|
On August 13 2013 05:16 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 05:08 Big J wrote:
(not that Jaedong played well, but that was absolutly not one of those "you traded army for economy, but don't have enough to stop me"-type of mistakes that you imply) Of course it was, didn't you see how Jaedong only had 30 mutas and a handful of lings/banes for army? He never had the 55-60 supply of lings/banes necessary to crush Polt's army in order to capitalize on the eco damage.
No it wasn't! Because he built those mutalisks after the damage was done. (That's one thing I mean with "not that Jaedong played well")
It's a completely different thing, a macro/strategy mistake. But how on earth does Jaedong making mistakes at 17-18mins mean that Polt was allin at 21mins? (not to mention that I believe the real problem wasn't too many mutas, but simply that any form of engagement that does not kill the Terran is inefficient, so Jaedong playing aggressive was the whole crux of the matches. The way to play ZvT is like Soulkey, or like Jaedong has done at MLG or like every Protoss has ever played against Terran: 20min turtle game and then crush 200supply of lategame units into the bio; anything else plays into the hands of bio more often than it helps you)
|
I think it was Rabiator who suggested having choices between several units at different points in the tech tree as a way to increase the number of strategic choices? In any case, someone suggested it, but I figured that terran already works this way. Let's say you have some core units that every terran has (marine, medivac, battlecruiser), then some doubles where you have to make a choice between units with overlapping roles: viking/thor (anti-air), widow mine/tank (area damage), hellion/hellbat (core mech army units), banshee/raven (air support), marauder/reaper (support for marines in various scenarios), ghost/[new-unit] (spell casting). You could also partner ravens and ghosts (spell casting), or banshees and ghosts (cloak), or banshees and hellions (harass) maybe. Marine/marauder is also possible, partnering ghosts/reaper as infantry specialty unit.
Obviously not all of these units have completely overlapping roles and in some cases the best choice to make is rather clear, but I think what's interesting is that this resembles terran gameplay to a certain extent. You don't have to build thors because vikings are a better choice, you don't have to build banshees because of superior options available, you don't build tanks because widow mines are better etc. Many people don't even build marauders if they can avoid it since marines are slightly stronger in many situations. People tend to like how terran plays though, some go as far as to call them a 'complete race', even with all this redundancy. Maybe Blizzard can add lurkers without stepping on the baneling's toes then.  (easy to stumble over burrowed banelings)
|
On August 13 2013 05:08 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 04:20 plogamer wrote:On August 13 2013 04:03 Hryul wrote:On August 13 2013 00:38 Vanadiel wrote:On August 13 2013 00:01 Big J wrote:On August 12 2013 22:26 Snowbear wrote:Zergs will keep on losing when they refuse hardcore to step away from 20 minutes of muta ling bane. Zergs who understand this: - Hyun - TLO - Scarlett. Scarlett vs alive: + Show Spoiler +Alive had a 5k bank, maxed army. Scarlett had a 160 supply army, 500 bank. Scarlett won. How? By switching to hive tech in time, and by adding infestors. Infestors are still goddamn cost efficiënt, but zergs think that they are not good enough atm. Why? I don't know.. Zergs refused to switch to infestor style in WOL too. Stephano had to play it for almost a year before the korean zergs took it over. Everyone kept copying idra's ling bling muta style. I'm 100% sure that we will soon see more infestors and hive again, and I promise that zergs will do sick well. Another composition is the roach ling bling, which is actually insanely hard to kill. Hyun and TLO know this, and that's the reason of their success. what the fuck are you even talking about. Zergs will keep on losing when they refuse hardcore to step away from 20 minutes of muta ling bane Scarlett vs alive: Scarlett DID play over 20mins of muta/ling/bane. Zergs who understand this:
- Hyun
- TLO
- Scarlett. funny, a little time ago Terrans like you kept on saying that Soulkey, Life and Jaedong are the best ZvT players in the world. They get stomped and suddenly Scarlett, Hyun and TLO are on that list to "watch out for their playstyle". Another composition is the roach ling bling, which is actually insanely hard to kill. Hyun and TLO know this, and that's the reason of their success. Wtf are you talking about? TLO nearly always plays muta/ling/bling. And though I believe roach/baneling is a solid midgame style, Hyun's does not have major success with it against top Koreans (such as Polt or Taeja). It's a different (yet very similar) playstyle to muta/ling/bling with a little extra brute force in the midgame, and a little worse dropdefense and lategame transition. and about that aLive game. How Scarlett won you ask? By playing a mistakefree ling/bling/muta style into ultralisks and then transitioning into the most SUPPLYEFFICIENT zerg army while starving aLive. SUPPLYefficient as in: If you are close to max you rather want one infestor than 4banelings. While when you are not playing close to max 10mins - like in Scarlett vs aLive - and you need units that actually do shit before they have built up energy over the course of 3mins, you can't afford to to rely on a newly spawned infestor to bring some marines into the yellow instead of those 4banelings. That's what we call COSTINEFFICIENT. It's funny, you mention that roach/baneling style and then you do a pisspoor job of knowing who actually plays that style and who doesn't. Though it's pretty easy to tell who regularily plays that style and who doesn't: Hyun plays it, noone else regularily. Some other zergs mix it in, but for the most part only if they went for a roach/bane bust in the midgame and the game didn't end then and there. Edit: and btw, didn't you show around a bunch of TvZ winrates to show that Zergs are not losing. And now you come in and say that Zergs will *keep* on losing if they don't change their playstyle... By the way, Alive did not play bio mine style, but a more drop focus kind of game. I finally did catch up the vod from yesterday finals, game 3 is a little bit ridiculous, yes you can dig in and try to find mistakes from JD to explain why he lost, but lets be honest Polt on that particular game didn't play really well and made a lot of big mistakes. He got big hit from baneling and baneling landmine, lost 50 VCS to baneling runby (seen by his army but never reacted to it) while JD had 4 base saturated and a fifth base to back it up. JD had a huge economy lead, big supply lead (+60 at some point) and good engagement with baneling landmine, and to think it wasn't enough is kinda shocking. Sorry, but that's just "selective perception" from your part. For example: the oh so famed baneling bombs usually featured 10+ banelings. this is gas that JD could have spent on tech to get the hive out earlier. Also runbys with a dozen lings usually kill a lot of scv without the need of gas, or 4 banelings damage a mineralline heavily. And as we all saw in that game: 3/3 is a ticking timebomb, especially against mutas w/o armor. So it can easily be argued that these banelings unintenionally did more harm than good. Absolutely. In game 3, Polt was on roughly even army supply (lost lots harvesters lost) and ahead on upgrades. He pushes and Jaedong charges into choke. Takes a big supply lead as a result of the upgrade advantage + choke position advantage. Polt wins. And then some people QQ because they can't see that Polt was all-in at that point. He had no follow-up with a broken economy. Yes he won, but he won due to an army already ready to hit Jaedong.TLDR: Game 3, Polt's army had roughly even supply, better upgrades, better position and Jaedong's army had similar supply, worse upgrade, and bad position (a choke) At which point was Polt allin? You mean after Jaedong had killed 30workers and a 50supply/10army lead (~170 vs ~120) against an opponent who had 2-2 vs 1-1 at 16mins? Because Jaedong crushed that push Polt did at that time, and if that was allin Polt would have lost. Or do you mean the 2-2 vs 2-2 skirmishes between 18mins and 20mins after which Jaedong had a 50supply/10army lead (~170 vs ~120 again)? Because Jaedong didn't take any damage from those, and if that was allin Polt would have lost. Or do you mean the 3-3 vs 2-2 battle at 21mins with Jaedong 50supply/10army in the lead (~190 vs ~140) where he pushed through and won the game? I'd really like to know, because Polts economy was basically unchanged after 16mins, yet you call the last situation "allin", while the exact same "bad" scenario had already allowed him to play toe-to-toe with Jaedong for 5mins. Which suggests that he could do it for another long, long periode of time (assuming he knows how to lift that natural CC as the minerals were running out). TLDR: Polt played a normal paradepush game with ~40workers+3mules on 2mining bases against a zerg on 84workers on 3mining bases. (not that Jaedong played well, but that was absolutly not one of those "you traded army for economy, but don't have enough to stop me"-type of mistakes that you imply)
Polt's 'paradepush' was going to grind to a halt eventually. It may not seem that way since JD's engagements were really poor and allowed Polt to retain a lot of momentum in his final push.
If JD had 1 good army trade - He would have resupplied and Polt would have nothing. <- That never happened, his harass actually drove Polt to start pushing in deeper. (against which he decided to charge into the choke)
All-in may not have been the best expression, since people have so many notions of it. It was however, it was an all or nothing army for Polt after taking so much econ damage. He would not have the money to resupply if he lost his entire army.
|
About the balance test :
Not a big fan about the viper buff, it will get way too strong against protoss I fear, while still kind of useless against bio+mines when playing a ling based army, either ling mutalisk or ling infestor. However, It can be a non negligeable buff for roach hydra in ZvT.
To be honest I would be much more inclined to make such as blinding cloud also affects the widow mine instead of buffing their energy, they are almost useless against bio mines anyway, no matter how much energy they have.
About the overseer buff, geez they took their time, it was obvious since the beta that overseer needed it just to keep up with the speed of the army.
|
Another reversal of a trend, ZvT in the three challenger leagues (EU, AM, KR) is Z 12 > 10 T. (Someone check the calculations I did in my head, please.) These seem to be rather even results and also some results you would not immediately expect (Targa>ForGG, Keen>Leenock, Byun>Life, etc).
|
On August 13 2013 07:45 Vanadiel wrote:
About the balance test :
Not a big fan about the viper buff, it will get way too strong against protoss I fear, while still kind of useless against bio+mines when playing a ling based army, either ling mutalisk or ling infestor. However, It can be a non negligeable buff for roach hydra in ZvT.
To be honest I would be much more inclined to make such as blinding cloud also affects the widow mine instead of buffing their energy, they are almost useless against bio mines anyway, no matter how much energy they have.
About the overseer buff, geez they took their time, it was obvious since the beta that overseer needed it just to keep up with the speed of the army.
The Viper buff is stupid, mainly because Vipers are a brutal strong as they are and definitely don't need a straight up buff.
And in particular, it does not sound like it would tackle anything that zergs struggle with. It will mainly strengthen roach/hydra/viper timings against Protoss and make them very expandable units, as (re)building them so that they rally in after you run out of energy on the first Vipers may even be superior in certain situations, than flying home, regenerating, flying back to the battle.
|
United States15275 Posts
On August 13 2013 07:48 Ghanburighan wrote:
Another reversal of a trend, ZvT in the three challenger leagues (EU, AM, KR) is Z 12 > 10 T. (Someone check the calculations I did in my head, please.) These seem to be rather even results and also some results you would not immediately expect (Targa>ForGG, Keen>Leenock, Byun>Life, etc).
Well Byun over Life wasn't an indication of anything. Life defended the proxy reaper attack successfully until the very end, and his mistake in positioning decided the game once 9 drones died.
|
On August 13 2013 04:00 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 03:48 fdsdfg wrote:On August 13 2013 03:20 plogamer wrote:On August 13 2013 00:43 Mocking wrote:
Hive tech are not that good vs a Bio player, yes Hive is the only answer to 3-3 bio/mine but hive units are less mobile than muta/bling, have you tried to hold a drop if ultras? This is fucking hard.
And try to kill a terran base using infestors/ultra is hard, marauders kill ultras so fast and infestors need to land a hell of good fungals vs a player who only need to split (yeah is hard to split, but to a pro-gamer? not that much).
Yeah, BLs can be useful if the terran economy is bad or gets when they dont expect BLs. Zergs are a good and strong race, but to kill their opponents are hard at the later stage of the game.
Retain mutas. Retain your fucking mutas. They regen like a reaper and they are super duper fast. They regen at half the speed of a reaper, and with 2x the HP, it's effectively 1/4 the speed. Doing damage with mutas while never letting them die is simply impossible in a world with widow mines and marines. Say that to Scarlett. Her muta retention was fantastic against Alive - which allowed her to get not-only ultras, but even broodlords. Mutas serve a bigger purpose than doing damage - denying drops. Sure if you want to commit to damage, you will trade mutas. But you don't need to. Just having enough muta on field deters drops. Since when is having more HP a problem for retaining units? 2x hp = 2x more buffer to pull back hurt mutas and let them regen. Reapers have a 10 second delay for their regen, mutas don't. Point is that mutas will regen back to full if you simply don't lose them.
Why do people source one game? Just say it: Keeping mutalisks alive is hard when there are marines and widow mines. Plain and simple. Can it be done? Sure. But it is REALLY hard.
|
On August 13 2013 08:05 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 07:45 Vanadiel wrote:
About the balance test :
Not a big fan about the viper buff, it will get way too strong against protoss I fear, while still kind of useless against bio+mines when playing a ling based army, either ling mutalisk or ling infestor. However, It can be a non negligeable buff for roach hydra in ZvT.
To be honest I would be much more inclined to make such as blinding cloud also affects the widow mine instead of buffing their energy, they are almost useless against bio mines anyway, no matter how much energy they have.
About the overseer buff, geez they took their time, it was obvious since the beta that overseer needed it just to keep up with the speed of the army. The Viper buff is stupid, mainly because Vipers are a brutal strong as they are and definitely don't need a straight up buff. And in particular, it does not sound like it would tackle anything that zergs struggle with. It will mainly strengthen roach/hydra/viper timings against Protoss and make them very expandable units, as (re)building them so that they rally in after you run out of energy on the first Vipers may even be superior in certain situations, than flying home, regenerating, flying back to the battle.
Whoa, yeah I didn't think about that. Neat.
|
On August 13 2013 07:48 Ghanburighan wrote:
Another reversal of a trend, ZvT in the three challenger leagues (EU, AM, KR) is Z 12 > 10 T. (Someone check the calculations I did in my head, please.) These seem to be rather even results and also some results you would not immediately expect (Targa>ForGG, Keen>Leenock, Byun>Life, etc).
This may be true, but as a Terran player I do think that at the highest level Bio-mine is a bit too good against zerg. Mines are just too cheap.
Also I wouldn't mind seeing some variety. How cool would it be if bio mine, bio tank, and mech were all equally viable, and the match up was balanced? I think thats the promised land for ZvT. Don't know if we will ever reach it though
|
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too.
|
I love how everyone talks here mostly about the lesser talented leagues of Europe and America.
Those poor Scarlett or Jeadong or Vortix are way behind Soulkey or Symbol who got crushed in Korea (3-1 and 3-0) in round of 8.
I agree there is no balance problem at our level, but at the pro level it is clearly ridiculous to try and admit the opposite.
The games are just hilarious. In ZvT, Terran can afford to lose many fights and make a lot of mistakes and still come back.
If Zerg does one mistake he loses.
Not to take anything from Polt or Duckdoek but there is a massive gap between them and korean players playing in WCS Korea.
I like the ability from Overseer to cast detection upon friendly unit. This would prevent for example getting 60% of your muta ball crushed by three mines because the lazy overseer is half way behind.
|
On August 13 2013 09:42 TheRabidDeer wrote:
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too.
And widow mines don't have 13 range. Each has advantages, just because tanks aren't great in current TvZ doesn't mean they'll never be used again
|
I def think the viper needs to be made viable because it is a cool caster unit and the game lacks caster units that require some degree of micro and are fun to watch. Perhaps drastically reduce the rate that consume takes away health on buildings/increase energy addition rate? That way you don't have to babysit them as much for fear of destroying a building.
Starting with full energy to me is the same as taking away siege tank upgrade, or making spores not require an evo, etc etc. It is yet another change that speeds up the game for no real reason, and instead of fixing things they are just speeding up when you can get things to help offset the imbalance which is terrible. We are slowly getting to the point where you'll start the game at hive tech automatically. This game is so fundamentally screwed up at this point, I'm not sure if it can be saved.
|
On August 13 2013 10:26 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 09:42 TheRabidDeer wrote:
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too. And widow mines don't have 13 range. Each has advantages, just because tanks aren't great in current TvZ doesn't mean they'll never be used again
Range is largely nullified by the fact that you cant see them. Siege tank range only comes into play when hitting a base really, at least for ZvT. They do only fire once though.
|
On August 13 2013 10:40 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 10:26 ChristianS wrote:On August 13 2013 09:42 TheRabidDeer wrote:
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too. And widow mines don't have 13 range. Each has advantages, just because tanks aren't great in current TvZ doesn't mean they'll never be used again Range is largely nullified by the fact that you cant see them. Siege tank range only comes into play when hitting a base really, at least for ZvT. They do only fire once though.
I actually think at some point some tank/mine compositions might have some promise. Tanks make you want to push suddenly and all at once to eat as few tank shots as possible before closing the gap, and widow mines are particularly effective when the enemy pushes suddenly and all at once. For the moment the way the game is structured I don't know how you'd get there and make a decent timing push, but some day it could really be quite strong.
|
United States15275 Posts
On August 13 2013 11:00 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 10:40 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 13 2013 10:26 ChristianS wrote:On August 13 2013 09:42 TheRabidDeer wrote:
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too. And widow mines don't have 13 range. Each has advantages, just because tanks aren't great in current TvZ doesn't mean they'll never be used again Range is largely nullified by the fact that you cant see them. Siege tank range only comes into play when hitting a base really, at least for ZvT. They do only fire once though. I actually think at some point some tank/mine compositions might have some promise. Tanks make you want to push suddenly and all at once to eat as few tank shots as possible before closing the gap, and widow mines are particularly effective when the enemy pushes suddenly and all at once. For the moment the way the game is structured I don't know how you'd get there and make a decent timing push, but some day it could really be quite strong.
You can use a modified version of Polt's old 3 factory 2/2 push off 3 base.
|
On August 13 2013 06:49 Grumbels wrote:I think it was Rabiator who suggested having choices between several units at different points in the tech tree as a way to increase the number of strategic choices? In any case, someone suggested it, but I figured that terran already works this way. Let's say you have some core units that every terran has (marine, medivac, battlecruiser), then some doubles where you have to make a choice between units with overlapping roles: viking/thor (anti-air), widow mine/tank (area damage), hellion/hellbat (core mech army units), banshee/raven (air support), marauder/reaper (support for marines in various scenarios), ghost/[new-unit] (spell casting). You could also partner ravens and ghosts (spell casting), or banshees and ghosts (cloak), or banshees and hellions (harass) maybe. Marine/marauder is also possible, partnering ghosts/reaper as infantry specialty unit. Obviously not all of these units have completely overlapping roles and in some cases the best choice to make is rather clear, but I think what's interesting is that this resembles terran gameplay to a certain extent. You don't have to build thors because vikings are a better choice, you don't have to build banshees because of superior options available, you don't build tanks because widow mines are better etc. Many people don't even build marauders if they can avoid it since marines are slightly stronger in many situations. People tend to like how terran plays though, some go as far as to call them a 'complete race', even with all this redundancy. Maybe Blizzard can add lurkers without stepping on the baneling's toes then. (easy to stumble over burrowed banelings)
Adding more and more units will only make the game "muddier" in that each unit loses its distinction or special feel. Only by forcing a choice between units BEFORE THE GAME can you keep the number of unit types down to a manageable number. This is a benefit for both the player AND the game designer (who has to balance each new unit against fewer other units).
EDIT: Forcing a choice before the game also keeps the game fresh for the spectator since there could be a lot more variety in the game due to potentially rather large number of units to choose from. In the current "all units are available" scenario people will build the most efficient unit combo, but what if they did choose a unit which was good for one specialized job and then didnt have the other unit available which was good for the rest? Forcing "less than optimal combos" is good, because it keeps the game from being played at a "perfect" level FROM THE UNIT POWER, so the player has to make up for this by sheer skill and ingenuity!
|
On August 13 2013 12:26 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 06:49 Grumbels wrote:I think it was Rabiator who suggested having choices between several units at different points in the tech tree as a way to increase the number of strategic choices? In any case, someone suggested it, but I figured that terran already works this way. Let's say you have some core units that every terran has (marine, medivac, battlecruiser), then some doubles where you have to make a choice between units with overlapping roles: viking/thor (anti-air), widow mine/tank (area damage), hellion/hellbat (core mech army units), banshee/raven (air support), marauder/reaper (support for marines in various scenarios), ghost/[new-unit] (spell casting). You could also partner ravens and ghosts (spell casting), or banshees and ghosts (cloak), or banshees and hellions (harass) maybe. Marine/marauder is also possible, partnering ghosts/reaper as infantry specialty unit. Obviously not all of these units have completely overlapping roles and in some cases the best choice to make is rather clear, but I think what's interesting is that this resembles terran gameplay to a certain extent. You don't have to build thors because vikings are a better choice, you don't have to build banshees because of superior options available, you don't build tanks because widow mines are better etc. Many people don't even build marauders if they can avoid it since marines are slightly stronger in many situations. People tend to like how terran plays though, some go as far as to call them a 'complete race', even with all this redundancy. Maybe Blizzard can add lurkers without stepping on the baneling's toes then. (easy to stumble over burrowed banelings) Adding more and more units will only make the game "muddier" in that each unit loses its distinction or special feel. Only by forcing a choice between units BEFORE THE GAME can you keep the number of unit types down to a manageable number. This is a benefit for both the player AND the game designer (who has to balance each new unit against fewer other units). EDIT: Forcing a choice before the game also keeps the game fresh for the spectator since there could be a lot more variety in the game due to potentially rather large number of units to choose from. In the current "all units are available" scenario people will build the most efficient unit combo, but what if they did choose a unit which was good for one specialized job and then didnt have the other unit available which was good for the rest? Forcing "less than optimal combos" is good, because it keeps the game from being played at a "perfect" level FROM THE UNIT POWER, so the player has to make up for this by sheer skill and ingenuity!
I think so. Personally I never feel while playing chess that maybe the game would be more interesting if it had new units or new maps. And I felt that Brood War was engaging despite the strategy being almost pre-set per map (1 2) (and BW is actually worse in terms of having all units be useful in all match-ups compared to SC2).
But we have to account for the fact that people cheer when Blizzard buffs underused units, even saying that is one of the primary tasks in balancing the game. And I haven't yet heard any arguments that the new units in HotS make the game too cluttered (even if as I showed terran has a decent amount of redundancy). And we have to accept that there is a lot of excitement around games such as DotA&LoL that have depth primarily due to the high number of choices available to you (which ensures no two games are alike and which rewards in-game decision making as opposed to playing out build orders -- DotA really is Magic the Gathering in an action setting ). And of course there even exist many chess variants that are quite popular, a famous one being 'Shuffle Chess' which prevents memorization of opening lines.(link)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
