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On January 12 2012 14:19 Sabu113 wrote:
Agree with most of the post though these are issues raised before. I think the one component you're missing is talk about "snow-ball" units. In particular, I think comparing Mutas in PvZ between the games makes quite clear that Mutas in sc2 pvz have serious issues. Somewhat the same can be said about collosi (4-5 collosi and htings melt though i think they're more "solveable" than mutas though still as you say undesireable). Also think you can make a technical point about fungal vs storm/ general utility of spellcasters in the whole design of races but over all nice post.
All air snowballs because of the air stacking effect. There's just pretty bad area control for p anti air.
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I disagree with OP mostly. Examples cited take things to extremes and fail to make coherent points sometimes.
Sure the chess game with all pawns is more boring than regular chess, and sure the chess game with the Juggernaut is more boring than regular chess, but there ARE pawns in chess and there ARE queens in chess. That is the nature of things. Just like there are roaches and colossi.
Not being able to retreat is frustrating, but Sentries and Marauders aren't the only cases of this. They may be important mentions because these units have special abilities that remove the retreat ability, but other units have traits that make retreat impossible. Most of the time when a Terran pushes out against Zerg, he knows that his push must do damage because it isn't coming back home (thinking zerglings here). When doing drops against a Zerg, often they are one-way because the way mutalisks control the skies.
I also disagree about the phoenix. It's ability to move and shoot is different but gives it unique ability to kite units normally unkitable.
I agree on some things like the removal of the thor being a good thing, and about seige tanks being too weak, and space control in general being too weak.
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Mmmm... could people do anything about Stasis in BW? EMP the arbiter before it got close enough to cast spell. Kinda the same with sentry/HT and ghost battle, except ghosts can cloak and there's no mass cloak for protoss :O
Could people do anything about Dark Swarm? Get your fucking units out of the cloud and spread out units + splsh dmg attacks
There's dance matches with HT and ghosts, graviton beams and choosing which pheonix to do it with, spreading out units to minimize AoE damage from storm or fungals. I think there's actually a lot of micro involved. These micro-reducing abilities are actually promoting more micro from both players.
Yet I do think FF should be changed, or maybe the toughness of protoss units should make a comeback because early game is just so sentry dependent, even with static defense with forge + cannons.
And I agree with map control and just slamming two armies against each other. I'd like to see more in depth gameplay than just massing units and ending it with one battle.
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On January 12 2012 14:03 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 13:54 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Wait, you're complaining that Tanks aren't powerful enough? Don't they already define two matchups and serve crucial roles in powerful all-ins for the third? The only useful thing about superpowerful Siege Tanks is that I always know who to root for thanks to them: Zerg in SC2 and Protoss in SCBW.
I really hate the Colossus though. If you want area control, just look back at Warp-in Storm. Anywhere you had Pylon coverage you could bring considerable force to bear at the cost of 150 gas a shot, but when moving out of Pylon coverage you were vulnerable. Those were the best days of spectated PvT. But because lategame Colossus/High Templar was too powerful, they chose to remove Khaydarin Amulet to save the Colossus. And then they nerfed EMP to compensate for crippled Templar. They should have just killed the Colossus and kept the Templar/Ghost dynamic - Warp-in Storms providing a considerable defensive advantage, but powerful Ghosts picking them off if they tried to be agressive. Then the game would really have been about slowly pushing Pylon coverage across the map. Gah. It could have been so beautiful, but instead it was killed off in its prime. So sad.
Colossi are also responsible for the existence of the Corrupter, another incredibly boring unit. You can't tell me Corrupters exist for any purpose other than countering Colossi (and making Brood Lords). Warp-in Storms was pretty ridiculous. That really makes it almost impossible to do counterattacks against toss. That's going to lead to less interesting games in general. Your solution is actually make less options in the game so templar are so much better? I mean templar are already pretty damn awesome against Terran and it's very common to see chargelot/templar even now. Blizzard clearly made sensible choices in those nerfs. Though I will definitely agree that corruptors are boring and lame.
Except you miss the point. Even if Warp-in Storms had been too powerful (which I disagree with), that's a balance issue, not a design one, which is the point of this thread.
You say Warp-in Storms make it almost impossible to do counterattacks against the Protoss. That may be true, but that's the entire point. Because the flip side that you're ignoring, is that they're exceedingly weak on the offensive. They're slow, they're vulnerable, and they have no capacity for prolonged combat - once they've blown their energy, they're out of the action. And mind you that this would mean reversing the Ghost nerfs - not only the blast area nerf, but also letting them take out all their target's energy instead of just 100. Hell, let them take out all the Shields too, as in Brood War. And if it isn't balanced, that can be worked on. The point of this thread is that this makes for a more interesting game dynamic.
So in this case, it may be almost impossible to counterattack the Protoss, but that's the point: just because you've won the deathball engagement doesn't mean you've won. And the flipside is the same: just because the Protoss won doesn't mean he can kill you, because instead of Colossi he has slow, vulnerable Templar to try to attack you. This leads to the desired effect: vying for area control. Pushing into area the Protoss controls is an uphill battle because of the Warp-in Storms, but moving out of that area means the Protoss is vulnerable to getting simply wiped out by EMPs. Thus, the Protoss would have to push out with Pylon coverage in order to be agressive, and the Terran would be responsible for taking out Pylons much like Protoss/Terrans need to take out Tumours in their vZ matchup.
Incidentally, that's one thing I'm disappointed the OP didn't bring up. The Creep mechanics in SC2 are one of the most brilliant things in the sequel. If there's one thing I wish could be retrofitted into Brood War, it's Creep mechanics.
Anyways, "impossible to do counterattacks" is the way Protoss have lived with PvT for years. In Brood War, the way you did a counterattack was to take your most expensive, end-tech caster, suicide it into the enemy base, Recall your army while praying to Adun you weren't over a Spider Minefield, and hope you managed to deal enough damage before your sacrificial army was inevitably wiped out to the last man. Your "impossible counterattacks" at least instantly cost the Protoss hundreds of gas on the spot. And it's not like a MULE where the resource acquisition is merely delayed. That gas is never coming back.
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On January 12 2012 15:11 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Incidentally, that's one thing I'm disappointed the OP didn't bring up. The Creep mechanics in SC2 are one of the most brilliant things in the sequel. If there's one thing I wish could be retrofitted into Brood War, it's Creep mechanics.
I didn't bring it up because it's actually a good mechanic. The post was long as hell already, and I didn't want to rant about all the things I did like, because that's just circlejerking. That kind of stuff belongs in blogs. If it works, ignoring it is good enough.
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Great article, and it's not stale because the problems still exist.
We can't help but make comparisons to BW, when SC2 took BW spells and made them less dynamic. Had the spells been completely different, we may not make comparisons, but since they are so similar, we cannot ignore them.
EG - In BW, a Fungal LIke ability SLOWED units, so they could still survive if micro'd well enough.
EG - Casting animation for EMP made it more predictive and reliant on intuition, making the skill ceiling higher and micro more exciting on both sides.
EG - In BW, there were fewer high-supply units and overlapping units, so armies felt bigger and were bigger
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On January 12 2012 15:20 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 15:11 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Incidentally, that's one thing I'm disappointed the OP didn't bring up. The Creep mechanics in SC2 are one of the most brilliant things in the sequel. If there's one thing I wish could be retrofitted into Brood War, it's Creep mechanics.
I didn't bring it up because it's actually a good mechanic. The post was long as hell already, and I didn't want to rant about all the things I did like, because that's just circlejerking. That kind of stuff belongs in blogs. If it works, ignoring it is good enough.
Ah, I see.
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Pretty good all around sum up. Hope blizzard understands that adding more micro opportunities, and raising the skill ceiling isn't necessarily making the game like bw, thus hurting their feelings/egos.
And I mean it, sometimes they are scared about even talking about things related to bw, kinda like insecure guys.
Get alpha come on.
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i think the shredder is a perfect example of why the current design trend is bad.
you can't micro against it like spider mines, you have to have certain number of units or certain type of unit.
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I thought this article was about the aesthetic design of the units.
Thirty seconds in my eyes crossed.
They're stuck.
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One thing I am a bit confused on is in the previous post, you complain about deathball play. But in this post, you point out abillities that you don't like in their current state that happen to be very effective against deathball play (fungal, and force fields).
I don't think there is such thing as a unit or abillity that discourages micro. I agree with many design posts on how they could change an abillity due to its damage and/or current effect on gameplay, but I feel like you are only looking at the abillity from one point and not seeing the bigger picture. For colossi in deathballs, the only micro you have to do for the unit itself, it position it correctly, focus fire on important units, and/or make sure that its splash is optimized. But what about defending the colossi? what about making sure stalkers defend it from vikings? How many stalkers should you commit to anti-air and how many should you commit to ground? It seems to encourage army micro more that singular unit micro.
Some of your posts also seem to be focused more on aesthetics on how you would see a battle rather than a spot on post. Roachs for example, require the same amount of micro in groups as do hydras in broodwar, yet you dislike them because, they are not IMBA anymore (if you think 2 armor, above ground regeneration, 1 supply roach is balanced, i don't know what to tell you), the hydralisk is not seen enough (which is true, but I feel like they will see a boost in use with new stratagies, better micro, and the HOTS speed upgrade), and because they seem to be the only unit massed in certain attacks. Similar scenerios are for static defenses, and the phoenix.
I can understand where you're coming from and agree with some of what you said, but perhaps you should reevaluate more carefully some of your points from a holistic point of view. A good example brought up is your seige tank example. seige tanks are far from useless in map control, especially in TvT, TvZ, and TvMVP.
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I alwasy knew colossus was bad for a reason, now Im sure it has to do with walking over friendly units. It has no "bump" or "dither" against other units, it has no need to jockey for positioning, and oh yeah, it fires ridiculously fast with high damage for good AoE efficiency. Its a problem unit precisely because it inverts all the rules the reaver ran by:
slow, high damage, slow RoF, can get blocked so it cant get in range, has to maneuver to get in range. Colossus? As long as there's ground, just A click and it gets in range instantly and starts firing. Does not impede your units and is not impeded, so it can always apply damage. Terran and Zerg just don't have a unit like that. No race had a unit like this in brood war.
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On January 12 2012 14:29 freeshooter wrote:
Mmmm... could people do anything about Stasis in BW? EMP the arbiter before it got close enough to cast spell. Kinda the same with sentry/HT and ghost battle, except ghosts can cloak and there's no mass cloak for protoss :O
You're pretty invalid by the way.
Arbiters cloak all the things.
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I agree to a certain extent with the OP, though I think that some points are rather exaggerated.
One key point the OP is missing (or at least fails to emphasize) though is how the design of one unit/building can have a chain reaction on the rest. The OP hints at this with the "juggernaut" archetype, but it goes further than that.
It's easy to see this on the protoss side. Warp gates force gateway units to be weaker, which results in 2 things: 1) weaker gateway units are one reason warp gate needs to be better than gateways; and 2) weak gateway units necessitate a very strong higher tech unit, and with the focus on balanced play on all leagues, this unit needs to be a-moveable. Hence the colossus.
The colossus in turn forces other races to have very strong anti-armored-air, namely vikings and corruptors. They are so strong that they contribute the general deficiencies of capital ships, especially carriers. In fact, corruptors feel so out of place in the game - they don't have good synergy with any other unit, and were added merely to counter very specific units.
I'm simplifying things a lot here - this obviously isn't the whole picture - but it provides a good example of a how one bad apple can have more significant-than-expected impact on the game as a whole.
With that said, a bad apple can often be turned into a good one without even touching it, namely by tweaking counters or synergies of other units.
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On January 12 2012 17:07 Pronkers wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 14:29 freeshooter wrote:
Mmmm... could people do anything about Stasis in BW? EMP the arbiter before it got close enough to cast spell. Kinda the same with sentry/HT and ghost battle, except ghosts can cloak and there's no mass cloak for protoss :O You're pretty invalid by the way. Arbiters cloak all the things.
He was talking about Starcraft 2, for which protoss have very little access to cloak via the Mamaship, who is going to be completely removed soon anyway.
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Great article/post. I agree with what's been said.
My two biggest issues are probably:
While the roach still has some micro (I'm like the one one that seems to micro them), I HATE what Blizzard did to the unit in more ways than one.
Colossus and to a lesser degree force fields are really dumb designs (as they currently are — not as they could be)
It would be interesting to hear what the OP has to say about the HotS units, even though it's very speculative. I would read what others have to say about HotS, but 12 pages is hard to go through.
The viper is an obvious unit that removes control from a player, but I don't know how big of an issue it will be. For instance, broodlings were not really used in brood war, and this ability is pretty much like broodlings, just with less range, and no instant kill of the target. The biggest factor is probably that it can target any unit as opposed to broodling though. Many people seem open to having the viper as it gives zerg a way to deal with crazy tank formations, or maybe colossus as well.
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man they need to hire you for the balance team
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so to summarize the OP: "QQ, this isn't broodwar"
So pretty much every new unit sucks hm?
Why don't you spam around how zerglings, zealots or marines are boring units... (well I know why. they were in broodwar and are therefore untouchable)
Why don't you go and learn about compositions and metagame, before posting crap like: "What's the counter to roach? More roach."... add some hydras, infestors, go and basetrade with mutalisks, ultralisks... wtf men. Uninformed and then pretending to do a serious post...
and then this crap about siege tanks and no zone control and micro reducing units... Sure, if I have broodwar siege tanks that can deal with everything, I don't need micro reducing abilities in a game, because when you step somewhere a siege tank is placed, there is nothing left to micro anymore.
All that QQ about Fungals... if I have infestors around and a terran runs into me, then it is "micro reducing, OP bullshit design", but if I run into siege tanks, it is "zone control".
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I understand your points with forcefields but if you compare it to chess there are cases where a queen and knight are guarding a few of the opponents pieces and you cant move them in the same way as well. Luckily in sc2 and chess you have SO many dynamics involved that when you run into one of these unit reducing skill intentions you end up creating a new skill intention in the dimensions of decision making and strategy (considering in sc2 you cant play the game perfectly even with 10000 apm) there are plenty of other unique choices you look towards at that point.
I think this miss in foresight in your arguments is extremely detrimental and flawed to such an extent that I can't take your opinions seriously because of outright bias towards the resultants of objectified assumptions you've made on game design.
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again, great read  not much else to say really
people who take what you say word for word doesnt really understand what your talking about so dont worry about them
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EPT
