Lotta things were changed that allows SC2 to be decided by one big battle...
Lurkers for Zerg were taken out so Terran can mass up marines and still defeat Banelings and Baneling bombs with scans and Siege Tanks
Helions were way too OPed at first. Now they're ok but with Blue Flame they can kill so many drones with good control compared with Vultures from BW where you actually needed good micro to kill a fair amount of drones.
Vulture vs Helion. Watch as it takes skill to decimate a worker line compared to making a Reactor factory and spamming Helions and right click a worker and take out so many drones with little effort.
Allowing everything to be controlled in 1 group. Technically you can control 100 marines and stim them all at once and rape face instead of having to micro. This is probably the most important part because it makes u say hey my whole army can be controlled in 1 group might as well just go for one big ass attack. Compared to BW when Flash and Jaedong attack on countless fronts. And it's not just 1 big battle in the Center in BW more like A million as all their units are controlled individually.
And yeah I'd rather have goaliths then terran making like 3 Thors and stopping that big group of Mutas...
and In BW: Marine + Medic was equal to Muta if you have great micro. But Jaedong on the other hand is more then human :D
You don't see that in SC2 because one...mutas have way different control then in BW...They're reactions are slighty slower it seems like and you can group one big group of Marines together and they all clump together and can one shots...making Muta harass like BW a thing of the past
On January 18 2012 20:19 gh0un wrote: At this point in time i dont believe that blizzard is capable of fixing their utterly flawed game design, since it would require a complete overhaul of the game, which would mean they would have to admit that they made a mistake, and obviously its blizzard they will never admit that they made a mistake.
- unmicroable units (most of them are extremely limited) - spells that take away the ability to micro units (forcefield, neural parasite and fungal) instead of spells that encourage micro (dark swarm and radiate) - lack of units that can hold a position on the map (especially for zerg and protoss) -> no real map control aspect to the game - stuff clumps together in a tight ball leading to 1 big clash scenarios that are utterly boring
Especially point 2 and 3, the fact that blizzard managed to completely miss the dart board on these two issues is /facepalm inducing. How can you go from darkswarm, radiate, defensive matrix, lurker, reaver, spidermines, carriers and plenty more stuff, to something that completely takes away whole aspects of the game, WHILE not replacing them with other aspects.
Starcraft 2, from a gamedesign point of view is so terrible, its actually a miracle it managed to take off so well in esports. Guess the hype from waiting for a sequel to one of the best games in the industry was enough to get the rock rolling down the cliff. Unfortunately the rock is a fucking ugly bitch no one wants to touch, but its rolling already and the cliff is deep. Behold of the unstoppable ugly bitch rock that is starcraft 2 rolling down the cliff called money bay.
- unmicroable units (most of them are extremely limited) I call bullshit, let me cite some units that become better with micro: stalkers, marine, marauder, zergling, roach, hydra, corrupter, phoenix, void ray, banshee, viking, WORKERS, helions, immortals, templar, ghost, infestor.
- spells that take away the ability to micro units (forcefield, neural parasite and fungal) instead of spells that encourage micro (dark swarm and radiate) Let me introduce you to my little friend, called the dark archon, who has the spells: Maelstrom, freezes organic units in place for 7 seconds, Oh right he had another spell! called mindcontrol.
- lack of units that can hold a position on the map (especially for zerg and protoss) -> no real map control aspect to the game I beg to differ, zerg has creep and burrowed banes, toss has storm and forcefield the best map holder in the game
- stuff clumps together in a tight ball leading to 1 big clash scenarios that are utterly boring Pathing.
When he says micro he doesn't mean pulling back the injured unit. Yes that is micro and makes units more effective, but it isn't interesting. In Brood War units had different micro, you didn't micro dragoons the same way you microed vultures.
The Dark Archon is a dumb example because it was a higher tiered unit that was super expensive and typically very rarely seen. It costs too much to be worth what it did. In SC2 sentries are available almost from the get go. Infestors come with lair. They're both cheaper then they should be and very easy to get alot of.
And burrowed banelings aren't good at holding ground. Toss armies have observers. They just insta-die. You might get a lucky baneling hit on a group of marines but from then on as long as the terran is careful he shouldn't hit anymore. Doesn't take long to make a raven when you already have a starport for medivacs.
And I think he is complaining about the pathing.
How do you propose making units more microable? I think more divergence in unit movespeeds would be a good start to this process
Also interesting to me is that micro doesn't seem to scale in importance with correlation to the increasing size of armies. I mean some early game engagements showcase truly sick micro in all of its forms, but this doesn't continue to the lategame
Honestly 90% of the micro tricks in BW were just bugs that people were able to find and exploit, muta stacking, vulture patrol micro, etc, were all different, each required you to know exactly the timing you needed to click and press keys and each created different interactions between the units. Vultures were terrible against goons, but if you surround the goons and put down spider mines around them all the sudden the vultures could get some really efficient kills along with the risk of losing all your vultures to an errant mine. Each race had different non-spellcasters that had micro tricks that changed the game, and in general the spellcasters had more interesting and difficult spells. In BW seeing an army get blanketed in storms was amazing to see because for each of those storms you knew the player had to select each Templar individually and cast the storm. Seeing four storms cover an army instantaneously was fucking amazing because somehow they were able to be that fast. In SC2 just "t click" a couple times and you're done. I think Hunter Seeker Missile has enormous potential to be a really awesome spell that would be fun to watch and play, terran casts it and it requires a response from the other player or else it will be huge damage, but with proper control it might not do anything at all. I think it needs a range buff before it will ever get used in mass though.
Hate to turn it into a BW is harder type of post but its hard not to when it comes to spellcasters
In this day and age I don't think the system should be made so those bugs exist but it should be made so that the units are more varied and require different control. Or if they don't want to make the units have more unique interactions with control, make the early spells less punishing. As a zerg player I don't find it fun to watch a two base push form terran get cancelled out by two fungals that happen to catch 20 marines. And I certainly don't find it fun to see forcefields and a wall make zerg aggression pointless.
True, actually quite interesting as well. Many of the gameplay mechanics that are taken for granted in a lot of competitive games are just bugs, or at least the exploitation of something to carry out a function that the designers didn't envisage. Rocket/grenade jumping is something I remember being blown away by when I was 8 and playing the classic Marathon series, animation canceling is in a ton of games, especially fighting games.
Regardless of where your points of reference are, be it from BW, the epic micro potential of WC3, or even elsewhere, it doesn't invalidate them as something that could potentially improve the game.
What race you play shouldn't matter either. The collosus is my least favourite unit in the game for two reasons, namely it doesn't get any better with control, really, and secondly it fits into the 'hard counter' category, which I dislike.
This is actually really well put together, and very interesting food for thought. No race bias or anything, just speculation on the state of the game. I definitely agree with this. All of it. 10/10
I disagree with everything stated in the OP. If you want to compare stats you'll find that damage in SC2 is lower compared to units in BW. The difference comes from more difficult mechanics and worse AI. Because of the easier mechanics in SC2 it's much more easier to macro. People are maxing out at the 15 minute mark while in BW it took people twice as long in order to achieve the same. This creates more fast paced action and I guess more damage all around, but it's not because units have too much firepower.
Defensive structures are also significantly buffed in SC2 compared to BW, but they seem weaker again because there are more units running around.
In terms of zoning, that's an issue that Blizzard is trying to address in HotS. They're introducing units that aren't part of the death ball to try to get more unit spread around the map. If it's successful then maybe you'll begin to notice the reduced damage going around.
I would also argue that BW had harder counters than in SC2. When you can micro 2 reavers to take out entire zerg armies it's easy to see how powerful certain units can be against others. There's nothing remotely like that in SC2. A single well placed psi-storm would annihilate a muta ball, you'd be lucky to get half health off of mutas in SC2.
On January 19 2012 10:33 shortsteve wrote: I disagree with everything stated in the OP. If you want to compare stats you'll find that damage in SC2 is lower compared to units in BW. The difference comes from more difficult mechanics and worse AI. Because of the easier mechanics in SC2 it's much more easier to macro. People are maxing out at the 15 minute mark while in BW it took people twice as long in order to achieve the same. This creates more fast paced action and I guess more damage all around, but it's not because units have too much firepower.
Defensive structures are also significantly buffed in SC2 compared to BW, but they seem weaker again because there are more units running around.
In terms of zoning, that's an issue that Blizzard is trying to address in HotS. They're introducing units that aren't part of the death ball to try to get more unit spread around the map. If it's successful then maybe you'll begin to notice the reduced damage going around.
I would also argue that BW had harder counters than in SC2. When you can micro 2 reavers to take out entire zerg armies it's easy to see how powerful certain units can be against others. There's nothing remotely like that in SC2. A single well placed psi-storm would annihilate a muta ball, you'd be lucky to get half health off of mutas in SC2.
The thing is...one...you can clump more units together into a deathball...which means more units can fire at a target . Take for example marines. You can clump 20marines together into one neat ball and stim and one shot mutas easily. Compared to BW where u need Medics to help your Marines along with Missile turrets to fend off Muta Harass. And you can only control 12 units at a time. So theres no easy I WIN button like in SC2.
Defensive structures are NOT more buff...SUnken Colonies did 40dmg compared to Spine Crawler's 25. Sunken Colonies cud 2 shot marines. 3 Sunken Colonies wud be able to hold ur base against an early pressure of Marine Medic until either Lurkers or Mutas came out. Now in SC2 just get a few marines clumped together and target down Spine Crawlers so fast that not one marine will be killed.
On January 19 2012 10:33 shortsteve wrote: I disagree with everything stated in the OP. If you want to compare stats you'll find that damage in SC2 is lower compared to units in BW. The difference comes from more difficult mechanics and worse AI. Because of the easier mechanics in SC2 it's much more easier to macro. People are maxing out at the 15 minute mark while in BW it took people twice as long in order to achieve the same. This creates more fast paced action and I guess more damage all around, but it's not because units have too much firepower.
Defensive structures are also significantly buffed in SC2 compared to BW, but they seem weaker again because there are more units running around.
In terms of zoning, that's an issue that Blizzard is trying to address in HotS. They're introducing units that aren't part of the death ball to try to get more unit spread around the map. If it's successful then maybe you'll begin to notice the reduced damage going around.
I would also argue that BW had harder counters than in SC2. When you can micro 2 reavers to take out entire zerg armies it's easy to see how powerful certain units can be against others. There's nothing remotely like that in SC2. A single well placed psi-storm would annihilate a muta ball, you'd be lucky to get half health off of mutas in SC2.
The thing is...one...you can clump more units together into a deathball...which means more units can fire at a target . Take for example marines. You can clump 20marines together into one neat ball and stim and one shot mutas easily. Compared to BW where u need Medics to help your Marines along with Missile turrets to fend off Muta Harass. And you can only control 12 units at a time. So theres no easy I WIN button like in SC2.
Defensive structures are NOT more buff...SUnken Colonies did 40dmg compared to Spine Crawler's 25. Sunken Colonies cud 2 shot marines. 3 Sunken Colonies wud be able to hold ur base against an early pressure of Marine Medic until either Lurkers or Mutas came out. Now in SC2 just get a few marines clumped together and target down Spine Crawlers so fast that not one marine will be killed.
The Spine Crawler attacks faster than a sunken. overall the spine crawler does more damage in a given time period than a sunken. it's also cheaper too.
This game has barely been out. Go look at BW pro videos the year it came out and check to see their 'micro.' People are still finding out ways to abuse the game and it wont be fully realized for quite some time.
And I found Thorazain's split much more amazing and fun to watch than the vult micro.
On January 19 2012 10:33 shortsteve wrote: I disagree with everything stated in the OP. If you want to compare stats you'll find that damage in SC2 is lower compared to units in BW. The difference comes from more difficult mechanics and worse AI. Because of the easier mechanics in SC2 it's much more easier to macro. People are maxing out at the 15 minute mark while in BW it took people twice as long in order to achieve the same. This creates more fast paced action and I guess more damage all around, but it's not because units have too much firepower.
Defensive structures are also significantly buffed in SC2 compared to BW, but they seem weaker again because there are more units running around.
In terms of zoning, that's an issue that Blizzard is trying to address in HotS. They're introducing units that aren't part of the death ball to try to get more unit spread around the map. If it's successful then maybe you'll begin to notice the reduced damage going around.
I would also argue that BW had harder counters than in SC2. When you can micro 2 reavers to take out entire zerg armies it's easy to see how powerful certain units can be against others. There's nothing remotely like that in SC2. A single well placed psi-storm would annihilate a muta ball, you'd be lucky to get half health off of mutas in SC2.
The thing is...one...you can clump more units together into a deathball...which means more units can fire at a target . Take for example marines. You can clump 20marines together into one neat ball and stim and one shot mutas easily. Compared to BW where u need Medics to help your Marines along with Missile turrets to fend off Muta Harass. And you can only control 12 units at a time. So theres no easy I WIN button like in SC2.
Defensive structures are NOT more buff...SUnken Colonies did 40dmg compared to Spine Crawler's 25. Sunken Colonies cud 2 shot marines. 3 Sunken Colonies wud be able to hold ur base against an early pressure of Marine Medic until either Lurkers or Mutas came out. Now in SC2 just get a few marines clumped together and target down Spine Crawlers so fast that not one marine will be killed.
The Spine Crawler attacks faster than a sunken. overall the spine crawler does more damage in a given time period than a sunken. it's also cheaper too.
Sometimes increased attack speed doesn't make it even. In BW the Sunken was much better than the Spine is in SC2 against marines even with an increased attack speed. Sunken would 2 shot marine in BW and in SC2 its a 2 shot for Spine vs marine and 3 shot if the marines have combat shield. So basically the Sunken vs Marine model in BW was much more efficient for zerg seeing as the terran will always get combat shield eventually.
On January 19 2012 10:33 shortsteve wrote: I disagree with everything stated in the OP. If you want to compare stats you'll find that damage in SC2 is lower compared to units in BW. The difference comes from more difficult mechanics and worse AI. Because of the easier mechanics in SC2 it's much more easier to macro. People are maxing out at the 15 minute mark while in BW it took people twice as long in order to achieve the same. This creates more fast paced action and I guess more damage all around, but it's not because units have too much firepower.
Defensive structures are also significantly buffed in SC2 compared to BW, but they seem weaker again because there are more units running around.
In terms of zoning, that's an issue that Blizzard is trying to address in HotS. They're introducing units that aren't part of the death ball to try to get more unit spread around the map. If it's successful then maybe you'll begin to notice the reduced damage going around.
I would also argue that BW had harder counters than in SC2. When you can micro 2 reavers to take out entire zerg armies it's easy to see how powerful certain units can be against others. There's nothing remotely like that in SC2. A single well placed psi-storm would annihilate a muta ball, you'd be lucky to get half health off of mutas in SC2.
The thing is...one...you can clump more units together into a deathball...which means more units can fire at a target . Take for example marines. You can clump 20marines together into one neat ball and stim and one shot mutas easily. Compared to BW where u need Medics to help your Marines along with Missile turrets to fend off Muta Harass. And you can only control 12 units at a time. So theres no easy I WIN button like in SC2.
Defensive structures are NOT more buff...SUnken Colonies did 40dmg compared to Spine Crawler's 25. Sunken Colonies cud 2 shot marines. 3 Sunken Colonies wud be able to hold ur base against an early pressure of Marine Medic until either Lurkers or Mutas came out. Now in SC2 just get a few marines clumped together and target down Spine Crawlers so fast that not one marine will be killed.
The Spine Crawler attacks faster than a sunken. overall the spine crawler does more damage in a given time period than a sunken. it's also cheaper too.
Even if that was true, which isn't since sunkens are obviously stronger, the problem is there is not enough time when a ball of marines shred it to death within 3 seconds.
Also people, something many people seem to ignore is that SC2 is 16 : 9 where BW was 4 : 9 ? (I hope this ratio is the correct one, might not be though) So there is wider perspective to see. Because of that, it's easier to move around and harder to constrict space. That also increases the firepower potential of units.
On January 19 2012 15:42 Kanil wrote: Sunken colonies do explosive damage, they don't one shot marines. Think 20+20 armored, if you aren't familiar with BW's damage system.
Ahh yeah my bad been too long since I played, and I don't watch anymore except for In_dove's stream occasionally
Helions were way too OPed at first. Now they're ok but with Blue Flame they can kill so many drones with good control compared with Vultures from BW where you actually needed good micro to kill a fair amount of drones.
Vulture vs Helion. Watch as it takes skill to decimate a worker line compared to making a Reactor factory and spamming Helions and right click a worker and take out so many drones with little effort.
Hellions are probably pretty easy to use..... in fucking platinum T_T
BW is a much slower game, and I like it for that. SC2 micro is EXTREMELY fast paced, and ya know I kinda like that too.
Almost all units seem to have an extremely strong damage output
"Strong"' is relative, thus it's impossible for "almost all" units to have extremely strong demage output.
and become unstopable in certain situations
Show proof that it's true. You, not seeing ways to deal with something, doesn't mean that there are none.
The heavy splash damage units are able to absolutely crush certain kinds of units with very little ability to micro out of the situation.
What? Units that are countered by AOE have always faster or equal speed to those AOE demage dealing units.
There's even spells in the game to lock units in place until they get crushed.
And just like all units, casters with those spells can be countered.
I think that's enaugh. You just make invalid point after invalid point through the whole post, all of which is whining and displaying your inability to find solutions in the game
Almost all units seem to have an extremely strong damage output
"Strong"' is relative, thus it's impossible for "almost all" units to have extremely strong demage output.
I admire your attempt at logic, yet it is flawed: Strong damage output is relative to other unit's HP, not other units' DPS, as you are assuming.
On January 19 2012 15:51 Dariusz wrote: I think that's enaugh. You just make invalid point after invalid point through the whole post, all of which is whining and displaying your inability to find solutions in the game
Yes; I too am annoyed by the QQ blog posts on game design clouding my precious SC2 discussion haven. However, your BM bleeds through the words inability & whining. Techno does not approve.
On January 19 2012 06:18 Blasteroids wrote: This post is somewhat silly because the op is complaining the some things in starcraft 2 are not as they were in Brood War in terms of the flow of the game. Of course Starcraft 2 will be different and what's bad in your eyes might be good in someone else's eyes. Furthermore Stalkers are great! In PvZ mass stalkers can go around picking of bases, killing units that are separated. Things like funglegrowth and maruaders are necessary or else stalkers would just be to strong. If you don't like how starcraft 2 plays out go back to Brood War and don't say that there's a design flaw because that's your opinion not someone else's on how starcraft 2 plays out. Finally all units are good against somethings and garbage against others. If units were good against everything and really good against others it was that way in Brood War and its that way in Starcraft 2. As far as zoning units Blizzard addressed this problem with in Hots with units like the Tempest and the Swarm Host
but Starcraft 2 's unit designs are just plain booring, so he is using an example from a game where units were still pretty retarded (in terms of AI) but there was a set of tricks to maximize on their efficiency and use. Sure, there were some units that completely hard countered other units but they dont completely make them utterly useless (for example, helions get completely hard countered by roaches, helions can probably kill 4 or 5 when roaches can kill like 2x-3x the number, even when micro is involved). After that, unit compositions become more skill based and won't just be "oh i have X amount of units vs his Y amount of units i will be able to own him because i have more units that hard counter his units".
Another reason why people probably want SC2 to be like BW is also because maybe its supposed to be starcraft, they want the legacy of a complete skill based, micro and macro intensive game but with just a new touch of graphics, new units, but that same old nostalgia that BW gave. If they wanted the game to be something else, why not call it COD2011:Tactical Imbalance or something like that?
There's even spells in the game to lock units in place until they get crushed.
And just like all units, casters with those spells can be countered.
I think that's enaugh. You just make invalid point after invalid point through the whole post, all of which is whining and displaying your inability to find solutions in the game
Colosi are impossible to deal with vs T or vs Z if you don't have a lot of air support, and i mean ALOT. thats one good example for you.
The proof? You play the game, please tell me you haven't had a player mass just one unit and just overwhelm you with it (cough marines maybe?)
AOE units have insanely higher DPS to individual units, not to mention their attacks also radiate withitin a certain radius, you basically need more units to counter them or split them in a certain way and hit AOE units before they can shoot a 2nd volley
Right now, spells are just impossible to counter once casted, and even before casted it is way to hard to stop it, it depends on your opponents mistake of a stupid cast.
Thats enough, i dont even know what you wrote or what league you played in, but it is definitely not very high. Once you get to masters, you understand a lot of this stupid shit that happens due to the fact that the other person just made more workers than you and just won the game, and i don't believe thats a true display of skill.
On January 18 2012 18:58 slytown wrote: If you don't like the game, go back to playing BW. Noone's stopping you. You're listing off complete design changes instead of specific issues.
I love BW and won't hate you for switching back.
This kind of argument is the most retarded kind there is. People complaining about a subject don't need to be reminded that they can quit anytime. It's obvious that they love the game and want it to be better and leaving it is not the solution.
When you have a gf you just go back to your ex when she does something you don't like or you actually prefer if she changed in a better person.
On January 18 2012 18:58 slytown wrote: If you don't like the game, go back to playing BW. Noone's stopping you. You're listing off complete design changes instead of specific issues.
I love BW and won't hate you for switching back.
This kind of argument is the most retarded kind there is. People complaining about a subject don't need to be reminded that they can quit anytime. It's obvious that they love the game and want it to be better and leaving it is not the solution.
When you have a gf you just go back to your ex when she does something you don't like or you actually prefer if she changed in a better person.
These people on the internet....
Its sad a specially if lead designer tells you the same...
On January 18 2012 18:58 slytown wrote: If you don't like the game, go back to playing BW. Noone's stopping you. You're listing off complete design changes instead of specific issues.
I love BW and won't hate you for switching back.
The OP isn't about not liking the design of SC2 compared to BW, it's about flaws in the design which BW didn't have. Going back to BW won't remove those issues from SC2.
I think it must be emphasized that modern RTS game design would dictate that BW has poor game design, whereas SC2 is superior in almost every way. However, most of us very well know that BW shines due to the limitations it imposes on it's players (no auto-mine, no MBS, no smart cast, etc.). Hell, a lot of people who play other RTS complain that SC2 is even far behind on modern RTS game design (the ability to move and attack in particular). Again, we all know that the limitation of having to move and then manually choose when to attack adds more micro/skill to the game. Just interesting food for thought seeing as this conversation of SC2 mechanics vs BW mechanics comes up so often.
EPT
