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Dzerzhinsky
Profile Joined March 2011
Scotland327 Posts
June 26 2013 22:56 GMT
#10581
On June 27 2013 03:03 prOxySC2 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 26 2013 04:40 TheDwf wrote:
On June 14 2013 04:09 freetgy wrote:
don't see how protoss has the stronger lategame army, a lategame MMMGV + Mines is not even closely cost efficiently beatable without a major fuck up by the T in standard game.

Mines?? No one uses Mines along with bio by lategame. Tempests/Colossi/Stalkers/Templars stomps every possible Terran army.



If you watched NaNiWa vs ThorZaiN game 1 at EsportSM you would probably take that back

I just skipped to the end battle, but it looked like Thorzain spent 20 minutes attacking an army 40+ supply less than him, and managed to kill a grand total of 20 supply in that time. Naniwa just left because he was broke and couldn't replace units.

Thorzain played like he thought it was impossible to actually engage, and instead just spent his time putting down PDDs to make sure he didn't die (which required an absurd 34 Ravens to do).

Not to say the composition can'tbe beaten, but that game didn't look like a very good example of it happening.
"All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things coincided directly."
Mehukannu
Profile Joined October 2010
Finland421 Posts
June 27 2013 02:02 GMT
#10582
On June 27 2013 03:30 Big J wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 03:09 TheDwf wrote:
On June 27 2013 02:57 Big J wrote:
Every race is built upon stuff that you can call gimmick in one way or another. Core Starcraft principles like building walls are supergimmicky concepts that only work due to Starcrafts gimmicky grid system and building balancing (units can shoot through them, high HP, cheap - try to do that in one of the fundamental RTS games like Dune2 or CnC).
Starcrafts map design is extremly gimmicky... Basically no other RTS games relies that heavily on concepts like "main bases", "natural expansions", "third bases", "expansions" and "chokes". Most RTS games just design the races in ways that they turn out equal on any map.

And I'm pretty sure that Grubby is a real RTS player and that he enjoys Protoss.

I'm not an English native speaker so maybe I'm wrong, but “gimmicky” does not mean “weird”. There is a notion of “relying on novelty” in the word. I thus fail to see how “building walls” is “a supergimmicky concept”?...


I'm not a native speaker either and I absolutly didn't want to put it like those things are "weird". But such concepts are not core RTS fundamentals and when stuff like building walls first came up in WC2 (or maybe WC1... never played that), I'd say they were seen as kind of "new and tricky" or however you can best paraphrase gimmicky.
In all honesty, I don't see how Protoss is more "gimmicky" at all than the other races. Doing a timing attack seems to be one of the most core strategies in RTS games. Abusing the lack of information ("cheese") is a core concept of any game with finite information. Deathballs/big armies are the reason why many casual players even try RTS games "cool, I can control a whole army in this game and not just one guy with a gun".
All of those things are being used in nearly every Terran/Zerg game we see as well.

I building up walls came up with Dune 2, the very first RTS game. Kind of funny that you should mention it in your last post and then say that it was something new and tricky when it has always been there.
C=('. ' Q)
SupLilSon
Profile Joined October 2011
Malaysia4123 Posts
June 27 2013 02:52 GMT
#10583
On June 27 2013 11:02 Mehukannu wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 03:30 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:09 TheDwf wrote:
On June 27 2013 02:57 Big J wrote:
Every race is built upon stuff that you can call gimmick in one way or another. Core Starcraft principles like building walls are supergimmicky concepts that only work due to Starcrafts gimmicky grid system and building balancing (units can shoot through them, high HP, cheap - try to do that in one of the fundamental RTS games like Dune2 or CnC).
Starcrafts map design is extremly gimmicky... Basically no other RTS games relies that heavily on concepts like "main bases", "natural expansions", "third bases", "expansions" and "chokes". Most RTS games just design the races in ways that they turn out equal on any map.

And I'm pretty sure that Grubby is a real RTS player and that he enjoys Protoss.

I'm not an English native speaker so maybe I'm wrong, but “gimmicky” does not mean “weird”. There is a notion of “relying on novelty” in the word. I thus fail to see how “building walls” is “a supergimmicky concept”?...


I'm not a native speaker either and I absolutly didn't want to put it like those things are "weird". But such concepts are not core RTS fundamentals and when stuff like building walls first came up in WC2 (or maybe WC1... never played that), I'd say they were seen as kind of "new and tricky" or however you can best paraphrase gimmicky.
In all honesty, I don't see how Protoss is more "gimmicky" at all than the other races. Doing a timing attack seems to be one of the most core strategies in RTS games. Abusing the lack of information ("cheese") is a core concept of any game with finite information. Deathballs/big armies are the reason why many casual players even try RTS games "cool, I can control a whole army in this game and not just one guy with a gun".
All of those things are being used in nearly every Terran/Zerg game we see as well.

I building up walls came up with Dune 2, the very first RTS game. Kind of funny that you should mention it in your last post and then say that it was something new and tricky when it has always been there.


I remember being able to build sandbags and concrete walls in Red Alert 1... I have no idea how building defensive walls is "gimicky" lol..
Olli
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
Austria24422 Posts
June 27 2013 06:22 GMT
#10584
On June 27 2013 06:58 NapkinBox wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 01:00 DarkLordOlli wrote:
On June 26 2013 22:47 Charon1979 wrote:
On June 26 2013 20:54 Karpfen wrote:
On June 26 2013 15:17 Rabiator wrote:
On June 26 2013 14:34 Salient wrote:
On June 26 2013 13:08 Sabu113 wrote:
On June 14 2013 04:55 stratmatt wrote:
On June 14 2013 04:52 Prog455 wrote:
On June 14 2013 04:09 freetgy wrote:
don't see how protoss has the stronger lategame army, a lategame MMMGV + Mines is not even closely cost efficiently beatable without a major fuck up by the T in standard game.


Maybe at pro level and High Master/GM, but in high Diamond it is ridiculous how hard it is to beat a Protoss army of equal size as Terran, compared to how incredibly easy it is to a-move the Protoss army to win.



bingo, as a high-damond / low-master terran player, protoss is the only race that i feel like i can lose to a player considerably worse than i amif the toss is able to turtle and macro effectively, the difference in difficulty when it comes to the 'big battle' is humungous.



Maybe you're just not that good. PvT is very management focused for toss with a lot of moments where they can screw themselves if they let a certain situation occur. Lategame devolves down to these very binary scenarios typically.


I totally agree. Who cares that one race is "easier" to play in the wood league. The game should be balanced around the higher levels of play.

No it shouldnt ... because higher level players can cope with more stuff and faster stuff while wood league players would have no chance to deal with a Hellbat drop or whatever ... unless they specifically prepared for that (and then they get beaten by some other strat they didnt prepare for).

This is a GAME and it is supposed to be FUN TO PLAY. It isnt fun if you lose to stuff you are incapable of dealing with. "l2p" doesnt work, because people will not be motivated enough to learn to improve.

So ... design the game for FUN has to be the first rule and balancing it for progamers is secondary to that.


There is League of Legends for that. I don't want THE esports to get slaughtered because of some babbies wanting the game to be balanced around their level. Those who made the effort to improve with constant playing (or with sheer talent) DESERVE to have the game balanced around them: they are the best ones. If it isn't fun to play for you just quit, don't expect to have the whole game balanced around your laziness and stupidity.


Sorry but this is one of the most stupid statements I had to read here.

First of all, yes League does that. And guess what? League already SLAUGHTERS SC2 as an e-sport title. Why? Because they balance at EVERY level (sure its easier to balance for everyone because of the number of champs).
Do you even realize that your mindset kills SC2 as an e-sports title? Where do you think your average spectator, subsciber or donator comes from? From High Master and Grandmaster? If you lose your base of Bronzies - Diamonds you also lose so much money in this part of the industry... and you just do that in your post by saying "we dont need you playing, we just need you paying!".
A core balance should be achieved at any level. League achieves that by having low skillcap champs and high skillcap champs and getting both adjusted according to their relative strenght. In SC2 you just have a "few" units. You have no real "choice" between high skillcap units and low skillcap units. So if one race core units rely on "a-move" to get 80% effect while the other race achieves just 30% wit "a-move" but can go to 150% with "pro-micro" you have a huge balance issue on both levels of play, which WILL cost you players and ultimately viewers.


The 3 only reasons why League is more popular: a) it's free, b) it's not as difficult to start off with in terms of mechanics and c) you have a team to blame. SC2 has an insane mechanical requirement compared to League. If you have bad mechanics in SC2, you'll lose. Especially because the ladder is designed to push you to your limits - you'll be playing people who are as good as you according to their MMR. If you have terrible mechanics in League you might still do well if your team is good and you profit from them. If your team does badly, just blame the others. Simple as that. A game like 1v1 SC2 that a) demands more from you mechanically and b) throws it in your face by having nobody else to blame when you lose will never be as popular. Because most people are simpletons and like to think they're good at things they're not actually good at. That's when they have fun.

SC2 should not be balanced around being fun. Unit concepts, race concepts, abilities, etc., short: the FUNDAMENTALS should be designed to be fun. After that balance it around the best of the best. The solution for everybody who's not one of the best is to ummm... get better if they want to do better. It's the same with League except that the team concept allows people to continue being ignorant idiots who think they're better than they are for much longer.
If you're not having fun because you feel that certain things are too strong at your level then either grind games and get better or shut up and accept the fact that you're not good enough. If you can't do either of those then a 1v1 strategy game is the wrong type of game for you in the first place.


I really do not like the "you have a team to blame" argument at all. You can use any excuse for your losses in either LoL or SC2, whether it be your team, or the game itself; and a team is nothing without every individual, including yourself, playing with coordination which makes the "easier because it's a team game" argument invalid.

I believe there's a misconception about balance having to be around the best of the best. It's not that the game is balanced around the best players, but it's the best players just playing the best. You can say BW is the most balanced game, but it's not just because it is made balanced, but it is a better designed RTS. The mechanics in BW gave a lot more room for improvement and smaller, but a large amount of "skill gaps (worker management, mining, macro, multitask, etc.)" to get over which lead to many innovating in the highest level, and "mechanically balanced" for lower levels. And with that saying leads to this:

"SC2 has an insane mechanical requirement" That's where I find the problem. I don't think SC2 is mechanically inclined ENOUGH. Let's compare SC2 and BW again; BW, like I said, had a lot more room for improvement for mechanics and individual skill, with more "skill gaps" (or whatever less awkward term you want to use, but I'm sticking with that). With the amount of skill gaps in BW, you would have to achieve much more and a lot harder to make a difference between the lowest skill level and to the next skill level. This is where the game becomes mechanically balanced, because of the smaller things you have to do and the smaller things you're probably missing keeping you down with everyone else working on those same mechanics.

Also, I find the 12 unit limit and no MBS alot more fun because it so euphoric getting the feel of running all over your keyboard with "flawless" macro in a much more demanding. Makes me feel like I'm actually a pro . But, I guess that's more of a preference, but it still supports my argument above.

SC2's mechanics being lesser than BW's (unlimited selection, MBS, macro boosts, mining, etc) gives players much bigger gaps with a sturdy iron bridge and crossing one would make a huge "difference in skill level". There are also some smaller gaps that you can walk over but they would not really matter. The flawed race design in SC2 determines these "gaps". That's why, for example, you see the Terran become weak in one league, but very powerful in another while Protoss streamlines. Yes, it's balanced at the highest level but that's only because they are best players. If you look at lower leagues, it's completely different and that turns people away from playing an unbalanced, and not fun game.

I also find the mechanics in SC2 less fun than in BW, but that's just me.

I also don't like how Protoss armor looks very brown and rusty.


I didn't say it was easier to play because of teams, I said it's easier for people to shake off losses and keep their ego. Most people sadly will always look to blame something or someone else first.

And if your argument is that BW is more fun than SC2 then... play BW? It's a fantastic game.
Administrator"Declaring anything a disaster because aLive popped up out of nowhere is just downright silly."
XXXSmOke
Profile Blog Joined November 2004
United States1333 Posts
June 27 2013 06:34 GMT
#10585
On June 27 2013 07:20 vNmMasterT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 03:37 PeggyHill wrote:
On June 27 2013 01:34 vNmMasterT wrote:
On June 26 2013 23:12 dargul wrote:
Meanwhile in Korean GML:

Top10 - 1 zerg 3 terr 6 toss
Top25 - 5 zerg 6 terr 14 toss
Top50 - 10 zerg 15 terr 25 toss

Yeh sure toss is the weakest and need buff )


It's really hard to balance Protoss since the whole race is based on gimmicks and broken RTS fundamentals. I don't believe real RTS players would enjoy the gameplay of Protoss, which mainly consists of cheese/gimmicks, timing attacks, or camping to deathballs. Maybe that's a reason Protoss isn't doing so great in tournaments.

Successful protoss play is about doing the “wrong” things right, which inhibits the development and longer term success of the race.


If you think that cheesing, timing attacks and deathballs are not RTS fundamentals, you need to watch some Brood War.



Funny you should mention brood war. How about you go watch some brood war to see how protoss gameplay has been severely degraded in sc2?

Also, to give some examples of how Protoss is made of broken fundamentals:
Warp ins: broke the fundamental of defenders advantage, map control, unit positioning (wow! gj browder for this innovative idea)
Force fields: broke the fundamental of using map terrain
Recall: broke the fundamental of travel distance/unit positioning

these are just the most obvious ones on top of my head


Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 06:42 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:30 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:09 TheDwf wrote:
On June 27 2013 02:57 Big J wrote:
Every race is built upon stuff that you can call gimmick in one way or another. Core Starcraft principles like building walls are supergimmicky concepts that only work due to Starcrafts gimmicky grid system and building balancing (units can shoot through them, high HP, cheap - try to do that in one of the fundamental RTS games like Dune2 or CnC).
Starcrafts map design is extremly gimmicky... Basically no other RTS games relies that heavily on concepts like "main bases", "natural expansions", "third bases", "expansions" and "chokes". Most RTS games just design the races in ways that they turn out equal on any map.

And I'm pretty sure that Grubby is a real RTS player and that he enjoys Protoss.

I'm not an English native speaker so maybe I'm wrong, but “gimmicky” does not mean “weird”. There is a notion of “relying on novelty” in the word. I thus fail to see how “building walls” is “a supergimmicky concept”?...


I'm not a native speaker either and I absolutly didn't want to put it like those things are "weird". But such concepts are not core RTS fundamentals and when stuff like building walls first came up in WC2 (or maybe WC1... never played that), I'd say they were seen as kind of "new and tricky" or however you can best paraphrase gimmicky.
In all honesty, I don't see how Protoss is more "gimmicky" at all than the other races. Doing a timing attack seems to be one of the most core strategies in RTS games. Abusing the lack of information ("cheese") is a core concept of any game with finite information. Deathballs/big armies are the reason why many casual players even try RTS games "cool, I can control a whole army in this game and not just one guy with a gun".
All of those things are being used in nearly every Terran/Zerg game we see as well.

The gimmicky part of protoss is their army composition. Their army might consist of 100-140 army supply, but their dmg dealers consist of only up to about 40 army supply. That means that if the opponent actually counters that 40 army supply well enough, the 60-100 army supply protoss is pretty much screwed. The only real exception to this is blink stalkers, where 100% of your army is doing the dps and tanking.

Terran and zerg units are for the most part not only tanks but an active force and a threat. The closest to being a tank are roaches, but zerg players phase them out for the most part through the game, while a protoss can't just phase out building gateway units.



I disagree completely with both, notion that a unit that is more on the health than on the damage side is gimmicky - that just doesn't make sense.
Neither do I agree with the notion that Protoss is "generally" like that. Everything but the stalker and the sentry has generally a high damage potential. It's just simply the fact that though those units are good damage dealers, their enemy lowtier counterparts are designed to be direct counters to them. So Protoss is forced to go for antilowtier units like colossi/templar - while their general design does not support a hightier only army (so a playstyle with hardly any gatewayunits) for the most parts of the game.
Also you are way overexaggerating this. Highlevel Terrans and Zergs for the most part do counter Colossi and Templar close to perfectly already. It's not like most of the Protoss wins come from "he should have just had a few vikings more, which he could have easily had if he had scouted it a little faster". In fact I rather believe that there is a colossus count - like 3 - that is basically uncounterable by just adding AtA units to a ground army, due to how the Colossis still will kill stuff, while the AtA units are an expensive investment that don't help you to win the fight after the Colossi are down.

This is not so much a problem of protoss design, but a problem of unit balance. If e.g. the marine/marauder, roach/hydra wouldn't counter the zealot/sentry/stalker, a Protoss would not have to rely on Colossi. The game would just need a slightly adapted balancing for that, but it's not a matter of "Protoss" but just as much a matter of "Zerg" and "Terran". In fact ZvT has a similar dynamic of how in current bio vs zerg gameplay, it usually just comes down to the baneling hits. If they can thin out the marines, the rest can get cleaned up by troops that are inferior to the Terran in equal numbers. The zerglings and mutas are mostly just to tank the hits and clean up what's left after the mines/banelings went of. (the interesting part comes from both of those armies being very splitable due to unitspeed and medivacs)

On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
The side effect of the protoss power unit design is also the fact that you don't split up the protoss units. Zerg and terran units do better split up, but as we all know, protoss units don't. This prevents multitasking and harass for the most part.


The core problem is not splitting the army for the Protoss. The core problem is that the units are too slow to run away. Just watch a Protoss play with phoenixes. Those are always split from the army. Same often goes for blink stalkers. At the toplevel, many Protoss players poke around against Terrans with them, because they can get away. However most other units cannot get away. It's once again a problem of relations where the Protoss army is simply inferior, this time speed. A Protoss simply can't run from MMMVG with Colossi that poke forward, and he can't pick up and boost away his immortals and sentries against nearly anything zerg.

A Protoss can harass pretty well with zealots and warpins and DTs. He just can't do it without commiting like a zerg who just runs away with little losses or a Terran that just picks up and escapes more often than not.


On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:Freedictionarie's definition of gimmick is: "a. A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus".

From this definition, your definition of gimmick just doesn't make sense. Sure a wall is "deceiving" as in preventing information, but that information only matters for cheese and allins, which I think everyone can concede, allins and cheese is pretty much the definition of gimmicky. Standard playstyle of terran however does not rely on the wall to deceive, and I'd argue it'd only be gimmicky if it was actually some investment into doing it rather than being done byfar most the time.



First of, I don't get why "the Protoss composition is gimmicky..." part of your post fills this definition at all.
Secondly, I was replying to a guy who was talking about how Protoss is gimmicky in the light of "RTS fundamentals". Originally in RTS your buildings were the stuff you wanted to guard with your units and that you did not want your opponent to reach. That's why I say that using buildings to guard your units is actually a quite "gimmicky" concept. It simply does not come naturally to an RTS game and is only useful if you have a lot of special circumstances.

I guess my main objective with saying that is just to shit upon that guy's post who has no clue about the genre RTS and generalizes the statement "this was not how Protoss was in Starcraft1" to "it's against fundamential RTS design". Well, no it's not. In essence SC:BW <<<<<<<<<<<<<< RTS.


On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
While neither terran or zerg wants to be scouted, unless you are doing an allin, it hardly matters. The protoss is pretty much expected to know the army composition the opponent is doing. A terran or zerg scouting what the protoss is doing can however be devistating. Both races can then adjust their composition to counter the power unit that the protoss picked to start off with, which can prevent a 3rd from going down or give the z/t a econ advantage if the protoss stays defensive.

Lastly due to all of this, I feel protoss is forced down the path of timing attacks, where the protoss has to use their advantage of power units not being countered perfectly yet. This makes timing attacks, such as fx. 2 colossi timing attack TvP and immo busts so strong. Then there is also the heavy gateway styles which rely on being up 1 production of units(such as TvP's 4 gate, where you have up to +100% army supply compared to terran due to WG). This is what protoss has been balanced around. That means against players with exceptional skill that can smell these kind of plays better, they can defend them way easier(since most of them it's not about skill of defending, but seeing them in advance to put up the defenses). Then in a straight up game, z/t units are better to multitask.

Edit: I think the biggest thing to consider about gimmicky play is which race would be the least comfortable without fog of war? In TvZ I don't think either player would have a big advantage, in TvP and ZvP I think T/Z would be quite delighted and protoss sad.


To a certain extend I agree with you on this. But then again there are and have always been very standard ways to play Protoss that the opponent can prepare pretty blindly for, but he does not really get ahead against. Especially in TvP, where there are just rocksolid 2base tech/upgrade builds from which you just take a third and play a standard macro game.
@the fog of war thing. Well, you'd still not have perfect information with only that. I'd argue that Protoss players would be much more delighted about seeing a Zerg production tab and resource bank then the other way around ("oh, you actually can't afford a muta switch right now." against "what a surprise, you use that robo to build robo-units one at a time")
And for every hidden pylon revealed like that, a Protoss would just be able to catch every drop and never miss a forcefield or flank.


Hey man, this wall of text did nothing but shit on your own intelligence. If you think terran walling is "gimmicky" I don't know what to say as you have totally misinterpreted the word's meaning. What I mean by gimmicky is what happens when the opponent knows exactly what you are doing. If the strategy would fail badly each time your opponent has perfect intel, it is gimmicky. Compared to Flash, for example, with solid play which still works vs a maphack opponent. Solid macro play that can adapt and react well vs any opponent response.



This guy is right on....

Toss did break all fundamentals like he explained. The race can be balanced sure, but who gives a fuck if its

A) not fun to play the race

and

B) Not fun to play agaisnt the race.

P is a big reason why SC2 has never been a truly amazing game. Z and T are fine, TvZ has almost always been a crazy entertaining MU.

TvP?? Very stale boring piece of shit MU that is terrible to watch, and very difficult for any master and below Terran.

ZvP?? meh its had its moments, but mostly bad on all ends. Lots of bad stuff in the history of this MU that broke it.
Emperor? Boxer disapproves. He's building bunkers at your mom's house even as you're reading this.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
June 27 2013 06:59 GMT
#10586
On June 27 2013 11:02 Mehukannu wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 03:30 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:09 TheDwf wrote:
On June 27 2013 02:57 Big J wrote:
Every race is built upon stuff that you can call gimmick in one way or another. Core Starcraft principles like building walls are supergimmicky concepts that only work due to Starcrafts gimmicky grid system and building balancing (units can shoot through them, high HP, cheap - try to do that in one of the fundamental RTS games like Dune2 or CnC).
Starcrafts map design is extremly gimmicky... Basically no other RTS games relies that heavily on concepts like "main bases", "natural expansions", "third bases", "expansions" and "chokes". Most RTS games just design the races in ways that they turn out equal on any map.

And I'm pretty sure that Grubby is a real RTS player and that he enjoys Protoss.

I'm not an English native speaker so maybe I'm wrong, but “gimmicky” does not mean “weird”. There is a notion of “relying on novelty” in the word. I thus fail to see how “building walls” is “a supergimmicky concept”?...


I'm not a native speaker either and I absolutly didn't want to put it like those things are "weird". But such concepts are not core RTS fundamentals and when stuff like building walls first came up in WC2 (or maybe WC1... never played that), I'd say they were seen as kind of "new and tricky" or however you can best paraphrase gimmicky.
In all honesty, I don't see how Protoss is more "gimmicky" at all than the other races. Doing a timing attack seems to be one of the most core strategies in RTS games. Abusing the lack of information ("cheese") is a core concept of any game with finite information. Deathballs/big armies are the reason why many casual players even try RTS games "cool, I can control a whole army in this game and not just one guy with a gun".
All of those things are being used in nearly every Terran/Zerg game we see as well.

I building up walls came up with Dune 2, the very first RTS game. Kind of funny that you should mention it in your last post and then say that it was something new and tricky when it has always been there.

yeah. and you literarilly built walls. not used production buildings as such.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
June 27 2013 08:45 GMT
#10587
On June 27 2013 07:20 vNmMasterT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 03:37 PeggyHill wrote:
On June 27 2013 01:34 vNmMasterT wrote:
On June 26 2013 23:12 dargul wrote:
Meanwhile in Korean GML:

Top10 - 1 zerg 3 terr 6 toss
Top25 - 5 zerg 6 terr 14 toss
Top50 - 10 zerg 15 terr 25 toss

Yeh sure toss is the weakest and need buff )


It's really hard to balance Protoss since the whole race is based on gimmicks and broken RTS fundamentals. I don't believe real RTS players would enjoy the gameplay of Protoss, which mainly consists of cheese/gimmicks, timing attacks, or camping to deathballs. Maybe that's a reason Protoss isn't doing so great in tournaments.

Successful protoss play is about doing the “wrong” things right, which inhibits the development and longer term success of the race.


If you think that cheesing, timing attacks and deathballs are not RTS fundamentals, you need to watch some Brood War.



Funny you should mention brood war. How about you go watch some brood war to see how protoss gameplay has been severely degraded in sc2?

Also, to give some examples of how Protoss is made of broken fundamentals:
Warp ins: broke the fundamental of defenders advantage, map control, unit positioning (wow! gj browder for this innovative idea)
Force fields: broke the fundamental of using map terrain
Recall: broke the fundamental of travel distance/unit positioning

these are just the most obvious ones on top of my head



You just throw out big words like "RTS fundamentals", "defenders advantage", but you actually have very little substance behind it.
Defenders advantage is much more than travel distance. Does Warp In lengthen the defenders reinforcement distance? Does Warp In render base defenses useless? Does Warp In open up choke points? Those are all defenders advantages that Warp Ins don't influence.
And how did it "break unit positioning". If I warp in units in close proximity to your army before a combat, I still have to deal with unit positioning just as much as I have to if I rally them. And Warp Ins in bases are by no means more "position breaking" than a nydus worm or a doom drop (e.g. mass flying supply dropships and healing dropships that you can mass and therefore always doomdrop at will, if the opponent does not cover everything).

How did Forcefield break the "using Terrain"? Forcefield is a spell that is using Terrain itself to a huge degree. Yeah, I don't like it too much either in its SC2 form, but how in the world did it break an "RTS fundamental"? If anything, forcefield shows us that advantages you get from certain Terrain should be narrowly limited, or mapdesign will become very stale.

Recall has been in Broodwar in a stronger form and Town Portal has been in WC3 (and all other sorts of teleports have been around in various RTS games). It's nothing Protoss specific and has been in various RTS games. It definitely does not break any "RTS fundamental".


But now that I've written "RTS fundamental" so many times. Why don't you go ahead and define what you mean with it.
Because as far as I know, fundamental means that it is essential for the thing and, therefore, if Protoss breaks "RTS fundamentals" then Starcraft2 is not an RTS game. Which I really disagree with. I believe that Starcraft 2 is an RTS game, even if it has Protoss in it.
KredeOWN
Profile Joined March 2013
Germany4 Posts
June 27 2013 08:50 GMT
#10588
I think swarmhosts should not recharge when they are NOT burrowed
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
June 27 2013 09:06 GMT
#10589
On June 27 2013 17:50 KredeOWN wrote:
I think swarmhosts should not recharge when they are NOT burrowed


well, that's the actual fun part of them, when you run around with them release a wave and then run somewhere else. I rather think that they should overthink how often they release locusts and how locusts are balanced. From our current experience I'd say one of the major problems with swarm hosts is that they release locusts too often (it's often too hard absue the window in between spawns), while swarm hosts on their own have little siege potential after 12mins (while the constant stream of locusts makes vipers overly potent again).
FCReverie
Profile Joined April 2013
Australia103 Posts
June 27 2013 10:26 GMT
#10590
On June 27 2013 18:06 Big J wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 17:50 KredeOWN wrote:
I think swarmhosts should not recharge when they are NOT burrowed


well, that's the actual fun part of them, when you run around with them release a wave and then run somewhere else. I rather think that they should overthink how often they release locusts and how locusts are balanced. From our current experience I'd say one of the major problems with swarm hosts is that they release locusts too often (it's often too hard absue the window in between spawns), while swarm hosts on their own have little siege potential after 12mins (while the constant stream of locusts makes vipers overly potent again).

The issue then could be that swarm hosts are totally useless if there is like a 10 second window where you have almost no units on the map you could lose everything. Eg FF the first wave then when it dies push out and win. Then the problem would be how do you make them viable again? Boosting damage/length they last for/health will make rushes stronger without making them good in late game. Very tough thing to balance. I still think that the reason Z go for so many turtly strategies vs toss is that there isn't much opportunity for z to be aggressive in the matchup. Everything is basically melee so they suck against FFs and then the units that don't are total garbage because of other reasons.roaches/hydras are garbage vs colossus. Mutas are garbage against phoenix. And Ultras are garbage against anything unless they are up 2 upgrade levels, not to mention you have to micro each one individually because of how bad they get stuck on literally everything. All that leaves is passive options.
Qikz
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United Kingdom12023 Posts
June 27 2013 10:46 GMT
#10591
To balance swarmhosts you just need to lower the distance the locusts can travel.

You can sit in your own base in most maps and go attack any base on the map (in some maps atleast) and that's why they're so broken against mech. They force you to be defensive which is good, but when there's little to no way to actually abuse their mobility due to the range of the locusts, it makes it incredibly hard to play against a good swarmhost player in certain situations.

I mean look at why Daybreak eventually and thankfully got removed from the pool, locusts on that map were so ridiculous.
FanTaSy's #1 Fan | STPL Caster/Organiser | SKT BEST KT | https://twitch.tv/stpl
Lorch
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany3686 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 11:16:26
June 27 2013 11:16 GMT
#10592
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.
FCReverie
Profile Joined April 2013
Australia103 Posts
June 27 2013 11:28 GMT
#10593
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.
Nebuchad
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
Switzerland12320 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 11:36:23
June 27 2013 11:34 GMT
#10594
On June 27 2013 15:34 XXXSmOke wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 07:20 vNmMasterT wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:37 PeggyHill wrote:
On June 27 2013 01:34 vNmMasterT wrote:
On June 26 2013 23:12 dargul wrote:
Meanwhile in Korean GML:

Top10 - 1 zerg 3 terr 6 toss
Top25 - 5 zerg 6 terr 14 toss
Top50 - 10 zerg 15 terr 25 toss

Yeh sure toss is the weakest and need buff )


It's really hard to balance Protoss since the whole race is based on gimmicks and broken RTS fundamentals. I don't believe real RTS players would enjoy the gameplay of Protoss, which mainly consists of cheese/gimmicks, timing attacks, or camping to deathballs. Maybe that's a reason Protoss isn't doing so great in tournaments.

Successful protoss play is about doing the “wrong” things right, which inhibits the development and longer term success of the race.


If you think that cheesing, timing attacks and deathballs are not RTS fundamentals, you need to watch some Brood War.



Funny you should mention brood war. How about you go watch some brood war to see how protoss gameplay has been severely degraded in sc2?

Also, to give some examples of how Protoss is made of broken fundamentals:
Warp ins: broke the fundamental of defenders advantage, map control, unit positioning (wow! gj browder for this innovative idea)
Force fields: broke the fundamental of using map terrain
Recall: broke the fundamental of travel distance/unit positioning

these are just the most obvious ones on top of my head


On June 27 2013 06:42 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:30 Big J wrote:
On June 27 2013 03:09 TheDwf wrote:
On June 27 2013 02:57 Big J wrote:
Every race is built upon stuff that you can call gimmick in one way or another. Core Starcraft principles like building walls are supergimmicky concepts that only work due to Starcrafts gimmicky grid system and building balancing (units can shoot through them, high HP, cheap - try to do that in one of the fundamental RTS games like Dune2 or CnC).
Starcrafts map design is extremly gimmicky... Basically no other RTS games relies that heavily on concepts like "main bases", "natural expansions", "third bases", "expansions" and "chokes". Most RTS games just design the races in ways that they turn out equal on any map.

And I'm pretty sure that Grubby is a real RTS player and that he enjoys Protoss.

I'm not an English native speaker so maybe I'm wrong, but “gimmicky” does not mean “weird”. There is a notion of “relying on novelty” in the word. I thus fail to see how “building walls” is “a supergimmicky concept”?...


I'm not a native speaker either and I absolutly didn't want to put it like those things are "weird". But such concepts are not core RTS fundamentals and when stuff like building walls first came up in WC2 (or maybe WC1... never played that), I'd say they were seen as kind of "new and tricky" or however you can best paraphrase gimmicky.
In all honesty, I don't see how Protoss is more "gimmicky" at all than the other races. Doing a timing attack seems to be one of the most core strategies in RTS games. Abusing the lack of information ("cheese") is a core concept of any game with finite information. Deathballs/big armies are the reason why many casual players even try RTS games "cool, I can control a whole army in this game and not just one guy with a gun".
All of those things are being used in nearly every Terran/Zerg game we see as well.

The gimmicky part of protoss is their army composition. Their army might consist of 100-140 army supply, but their dmg dealers consist of only up to about 40 army supply. That means that if the opponent actually counters that 40 army supply well enough, the 60-100 army supply protoss is pretty much screwed. The only real exception to this is blink stalkers, where 100% of your army is doing the dps and tanking.

Terran and zerg units are for the most part not only tanks but an active force and a threat. The closest to being a tank are roaches, but zerg players phase them out for the most part through the game, while a protoss can't just phase out building gateway units.



I disagree completely with both, notion that a unit that is more on the health than on the damage side is gimmicky - that just doesn't make sense.
Neither do I agree with the notion that Protoss is "generally" like that. Everything but the stalker and the sentry has generally a high damage potential. It's just simply the fact that though those units are good damage dealers, their enemy lowtier counterparts are designed to be direct counters to them. So Protoss is forced to go for antilowtier units like colossi/templar - while their general design does not support a hightier only army (so a playstyle with hardly any gatewayunits) for the most parts of the game.
Also you are way overexaggerating this. Highlevel Terrans and Zergs for the most part do counter Colossi and Templar close to perfectly already. It's not like most of the Protoss wins come from "he should have just had a few vikings more, which he could have easily had if he had scouted it a little faster". In fact I rather believe that there is a colossus count - like 3 - that is basically uncounterable by just adding AtA units to a ground army, due to how the Colossis still will kill stuff, while the AtA units are an expensive investment that don't help you to win the fight after the Colossi are down.

This is not so much a problem of protoss design, but a problem of unit balance. If e.g. the marine/marauder, roach/hydra wouldn't counter the zealot/sentry/stalker, a Protoss would not have to rely on Colossi. The game would just need a slightly adapted balancing for that, but it's not a matter of "Protoss" but just as much a matter of "Zerg" and "Terran". In fact ZvT has a similar dynamic of how in current bio vs zerg gameplay, it usually just comes down to the baneling hits. If they can thin out the marines, the rest can get cleaned up by troops that are inferior to the Terran in equal numbers. The zerglings and mutas are mostly just to tank the hits and clean up what's left after the mines/banelings went of. (the interesting part comes from both of those armies being very splitable due to unitspeed and medivacs)

On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
The side effect of the protoss power unit design is also the fact that you don't split up the protoss units. Zerg and terran units do better split up, but as we all know, protoss units don't. This prevents multitasking and harass for the most part.


The core problem is not splitting the army for the Protoss. The core problem is that the units are too slow to run away. Just watch a Protoss play with phoenixes. Those are always split from the army. Same often goes for blink stalkers. At the toplevel, many Protoss players poke around against Terrans with them, because they can get away. However most other units cannot get away. It's once again a problem of relations where the Protoss army is simply inferior, this time speed. A Protoss simply can't run from MMMVG with Colossi that poke forward, and he can't pick up and boost away his immortals and sentries against nearly anything zerg.

A Protoss can harass pretty well with zealots and warpins and DTs. He just can't do it without commiting like a zerg who just runs away with little losses or a Terran that just picks up and escapes more often than not.


On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:Freedictionarie's definition of gimmick is: "a. A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus".

From this definition, your definition of gimmick just doesn't make sense. Sure a wall is "deceiving" as in preventing information, but that information only matters for cheese and allins, which I think everyone can concede, allins and cheese is pretty much the definition of gimmicky. Standard playstyle of terran however does not rely on the wall to deceive, and I'd argue it'd only be gimmicky if it was actually some investment into doing it rather than being done byfar most the time.



First of, I don't get why "the Protoss composition is gimmicky..." part of your post fills this definition at all.
Secondly, I was replying to a guy who was talking about how Protoss is gimmicky in the light of "RTS fundamentals". Originally in RTS your buildings were the stuff you wanted to guard with your units and that you did not want your opponent to reach. That's why I say that using buildings to guard your units is actually a quite "gimmicky" concept. It simply does not come naturally to an RTS game and is only useful if you have a lot of special circumstances.

I guess my main objective with saying that is just to shit upon that guy's post who has no clue about the genre RTS and generalizes the statement "this was not how Protoss was in Starcraft1" to "it's against fundamential RTS design". Well, no it's not. In essence SC:BW <<<<<<<<<<<<<< RTS.


On June 27 2013 05:03 Zarahtra wrote:
While neither terran or zerg wants to be scouted, unless you are doing an allin, it hardly matters. The protoss is pretty much expected to know the army composition the opponent is doing. A terran or zerg scouting what the protoss is doing can however be devistating. Both races can then adjust their composition to counter the power unit that the protoss picked to start off with, which can prevent a 3rd from going down or give the z/t a econ advantage if the protoss stays defensive.

Lastly due to all of this, I feel protoss is forced down the path of timing attacks, where the protoss has to use their advantage of power units not being countered perfectly yet. This makes timing attacks, such as fx. 2 colossi timing attack TvP and immo busts so strong. Then there is also the heavy gateway styles which rely on being up 1 production of units(such as TvP's 4 gate, where you have up to +100% army supply compared to terran due to WG). This is what protoss has been balanced around. That means against players with exceptional skill that can smell these kind of plays better, they can defend them way easier(since most of them it's not about skill of defending, but seeing them in advance to put up the defenses). Then in a straight up game, z/t units are better to multitask.

Edit: I think the biggest thing to consider about gimmicky play is which race would be the least comfortable without fog of war? In TvZ I don't think either player would have a big advantage, in TvP and ZvP I think T/Z would be quite delighted and protoss sad.


To a certain extend I agree with you on this. But then again there are and have always been very standard ways to play Protoss that the opponent can prepare pretty blindly for, but he does not really get ahead against. Especially in TvP, where there are just rocksolid 2base tech/upgrade builds from which you just take a third and play a standard macro game.
@the fog of war thing. Well, you'd still not have perfect information with only that. I'd argue that Protoss players would be much more delighted about seeing a Zerg production tab and resource bank then the other way around ("oh, you actually can't afford a muta switch right now." against "what a surprise, you use that robo to build robo-units one at a time")
And for every hidden pylon revealed like that, a Protoss would just be able to catch every drop and never miss a forcefield or flank.


Hey man, this wall of text did nothing but shit on your own intelligence. If you think terran walling is "gimmicky" I don't know what to say as you have totally misinterpreted the word's meaning. What I mean by gimmicky is what happens when the opponent knows exactly what you are doing. If the strategy would fail badly each time your opponent has perfect intel, it is gimmicky. Compared to Flash, for example, with solid play which still works vs a maphack opponent. Solid macro play that can adapt and react well vs any opponent response.



This guy is right on....

Toss did break all fundamentals like he explained. The race can be balanced sure, but who gives a fuck if its

A) not fun to play the race

and

B) Not fun to play agaisnt the race.

P is a big reason why SC2 has never been a truly amazing game. Z and T are fine, TvZ has almost always been a crazy entertaining MU.

TvP?? Very stale boring piece of shit MU that is terrible to watch, and very difficult for any master and below Terran.

ZvP?? meh its had its moments, but mostly bad on all ends. Lots of bad stuff in the history of this MU that broke it.


Typical terran... Can't believe I'm the first to quote and loathe you.

Could you expand a little bit on how protoss players have spent 3+ years on their race because they didn't think it was fun to play it?
Could you expand a little bit on how protoss audience have spent 3+ years supporting a race they didn't enjoy to see playing?
Could you expand a little bit on how your shortsighted biased vision of match-ups matters more than my short-sighted biased vision of match-ups?
No will to live, no wish to die
Qikz
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United Kingdom12023 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 11:42:34
June 27 2013 11:40 GMT
#10595
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


That's somewhat true, but while you're sat there forced to turtle due to swarmhosts the zerg takes the entire map, then if you manage to push out with your tanks enough to kill the swarmhosts themselves they just swap into either broodlords, ultralisks or mutas and your great tank force is then useless and you don't have enough money or time to produce what you need to kill the other guys army.

Buffing tanks isn't buffing turtling, it's buffing actually being able to leave your damn base as mech.

I play mech every game because I'm a masochist. I hate bio with avengance and despite how bad mech is I continue to play it because I can make it work. A lot of the time, especially against zerg this means setting up walls everywhere and just hope to god the other guy really fucks up. Yeah. That's not very fun is it. I try and do thor drops whenever possible and try and run hellions around to kill workers and yes, it is possible for me to outplay my opponents, but I'd say it's about 10x harder for me to try and just survive since tanks are so bad.
FanTaSy's #1 Fan | STPL Caster/Organiser | SKT BEST KT | https://twitch.tv/stpl
Lorch
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany3686 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 12:08:42
June 27 2013 12:07 GMT
#10596
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


Are we playing the same game? Tanks are currently 150/125/3, while swarm host are 200/100/3. Now while supplies are currently even, costs are most certainly not (especially since terran has entirely different min/gas ratio spending than zerg).
I don't think you understand meching, it is all about turtling and then doing your doom push. Now that doom push comes way way too late because you need way too much tanks to be able to leave your base, now if you'd buff tanks you could actually leave your base way earlier and possibly do a really scary push way before they can switch into any tier 3 tech.

A decent amount is about a control group (12) to me. And I don't think 12 swarm host worth locust should be able to do shit against a decently deffended terran base, however currently if you just wait long enough they will eventually kill some things off, unless mech commits a huge amount of their army to defending the sieged base.
FCReverie
Profile Joined April 2013
Australia103 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 12:30:04
June 27 2013 12:19 GMT
#10597
On June 27 2013 21:07 Lorch wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


Are we playing the same game? Tanks are currently 150/125/3, while swarm host are 200/100/3. Now while supplies are currently even, costs are most certainly not (especially since terran has entirely different min/gas ratio spending than zerg).
I don't think you understand meching, it is all about turtling and then doing your doom push. Now that doom push comes way way too late because you need way too much tanks to be able to leave your base, now if you'd buff tanks you could actually leave your base way earlier and possibly do a really scary push way before they can switch into any tier 3 tech.

A decent amount is about a control group (12) to me. And I don't think 12 swarm host worth locust should be able to do shit against a decently deffended terran base, however currently if you just wait long enough they will eventually kill some things off, unless mech commits a huge amount of their army to defending the sieged base.

I understand exactly how mech is and I think blizzard don't want that. It is shitty to watch and they are trying to make it a spectator game. If we want that kind of thing lets just bring infestor back up to how it was, nerf medivac and we can have BL infestor every game. Wait till 20-40 minutes and watch the 2 armies hit each other and whoever had more stuff going in wins. Turtling is boring and anything that promotes it should be nerfed. As Zerg there is no way That infestor bl shouldn't have been nerfed, Idk if you ever saw ZvP but it was shitty and frankly I am glad that Swarm Host, Viper makes mech basically obsolete. SH isn't a problem in ZvT it is a solution, however in ZvP it is a problem.

And in mech yes that isn't the same cost, but when adding tanks to bio it basically costs you 2 marines, considering you are never ever going to spend your gas on anything else unless it gets super late game and you throw down 4 tech labs on stargates.

EDIT:
At 2 SCVs/mineral and 3 SCVs/gas, a base with 8 minerals and 2 gas will harvest ~672 minerals and ~215 gas per game minute.
Meaning that per base you will have ~1/3 the gas income of mineral income meaning that swarm host cost 500 worth of minerals vs tanks 525. If you count it per base. If you count it by worker investment into gas and away from minerals Swarm host is actually more expensive. And then if you consider the tech cost of going to Swarm Host vs going tanks Swarm Host costs even more.

Then when you consider you need to upgrade Swarm Host to be good against tanks then it costs even more. Don't talk like tanks are such a drain. All you need is:
1 barracks (150)
1 factory(150,100)
1 tech lab(50,25)
(total 350 , 125)

vs:
Spawning pool (250)
Lair (150, 100)
Infestation Pit (150, 100)
Enduring Locusts (200, 200)
(total 550, 400)
Lorch
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany3686 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-27 12:33:42
June 27 2013 12:23 GMT
#10598
On June 27 2013 21:19 FCReverie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 21:07 Lorch wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


Are we playing the same game? Tanks are currently 150/125/3, while swarm host are 200/100/3. Now while supplies are currently even, costs are most certainly not (especially since terran has entirely different min/gas ratio spending than zerg).
I don't think you understand meching, it is all about turtling and then doing your doom push. Now that doom push comes way way too late because you need way too much tanks to be able to leave your base, now if you'd buff tanks you could actually leave your base way earlier and possibly do a really scary push way before they can switch into any tier 3 tech.

A decent amount is about a control group (12) to me. And I don't think 12 swarm host worth locust should be able to do shit against a decently deffended terran base, however currently if you just wait long enough they will eventually kill some things off, unless mech commits a huge amount of their army to defending the sieged base.

I understand exactly how mech is and I think blizzard don't want that. It is shitty to watch and they are trying to make it a spectator game. If we want that kind of thing lets just bring infestor back up to how it was, nerf medivac and we can have BL infestor every game. Wait till 20-40 minutes and watch the 2 armies hit each other and whoever had more stuff going in wins. Turtling is boring and anything that promotes it should be nerfed. As Zerg there is no way That infestor bl shouldn't have been nerfed, Idk if you ever saw ZvP but it was shitty and frankly I am glad that Swarm Host, Viper makes mech basically obsolete. SH isn't a problem in ZvT it is a solution, however in ZvP it is a problem.

And in mech yes that isn't the same cost, but when adding tanks to bio it basically costs you 2 marines, considering you are never ever going to spend your gas on anything else unless it gets super late game and you throw down 4 tech labs on stargates.


Well the first part is just blizzard making the game worse, because obv bio is more entertaining for lower league spectators (which is the majority). But the fact remains that meching makes it way better for terran playing pro gamer and probably also for the other side. Also you can't really say that mech is boring to watch when a vast majority of brood war (you know one of the biggest spectator sports of all time) was t meching. Also I fail to see how terran meching has anything to do with other races having to do the same thing. I don't say every race should play a mech kinda way, the joy of mech comes from it facing armies that are the complete opposite of mech. Also I don't even care about zvp when talking about buffing tanks. On top of that the issue pvz is way way deeper, given how broken of a race protoss is.

Also what has adding tanks to bio to do with meching? I couldn't care less about marine tank tbh.

When did I ever talk about tanks being such a drain? I don't wanna make them cheaper, I don't want to make them less supply (hell I'd even add siege mode upgrade in if I'd make the game), I want to buff their damage as it was nerfed way way back when all the maps were super small.
Zarahtra
Profile Joined May 2010
Iceland4053 Posts
June 27 2013 12:36 GMT
#10599
On June 27 2013 21:19 FCReverie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 21:07 Lorch wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


Are we playing the same game? Tanks are currently 150/125/3, while swarm host are 200/100/3. Now while supplies are currently even, costs are most certainly not (especially since terran has entirely different min/gas ratio spending than zerg).
I don't think you understand meching, it is all about turtling and then doing your doom push. Now that doom push comes way way too late because you need way too much tanks to be able to leave your base, now if you'd buff tanks you could actually leave your base way earlier and possibly do a really scary push way before they can switch into any tier 3 tech.

A decent amount is about a control group (12) to me. And I don't think 12 swarm host worth locust should be able to do shit against a decently deffended terran base, however currently if you just wait long enough they will eventually kill some things off, unless mech commits a huge amount of their army to defending the sieged base.

I understand exactly how mech is and I think blizzard don't want that. It is shitty to watch and they are trying to make it a spectator game. If we want that kind of thing lets just bring infestor back up to how it was, nerf medivac and we can have BL infestor every game. Wait till 20-40 minutes and watch the 2 armies hit each other and whoever had more stuff going in wins. Turtling is boring and anything that promotes it should be nerfed. As Zerg there is no way That infestor bl shouldn't have been nerfed, Idk if you ever saw ZvP but it was shitty and frankly I am glad that Swarm Host, Viper makes mech basically obsolete. SH isn't a problem in ZvT it is a solution, however in ZvP it is a problem.

And in mech yes that isn't the same cost, but when adding tanks to bio it basically costs you 2 marines, considering you are never ever going to spend your gas on anything else unless it gets super late game and you throw down 4 tech labs on stargates.

The difference between mech and infestor brood is, mech isn't the be it end all composition. Infestor broodlord was insanely boring since all you had to do was get 3 bases and wait for 15+ minutes and the opponent couldn't do a whole lot against it. Mech plays out very differently, where you are constantly harassing and after like 140 army supply, you need to be out on the map trying to trade, since if you don't, the zerg can bank to much and make fx. 40 mutas. Mech is slow but you need to be constantly repositioning and finding weak spots in your opponent. Broodlord infestor was "defend 3 bases, don't take to much dmg, hit 200/200 and then walk over and kill the opponent that can't do anything against it".
FCReverie
Profile Joined April 2013
Australia103 Posts
June 27 2013 12:38 GMT
#10600
On June 27 2013 21:23 Lorch wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 27 2013 21:19 FCReverie wrote:
On June 27 2013 21:07 Lorch wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:28 FCReverie wrote:
On June 27 2013 20:16 Lorch wrote:
Or they could just buff tanks again (and I'm not saying this due to flash saying it, cause I don't even care that much about the supply) by giving the mmore damage, remember it was lowered because we used to play on steppes of war. If say 5 tanks and pf are enough to defend easily against a decent number of swarm host, all you'd have to do is spread your army well and swarm host wouldn't be free win vs mech anymore. On top of that it would also help mech vs toss.
I really hate using nerfing to balance things, just buff other things if one race is too strong.

How many is a decent amount? Because I think in equal numbers tanks already win and cost the same amount as swarmhost and equal supply? We don't need to buff turtly units back up plz. That is the problem with the swarmhost in the first place, not that they beat tanks but that you can't push out against them but you can't not push out.


Are we playing the same game? Tanks are currently 150/125/3, while swarm host are 200/100/3. Now while supplies are currently even, costs are most certainly not (especially since terran has entirely different min/gas ratio spending than zerg).
I don't think you understand meching, it is all about turtling and then doing your doom push. Now that doom push comes way way too late because you need way too much tanks to be able to leave your base, now if you'd buff tanks you could actually leave your base way earlier and possibly do a really scary push way before they can switch into any tier 3 tech.

A decent amount is about a control group (12) to me. And I don't think 12 swarm host worth locust should be able to do shit against a decently deffended terran base, however currently if you just wait long enough they will eventually kill some things off, unless mech commits a huge amount of their army to defending the sieged base.

I understand exactly how mech is and I think blizzard don't want that. It is shitty to watch and they are trying to make it a spectator game. If we want that kind of thing lets just bring infestor back up to how it was, nerf medivac and we can have BL infestor every game. Wait till 20-40 minutes and watch the 2 armies hit each other and whoever had more stuff going in wins. Turtling is boring and anything that promotes it should be nerfed. As Zerg there is no way That infestor bl shouldn't have been nerfed, Idk if you ever saw ZvP but it was shitty and frankly I am glad that Swarm Host, Viper makes mech basically obsolete. SH isn't a problem in ZvT it is a solution, however in ZvP it is a problem.

And in mech yes that isn't the same cost, but when adding tanks to bio it basically costs you 2 marines, considering you are never ever going to spend your gas on anything else unless it gets super late game and you throw down 4 tech labs on stargates.


Well the first part is just blizzard making the game worse, because obv bio is more entertaining for lower league spectators (which is the majority). But the fact remains that meching makes it way better for terran playing pro gamer and probably also for the other side. Also you can't really say that mech is boring to watch when a vast majority of brood war (you know one of the biggest spectator sports of all time) was t meching. Also I fail to see how terran meching has anything to do with other races having to do the same thing. I don't say every race should play a mech kinda way, the joy of mech comes from it facing armies that are the complete opposite of mech. Also I don't even care about zvp when talking about buffing tanks. On top of that the issue pvz is way way deeper, given how broken of a race protoss is.

Also what has adding tanks to bio to do with meching? I couldn't care less about marine tank tbh.

Well it was what I was considering when I was talking about cost. I could actually care less for mech. It is nothing like Brood war mech, you would have to change all 3 races completely for current Terran mech to be anything like what it was in Brood war. And what do you mean it is better for gamers? A pro gamers job is to win with whatever tools Blizzard gives them. If Blizzard wants Bio to be strong for spectators then that is what pro gamers have to learn. Don't like it change race. Simple as that. Fan #s is where pro gamers get their money, without sponsors there is no esports and you know what loses fans? Long boring games where nothing happens (see WoL before the tranistion into HotS)

If the joy of mech kind of play comes from beating someone who isn't going mech kind of play then what does it matter if Zerg has the better mech kind of play? Why do you think that has to be Terran that gets it? The races are nothing like what they were in Broodwar. Warpgate and chronoboost changed Protoss completely. Mules turned Terran more Zerg(BW) than Zerg. The only race the slightly resembles its former self is Zerg and even that is a long shot.
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