WoL unit was in state X, and now it is buffed to XY. XY is not needed, make it X again." All I can say to that is:
"In the alpha/beta, same unit was in state XYZ; so if we revert it, revert it to XYZ because that's the TRUE ORIGINAL STATE." - lol
On May 29 2013 17:47 Zarahtra wrote:
toss favor).
I'm not a big fan of BW comparisons(and I'm no BW expert), but if you compare protoss in BW to SC2, in BW PvT/PvZ toss was using primarily zlot, goons in their primary armies, with storms mixed in. Atleast from what I gathered watching BW, money storms weren't *needed* to win, you probably could count on storms being cost effective, but it didn't atleast seem to me either you get good storms off you win, if you don't you die. I'd argue that is because zlot goon on their own were strong enough to not get totally crushed without money storms. Note: This would also allow the protoss to actually split up their army.
From what I've seen in SC2 so far, a standard Protoss ground army consists of a few colossi/immortals/Templar and 30 stalker/zealots. I'd say that they rely on them very heavily.
I agree that it would be cooler to see the deathball more split off for Protoss. I don't see how this can work without a major rework of all Protoss ground units. Like, scrap the whole designconcept of "durable, big units" and start anew with stuff like 50to100 resource units on the gateway and little to no survival mechanisms like recall, blink, forcefield, shields.
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Austria24417 Posts
On May 29 2013 17:37 5unrise wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:48 5unrise wrote:On May 29 2013 16:43 DarkLordOlli wrote:On May 29 2013 16:38 5unrise wrote:
The earlier buffs to protoss in WOL needs to be reverted, because with changes in the heart of the swarm they are no longer justified. The warp prism buff is only acceptable if there are offsetting forces elsewhere.
The +1 range on immortals was for dealing with the 1-1-1, which is now completely dead due to the mothership core. Keeping it around makes no sense as it only gives toss an more than fair advantage.
The cost reduction on toss upgrades really need to be reversed. Protoss can now play super super greedy thanks to the nexus cannon without fear of being allined. Good players now can get double upgrades off one gate after 14 nexus, while teching to colossus, without being heavily punished. If terran does the same thing off one rax, they will die to any two-base timing.
Observers are too cheap, and now since protoss do not need to invest in as much gas in stalkers to hold off cloaked banshee due to the nexus cannon, the cheaper observer is no longer justified. Cost need to returned back to what it was at WOL release
Like... literally everything in this post is wrong. Except that immortal range was buffed to deal with 1/1/1. Explain. I have gone some distance to say why i am right... now it's your turn. Okay. -> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. Also the immortal range is essential when dealing with large amount of roaches. The range buff was essential in helping protoss deal with eventual max roach, etc. strategies. And immortals against whatever unit composition are no longer stuck behind stalkers, not actually firing. Immortals are really important in PvP. Making them close the distance to colossi is essential in lategame fights. Nerfing their range only further strenghtens the already dominant colossus. -> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS. -> Observers cost 75 GAS. You really don't seem to understand how much that is. Protoss in PvT for example get 5 observers for vision around their map to be safe from medivac drops. That's 375 gas invested in being safe that actually cuts into their tech/gas heavy unit production/upgrades (another reason why protoss upgrades cannot be any more expensive). Annnnd observers can be taken out easily by scanning or by zergs with AA and an overseer. Observers are absolutely not too cheap. 1. The Stephano style roach max really doesn't work anymore due to the prevalence of mass air toss plus the nexus cannon. It only works after protoss failed with an allin and then tried his cheesy luck at grabbing the third, but at that point you don't need to necessarily make roaches to win the game, and protoss certainly should lose the game. The fact that the +1 immortal range exist is why the 3 immortal sentry allin against zerg is stupidly powerful, indeed to the point of imbalance. Zerg has to know it is coming to have any chance of stoppign the push, and even then it requires the perfect engagement and perfect forcefield baiting. It is also why forecefield + army is still so strong vs roach hydra at the highest level, to say nothing of what happens when colossus enters the field. Immortal range buff is why we have an imbalanced allin from protoss that zerg players can't stop properly even if they know 100% it is coming. It needs to be reverted. 2. ALL races rely heavily on upgrades. If you play terran and protoss is ahead in upgrades by two points you are definitely dead, in the same way that protoss is dead in the same position. The point of disagreement here is that you say upgrade is more important for protoss than other races, which is completely wrong. Because upgrades are equally crucial for all races, protoss should not get any advantage in cost in this regard, espcially given they have the tools (MSC) that allow them to play so greedily tech-wise. 3. 75 gas isn't much given that in PvT you have such an effective mineral sink in zealots. The problem is that nowadays protoss insists on greedily getting both colossi and HT BEFORE they grab a third, and then find themselves gas-starved on two bases. Moreover, observers were 100/100, that's only 25 more gas than the silly cost efficient unit we have now. The main offset comes in the minerals, which may mean that toss can't just warp in zealots at will when getting dropped. Basically, I am saying that reverting the costs wouldnt actually cost that much more gas, and protoss simply need to make a tiny tiny non-relevant adjustment in their playstyle to afford that (i.e stop being so tech-greedy).
1) When was the last time you've seen a successful immortal/sentry all in in HotS?
2) Protoss has to be more cost effective unit per unit than terran otherwise terran gets a favorable trade every time. Cheaper upgrades help that.
3) 75 gas is a lot. Especially because one observer doesn't do much, you have to get more of them to get good vision. If you look at how expensive protoss tech is (200/200 for robo bay, 200/200 for thermal lance, 300/200 for one colossus - OR - 150/100 for TC, 200/200 for charge, 150/200 for Templar archives, 200/200 for storm, 50/150 for each templar) and upgrades being so important to make even those high tech units cost effective, you really can't make observers any more expensive - the same goes for upgrades.
Also I think you've got one thing totally and 100% wrong: going HT and colossus off 2 bases is the exact opposite of greed. It's to be super safe because taking a third against terran at a reasonable time can be extremely difficult.
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On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:
-> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead.
What?? Did you even see a 1-1-1 at pro level in HotS? On the dozens of TvP I saw, I witnessed only one, for a troll game in the Proleague Special Match.
-> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS.
Yeah, I suppose this is why Alicia goes 5'40 dual forge so often against Terran, or why PartinG went 5'30 forge and 6' second forge against Flash in Code S before adding gates. We're on HotS; Protoss is allowed to have 4 tech buildings before extra gates. This has absolutely nothing to do with "triple OC double EB," which doesn't even exist as a standard in TvP.
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Austria24417 Posts
On May 29 2013 18:59 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 17:16 DarkLordOlli wrote:
-> it's too early to say that the 1/1/1 is completely dead. What?? Did you even see a 1-1-1 at pro level in HotS? On the dozens of TvP I saw, I witnessed only one, for a troll game in the Proleague Special Match. Show nested quote +-> protoss relies HEAVILY on upgrades. Heavy upgrades make protoss units cost effective - which they have to be considering their cost and supply. You can't get double upgrades off one gate against anything. It's a response to the extremely greedy terran metagame of fast 3 CC and double ebay behind their medivac pressure that's gotten so much stronger in HotS. Yeah, I suppose this is why Alicia goes 5'40 dual forge so often against Terran, or why PartinG went 5'30 forge and 6' second forge against Flash in Code S before adding gates. We're on HotS; Protoss is allowed to have 4 tech buildings before extra gates. This has absolutely nothing to do with "triple OC double EB," which doesn't even exist as a standard in TvP.
Did you see the 1/1/1 in WoL until it was suddenly discovered and ruled the ladder for months? You can't predict that the metagame won't shift in a way that allows the 1/1/1 to become a possibility again.
The whole idea of protoss teching heavily is because they can't keep up with terran in economy so they have to be extra cost effective.
Also people like Flash and Innovation do actually get a third insanely fast. I'm not talking about straight up 3 CC but adding the 3rd CC the second you move out with whatever medivac timing you're doing.
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On May 29 2013 19:24 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Did you see the 1/1/1 in WoL until it was suddenly discovered and ruled the ladder for months? You can't predict that the metagame won't shift in a way that allows the 1/1/1 to become a possibility again.
Your game knowledge is really dubious if you consider 1-1-1 to be a viable possibility in the future TvP strategies. How could it ever come back when it was already virtually dead at the end of WoL and HotS Protoss has even more tools than WoL Protoss could ever dreamed of to completely crush it? Based on the current state of the things, it's really easy to predict 1-1-1 will remain deader than dead.
The whole idea of protoss teching heavily is because they can't keep up with terran in economy so they have to be extra cost effective.
Also people like Flash and Innovation do actually get a third insanely fast. I'm not talking about straight up 3 CC but adding the 3rd CC the second you move out with whatever medivac timing you're doing.
So building a 9' third when going 3 rax Medivacs is what you call "triple OC + double EB behind medivac pressure" and qualify it as "extremely greedy" while it was already standard in WoL?
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Austria24417 Posts
On May 29 2013 19:54 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 19:24 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Did you see the 1/1/1 in WoL until it was suddenly discovered and ruled the ladder for months? You can't predict that the metagame won't shift in a way that allows the 1/1/1 to become a possibility again. Your game knowledge is really dubious if you consider 1-1-1 to be a viable possibility in the future TvP strategies. How could it ever come back when it was already virtually dead at the end of WoL and HotS Protoss has even more tools than WoL Protoss could ever dreamed of to completely crush it? Based on the current state of the things, it's really easy to predict 1-1-1 will remain deader than dead. Show nested quote +The whole idea of protoss teching heavily is because they can't keep up with terran in economy so they have to be extra cost effective.
Also people like Flash and Innovation do actually get a third insanely fast. I'm not talking about straight up 3 CC but adding the 3rd CC the second you move out with whatever medivac timing you're doing. So building a 9' third when going 3 rax Medivacs is what you call "triple OC + double EB behind medivac pressure" and qualify it as "extremely greedy" while it was already standard in WoL?
I'd consider your game knowledge dubious if you don't think the metagame could evolve there. Tons of things have been called "impossible" in WoL only to be used later on when the game got more figured out and the metagame shifted. I'm not saying it's likely and I don't think it will happen but writing off the possibility completely is dumb.
The thing is that in WoL protoss could actually take a decently fast third while now they have to power up more before they can do that. So in relation to the protoss third timing, yeah, I'd call that greedy but also easy to get away with. A protoss third usually goes down a good 2 minutes later unless you get a favorable trade off earlier - which brings us back to the original point that somehow protoss will have to make up for that -> heavy teching/upgrading hence why upgrade cost/observers, etc. should NOT be made more expensive.
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On May 29 2013 17:23 Orek wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2013 16:59 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 16:19 DarkLordOlli wrote:
^ Completely disagree. You can't design a game around spectators. That is exactly what Blizzard is trying to do. Spectators and progamers was the focus which David Kim recently admitted to have in SotG ... + Show Spoiler +It was already quite obvious from the get go with all the changes they introduced since the game is basically designed around MASSIVE ARMIES and those will overwhelm a casual player, so any opposing opinion of "a game is designed for fun" can only be wrong. The neat "if you dont get that super harrassment you lose" mechanics / units which were in the game from the start made it pretty much clear. On May 29 2013 16:43 Orek wrote:On May 29 2013 15:50 Rabiator wrote:On May 29 2013 15:09 SsDrKosS wrote:On May 29 2013 13:39 ETisME wrote:On May 29 2013 12:38 larse wrote:
The first reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is that they add two other very a-move units, immortal and colossus, to the already a-move protoss BW composition, which is zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon. Plus colossus can stand upon other units. This creates Protoss's 'panacea unit composition' with the most a-move units in the game: zealot, dragoon (stalker), archon, immortal, and colossus. So it's a 5 unit-type ground deathball. And the problems come from here. In BW, even though zealot, dragoon (stalker), and archon are kinda a-move as well. But the lack of immortal and colossus, plus the presence of shuttle and reaver, make protoss composition less a-move and more multitasking.
The second reason why Protoss is so boring to watch is the cliche, warpgate. In theory, it should create interesting plays and multitasking. But in practice and how the game turned out, warpgate gives too much incentives for all kinds of Protoss all-in plays. So we get a lot of 'kill your opponent in one big push or GG' type of play from Protoss. It's not back and forward, so it's boring. Another reason that warpgate doesn't produce interesting play in practice is that the nature of warpgate negates the existence of distance, which is one of the most important thing in a RTS game. The interaction effects and exchange of distance and time, distance and resources, plus different unit movement speed, etc are one of the reason that RTS is an interesting genre. I agree with this. A few problems I have identified are: 1. blink stalker works counter intuitive in the protoss deathball. the power of blink stalkers come from the mobility and speed but the protoss deathball cannot afford the stalkers to be somewhere else. I think out of all the sc2 tournament matches, only one toss has ever pulled his other units quite far back while using stalkers to snipe the ghosts that tries to emp/snipe the HTs. 2. Protoss drops only comes at late game. The excess amount of minerals and the amazing scaling of upgrades for zealots makes protoss drop only available in late game where at least 3 bases are secured. 3-3 zealots drop/warp in must be one of the most annoying thing to deal with, the amount of attention required for the protoss to drop is much lesser than terran drop or zergling run by. This is due to the chargelot not able to catch up with the scvs/drones without their charge. With their extremely high durability, having 8 chargelot can often bring down a zerg/terran tech structures with little attention. Unlike terran which requires some micro with positioning and pick up, those chargelots are warped to do some damage and die. the difference between chargelot and speedling run by is that speedling drops/runby can: choose to chase scvs or not split and burrow their low health but high dps questions the player whether he has enough amount of bring down that tech structure before the enemy army kills them off. 3. Power of the ball I really honestly think that the power of the deathball is why protoss is not entertaining to watch. Chargelot, HTs/DTs morph into archons, Stalkers and sentries are all very interesting units to each of their own. But in a deathball situation, these units (other than HTs) suddenly becomes merely meatshield and provide little extra DPS. if we look at zerg or terran, every ling banelings muta are important for the engagement, just like terran where the marines marauders mines and medivac are all extremely important. There are no high priority units that either break or make the engagement. In a way protoss deathball function is similar to that of a Terran mech army, where once you lose the army, it becomes hard to rebuild. But the terran mech is only available in certain maps due to tanks function and to win with mech you need to be extremely careful with positioning with siegning and unsieging and is much more immobile and vulnerable to timings AND actually needs to respond to whatever toss/zerg is building because of the lack of anti air. For example in the MVP vs stephano game, MVP sac-ed all the tanks because stephano has muta and he has no anti air. It just doesn't happen to protoss army because it is so well rounded overall. umm... Davie just posted a test on Warp prism STARTING OFF WITH THE UPGRADED SPEED http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/8920191947?page=1Any thoughts, guys? David Kim (and all the other lunatics at Blizzard) havent realized yet that "more more more" only makes the game "more and more and more unstable" for the non-professional players. Watching the game of Innovation vs. Soulkey from their recent Proleague encounter in the ace match really showed that the game is already at the limit of "what is watchable" with drops happening at several places constantly and an army approaching as well; the observer didnt know which fight to focus on and as a result jumped far too fast to "enjoy" any of it visually. Progamers and competitive players dont need to watch stuff - they just have to know what is happening - but spectators and casual players do need / want to watch. Blizzard ... you are doing it WRONG! Speed is NOT the solution; it is the problem. Occasional "OMG this player is so fast that the observer can't catch all the drops." is fine and even entertaining. Having such situation nearly every game is not. It's OK for "unwatchable games" to happen between top players like Innovation vs Soulkey, but not between some mediocre guys in Code B or foreigner scene IMO. As for WP speed, until making multiple WPs become standard, I think it's not that hard for the observer to follow the game. The thing is that the top progamers are good enough to catch a Speed Medivac with Hellbats which switches between main and third, but a code B (or worse) player is less able to do that. So SPEED is the reason why it is harder to play and there will be a time when speed isnt manageable anymore. Introducing even more speed is bad ... really bad for the game at its "fun" and "lower" levels. The only question is: Are we there now or not? Personally I think we are already wayyy too far beyond what is good for the game. That is right, and my answer is "No, but we are getting there." I understand your concern, though.
The answer to the "Are we there now?" question needs to be more precise IMO and focused on the targeted player skill level. For casuals the answer is "We have been across that line from the beginning." and for pros it is "Not yet but getting close". After that you only need to decide who you "care for" and then you can continue as usual or pull the emergency brake and reverse.
Blizzard has made their choice - which David Kim made clear in a recent SotG - of focusing on pros and eSport but I have disagreed with that from the beginning, because you can have a game that is manageable for casuals AND exciting to watch as a spectator.
On May 29 2013 17:19 Sissors wrote:
And for example the speedvacs with hellbats, if a lower level player simply queues 3 of them to drop in 3 mineral lines, they will literally do no damage whatsoever if the defender invested a little bit in defense: workers have lower priority than static defense.
The problem of "lower level players" is that you can attack in several ways and you dont have the same economy or focus as a professional. As a Terran you can build lots of Reapers and get into an enemy base quite easily, you can try Hellions or Widow Mines or wait for a more long term focused Hellbat drop. The point is that the attacker will focus on one thing out of a whole list and the defender has to prepare for all of them. As a consequence the defender needs a bigger economy than the attacker (who is taking a risk of being counterattacked, but there are a lot of aggressively minded players out there).
If you get hit with an attack you are not prepared for your loss will be pretty fast because of the efficiency of harrassment units and your own lack of skill at using whatever inadequate forces you have to counter that. Professionals can "counter" Hellbats with Zerglings, but I doubt that lower level players can do so equally well, because they basically hard-counter the tiny and light melee units with their bonus damage to light and cone AoE.
The point isnt losing a game but rather the way in which you lose as a lower level player and that is very suddenly after your economy has been reduced from "meh" to pretty much zero because of the super efficient harrassment units. That isnt fun. Even in broadcasted games from professional players there are "sudden losses" due to too efficient harrassment and they *should be* prepared for that stuff, but Blizzard are adding more harrassment units into the game so it gets more complicated to defend appropriately all the time. Having to be prepared for all of that might even slow down the overall game due to a necessary expenditure of resources (like planting a creep tumor inside your LARGE main base to cover all of it for better drop defense instead of starting "advance creep" like TLO from a canceled hatchery). Attacking and harrassing should involve a risk, but one Medivac and two Hellbats or a bunch of Marines and Widow Mines dont cost a lot, but their killing potential is huge ... so the risk is minimal.
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there is an extremely potent 1/1/1 build that uses a 2 hellion, 1 mine + 6 marine drop timing into expo, 1 tank, and then hellbat drop. It's universally powerful in all 3 matchups and transitions really well into pretty much anything.
I'd hardly call the 1/1/1 dead, the widow mine really leaves some nice openings up. Now, a 1/1/1 all in, I don't have a clue.
Personally, I think I'd prefer if the game had fewer harass options and more of the micro was put into zerg and protoss armies. I'd give up my harass abilities if the zerg and protoss had to micro as hard as I did in primary engagements.
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Austria24417 Posts
On May 31 2013 06:22 Honeybadger wrote:
there is an extremely potent 1/1/1 build that uses a 2 hellion, 1 mine + 6 marine drop timing into expo, 1 tank, and then hellbat drop. It's universally powerful in all 3 matchups and transitions really well into pretty much anything.
I'd hardly call the 1/1/1 dead, the widow mine really leaves some nice openings up. Now, a 1/1/1 all in, I don't have a clue.
Personally, I think I'd prefer if the game had fewer harass options and more of the micro was put into zerg and protoss armies. I'd give up my harass abilities if the zerg and protoss had to micro as hard as I did in primary engagements.
I would give my a-moving things if I could beat Ghost/viking with micro.
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On May 31 2013 06:33 DarkLordOlli wrote:
I would give my a-moving things if I could beat Ghost/viking with micro.
That wasn't a shot at your race (I happen to think balance is nice right now) but I do wish other races had to micro like terran does. It'd sure make every matchup other than tvt more interesting by leaps and bounds watching a micro war. Brood war was like that, I loved watching every matchup, but in SCII, if it's not including terran, it bores me to tears.
That said, unless you're grandmaster, you're probably not losing to ghost viking. You probably lost that game due to a multitude of other reasons (the same reason I lose most of my games. I hated zerg BL/festor in WOL, but when I lost, it was the tip of the iceberd. ) including things like macro and harass. Day9 rants on and on about this all the time, but it really is impossible to really get across to most people (again, not pointing at you, this is just speaking in broad terms) because people want to blame OTHER people before they blame themselves. It's one of the reasons khaldor was citing for LoL's popularity. When you lose in 1v1, it's your fault. That's the main reason people complain about balance. But when you're in a 5v5 scenario, and you lose, you can blame EVERYTHING but yourself. People are just not critical enough of themselves in productive ways. Listen to most balance complaints here, and then listen to a player like Demuslim when he streams. He is critical of NOTHING but himself, and he learns a LOT because of it.
Way, WAY too many people (and this isn't condemning you, your race, or this balance thread at all) attribute their loss to the direct, final thing that made them leave the game, when in actuality, if they'd macro'd better or harassed more or scouted better, or some combination thereof, they'd have won no matter what their opponent went.
I know I sure lose to colossus when I don't scout it properly.
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Austria24417 Posts
On May 31 2013 11:21 Honeybadger wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 06:33 DarkLordOlli wrote:
I would give my a-moving things if I could beat Ghost/viking with micro. That wasn't a shot at your race (I happen to think balance is nice right now) but I do wish other races had to micro like terran does. It'd sure make every matchup other than tvt more interesting by leaps and bounds watching a micro war. Brood war was like that, I loved watching every matchup, but in SCII, if it's not including terran, it bores me to tears. That said, unless you're grandmaster, you're probably not losing to ghost viking. You probably lost that game due to a multitude of other reasons (the same reason I lose most of my games. I hated zerg BL/festor in WOL, but when I lost, it was the tip of the iceberd. ) including things like macro and harass. Day9 rants on and on about this all the time, but it really is impossible to really get across to most people (again, not pointing at you, this is just speaking in broad terms) because people want to blame OTHER people before they blame themselves. It's one of the reasons khaldor was citing for LoL's popularity. When you lose in 1v1, it's your fault. That's the main reason people complain about balance. But when you're in a 5v5 scenario, and you lose, you can blame EVERYTHING but yourself. People are just not critical enough of themselves in productive ways. Listen to most balance complaints here, and then listen to a player like Demuslim when he streams. He is critical of NOTHING but himself, and he learns a LOT because of it. Way, WAY too many people (and this isn't condemning you, your race, or this balance thread at all) attribute their loss to the direct, final thing that made them leave the game, when in actuality, if they'd macro'd better or harassed more or scouted better, or some combination thereof, they'd have won no matter what their opponent went. I know I sure lose to colossus when I don't scout it properly.
Well it wasn't really me, I have a decent 60% winrate or so against terran which I'm ok with. I know that if anything needs work at non-GM level it's macro and decisionmaking.
It's more like whenever I see a pro game that gets to Ghost/Viking, terran almost always wins. They certainly win every straight up engagement and there's very little protoss can do to avoid one (see most recently HerO vs Lucifron from ATC or pretty much all of Lucifron's lategame TvP games). The proper transition against it theoretically is a carrier switch but that just isn't possible in most cases. Terran really just needs to scan, snipe observers and then cloak. It's extremely frustrating to watch, play against and think about what to do against it.
That said - protoss is very strong before terran can get to that army.
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On May 31 2013 06:22 Honeybadger wrote:
there is an extremely potent 1/1/1 build that uses a 2 hellion, 1 mine + 6 marine drop timing into expo, 1 tank, and then hellbat drop. It's universally powerful in all 3 matchups and transitions really well into pretty much anything.
I'd hardly call the 1/1/1 dead, the widow mine really leaves some nice openings up. Now, a 1/1/1 all in, I don't have a clue.
Personally, I think I'd prefer if the game had fewer harass options and more of the micro was put into zerg and protoss armies. I'd give up my harass abilities if the zerg and protoss had to micro as hard as I did in primary engagements.
You should check out widow mines. Or hellbats. Pretty good units, rape zerg if he amoves.
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Buff Oracle speed, not by too much, to encourage more oracle uses.
Make medivacs take damage from boost (like stim), that makes them not invicible and would make drops a little less powerful. With this change hellbats would be just fine.
Rework swarmhosts to be individual unit on their own. It is dumb you cant transition out of it (although they can be really effective), and when massed they are super boring to watch.
These changes are as close to unbiased opinion as I can muster.
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EPT
