EPTThe Philosophy of Design: Part 2 - Unit Design - Page 27
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Excludos
Norway8151 Posts
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InfernoStarcraft
Australia136 Posts
On January 16 2012 19:34 Excludos wrote: I agree with most of what you said. However on the Phoenix you are dead wrong. It may seem like "OMG this unit can now shoot while moving. This lowers micro!", however what you fail to see is that phoenixes are extremely fast, low durability, only AA and not really that great amount of damage. This means that if you want to have any use out of your phoenixes whatsoever, you need to micro them constantly. They always needs to move around. If you stop your phoenixes and let the muta ball, hydras, or infestors, catch up, they are all going to die instantly. This is also, ironically, why most people simply don't use the. They just need to much attention to be worth their cost. I think your confusing lots of clicking with 'meaningful micro'. As the op stated, thier attacking whilst moving took the necessity of choice out of the players hands, as in, "what happens if i attack here?" take for example you wanna snipe an OL flying around somewhere, is there a danger to your units if you scoot in and blow him up? More often than not the answer is no, sure there's fungal, but that's another thing entirely, i'm getting at any static D or queens won't do any real damage to your units in MOST situations to act as a deterence from you killing that OL because you don't need to stop and shoot. Contrast this to mutalisks having to stop to shoot, the player has to say "if i park in this mineral field how long can i stay? where are his marines to chase me down, will they pinch my escape route off with thier bio and static D and kill some mutas off?" Also more importantly "is it worth it?" is one that even most pro's seem to get wrong with muta harass. I'm pretty sure that is what the OP was getting at, that pheonix design reduced the necessary cognitive decision making of the player, which is why he felt they were flawed. And that is just one unit out of many, IMO this dude should have a chat to Dustin, I feel like I would enjoy SC2 a lot more. | ||
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InPlainSight
New Zealand40 Posts
On January 16 2012 11:01 sluggaslamoo wrote: The infantry also had good pathing while not running in a ball. Could you imagine how bad CoH would be if everything moved in one clumped ball? Blizzard are in denial about their pathing, it really really sucks, it is so badly designed, yet they defend it as if its the best thing since sliced bread. There are much better pathing algorithms out there. Really? How on earth are you calling Sc2's pathfinding bad. It is probably the best path finding in any rts game to date. Everyone keeps going on about how things are all balled up and that's bad - and I would agree to an extent - however they never give a solution, how should units move? Should they all maintain a spacing greater than currently? Bump into each other more like in BW and WC3? The current pathing is the most logical, units move where they are told in the most efficient and predictable way. Most of the problems that unit clumping cause can be solved by different unit dynamics. Also could you share some of the much better pathing algorithms because I'm very interested. | ||
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Excludos
Norway8151 Posts
On January 16 2012 19:58 InfernoStarcraft wrote: I think your confusing lots of clicking with 'meaningful micro'. As the op stated, thier attacking whilst moving took the necessity of choice out of the players hands, as in, "what happens if i attack here?" take for example you wanna snipe an OL flying around somewhere, is there a danger to your units if you scoot in and blow him up? More often than not the answer is no, sure there's fungal, but that's another thing entirely, i'm getting at any static D or queens won't do any real damage to your units in MOST situations to act as a deterence from you killing that OL because you don't need to stop and shoot. Contrast this to mutalisks having to stop to shoot, the player has to say "if i park in this mineral field how long can i stay? where are his marines to chase me down, will they pinch my escape route off with thier bio and static D and kill some mutas off?" Also more importantly "is it worth it?" is one that even most pro's seem to get wrong with muta harass. I'm pretty sure that is what the OP was getting at, that pheonix design reduced the necessary cognitive decision making of the player, which is why he felt they were flawed. And that is just one unit out of many, IMO this dude should have a chat to Dustin, I feel like I would enjoy SC2 a lot more. I think you're slightly confused about what the word "micro" means.. it does not mean "ability to choose", which is what you're describing above. Besides, Phoenixes have to stop in the mineral line to pick up units as well, so your analogy doesn't hold up. (Static defenses are amazing vs phoenixes btw, which is why we're back to what I was saying earlier. Phoenixes are fast moving, low hp, not really great dmg units that needs constant attention, or else you're going to fly into a bunch of spores and get them all killed. They are not a unit that can be 1a'ed to victory. Alas, they require micro) Also, if you played beta around the time when phoenixes could only stop and shoot, you'd know how atrocious they where. They weren't really microable at all (partly because of the low acceleration at the time, which I do believe they buffed). | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On January 16 2012 19:58 InfernoStarcraft wrote: I think your confusing lots of clicking with 'meaningful micro'. As the op stated, thier attacking whilst moving took the necessity of choice out of the players hands, as in, "what happens if i attack here?" take for example you wanna snipe an OL flying around somewhere, is there a danger to your units if you scoot in and blow him up? More often than not the answer is no, sure there's fungal, but that's another thing entirely, i'm getting at any static D or queens won't do any real damage to your units in MOST situations to act as a deterence from you killing that OL because you don't need to stop and shoot. Contrast this to mutalisks having to stop to shoot, the player has to say "if i park in this mineral field how long can i stay? where are his marines to chase me down, will they pinch my escape route off with thier bio and static D and kill some mutas off?" Also more importantly "is it worth it?" is one that even most pro's seem to get wrong with muta harass. I'm pretty sure that is what the OP was getting at, that pheonix design reduced the necessary cognitive decision making of the player, which is why he felt they were flawed. And that is just one unit out of many, IMO this dude should have a chat to Dustin, I feel like I would enjoy SC2 a lot more. It seems to me that people keep adjusting what defines micro to fit their argument. First it is simply controlling your unit, then it becomes "meaningful micro" which is likely defined as "whatever example I give, but not what you said above". It is fact that you do not need to micro at much at you did on BW. Units in SC2 require far less babysitting and have more modern AI. Control is less focused on making your unit function and more about making them function well and efficiently. It is a matter of opinion if that is good or bad and if it makes the game more enjoyable. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
On January 16 2012 19:58 InfernoStarcraft wrote: I think your confusing lots of clicking with 'meaningful micro'. As the op stated, thier attacking whilst moving took the necessity of choice out of the players hands, as in, "what happens if i attack here?" take for example you wanna snipe an OL flying around somewhere, is there a danger to your units if you scoot in and blow him up? More often than not the answer is no, sure there's fungal, but that's another thing entirely, i'm getting at any static D or queens won't do any real damage to your units in MOST situations to act as a deterence from you killing that OL because you don't need to stop and shoot. Contrast this to mutalisks having to stop to shoot, the player has to say "if i park in this mineral field how long can i stay? where are his marines to chase me down, will they pinch my escape route off with thier bio and static D and kill some mutas off?" Also more importantly "is it worth it?" is one that even most pro's seem to get wrong with muta harass. I'm pretty sure that is what the OP was getting at, that pheonix design reduced the necessary cognitive decision making of the player, which is why he felt they were flawed. And that is just one unit out of many, IMO this dude should have a chat to Dustin, I feel like I would enjoy SC2 a lot more. The threats you mention are exactly the same for both units, its just that Phoenix are able to keep moving while doing this, this does not diminish the congnitve decision making for the player, it just means that there is slightly less risk for the Phoenix user, this is not gamebreaking/bad game design/whatever, it's just an advantage of the Phoenix, don't try to delude yourself otherwise. On the other hand, if Phoenix want to harrass mineral lines for example they must lift the drones which not only forces them to stop, but puts them in a vulnerable position. Excludo's is right, you get next to nothing out of Phoenix unless you micro them intensely, compare 10 Phoenix to 10 Muta which one do you have to micro more to Harrass a mineral line? Or kill off any ground units at all even. Watch how a top level player (such as Hero) uses Phoenix before you decide whether they are micro intensive units or not. I would argue that the threat in your Overlord example is significantly smaller for Vikings because they have such long range, so by your logic Vikings are bad for the game because they mean that Terran has to think less about killing off Overlords. I'm not trying to suggest that Vikings are good/bad for the game but this is REALLY BAD LOGIC. | ||
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rEalGuapo
Germany832 Posts
Micro-"reducing" Units: The Sentry: You can lift your terran units over forcefields with medivacs, I see it pretty often and it is the sign of a great player. Roaches burrow under it if you get Burrow, few Zergs do, not the games fault. Plus Forcefields can be broken and have not that high of a range, meaning Sentries can be sniped easily if you want to place the FFs behind Zerg. Fungal: yep that makes you stay there for a short period of time, if you allow it to happen. Concussive: you get a few more kills while he retreats. So you can defend against this with... tadaaa: MICRO. Correct focus fire, army movement and engagement are what works against these Units. Instead of saying it fucks everything up, how about seing it for what it is? A way to punish someone that takes a bad fight and handles it poorly. Micro-"less" Units: The Colossus: You need the correct targeting for it to really pay off, also you have to babysit it, move your army correctly in order to protect it etc. I have seen People actively using its cliff-walk-ability. The last time I saw this? Yesterday in a pro match. The Colossus requires a lot of "Micro" in terms that you have to micro everything else correctly to protect it. Also the Target fire thing, a Colossus that hits a single roach is wasted, if you let it attack 3 Hydras however it suddenly becomes a lot better. The Roach: Yeah, Roaches are a boring Unit. I believe that the main Reason why Roachesa re used the way they are right now is because players suck against them. If my opponnents get a lot of Raoches I get upgraded Immortals and delay every other Tech. With Immortals and Forcefields Roaches are just a bad Unit, they do nothing but die. The reason you don't see that many Roaches against Terrans are Marauders. The reason you see a lot of Roaches against Protoss are Protoss players. Every single f*king game a pro plays vs "mass" Roach, they get Colossi and tech to storm. WTF!? instead of getting 2 Colossi with range just get 6 or so freaking Immortals. Suddenly the Roaches are dead supply and nothing more. Roaches to me seem to be designed as a counter attack/harras Unit. You have high mobility and the ability to move while Burrowed + extra regen. That sounds like something that attacks a fragile Base while the defender moved away and then retreats, heals up and move invis somewhere else. Or if he lacks detection you sneek somewhere to snipe important tech/do economical damage. Roaches are in straight up fights bad Units, everyone will agree, the suck for 2 Supply. Once again, Terrans have figured out that Marauders kill Roaches, thus you see them most of the time to defend against Helions or to put preassure on the Terran with harrasment etc. Protoss still think you have to get Colossi against zerg no matter what Units they build. Hell, some Pros get Colossi vs Mutaling rather then Templars. The Thor: Well.. he will target air with higher priority, meaning you need to micro when Z brings overlords... other than that, I completely agree. The Phoenix: Highly mobile fragile short range unit. Do I really have to tell you that those are not the criteria to a-move!?!?!?!? Zone-Controlling: The Siege Tank: "Less time to set them up and siege" Well, that doesn't matter when you talk about zone control, does it? Zone Control is not a reactive thing. "Glass Cannons and bad ones" No, just no! Immortals may be good, that is what EMP is for. Suddenly they get killed with like 3 shots. Blink Stalker are soo great. Yep, against 3 Siegetanks that are clumped they are. However Stalker SUCK against Tanks, meaning they die freaking fast to a bigger Siegeline. The reason you don't see people playing with a ton of tanks against Protoss is that there is no need right now. I strongly believe that over the next year or two a lot of mech play will find its way into TvP. Regarding Zerg map control via Burrow. Completely agree, there is nothing compareble to the BW map control Lurker granted. However I think that is because Zerg have different Playstyle and BW is not SC2. Zerg now is designed to be the agressor, to attack and harras at multiple points and counter-attack everytime you leave your base. If you add a Unit that contains your opponnent while you get an army to do all that, the game becomes pretty boring and we would only see ZvZ since there is no way to inflict any damage without taking a ton more. That happens against a race that will almost always have better economy. Yeah, no thanks. Static defense: Agreed, static defense is extremely hard to manage in terms of when to get how much. Terran: But Terrans have Bunkers which are pretty good, I think it works for Terran really good early on since the Bunkers are a little risk, you get 75% if you didn't need them.+ Protoss: For Protoss, I must say I feel like the Cannons are complete Trash. But what is that? A Sentry? Cannons plus Forcefields are a great early game defense! Zerg: I feel like Zerg more relies on Queens to defend. Not only that Queens are actually pretty good, with the inject Zerg has a great production capability early on, say off of 2 hatches. You need to see your opponnent moving out and get a ton of Units, you do not need static defense early on. Later you can get so many Spines that they become pretty good pared with something like infestors  Conclusion: It is SC2 not BW. The Micro aspect overall is a smaller portion of the gameplay as in BW, so is the Macro aspect. Meaning that strategy is what will win the game. Is that better? Is it worse? I have no clue, you decide for yourself. Also, give it time. I believe that the game will get a lot more demanding over the next years. Comparing a game that has been played for so long by professionals to something that new is just silly. Anyway, no one will read this since it got a little out of hand :D Still posting it though! | ||
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DarQraven
Netherlands553 Posts
On January 16 2012 20:57 rEalGuapo wrote: The reason you see a lot of Roaches against Protoss are Protoss players. Every single f*king game a pro plays vs "mass" Roach, they get Colossi and tech to storm. WTF!? instead of getting 2 Colossi with range just get 6 or so freaking Immortals. Suddenly the Roaches are dead supply and nothing more. Roaches are in straight up fights bad Units, everyone will agree, the suck for 2 Supply. Once again, Terrans have figured out that Marauders kill Roaches, thus you see them most of the time to defend against Helions or to put preassure on the Terran with harrasment etc. Protoss still think you have to get Colossi against zerg no matter what Units they build. Hell, some Pros get Colossi vs Mutaling rather then Templars. I think the reason many Protoss still go for Colossus against Roach-Zerg is Zerg's ability to tech switch. Colossi may not be the optimal unit versus Roaches, but they do their job. Meanwhile, they are also a super good unit against Lings, Banelings, Hydra and to a lesser extent Muta and Infestors (forcing basetrades). They are simply good units to have, regardless of what strat your opponent plays. Meanwhile, Immortals are very good against Roaches but suck against pretty much everything not-Ultralisks. Having too many Immortals puts you in a position where the Zerg can notice this, completely forego any further Roach production and go Ling/Baneling, Muta, Hydra, or some other non-Roach unit composition and stomp you. You will not have the raw killing power needed to force a Zerg to pull his Muta ball back, and you cannot endlessly rely on forcefields to save your army from destruction at the hands of masses of cheap units. In short, it's a very hard Roach counter that fails very quickly to anything that isn't Roaches. Templar suffer from other problems that make them a difficult unit to get. While they are decent when morphed to Archons, this is obviously a step back from Colossi or Storm. Their attacks run out, diminishing their use in a constantly pressuring/skirmishing army - you need to keep reinforcing with new Templar, and this can quickly turn into a very expensive affair when compared to just getting 5 Colossi and being done with it. In addition, they are very slow units when not constantly ferried around in a Prism, so there are mobility issues with this unit comp as well. Colossi are simply a good middle ground that allows you to defend against Roaches while also being safe or able to react to other unit compositions without doing a full 180 on your tech. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
If anyone can watch this and say that Colossi are microless units I will be very surprised. | ||
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nOondn
564 Posts
On January 16 2012 22:07 Myrddraal wrote: Also I don't think Colossi have reached their full potential just yet. For example, I really hope in the future a lot more games look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw9r2jCuIHA&feature=related If anyone can watch this and say that Colossi are microless units I will be very surprised. He micro the Warppism isn't he ?. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On January 16 2012 20:57 rEalGuapo wrote: Please be more black and white.... Micro-"reducing" Units: The Sentry: You can lift your terran units over forcefields with medivacs, I see it pretty often and it is the sign of a great player. Roaches burrow under it if you get Burrow, few Zergs do, not the games fault. Plus Forcefields can be broken and have not that high of a range, meaning Sentries can be sniped easily if you want to place the FFs behind Zerg. Fungal: yep that makes you stay there for a short period of time, if you allow it to happen. Concussive: you get a few more kills while he retreats. So you can defend against this with... tadaaa: MICRO. Correct focus fire, army movement and engagement are what works against these Units. Instead of saying it fucks everything up, how about seing it for what it is? A way to punish someone that takes a bad fight and handles it poorly. Micro-"less" Units: The Colossus: You need the correct targeting for it to really pay off, also you have to babysit it, move your army correctly in order to protect it etc. I have seen People actively using its cliff-walk-ability. The last time I saw this? Yesterday in a pro match. The Colossus requires a lot of "Micro" in terms that you have to micro everything else correctly to protect it. Also the Target fire thing, a Colossus that hits a single roach is wasted, if you let it attack 3 Hydras however it suddenly becomes a lot better. The Roach: Yeah, Roaches are a boring Unit. I believe that the main Reason why Roachesa re used the way they are right now is because players suck against them. If my opponnents get a lot of Raoches I get upgraded Immortals and delay every other Tech. With Immortals and Forcefields Roaches are just a bad Unit, they do nothing but die. The reason you don't see that many Roaches against Terrans are Marauders. The reason you see a lot of Roaches against Protoss are Protoss players. Every single f*king game a pro plays vs "mass" Roach, they get Colossi and tech to storm. WTF!? instead of getting 2 Colossi with range just get 6 or so freaking Immortals. Suddenly the Roaches are dead supply and nothing more. Roaches to me seem to be designed as a counter attack/harras Unit. You have high mobility and the ability to move while Burrowed + extra regen. That sounds like something that attacks a fragile Base while the defender moved away and then retreats, heals up and move invis somewhere else. Or if he lacks detection you sneek somewhere to snipe important tech/do economical damage. Roaches are in straight up fights bad Units, everyone will agree, the suck for 2 Supply. Once again, Terrans have figured out that Marauders kill Roaches, thus you see them most of the time to defend against Helions or to put preassure on the Terran with harrasment etc. Protoss still think you have to get Colossi against zerg no matter what Units they build. Hell, some Pros get Colossi vs Mutaling rather then Templars. The Thor: Well.. he will target air with higher priority, meaning you need to micro when Z brings overlords... other than that, I completely agree. The Phoenix: Highly mobile fragile short range unit. Do I really have to tell you that those are not the criteria to a-move!?!?!?!? Zone-Controlling: The Siege Tank: "Less time to set them up and siege" Well, that doesn't matter when you talk about zone control, does it? Zone Control is not a reactive thing. "Glass Cannons and bad ones" No, just no! Immortals may be good, that is what EMP is for. Suddenly they get killed with like 3 shots. Blink Stalker are soo great. Yep, against 3 Siegetanks that are clumped they are. However Stalker SUCK against Tanks, meaning they die freaking fast to a bigger Siegeline. The reason you don't see people playing with a ton of tanks against Protoss is that there is no need right now. I strongly believe that over the next year or two a lot of mech play will find its way into TvP. Regarding Zerg map control via Burrow. Completely agree, there is nothing compareble to the BW map control Lurker granted. However I think that is because Zerg have different Playstyle and BW is not SC2. Zerg now is designed to be the agressor, to attack and harras at multiple points and counter-attack everytime you leave your base. If you add a Unit that contains your opponnent while you get an army to do all that, the game becomes pretty boring and we would only see ZvZ since there is no way to inflict any damage without taking a ton more. That happens against a race that will almost always have better economy. Yeah, no thanks. Static defense: Agreed, static defense is extremely hard to manage in terms of when to get how much. Terran: But Terrans have Bunkers which are pretty good, I think it works for Terran really good early on since the Bunkers are a little risk, you get 75% if you didn't need them.+ Protoss: For Protoss, I must say I feel like the Cannons are complete Trash. But what is that? A Sentry? Cannons plus Forcefields are a great early game defense! Zerg: I feel like Zerg more relies on Queens to defend. Not only that Queens are actually pretty good, with the inject Zerg has a great production capability early on, say off of 2 hatches. You need to see your opponnent moving out and get a ton of Units, you do not need static defense early on. Later you can get so many Spines that they become pretty good pared with something like infestors Conclusion: It is SC2 not BW. The Micro aspect overall is a smaller portion of the gameplay as in BW, so is the Macro aspect. Meaning that strategy is what will win the game. Is that better? Is it worse? I have no clue, you decide for yourself. Also, give it time. I believe that the game will get a lot more demanding over the next years. Comparing a game that has been played for so long by professionals to something that new is just silly. Anyway, no one will read this since it got a little out of hand :D Still posting it though! finally a good post in this thread. one that actually gets that the OP is just wrong with anything apart from the overall micro, which is due to pathing and unit selection, but has nothing to do with stuff like Fungals or FFs or roaches. i actually cant believe that people here pretend that units like dragoons and corsairs would take more micro then stalker and phoenix in an SC2 enviroment (sc2 AI etc...). you just plainly can do less with them, and they are just plainly stronger in balls. btw. I did read through all of it ;-) | ||
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mcmartini
Australia1972 Posts
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mcmartini
Australia1972 Posts
On January 16 2012 20:57 rEalGuapo wrote: Please be more black and white.... Micro-"reducing" Units: The Sentry: You can lift your terran units over forcefields with medivacs, I see it pretty often and it is the sign of a great player. Roaches burrow under it if you get Burrow, few Zergs do, not the games fault. Plus Forcefields can be broken and have not that high of a range, meaning Sentries can be sniped easily if you want to place the FFs behind Zerg. Fungal: yep that makes you stay there for a short period of time, if you allow it to happen. Concussive: you get a few more kills while he retreats. So you can defend against this with... tadaaa: MICRO. Correct focus fire, army movement and engagement are what works against these Units. Instead of saying it fucks everything up, how about seing it for what it is? A way to punish someone that takes a bad fight and handles it poorly. Micro-"less" Units: The Colossus: You need the correct targeting for it to really pay off, also you have to babysit it, move your army correctly in order to protect it etc. I have seen People actively using its cliff-walk-ability. The last time I saw this? Yesterday in a pro match. The Colossus requires a lot of "Micro" in terms that you have to micro everything else correctly to protect it. Also the Target fire thing, a Colossus that hits a single roach is wasted, if you let it attack 3 Hydras however it suddenly becomes a lot better. The Roach: Yeah, Roaches are a boring Unit. I believe that the main Reason why Roachesa re used the way they are right now is because players suck against them. If my opponnents get a lot of Raoches I get upgraded Immortals and delay every other Tech. With Immortals and Forcefields Roaches are just a bad Unit, they do nothing but die. The reason you don't see that many Roaches against Terrans are Marauders. The reason you see a lot of Roaches against Protoss are Protoss players. Every single f*king game a pro plays vs "mass" Roach, they get Colossi and tech to storm. WTF!? instead of getting 2 Colossi with range just get 6 or so freaking Immortals. Suddenly the Roaches are dead supply and nothing more. Roaches to me seem to be designed as a counter attack/harras Unit. You have high mobility and the ability to move while Burrowed + extra regen. That sounds like something that attacks a fragile Base while the defender moved away and then retreats, heals up and move invis somewhere else. Or if he lacks detection you sneek somewhere to snipe important tech/do economical damage. Roaches are in straight up fights bad Units, everyone will agree, the suck for 2 Supply. Once again, Terrans have figured out that Marauders kill Roaches, thus you see them most of the time to defend against Helions or to put preassure on the Terran with harrasment etc. Protoss still think you have to get Colossi against zerg no matter what Units they build. Hell, some Pros get Colossi vs Mutaling rather then Templars. The Thor: Well.. he will target air with higher priority, meaning you need to micro when Z brings overlords... other than that, I completely agree. The Phoenix: Highly mobile fragile short range unit. Do I really have to tell you that those are not the criteria to a-move!?!?!?!? Zone-Controlling: The Siege Tank: "Less time to set them up and siege" Well, that doesn't matter when you talk about zone control, does it? Zone Control is not a reactive thing. "Glass Cannons and bad ones" No, just no! Immortals may be good, that is what EMP is for. Suddenly they get killed with like 3 shots. Blink Stalker are soo great. Yep, against 3 Siegetanks that are clumped they are. However Stalker SUCK against Tanks, meaning they die freaking fast to a bigger Siegeline. The reason you don't see people playing with a ton of tanks against Protoss is that there is no need right now. I strongly believe that over the next year or two a lot of mech play will find its way into TvP. Regarding Zerg map control via Burrow. Completely agree, there is nothing compareble to the BW map control Lurker granted. However I think that is because Zerg have different Playstyle and BW is not SC2. Zerg now is designed to be the agressor, to attack and harras at multiple points and counter-attack everytime you leave your base. If you add a Unit that contains your opponnent while you get an army to do all that, the game becomes pretty boring and we would only see ZvZ since there is no way to inflict any damage without taking a ton more. That happens against a race that will almost always have better economy. Yeah, no thanks. Static defense: Agreed, static defense is extremely hard to manage in terms of when to get how much. Terran: But Terrans have Bunkers which are pretty good, I think it works for Terran really good early on since the Bunkers are a little risk, you get 75% if you didn't need them.+ Protoss: For Protoss, I must say I feel like the Cannons are complete Trash. But what is that? A Sentry? Cannons plus Forcefields are a great early game defense! Zerg: I feel like Zerg more relies on Queens to defend. Not only that Queens are actually pretty good, with the inject Zerg has a great production capability early on, say off of 2 hatches. You need to see your opponnent moving out and get a ton of Units, you do not need static defense early on. Later you can get so many Spines that they become pretty good pared with something like infestors Conclusion: It is SC2 not BW. The Micro aspect overall is a smaller portion of the gameplay as in BW, so is the Macro aspect. Meaning that strategy is what will win the game. Is that better? Is it worse? I have no clue, you decide for yourself. Also, give it time. I believe that the game will get a lot more demanding over the next years. Comparing a game that has been played for so long by professionals to something that new is just silly. Anyway, no one will read this since it got a little out of hand :D Still posting it though! Just wanted to point out that the reason most protoss make colossus and storm against roach is because 5 immortals are useless when zerglings roll in, which they will. Whereas storm + collussus is great against pretty much all the ground compositions zerg throw at you. | ||
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marvellosity
United Kingdom36161 Posts
Whether the micro BW required because of terrible pathing/AI was exciting or not, it seems very strange to me to criticise SC2 for having what is generally excellent AI and proper, correct pathfinding (actually a huge success compared to many RTS!). Saying dragoons benefit tonnes from micro is all well and good, but only because of inherent flaws in the game itself. If you're going to criticise SC2, PLEASE do so in the context of its extremely high-standard AI and pathing, taking that as a base and going from there. Moaning at SC2 because its units behave as they should (yikes!) is just silly imo. | ||
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DarQraven
Netherlands553 Posts
On January 16 2012 23:10 marvellosity wrote: It seems two of the primary reasons people are citing for less micro in SC2 in this thread are the fact that units ball up more and they behave the way they should/are told to. Whether the micro BW required because of terrible pathing/AI was exciting or not, it seems very strange to me to criticise SC2 for having what is generally excellent AI and proper, correct pathfinding (actually a huge success compared to many RTS!). Saying dragoons benefit tonnes from micro is all well and good, but only because of inherent flaws in the game itself. If you're going to criticise SC2, PLEASE do so in the context of its extremely high-standard AI and pathing, taking that as a base and going from there. Moaning at SC2 because its units behave as they should (yikes!) is just silly imo. True. There is exactly 0.0% chance Blizzard are going to purposely screw up the pathfinding and introduce glitches to the game in order to 'fix it'. The pathfinding and response units are a given. Tweaks like increasing unit collision size might be possible, still, but would constitute a massive balance change that could quite possibly throw the competitive scene on its rear end for a long time. Introducing these tweaks in HotS might be possible, but at the same time I can't imagine Blizzard would want to compromise the launch of their new expansion/installment by making huge untested balance changes. Adoption of HotS is pretty darn important to them. | ||
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EternaLLegacy
United States410 Posts
On January 16 2012 19:34 Excludos wrote: I agree with most of what you said. However on the Phoenix you are dead wrong. It may seem like "OMG this unit can now shoot while moving. This lowers micro!", however what you fail to see is that phoenixes are extremely fast, low durability, only AA and not really that great amount of damage. This means that if you want to have any use out of your phoenixes whatsoever, you need to micro them constantly. They always needs to move around. If you stop your phoenixes and let the muta ball, hydras, or infestors, catch up, they are all going to die instantly. This is also, ironically, why most people simply don't use the. They just need to much attention to be worth their cost. I'm not saying that the phoenix itself is a bad unit. I think I wrote that poorly cause people are confused what I mean by move-shoot mechanic. I'm saying that having units attack anything in range by default is a REALLY bad mechanic. It would be bad on ANY unit. It reduces the decision making of when to take a shot vs when to move. It also was a pathetic attempt at recreating the moving shot from BW (which is LITERALLY what we as a community were asking for) and the fact that the community just laid down and said, "eh, we give up, close enough" is very saddening. Blizzard's dev team clearly has no idea what the heck high level BW even consisted of, which is why the game looks like it was designed by a bunch of kids with ADD. | ||
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EternaLLegacy
United States410 Posts
On January 16 2012 23:22 DarQraven wrote: True. There is exactly 0.0% chance Blizzard are going to purposely screw up the pathfinding and introduce glitches to the game in order to 'fix it'. The pathfinding and response units are a given. Tweaks like increasing unit collision size might be possible, still, but would constitute a massive balance change that could quite possibly throw the competitive scene on its rear end for a long time. Introducing these tweaks in HotS might be possible, but at the same time I can't imagine Blizzard would want to compromise the launch of their new expansion/installment by making huge untested balance changes. Adoption of HotS is pretty darn important to them. The pro scene won't switch to HotS until it's had a good amount of time to get balanced and dust settles. While the pathfinding is here to stay (and notice how I didn't ever talk about that, because I don't think it's the source of the problem), they can do a lot to change the way units work in formation and spread out. Hell, they can simply make a lot of units way bigger than they were and that'd do wonders on its own. | ||
Destructicon
4713 Posts
On January 16 2012 20:57 rEalGuapo wrote: Please be more black and white.... Micro-"reducing" Units: The Sentry: You can lift your terran units over forcefields with medivacs, I see it pretty often and it is the sign of a great player. Roaches burrow under it if you get Burrow, few Zergs do, not the games fault. Plus Forcefields can be broken and have not that high of a range, meaning Sentries can be sniped easily if you want to place the FFs behind Zerg. Fungal: yep that makes you stay there for a short period of time, if you allow it to happen. Concussive: you get a few more kills while he retreats. So you can defend against this with... tadaaa: MICRO. Correct focus fire, army movement and engagement are what works against these Units. Instead of saying it fucks everything up, how about seing it for what it is? A way to punish someone that takes a bad fight and handles it poorly. Micro-"less" Units: The Colossus: You need the correct targeting for it to really pay off, also you have to babysit it, move your army correctly in order to protect it etc. I have seen People actively using its cliff-walk-ability. The last time I saw this? Yesterday in a pro match. The Colossus requires a lot of "Micro" in terms that you have to micro everything else correctly to protect it. Also the Target fire thing, a Colossus that hits a single roach is wasted, if you let it attack 3 Hydras however it suddenly becomes a lot better. The Roach: Yeah, Roaches are a boring Unit. I believe that the main Reason why Roachesa re used the way they are right now is because players suck against them. If my opponnents get a lot of Raoches I get upgraded Immortals and delay every other Tech. With Immortals and Forcefields Roaches are just a bad Unit, they do nothing but die. The reason you don't see that many Roaches against Terrans are Marauders. The reason you see a lot of Roaches against Protoss are Protoss players. Every single f*king game a pro plays vs "mass" Roach, they get Colossi and tech to storm. WTF!? instead of getting 2 Colossi with range just get 6 or so freaking Immortals. Suddenly the Roaches are dead supply and nothing more. Roaches to me seem to be designed as a counter attack/harras Unit. You have high mobility and the ability to move while Burrowed + extra regen. That sounds like something that attacks a fragile Base while the defender moved away and then retreats, heals up and move invis somewhere else. Or if he lacks detection you sneek somewhere to snipe important tech/do economical damage. Roaches are in straight up fights bad Units, everyone will agree, the suck for 2 Supply. Once again, Terrans have figured out that Marauders kill Roaches, thus you see them most of the time to defend against Helions or to put preassure on the Terran with harrasment etc. Protoss still think you have to get Colossi against zerg no matter what Units they build. Hell, some Pros get Colossi vs Mutaling rather then Templars. The Thor: Well.. he will target air with higher priority, meaning you need to micro when Z brings overlords... other than that, I completely agree. The Phoenix: Highly mobile fragile short range unit. Do I really have to tell you that those are not the criteria to a-move!?!?!?!? Zone-Controlling: The Siege Tank: "Less time to set them up and siege" Well, that doesn't matter when you talk about zone control, does it? Zone Control is not a reactive thing. "Glass Cannons and bad ones" No, just no! Immortals may be good, that is what EMP is for. Suddenly they get killed with like 3 shots. Blink Stalker are soo great. Yep, against 3 Siegetanks that are clumped they are. However Stalker SUCK against Tanks, meaning they die freaking fast to a bigger Siegeline. The reason you don't see people playing with a ton of tanks against Protoss is that there is no need right now. I strongly believe that over the next year or two a lot of mech play will find its way into TvP. Regarding Zerg map control via Burrow. Completely agree, there is nothing compareble to the BW map control Lurker granted. However I think that is because Zerg have different Playstyle and BW is not SC2. Zerg now is designed to be the agressor, to attack and harras at multiple points and counter-attack everytime you leave your base. If you add a Unit that contains your opponnent while you get an army to do all that, the game becomes pretty boring and we would only see ZvZ since there is no way to inflict any damage without taking a ton more. That happens against a race that will almost always have better economy. Yeah, no thanks. Static defense: Agreed, static defense is extremely hard to manage in terms of when to get how much. Terran: But Terrans have Bunkers which are pretty good, I think it works for Terran really good early on since the Bunkers are a little risk, you get 75% if you didn't need them.+ Protoss: For Protoss, I must say I feel like the Cannons are complete Trash. But what is that? A Sentry? Cannons plus Forcefields are a great early game defense! Zerg: I feel like Zerg more relies on Queens to defend. Not only that Queens are actually pretty good, with the inject Zerg has a great production capability early on, say off of 2 hatches. You need to see your opponnent moving out and get a ton of Units, you do not need static defense early on. Later you can get so many Spines that they become pretty good pared with something like infestors Conclusion: It is SC2 not BW. The Micro aspect overall is a smaller portion of the gameplay as in BW, so is the Macro aspect. Meaning that strategy is what will win the game. Is that better? Is it worse? I have no clue, you decide for yourself. Also, give it time. I believe that the game will get a lot more demanding over the next years. Comparing a game that has been played for so long by professionals to something that new is just silly. Anyway, no one will read this since it got a little out of hand :D Still posting it though! This is actually straight up wrong, and misses the point on so many levels that its hard to contemplate. Forcefields 1st FF can't be broken untill you get massive units, for Terran this is quite late into the game and they won't get Thor in TvP because mech just straight up sucks against Protoss and this won't change untill HoTS (more on that later). Zerg can only break FF with Ultra, which is still a very bad unit, can easily be tanked by zealots and shredded by immortals +they have a hard time getting enough surface area to work effectively. And also Ultra comes into the game very late as well and not part of the standard composition. So while the option to break FF is there, it comes into the game so late and in such inconvenient units for the MU that this becomes irrelevant. 2nd The only other way to micro vs FF is with either burrow or drops, both of witch come into play by the midgame point. Now what is there to stop Toss from also sniping the Medivacs with stalkers right after he FFs an army? The zealots will tank and deal most of the damage to the trapped units anyway, the stalkers mearly assures the army will take heavy damage. And even absurdly assuming you had a thor in the army, it would be too slow to knock down the FF in time and you'd still probably take heavy damage. So really, FF still limits in game micro. Yes you can dance and position all you want, everyone does that, they did that in BW too. The thing is though, once FF lands there are no ways you can come out without taking heavy losses, most times you don't make it out at all. So, pre battle micro is there, once FF lands in battle micro starts to become a non factor, its that strong. Now, if FF had a set amount of HP and armor, enough to be good early game but much worst late game, than you'd have more options of in battle micro. You could try to risk your medivacs to free some units, or you could micro and shoot down some FF to escape. You've now got more options, as with before you really only had 1 very costly option, its still an improvement and I don't see how anyone can argue it isn't. I guess people are just way too zelous to bash on these kinds of posts to actually even dare to think them trough. For zerg, well, while technically you can escape FF with burrow, in reality only roaches and infestors will escape, lings, banes and hydras. Once stuck behind FF are almost allways dead. You maybe try to lift these up and save them, but the overlord drop and speed upgrades are expensive and time consuming, and you are risking your supply depos now to save your units, so still a very bad situation. And FF still does exactly what the protoss needs, he effectively blocks the zerg from getting a good engagement, while you can escape FF, you can't push against it as zerg. So again, FF doesn't limit pre-battle micro, since zerg will still try to set up flanks and stuff, while toss still tries to get the best angle and choke, but once the FFs land, either the zerg army is all going to be trapped and die, or the toss army gets protected behind an impenetrable wall while it shells away at the zerg army with colossus and storm, and the only thing zerg can do about it is send in some corrupters and hope they kill the colossus before the colossus kills the entire zerg army. Again, here if units where able to destroy FF the zerg might still take heavy losses while he DPSes the FF down, but he might still have a fighting chance and wouldn't be forced to go Infestor, Brood Lord, Corrupter every late game scenario. Fungal Growth This actually may be even worst than FF, because, once this hits, you really can't do anything, you can't pick up and leave, you can't burrow, you can't clock, you can't do shit. Again, this ability forces a pre-battle dance, but again this happens a lot in other engagements as well, there is nothing special about this. What is special though is that, once FG hits, there is next to 0 in game battle micro you can do. You can't split and run away marines and they will all die to banes or to the next fungal. You can maybe try to focus the infestors but then you are split trying to fight both banes and infestors while the lings are streaming in, murdering your tanks and picking apart your already weakened marines. Against Protoss, your zealots can't charge, your stalkers can't blink back and your sentries will die from being fungaled to death, limiting your FF count, so again there are very few things you can do. Maybe you can try to FF one side and run, but if the pre-battle micro happens, as it always does the zerg set up a flank and you're stuck between to fungaling armies, unable to blink or charge out and with not enough FF to last indefinetly. So again, wouldn't it really be better for the game if, not only could you dance around the battlefield with your micro, bait FF and Fungals, but also, once the engagement starts, still be able to react to FF and Fungal, to still be able to split and micro? Can you honestly, with a straight face, tell me that its better to let FF and FG the way they are, when with a few tweeks they could be even better/more engaging spells? A-move units The colossus is really terribly designed for micro. If you move it at the wrong time, you can cancel its attack, even though the animation might still show. And, what exactly do you need to focus fire it against? Against terran bio and zerg roach/ling it needs absolutely no focus fire, its just as effective without focus as it is with focus. The only worthy thing to focus would probably be infestors or ultras if the zerg makes them, there is no large and dangerous terran unit you'll want to focus. And the moving of the colossus is very easy too, with its very low unit colision it is super manuevrable. The cost/reward for properly setting up a group of colossus to even say zealots, stalkers and immortals is next to nothing. If you don't manage your army properly you could end up with zealots in the back, stalkers in the front and immortals dancing not firing. All of those are huge slip ups that can lose you a game. If the Colossus is out of position, it almost doesn't matter since it will just walk back a bit over its own units and be just fine. Risks/reward with using colossus is just broken, and the unit itself is broken, being able to deal large amount of damage with minimum input. Roaches are actually surprisingly cost effective untill you get aoe or some kind of battle control. Roaches in head to head fights straight up rape Zealots and Stalkers, especially with speed and/or on creep. Toss has FF simply just to cut the zerg army into bite size pieces so it can have any chance of winning, so that should keep you guessing. Roaches are also quite strong against early marines and small groups of marauders. Once a bio ball is large enough, roaches stop becoming so effective, but they are still not that bad. But again roaches in large numbers require very little in battle input, when they get into big numbers, they have a hard time getting surface area with their short range, so a bit of splitting and surounding is required, but once said surround is executed you can just let the roaches do their thing and grab a drink. At least Marauders, especially in TvP, requier a lot of micro to remain effective, you need to constantly stutter step to keep zealots of your back and thus they still remain interesting. Roaches on the other hand, you just run them in as close as possible from all angles and then let them shoot. Roach could be more interesting in smaller groups, where burrow heal could allow them to do what blink stalkers do. I've always thought this was an untapped potential the unit had, but the risk/reward of that action simply diminishes as the number of roaches, and number of enemy units, goes up. Zone Control I think we all agree (Blizzard included), that zone control is in a poor state right now, that is why they are giving terrans the shredder and zergs the swarm host. Again zone control =/= micro reducing abilities. If you want you can still perform a frontal attack on the enemy siege line, but you need a bit more pre-battle preparation as well as in more in battle micro to succeed, while micro reducing abilities is all about preparation and very little about in battle micro. Also the siege line not only forces you to play better against it if you want to go the frontal assault approach, it also opens up more tactical options around the map, perhaps you'd prefer to circumvent the fortified position all together using drops, run bys, and Nydus/warp ins. Mech vs Toss Now the part where you said that, you'd expect to see mech more popular vs Protoss, is the point where I started to think you actually don't play the game and have no clue what you are talking about. Yes tanks rape Stalkers, but everything else from Toss rapes tanks. Zealots take an amazing 5 hits to kill, and they can charge into a tank line and cause havoc. Immortals can tank 10 hits before their shields even go down. Archons, can eat an amazing 11 hits before they die as well. Void Rays rape tanks without even taking damage from them, Phoenixes graviton beam to make tanks useless etc. The support tanks have right now is bad too. Helions late game can't absorb damage for the tanks well enough, they just flat out die from the chargelots and/or archons. Thors don't fare any better, they get shredded by zealots and flat out obliterated by immortals. Terran mech is also so gas intensive you will be hard pressed to have enough for ghosts and EMP, or heck even vikings if the enemy decides to go mass air. Left compleatly alone the meta-game for Mech vs Protoss will never evolve, because there is no ground on which you can build it. In HoTS it might change since battle helions can absorb more hits and deal better damage with the cone attack. Warhounds are also going to be cheaper and more massable than thors so mech will be relatively ok vs air. But it will still suffer heavily against archons and immortals. So my conclusion is that, you didn't trully understand the points the OP was putting forth and thus failed to realize how right he really is. Yes SC2 is not BW, but it is SC, its in the same universe with the same characters, same story and lots of units that have made a comeback in some form or another. Even Dustin Browder and other devs have said that, to build the future you need to build upon the past. I believe there are still valuable lessons to be learned from BW, its our job to have an open mind and recognize these important lessons. Also, I don't think its the pathfinding and the tendancy for units to ball that is a problem. In a way it works kind of like the pathfinding in BW. Because units tend to ball up, you want to actively manage your units to keep them spread, in a line or a concave. In battle if you get a group of units stormed you split them or move them etc. You split your ghosts, sentries, infestors and HT so they don't all get neutralized in one fell swoop. In this regard I think pathfinding in SC2 is not as bad. The real underlying problem with balls is, the ese with which they spring up, and I'll try and touch upon that in a future article of my own. | ||
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SoulWager
United States464 Posts
Yep, im talking about brood war's vision system, where units on low ground would miss shots when shooting uphill. Yes, SC2 is a different game, but there were basic things in BW that just worked, and didn't need to be changed. And allowed the map designers to give the players something important to fight for, take RoV for example, where the whole middle area was so important to control, because it a huge hill with both players at the bottom, or blue storm, where high ground advantage was a key component of one of the best map specific TvT builds I've ever seen: | ||
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Masayume
Netherlands208 Posts
If you have a battle in Brood War, each individual unit has a baseline a.i. In this old game the a.i. had some bugs, but these bugs created opportunities for a better player to increase the value of each unit through good control. A good example would be mutalisks against scourge. Scourge was a fast flying unit, that would suicide and explode on other air units to kill them. Now a lesser player would perhaps be able to get a shot off with hold position micro and kill 1 or 2 scourge with any luck, but then lose his mutalisks to the remaining scourge. A mediocre player could use patrol commands moving in a certain degree, away from the scourge, to sometimes dodge a scourge and get a free shot off at the same time. A great player (Jaedong), would be able to use Patrol micro to first patrol away from a scourge in a certain angle, immediately issue another command to another angle upward, and then patrol command behind scourge to completely dodge the scourge, and hit them at the same time. The mutalisks would never get hit and just survive. This means that a mutalisk can dramatically increase in value through very precise control, partly caused due to old and bugged A.I. Now let's go to Starcraft 2 shall we, and let's take Phoenix vs Mutalisk as an example. The Phoenix is faster than the mutalisk, and shoots automatically while moving. This would allow for some good kiting micro you'd think. I will explain how that is impossible due to the nature of SC2 A.I. If a pack of mutalisk chases you and you fly away from them, kiting, you will get further and further away from the muta pack. This means you have to fly closer to them again to resume kiting and damaging these mutalisks. The player using the mutalisk can abuse this fact by turning around, forcing you to follow them to do damage, and then when you get closer they turn around randomly and get some good shots off at you. In BW, with good control, you can prevent this, but here is the deal with SC2 A.I. Air units always glide a little bit in the same direction as their attack, this is extremely problematic when it comes to phoenix, because it's a feature of the A.I. that prevents air unit stacking (viking flower) and is also caused because of the *shoot* animation. When the Phoenix fires his attack, he will glide until the animation finishes. So when you want to outperform mutalisks, you'd want to move in, get a shot and turn back immediately to avoid taking damage from the mutalisk to increase the value of your Phoenixes. But in SC2, you get punished for trying to do so. When you move in and your Phoenixes shoot, you click them away from the mutalisks, but they all glide for a short amount of time. In this time, a mutalisk pack can gain exactly enough ground to hit your Phoenixes, and actually do more damage than you did if the pack is at a medium size. In this case you actually decrease the value of your units if you try to micro more than just moving away. Another good example is the Stalker. In BW, you could kite marines with dragoons because their attack was instant. You could shoot and move away in time just before the marine could get in range to hit you once. In Starcraft 2, Stalkers have 1 more range than marines. You would think you would be able to kite marines then, right? Sorry to dissapoint you, but this is not the case, due to the following: In Starcraft 2, some units can fire instantly in every angle, 360 degrees around them. The marine is one of these units, which makes stutterstep what it is today, while that's actually one of the easiest micro moves to learn. Some units, have to turn around and face the target before they shoot, and some even have an attack animation that has to finish. Stalkers are one of these units. The scenario will be the following, you move and see a marine pack heading your way. You start using attack move toward them, and move away from them right when the Stalkers fire their shots. Unfortunately, the Stalkers have to turn to face the location that you issued the move command in. Now the marines get to fire their shots and do some good damage to your stalkers. Your micro now makes Stalkers slightly better against marines (10% approx), where it could have been much more. Due to the way the A.I. and attack animations work in SC2 (this is partially due to 3D), you lose all these possibilities to increase your unit value and turn battles around with less. Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement. The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect). The Infestors fungal most of your army, and the Zerg proceeds to surround you and destroy you. What can you do about it in the battle? Exactly, nothing at all. Pre battle you can spread your units and continue to split them a bit while in battle but these are things you could do in BW as well. But what you did not have in BW were spells and abilities that prevented movement in such a way that it became detrimental to the opposing player. Fungal does damage and roots units, force fields completely block movement in an area, concussive shells snare you for 0% extra effort. In BW you had Stasis, that could freeze units in an area, and do aoe unit nullifying you say? Well due to the nature of BW, the armies were much more spread out, and larger. Stasis and maelstrom were the only spells that could do an aoe lockdown, but the trick was that if you damaged a stasised unit, it would come out of it. Maelstrom did root biological units only (which makes it very niche right off the bat), but did no damage to them. In order to get maelstrom, you had to research a completely different tree of spells, for a unit that was completely niche for fighting massive bio armies. You would only see Dark Archons in PvZ late game. But again, this wasnt as powerful because BW had more spread out armies, and because of the nature of micro possibilities to increase unit value + some A.I. bugs, there were fights all over the map instead of one big battle, because this further increased your efficiency, and you could hold against vastly bigger armies due to the micro possibilities + highground advantages (low to highground attacks only had a 70% chance to hit in BW). | ||
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