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Hey, thanks for replying. See a couple comments below:
On January 15 2012 19:55 bokeevboke wrote:
Cliffs never good for colossus. why? because colossus never go alone roaming the map, they always go within death ball. They're already covered by other protoss units, and don't need extra defensive measures (climbing on the cliff). OP got a good point, and you try to beat it saying that modern maps have a lot of cliffs. Nonsense.
Actually I made the opposite point. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.
So by your logic, players should dance around, play mind games to bait forcefields/emps/stormgs? It doesnt help the fact that battle will end in 5 seconds. The point of OP was to bring back long lasting, action packed crazy battles. Forcefield prevents that, it forces to decide entire game in a single fight, with no option to retreat. You're failing to understand that.
I do understand the OP's point, but wanting to shift battles one style or the other doesn't work. Players will adapt to the approach that reaps the most benefits. In that context, if and when force fields become so big of an advantage for the Protoss player, I'm sure Blizzard will notice. I don't think it's happened so far.
Sorry, but I think you're blind fanboy or you have completely different understanding of RTS.
I'm not defending Blizzard at all. I just disagree with the OP's analysis on a few points. That's all.
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On January 15 2012 21:10 MurdeR wrote:The OP makes me think about blizzard, and i fear that SC:BW was just "lucky"  I really really miss BW, this game -sc2- has nothing to do with that.
Of course BW was really lucky.
It was never intended to be balanced for people who make a living of it.
It was meant to be "Orcs in Space" until people really complained a ton about it being a completly uncreative game.
It was meant to be a Warhammer game and might as well have died in that nieche if it had gotten the license.
It had absolutly no support from blizzard at times when it looked as if the game was broken (ZvP before Bisu...)
It was released at a time in which South Korea wa heavily investing into internet for everyone - who knows what would have happened if it had been released 2years later and some AoE or CnC had become the trend game of this time. We might be playing CnC "The only sequel" now and laugh about what silly principles of non-real-hardcounters Starcraft 7 was using and how it takes ages to play a game of SC7, while you get really actionpacked 5-10mins in CnC.
It has absolutly huge design flaws: bio vs Protoss or bio vs Terran anyone?
BUT... The pathing and the unit selection (those two go hand in hand. The more units you can select, the more resources a PC needs to calculate pathing for a selection of units) turned out to be so dominating aspects of this game, that the balance issues it might have, just never really mattered, once the most necessary changes had been made. (early patches, BW)
BUT... It did get rebalanced, because blizzard was already a big player in the business and couldn't afford bad reputation after War2.
BUT... It didn't get the license and therefore a lot of non-Warhammer players picked up the game and the story.
BUT... It turned out alright.
BUT... It was released at this time and due to domination in Korea, a good foreign scene could develope. And even if had been released at a different time, it might still have gotten really big!
BUT... It doesn't matter. Every game has it's designflaws and has more/less usable units. Even way more established games like chess.
It turned out to be one of the best/most developed e-sports game in the world.
And well, you don't have to miss it... It exists. Just glad that blizzard didn't go the CnC way (at least some of the CnC games): "Hey, here is the same game with better graphics and better balancing. Please make it so that this will become as successful as StarCraft:Broodwar. No it didn't? Let's make another part? This didn't as well? Well then another part..." (Hopefully Generals 2 will go a better way. BioWare as developer sounds really promising. What they said about how they approach the developement - competetive, classic RTS, unique factions - sounds a lot like starcraft 1&2, so really promising. The release date - not in the near future - sounds promising.)
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On January 15 2012 22:15 testthewest wrote:
If you want to see dumbed down SC2, watch roachwars in a ZvZ. That's your SC2 w/o FF.
There's a problem? Don't solve it. Introduce another problem instead... which collides with the previous one in only one matchup.
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I think this was a good read. I wouldn't call myself a noob by any means, but I certainly learned new things and different perspectives.
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@eternal legacy when can we get part 3 ? So far I am enjoying your articles , it had really in depth examination of the units and the pro's and con's of each unit, the issue of micro limitation , I had like to hear your opinion about blizzard re-introducing units like Shredder having spider mine like quality as seen in broodwar although in comparison bw spider mine is much more unforgiving as the spider mine can be used by the opponent to drag it into your units and the usage of it to gain map control .
Also the re introduction of a defiler like unit (viper) which has the characteristic of a tyranid unit in WH40k and corsair d web abilities . A (swarm host )lurker type unit which has also share some characteristic of the unit in bw however pale in comparison to the damage it can be done in broodwar .
Dropping a few units of lurker behind a opponent mineral line , you can see their worker line blow up in to bits in a mere few seconds . The damage is done immediately however the reincarnation of that kind of lurker unit , it's minions takes too long to travel to the target do any sort of heavy damage . Maybe they can make the minions burrow under the ground before popping up to an unexpected unit and than unleash it's heavy payload ?
I can finally say if they actually implement this idea will make it worthy to be as of the same standing of the lurker's in broodwar . Imagine putting a few of this babies on a ramp and than unsuspecting MnM units are about to push only to find out that it's minion are already under the feet of the units waiting to be exploded at your command . Well it seems this role has been taken by baneling 2.0 which is another bummer ......
That would have make it a much better fighting unit as lurkers do immediate damage with their spine attack while , lurker 2.0 seems really weak compared to the original . Also I find it funny that the protoss are getting quite gimmicky units compared to the two other races . Oracles to make a copy of the unit it is targeted to do so and some sort of a mini arbiter with stasis like abilities however it can only halt the mineral line of the opponent and make some production buildings stop manufacturing units .
The warhound which is in essence a Goliath but remodelled in to looking different although having the same anti air abilities as the one in broodwar . Also the battle hellion to deal with zealots .. Will this changes make sc2 better ?
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On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell.
What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly.
I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability.
I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. Don't immediately look for bad things it would do, think of how it would interact with the other units.
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On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW.
The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank.
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On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank.
Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided.
I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair.
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On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank. Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided. I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair.
One sided eh ? In a Late game TvZ you don't want to continue making pure marine and medics and tanks versus Hive tech's unit after all a full grown hive tech units consist of Ultra's ,lings and defilers . Which in the majority comprises of pure ground units .
Current late game ZvT requires the terran player to switch to mech in which we use vultures, goliath and Tanks to counter zerg's hive tech units . Dark swarms do not work when spider mines are underneath it . In fact dark swarms actually do nothing , actually if the terran players has lot of room to work , and is not desperate to kill you at that timing .
In fact , it's function as a mere deterrence to stop a push from destroying expo is quite necessary for the zergs . However having spider mines counter's the zerg plays of dark swarm or huge amount of siege tank's being in siege mode kills everything underneath a dark swarm of course upgraded siege tank with +3 weapon upgrades . I don't see dark swarm a problem at all . High templars psi storm just kills everything under a dark swarm , lurkers , zerglings and hydra .
You say you can't micro huh when dark swarms are up ? well I can still do fancy micro , if there is a lot of room to play with , everytime the zerg players puts a dark swarm , I will keep moving backwards and find an opening to manoeuvre and kills his units one by one and snipe the important tech building like spawning pool , defiler mount and etc .
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On January 15 2012 01:56 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 01:42 JieXian wrote:On January 15 2012 00:15 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 23:53 JieXian wrote:On January 14 2012 20:10 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 09:34 JieXian wrote:On January 14 2012 01:23 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 00:58 JieXian wrote:On January 13 2012 17:01 Big J wrote:On January 13 2012 11:25 JieXian wrote:[quote] Addressing "RTS fundamentals": It took time before people know how to manage their econ and workers. It took time before people know that they need to Maynard workers (wow what a coincidence that he played wc2 and aoe at a high level. People know that taking more bases meant less money/tech/army now more money later. People know about the tech vs money vs econ thing. People know what micro and macro is. Just a few examples of RTS fundamentals off my head. When I say people I mean waaaaaaaaay more people than in 1998 of course, because even if a few of them know something information doesn't spread fast. -) CnC 4 or World in Conflict has no workers or economy, so it's not a fundamental -) same argument, there are no workers there. Or other argument: in a game in which all your workers have a short lifetime (like mules), transfering them is probably a bad idea. Also transfering workers is already a bad idea in BW, if the distance is rather big. Now imagine a map that has no close expansions. Suddenly this fundamental becomes a game AND mapspecific feature. -) More money later: Well that's something everyone with a basic math understanding can tell you and nothing that has been learned in BW. Progamers had to learn in BW that expansions will pay off, but that is very specific knowledge. But what if you play a game without expansions? What if you play a game in which building an economy is ressource free and therefore only limited by time and clicks (kind of the situation in Empire Earth, once you had farms, workers were so cheap that building more of them didn't hurt you at all)? Other RTS games don't need to have tech at all. Or it doesn't interact with money or economy. Or just play fastest map ever in Starcraft... taking more bases doesn't make a lot of sense there. -) Macro and Micro are defined terms. People always did that since the beginning of RTS games (if the game allowed for it at least... again, tower wars has no micro management, CnC4 has no macro management). On January 14 2012 00:58 JieXian wrote:
Ok I don't know for sure but, how many trend setters in SC2 are from CnC and Empire Earth where there's little correlation? The top 5 international and Korean players in SC2 are either from BW(MMA MVP Nestea), switched to BW (Beasty) to prepare themselves or are from WC3(Naniwa, Sase).
I'm limiting to trend setters because this isn't 1998 as I said, and everyone copies the top players. I welcome you to prove me wrong if there are some top players from those cnc or ee. Otherwise your long ramble about those 2 games is irrelevant.
Fastest BW is a fun mode.... still I'd assume that someone who played fastest will have a better understanding than on who didn't. Yet, if a game doesn't have either micro or macro, you'd at least learn either micro or macro, that's always better than coming in knowing nothing. Well, you were talking about RTS fundamentals. I just gave counterexamples why those aren't RTS fundamentals. Never said anything about that being related to SC2, rather just wanted to proof that different game means different stuff is efficient/possible/required. I would never disagree that SC2 isn't very closly related to SC:BW. But I disagree that therefore skills are easily transferable. F.e. if I learn something like the backspace inject methode for SC2, it is a pure SC2 skill. Similar for macroing in BW. You won't need that skill in SC2, where you can put more buildings into one Ctrl group. Or like methodes for microing dragoons, vultures or mutalisks are simply different in SC2... No discussion about top fast players (no matter which PC game they are from) being able to learn this very quickly and possibly invent new stuff themselves, but still it has to be learned from scratch. Similar for RTS knowledge: if you are good at any RTS game, you will soon understand that Starcraft 2 is a game that is about distributing ones attention on the right things at the right times. But f.e. if a crackling runby in BW is superhigh priority in ones play, in SC2 it is not, because the canons will hold unless it is a whole army of zerglings... SC2 just like BW is a game of experience. If you don't have enough of it, you can't be good. On January 14 2012 00:58 JieXian wrote:On January 13 2012 17:01 Big J wrote:
Also transfering workers is already a bad idea in BW, if the distance is rather big. errrrr are you below plat or something? Pros and D players do it all the time.... There's absolutely no reason not to, if it's safe (pros will devise a plan to make it safe to do so). I don't understand why people won't do it in SC2 if they have an empty base and they have saturated all their bases. Because a) it is a different game and therefore not efficient enough to justify for the income lost and the risk taken, or b) because people haven't figuered it out yet, the argument many "BW-elitists" (dont want to call anyone like that, because I think it is kind of rude to, but just that you know who is getting adressed by this... in the time I wrote this, I could have written something else long-windedly as well ^^) like the OP don't agree on - just re - read the full quotes. Well or c) the "elephant argument": everyone who plays SC2 is too dumb to figure. (which is actually just point b) with a different motivation to put it) All I want to say is, that no matter how much RTS or BW or whatever experience you have, you will have to learn the SC2 specific mechanics and the SC2 specific fundamentals and the SC2 specific metagame. And the later you start with that, the more you will have to learn and therefore the longer it will take you to get good. And the same is true of course for every other RTS game. Of course it will be pretty easy to dominate some CnC which is only played by a few thousand players overall, but if you want to do that in SC2 or WC3, you better train a lot of SC2 and not something else that is kind of similar. Of course effort matters. But let's take it from a different point of view to explain it better. If you play piano, you'll pick up guitar more quickly, even the trumpet, even though they have very different techniques, even if there are many non-transferable skills. Trumpets don't have chords and trumpet players will struggle with that while learning piano. It's the same will RTS, the fundamentals is similar. before CnC4 there was resource management after all. For example, there's MBS in SC2 but if you play a lot of BW you'll know all of the things Day9 preaches again and again. And let's take dissimilar games out of the arguement because my first post was talking about SC2 trends, which are mostly set by WC3 and BW players. (Maybe aoe?) It's only different at the surface. I kind of fail to see to which part of what I was saying you are responding... My post already says that the more similar the game gets, the more skill will be transferable. And of course the trends are set by ex-similar game players. How could it be different? Just because SC2 comes out, a dedicated shooter player won't just switch into RTS and a guy that doesn't like PC games won't become the biggest nerd in the world. The thing is that they still had to develop everything in SC2 from scratch on. And of course they will try to experiment with stuff that worked in other games. If I invent a teamsport that is a lot about positioning, a soccer player will surely experiment with formations if he switches to it and a american football player will try to center the game around a sort of quarterback. And then some things will work better and some things won't work at all. And then they will start developing gamespecific strategies that will probably be superior to the transfered strategies. That's how the human brain works. We can't just purely invent something, we always model things of things we already know. But the thing is: We are not at the start of SC2 anymore. If you want to play SC2 you have to learn SC2. Not BW, not WC3 and not anything else that shares any sort of fundamentals. It will help you. But it won't give you the ability to compete with specialists until you have become a specialist yourself. NesTea, Moon, MVP, Fin, Boxer, Nada, TLO... they are not good SC2 players because they played some game before that. They were when the game was young! But if they had stopped playing 5months ago or if they had just started playing, they would be pure garbage in an SC2 sense. They surely would not have to train 5months to be at the same level they are right now, because they can just copy developments from everyone else, but they still had to devote a lot of time to it and they still had to experience a lot of things themselves (like TLO had to learn the hard way against White Ra that hatch first vs FFE does not pay of at high level, no matter how many drones you pull... or he made it work now... I'm not sure. But I guess you can see what I want to say.) Sorry I was kind of in a rush earlier and didn't state a very important point that I actualy agree with a lot of stuff you said. Yes I agree with almost everything there. Yes, a lot of skills need to be relearnt. I've been through that. My point was, having played BW and WC3 gives a huge starting boost, which I think you already agree with, which comes back to my initial point which you replied to: The amount of knowledge, effort and level of attention put into SC2 during it's first year is uncomparable to that of BW, and so the arguement that's being thrown everywhere comparing the first year of SC2 and the first year of SC/BW is fallacious. then compare the first year of SC2 with the 3rd year of BW. with the 4th or 5th... you will still see that there was a HUGE development in BW in the following 5,6,7 years. And I mean giganticly huge. So I reread your first reply, which I kind of forgot because it was clouded by so many replies. I suppose you meant that SC2 hasn't reach a ceilling yet? I have no objections to that, and it wasn't my point. So sorry if we've been wasting each other's time. However I agree with a lot of the OP, and the direction that Blizz seems to be taking doesn't look promising, and I actually want to stop having to prefer an old game so much more and sort of being an outcast or elitist. I'd prefer to like enjoy both games equally. It's not relevant to our discussion but I thought you might be interested. I just do believe that macro is more important than micro if you are bad in SC2, and therefore the game is being developed from the macro side. BW on the other side was being developed from the micro side, because obviously you will just be able to win games with pure micro if your opponent is not on a micro level with you. Hopefully the outcome for both games is/will be that you need a lot of both. Both macro and micro are very important in BW, and you can totally crush someone if you are very good in either one. But BW is more of a macro than micro game when contrasting with WC3, which is very very heavily focus on intense microing. Macro gets even harder since there isn't MBS and people, even I can talk very long about important fundamentals to macroing effeciently, though much of those information is irrelavant with MBS and auto-mining. Maybe you see a lot of BW micro because you don't play much of it to recognise it or spot it, because after all when you watch VODs without much knowledge you only see the micro. And btw my music instruments analogy was agreeing with you. Some skills, and knowledge in music and instruments are transferable and gives a huge advantage in learning a new one, but a lot of basic things have to be practiced from scratch. Well, I say broodwar was being developed from the micro side, because when the game wasn't figuered very well, because people started playing with 1base stuff (very little macro needed, a lot of micro needed). Eventually it ended up with both parts being developed heavily. I think in Starcraft 2 it was kind of different (obviously 1base rushes and 2base rushes had to be figuered out). The mindset is rather that you should try to get really good at macro first, before you even try to micro a lot. Putting this in the day9 contest of "8times more" of units in SC1 and "1.5times more" of units in SC2: If you fight a kind of equally skilled opponent, you will have and 8:8 or 8: 7 times relation between your units in SC1 and an 1.5:1.5 or 1.5:1.4 relation in SC2. So it just makes more sense to give micro a bigger priority to learn first in SC1 and macro a bigger priority to learn first in SC1. That's why I think once the macro is really starting to settle, the micro parts will get a lot more focus (because 2:1.5 will obviously make a HUGE differnce with kind of equal, good macro!)
The mindset is rather that you should try to get really good at macro first, before you even try to micro a lot was preached in the BW forums too when I was there around 08-09, forgot when, and subsequently by Day9 when he started his BW podcasts and early BW Dalies.
This get's back to my initial point. Macro is emphasised because of the completely different mentality, skill and knowledge of the players in the first year of SC2. SC2 developed at a super fast pace compared to SC1 during their early year(s).
Moreover there isn't, comparatively much to micro in SC2 with it's balls and unlimited unit selection. There's less emphasis on positioning and microing to engage with a proper formation. Think SC1 zealot goon vs tank lines and vultures or marines vs lurkers. 2 examples of how the same amount of units can totally crush either side if one side micros well or micros badly.
But this partly related to reason of different unit types/design as stated in the OP.
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Great read. Glad to see a different perspective towards the imbalances that make up Starcraft 2
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On January 16 2012 01:36 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank. Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided. I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair. One sided eh ? In a Late game TvZ you don't want to continue making pure marine and medics and tanks versus Hive tech's unit after all a full grown hive tech units consist of Ultra's ,lings and defilers . Which in the majority comprises of pure ground units . Current late game ZvT requires the terran player to switch to mech in which we use vultures, goliath and Tanks to counter zerg's hive tech units . Dark swarms do not work when spider mines are underneath it . In fact dark swarms actually do nothing , actually if the terran players has lot of room to work , and is not desperate to kill you at that timing . In fact , it's function as a mere deterrence to stop a push from destroying expo is quite necessary for the zergs . However having spider mines counter's the zerg plays of dark swarm or huge amount of siege tank's being in siege mode kills everything underneath a dark swarm of course upgraded siege tank with +3 weapon upgrades . I don't see dark swarm a problem at all . High templars psi storm just kills everything under a dark swarm , lurkers , zerglings and hydra . You say you can't micro huh when dark swarms are up ? well I can still do fancy micro , if there is a lot of room to play with , everytime the zerg players puts a dark swarm , I will keep moving backwards and find an opening to manoeuvre and kills his units one by one and snipe the important tech building like spawning pool , defiler mount and etc .
It's one-sided in that it forces a simple response from Terran. Not that there aren't things you can do against it. That wasn't what EternalLegacy meant by one-sided, as far as I could tell.
Okay, well in the lategame, I would probably just say that that is akin to using Ultralisks to break the forcefields. There are plenty of tools against forcefields that you can use in the lategame. So eh.
"Keep moving backwards and find an opening" is exactly the way forcefields are basically working nowadays (except in a zerg way where you try to surround). In fact, the way you're fighting me actually shows a lot of how an ability that looks like total bullshit in most games can be dealt with in a variety of ways and makes the game more interesting.
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Its very much possible that Stasis will have a positive effect for the enemy if used badly. This is because if you stasis the front, you are basically defense matrixing the entire front line of the Terran army, making it much more effective against Zealots.
The same goes for forcefields in Sc2.
On January 15 2012 17:55 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 04:41 Mjolnir wrote:
My God. This was such a great read. Such a great read.
Two things I liked the most:
1. The bit about Day9, who let's be honest, thinks there's a solution to everything and nothing in this game is broken at all - ever. I suppose I can't blame him though, touting the game as fantastic earns him an income.
2. The bit about siege tanks. Seriously, these units are just depressing in SC2. No longer do you make an army to support your tanks, you now make tanks to support your army - until you realize that you don't really need tanks because they die in a heartbeat to fucking everything that walks and can't even one-shot a marine. On top of which, their positional strength is circumvented by a ridiculous number of units and mechanics. I long for the days of the BW siege tank. Mean, terrifying, imposing. An actual presence on the field.
Good write up. Lots of work went into this. You hit so many points right on the button.
The fact that siege tanks are so pathetic is one of the reasons I quit playing Starcraft 2. I'm not that good at micro so I try to play a positional game, which is quite impossible if siege tanks can't even one-shot zerglings and marines. Siege Tanks were downright terrifying in Starcraft 1, in Starcraft 2 you can't even use them to hold an expansion. Ironically, according to the lore they're supposed to be an upgraded version of the Brood War tanks.
....What?
A) Tanks can 1 shot whole clusters of blings and lings at a time.
B) Seiged tanks are incredibily good against nonmicroed marines and very good against highly microed marines, it's not until you get air superiority to start marine bombing right in the middle of the tank line that marines become able just roll over supported tanks.
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On January 16 2012 02:33 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:36 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank. Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided. I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair. One sided eh ? In a Late game TvZ you don't want to continue making pure marine and medics and tanks versus Hive tech's unit after all a full grown hive tech units consist of Ultra's ,lings and defilers . Which in the majority comprises of pure ground units . Current late game ZvT requires the terran player to switch to mech in which we use vultures, goliath and Tanks to counter zerg's hive tech units . Dark swarms do not work when spider mines are underneath it . In fact dark swarms actually do nothing , actually if the terran players has lot of room to work , and is not desperate to kill you at that timing . In fact , it's function as a mere deterrence to stop a push from destroying expo is quite necessary for the zergs . However having spider mines counter's the zerg plays of dark swarm or huge amount of siege tank's being in siege mode kills everything underneath a dark swarm of course upgraded siege tank with +3 weapon upgrades . I don't see dark swarm a problem at all . High templars psi storm just kills everything under a dark swarm , lurkers , zerglings and hydra . You say you can't micro huh when dark swarms are up ? well I can still do fancy micro , if there is a lot of room to play with , everytime the zerg players puts a dark swarm , I will keep moving backwards and find an opening to manoeuvre and kills his units one by one and snipe the important tech building like spawning pool , defiler mount and etc . It's one-sided in that it forces a simple response from Terran. Not that there aren't things you can do against it. That wasn't what EternalLegacy meant by one-sided, as far as I could tell. Okay, well in the lategame, I would probably just say that that is akin to using Ultralisks to break the forcefields. There are plenty of tools against forcefields that you can use in the lategame. So eh. "Keep moving backwards and find an opening" is exactly the way forcefields are basically working nowadays (except in a zerg way where you try to surround). In fact, the way you're fighting me actually shows a lot of how an ability that looks like total bullshit in most games can be dealt with in a variety of ways and makes the game more interesting.
I don't see a problem at all , you ask me if dark swarms actually negate micro ? I say nope and gave you the example . forcefields are meh , try getting plague by defilers and see your units rip to shreds by cracklings .
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On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank. Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided. I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair.
What?
Once a FF goes down you can't do anything, you cannot REACT to an FF. Only half the army backs off, the rest just dies spazzing out. If a Dark Swarm goes down you can run your whole army out of it.
Backing the hell up is fancy micro, it looks amazing to see Terran stutter stepping 3 ctrl groups of M&M out of constant swarms going down over and over. FF is just, run away because half my army is dead I don't have enough units to engage.
Firebats, Siege Tanks, Spidermines, Spells still work in a dark swarm as well. If you only have lings, a darkswarm does jack shit because of firebats. Using swarm against mech is also a terrible idea.
It is almost never a terrible idea to use Forcefield.
On January 16 2012 02:34 TheButtonmen wrote:Show nested quote +
Its very much possible that Stasis will have a positive effect for the enemy if used badly. This is because if you stasis the front, you are basically defense matrixing the entire front line of the Terran army, making it much more effective against Zealots.
The same goes for forcefields in Sc2. Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 17:55 maartendq wrote:On January 11 2012 04:41 Mjolnir wrote:
My God. This was such a great read. Such a great read.
Two things I liked the most:
1. The bit about Day9, who let's be honest, thinks there's a solution to everything and nothing in this game is broken at all - ever. I suppose I can't blame him though, touting the game as fantastic earns him an income.
2. The bit about siege tanks. Seriously, these units are just depressing in SC2. No longer do you make an army to support your tanks, you now make tanks to support your army - until you realize that you don't really need tanks because they die in a heartbeat to fucking everything that walks and can't even one-shot a marine. On top of which, their positional strength is circumvented by a ridiculous number of units and mechanics. I long for the days of the BW siege tank. Mean, terrifying, imposing. An actual presence on the field.
Good write up. Lots of work went into this. You hit so many points right on the button.
The fact that siege tanks are so pathetic is one of the reasons I quit playing Starcraft 2. I'm not that good at micro so I try to play a positional game, which is quite impossible if siege tanks can't even one-shot zerglings and marines. Siege Tanks were downright terrifying in Starcraft 1, in Starcraft 2 you can't even use them to hold an expansion. Ironically, according to the lore they're supposed to be an upgraded version of the Brood War tanks. ....What? A) Tanks can 1 shot whole clusters of blings and lings at a time. B) Seiged tanks are incredibily good against nonmicroed marines and very good against highly microed marines, it's not until you get air superiority to start marine bombing right in the middle of the tank line that marines become able just roll over supported tanks.
1. Have you ever seen a bad forcefield in a pro-game? because bad stasis' happen a lot, about 30% of the time. This is because it is very risky to sneak the arbiter behind the Terran army so often players just go for the front, the safer option.
2. Tanks are good against the units it doesn't need to be good against. The tank in SC2 makes no sense what-so-ever. Why would you need tanks to kill lings and banelings wtf? I'd much rather kill stalkers, colossi, hydras, etc with them. Where are my medics and firebats?
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"dark swarm reduces micro"...holy mother of facepalm.
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On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:
You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided.
so you have a choice. you can react. with forcefield you cannot.
Dark Swarm:
cast it--> possibility of raping the enemy army
opponent retreats --> neutered effect of darkswarm, defiler has to replenish energy
Force Field:
cast it --> certainty of killing all the trapped units
opponent cannot react at all
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On January 16 2012 01:21 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2012 01:15 Sawamura wrote:On January 16 2012 01:12 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 16:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 14:36 DoubleReed wrote:On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here. I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained. It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control. You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong. Yes, it would certainly negatively impact BW and make ZvP impossible. I'm against it cause it's a 1 sided ability. It's up to the protoss to land good ones, but once they're down that's it. Players are better with dealing with it because people adapt and players get better. Maybe your reading comprehension is lacking, but FF clearly REDUCES micro available to the opposing player. That's literally the point of the spell. What? FF reduces micro the same way that Dark Swarm does. If you get caught badly with Dark Swarm, you die. You can try to run away, of course, and you better run away unless you just want to lose your whole army. With FF, you engage properly you can mitigate the FF and come out on top. You only fail that hard against FF if you engage stupidly. I fail to see how FF is more 1-sided than any other ability. I mean when Day9 is talking about Frisbees and Baseballs, Forcefield is obviously a frisbee. And wow, immediately just saying "Yup FF in BW would obviously be OP and ZvP would just be impossible" makes me think no arguing or sense will even shift your mind away from this closed thinking. Cut the feedback loop, please, and actually consider what forcefield would do in BW. The only thing that get's caught badly under a dark swarm and dies are unsieged unit's . Unit's like marine and medic can just pull out of a dark swarm easily with minimal losses which is okay to the terran . Not unsieging your 10 tanks under a dark swarm is like asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good . Losing tanks in a ZvT is a big no no unless you have a lot of minerals and gas in the bank. Well obviously. That's my point. You have to back the hell up, or you die. You can't do any fancy micro or anything. You back up, or you die. It's totally one-sided. I mean if they replaced FG with Dark Swarm? I think any zerg player would take that. It wouldn't even be fair.
Quite the opposite. Dark swarm forces you to micro your units by pulling out and minimize the effect dark swarm as much as possible. Forcefield can't be microed against. You either stay and fight with a giant wall between your army or you back up and leave them for dead.
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On January 16 2012 01:59 Pugsly wrote:
Great read. Glad to see a different perspective towards the imbalances that make up Starcraft 2
Ironically, I think you may have missed the point of the OP. It's not about imbalances.
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I think it all comes down to this: a game is not fun if 'unbeatable death balls' can be created.
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EPT
