EPTif there's a problem with static defense, then it's probably a problem moreso with things like the mobility of a mutaflock and the damage of marauders vs. buildings. spores, cannons, turrets perform very well for stopping air harassment (not air armies necessarily). i don't want to see any of those buildings buffed.
Too Much Firepower, Not Enough Stalkers - Page 9
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taintmachine
United States431 Posts
if there's a problem with static defense, then it's probably a problem moreso with things like the mobility of a mutaflock and the damage of marauders vs. buildings. spores, cannons, turrets perform very well for stopping air harassment (not air armies necessarily). i don't want to see any of those buildings buffed. | ||
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wheelchairs
United States145 Posts
Too much damage? There is also much more health on most units than BW, which i assume is what you're comparing this game to in order to decide that damages are too high. damage is also high vs. certain unit types, while low vs others, which is adding an entirely new and important part of building your army now, which lies in compositions. About static defenses, protoss standard in pvz is forge FE, with intent to get cannons if needed to defend the natural, which the cannons will do a fine job of vs. roach/lings. in TvZ the first wave of 6-10 mutas normally will do literally no damage if turrets are up in time, because turrets are good. spine crawlers are the #1 most popular way to defend your front as zerg vs hellions, and do a great job of it. Will a spine kill an upgraded marine w/ medivac support? i guess not. But should it? medivacs heal fast in sc2 and cost 100/100. Spore crawlers and turrets also have a huge detection range in sc2 which is nice also. As for #4, units being too strong vs one thing and weak vs another. SC2 was developed with that specific intent in mind. Army composition options are now much much more open, and much much more important in order to win battles. I dont know if its just because BW didnt have armor and damage types, but It makes the game better imho. Your thoughts about why it is bad that hellions are good vs lings but bad vs roaches, i just dont understand. Whats the problem with it? it is made that way with all the units, so if my opponent builds 100 zerglings, i should get some hellions, if he has 25 roaches, i get marauders/tanks. Idk i just dont get some the rants in the thread. If you dont like the game design, you dont have to play it, but i think some of your points are just random observations, suggesting something is wrong or needs fixed, when it is built the way blizzard intended it and each unit has a purpose. | ||
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Oreo7
United States1647 Posts
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Crakalaka
United States31 Posts
Those are what make the games good, the imperfections. Any 'competitive' game is always a cat'n'mouse game of 'who can abuse the glitch better, harder, faster', etc, so that they can win, no matter how dirty/glitchy/easy it looks. Probably all games that I can think of that had a pro-scene faced major 'patching' of the game, or 'sequels' disguised as patches or major buffs or nerfs.(Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros., Street Fighter, Counter Strike, Broodwar, DoTa, Warcraft, Halo). Okay, but this thread isn't about the competitiveness of Starcraft2,.. To the OP, you mentioned that Stalkers require a lot of micro vs their hard counters(lings, mauds, too many marines, immortals, roaches), honestly though, having prior knowledge of this event, like a true Starcraft player, would mean that, according to you, a person who made a lot of stalkers facing a big engagement of nothing but hard counters would have to micro(so he knows they suck) their ass off whereas a person who made the hard counters just sits back and kills off everything(because he knows stalkers suck vs certain unit compositions). Think of it like chess, when a master faces a grandmaster, the master usually is 20 moves ahead while the grandmaster is 200+ moves ahead. So.. what am I getting at? Here's the big deal: visualization. Imagine 17 lings and 8 roaches vs 12 stalkers with no blink or zealot support, sounds scary? (This is just an example, I know you can micro the stalkers till there's only like 2 left running back up your ramp) Well, two of three scenarios occur: If a master were handling those stalkers, he would immediately run, spilling his smell of fear all over the map, and the other player will smell the fear and take advantage. Any sort of micro would immediately put the stalker-user in position for a flank by lings and then they would get picked off by the roaches, essentially, because he knows the math, the hard-counter aspect of the game, etc. He knows how to win. If a master were handling the roach/ling army, he would see the 12 stalkers and immediately RUN, abusing mobility and going back to homebase to 'secure' the army. Note: [This is only if the players actually KNOW they are facing someone harder and stronger than themselves.] The third scenario, and probably the whole POINT to my post, is the third scenario that occurs when there is an obvious situation in which one favors the other, but both players are oblivious to their own skill: Okay, the 12 stalker vs 17 ling/8 roach army? Once again using that example, now imagine a grandmaster handling the 12 stalkers against another grandmaster handling the roach/ling army. Both are extremely robust players, but do not know of it, it's only a random game, and one GM decides to make a bunch of stalkers[EVEN WITH SCOUTING INFO], while the other GM, with the same scouting info, makes a small ling/roach army against the stalkers. You following me? They both know what's going to happen, they both are predicting events 200+ moves in advance, they don't know that they are both GM, stalkers should just insta-die to a hard counter like roaches and lings, BUT One GM goes against everything, scouts the roach/ling army, STILL makes stalkers and when he approaches the army, just the abuse of micro can change everything. The math won't add up, the statistics are probably all wrong, but to this day, even in broodwar, the way I see people rise up and win against everyone is the fact that they know the game is broken, YET they still do things that are likely to make them lose. Why? That's the whole point. To win like no other. The other person knows straight up, your strategy/unit is going to suck against his strategy/units, so they expect you not to do it. There's the advantage. When you know for a fact that stalkers- against small, high damage and high-dps units like marines, Concussive shell Mauds, roaches, lings, immortals, even sentries and zealots with a little micro- are a bad counter to [counter-units], but you still make stalkers? You obviously know something that the other person doesn't know, and you are going to abuse beautifully. Against all odds, you still go for it and, even better, you WIN with it. That, essentially, will make you sparkle as a player, the creativity that goes through a persons mind when they know stalkers will suck against that army, but still make stalkers anyways, is mind-boggling. That's what makes a pro a PRO. "I know [this unit/strategy] sucks against pretty much everything, but I'm still going to do it." More scientifically speaking, when you engage in a micro battle in which one army is weaker than the other, the right side of the brain instinctively takes over and it's all basic hand-eye coordination, muscle movement, mechanics, memorization, multi-tasking, and the left side of the brain is left cold because there is no room for creativity when you know something is going to lose to something else. When you engage in a micro battle in which one army is weaker than the other, but you're not just any other scrub, you're actually skilled, the left side of the brain will light up like a christmas tree and you will instantly abuse every single hit point and every single shield point possible. That is why you still see people making motherships, large amounts of stalkers, etc, it's like using the pistol in counter strike, when you know the other guy has a carbine, it's like using Luigi in Smash Bros. Melee, when you know he's low-tier and will probably face difficulties with higher tiers, it's like using Scouts in Broodwar, when you know there's a better unit called a 'corsair', it's like using the Needler in Halo 2, because you know there are WAY better weapons, but why use it? Because the person won't expect it. The math and the statistics point to one answer, the pro-gamer finds another. | ||
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Kuni
Austria765 Posts
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Micket
United Kingdom2163 Posts
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Epoxxyy
20 Posts
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zEnVy
United States446 Posts
I still love this game and will play it for the next decade, but I think they just need to globally reduce the damage units do. | ||
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deadmau
960 Posts
On January 19 2012 01:47 Destructicon wrote: @ Zrana I get the feeling you are too biassed against these so called "balance whines" to even try and consider they may have some legitimite concerns/ good points. + Show Spoiler + 1st Firepower is too big, when an entire army in TvP from either side can be destroyed in about 15 seconds you know something is wrong. When one small mistake (getting HT/Ghosts sniped/EMPed; getting colossus sniped/losing vikings) can cost you not only the engagement but possibly the entire game, then something is wrong. In a way Blizz is tacitly admiting this by going forth and saying that they want less units in the deathball, thats how they talked about some of the HoTS units. As for the faster player winning. I thought SC2 was a game about of strategy, not fast reactions, sure a fast player should be rewarded for being able to use his speed to micro/macro, but it shouldn't be the defining factor because battles last only seconds. 2nd Zooning is a real issue. There are currently few ways to for players to really put their stamp on a territory and declare it theirs. Terrans have it best, and its one of the reasons why it feels the most complete. It is important to have some ways to secure your territory so you can pull off a decisive thrust attack, or have enough time to reinforce your position. Zoning units are also important for putting pressure on the enemy and contesting territory, this is where the game starts to resemble chess, as players try to out manuever themselves or devise ways to break the line in slow and methodical ways. Again Blizz is addressing this issue in HoTS via Shredders, Swarm Hosts, and who knows what else they will think of. 3rd This is where you really start to seem thick. Static defenses are good in the early to mid game but start to become horrible towards the late game. And in a way it kind of builds on the problem of zoning. Static defenses aren't even hard to buff. Just have them be upgradable. That way you can keep them resonable for the early game so that no one wants to cannon rush or bunker rush every single game. But it also keeps them as a valuable part of the of the game well into the later stages. Overall I get the feeling that you're just basing the OP (and possibly a lot of other well thought out threads), because you're either sick and tired of them, or you legitimetly can't get your head around the problems/don't want to admit them. I was planning a huge post, but no reason to add fuel, you already laid out exactly what i felt when i read Zyga post. Either he's ignorant, or tired of the same threads that he writes off these valid points. But probably a new generation SC2-only player that refuses to admit these points. | ||
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FlayedOne
Poland47 Posts
On January 19 2012 03:00 wheelchairs wrote: Will a spine kill an upgraded marine w/ medivac support? i guess not. But should it? medivacs heal fast in sc2 and cost 100/100. A spine WILL kill a fully upgraded marine w/ medivac support. Just one though... A drop of 8 fully upgraded marines will kill of 3 spines in mere seconds while losing only 2-3 marines. At the beginning you do need 7 unupgraded marines to kill a spine though. On January 19 2012 03:00 wheelchairs wrote: I dont know if its just because BW didnt have armor and damage types, but It makes the game better imho. BW DID have armor and damage types.(or rather unit sizes and damage types) | ||
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Kuskinator
United Kingdom43 Posts
On January 19 2012 03:02 Oreo7 wrote: One day people are complaining with Day9 saying that you can't get ahead with micro, the next day people are complaining that micro is too hard and that micro mistakes make you lose the game. You can't have both. Exactly, people need to have a more open mind at look at things from other perspectives as opposed to just saying "I think x is bad because of y" - not thinking that y needs do z because of a etc etc. Tight Marine ball counters Lings - Zerg complain. Same Marines micro'd correctly counters Banes - Zerg complain. Well micro'd Mutas one/two-"shot" units - no one really complains. Thor splash negates this micro occurring requiring Mutas to be split (hi Marines/Banes) - Zerg complain. People really need to learn to adapt micro in different situations. Even the pro's still have a lot of room for improvement with regards to micro. Once upon a time all Terran's whined about Banes until they learned how to split. Once upon a time (and to some extent, still do) Zerg/Terran's whined about storm - Terran have become used to dodging these from Bane splitting and so split or pre-split. Zerg's I have noticed are also finally beginning to anticipate where storms are and dodge them with Roaches - and to a lesser extent splitting when Banes are incoming. Blink Stalker micro has improved greatly - Blinking only 1 or 2 at a time - and has become more widely seen. Roach Burrow micro on the other hand, has not. I have yet to see a game where Roach burrow is used on individual Roach's to pull them back, unburrow, and resume attacking (just like Stalkers, just like using Medivacs to pickup weak units temporarily). There's only ever blanket burrowing. Terran's are pre-splitting all their Bio army in nearly all situations where Tanks/Infestors/High Templar are concerned - there really is a lack of this going on from other races. The reason AoE splash damage is so prominent and unforgiving is not necessarily because of the unit pathing/balling, but people let their units ball. It's avoidable. | ||
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oxxo
988 Posts
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Tizer542
United States3 Posts
You make it seem like the game should be counter strike.... everyone should just be terran and build only marines and then it will be the true champion who luckily gets one extra hit in! The beauty of this game is that through scouting you're able to counter your opponent and you're rewarded because counters are very strong in this game. You take the time to see he's going mass tanks so you build a bunch of immortals. Should he be rewarded for having more tanks than you do immortals? I think not. He's done nothing other than go into a game and decide "hey I want this unit". I understand that you're frustrated because countering and scouting is VERY VERY difficult and only pros can do it correctly. However, if you remove this aspect of the game by "rebalancing" units, you're going to turn it into a who can mine more minerals game and that just is not fun. I think that maybe they could change some things about the game (unit types). For instance maybe make it so that workers aren't light units but just biological. This way you don't get decimated by banelings or hellions/reapers as easily. That's a possiblity! I think sc2 has gone in a wonderful direction. Though everything is much faster, the interface for controlling units in my oppinion is much more enjoyable and feels more rewarding. Even the simple things like being able to rally your workers to minerals... you can't argue that it was a fun part of BW because it wasn't. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11047 Posts
My big question (and I saw one post on the first page mentioning this) is do you want a much slower game? At the crux it seems like you want to reduce the speed of the game slightly. Lower mobility, less firepower, longer battles, more reaction time. The thread deviants into some unit design issues but at its core isn't this frenetic pace what we want? We want the 200/200 armies marauding around poking at expansions rather than locked behind walls of PFs/siege lines (use terran just for convenience) . | ||
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Crypdos
Netherlands110 Posts
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AdrianHealey
Belgium480 Posts
Just that. If blizzard does 'everything' in their power to make death ball less attractive and make harass, multi attacks, etc. more attractive; the game would be more awesome. | ||
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GhostBusters
United States198 Posts
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MerciLess
213 Posts
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RogerChillingworth
2843 Posts
On January 19 2012 01:59 TheButtonmen wrote: Dear lord more design QQ. If this is just as you said frustrated complaining then take it to blogs. If you are seriously concerned then take it to the Blizzards forums for the off chance they will read it. If you hate the design of Sc2 so much I've got this great game to recommend to you. So tired of all these design qq threads recently, Team Liquid isn't Blizzard, we don't balance the game or design HotS why continually complain here? It's called raising awareness. People continuing to bring up their complaints about core design flaws is the best chance it'll ever have of being fixed. Esoecially if it's articulated well and a lot of people agree. | ||
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Eknoid4
United States902 Posts
On January 18 2012 19:06 Tobberoth wrote: 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. Nothing the OP says or does will remove those "issues" from SC2, though. Your first obstacle is to convince Blizzard that this really is a core design flaw and at that, one that takes higher priority than everything else they are working on for them to take any kind of near-future action toward it. (Even if you convinced them right now it was the most important thing in the world to change, it would still take months) | ||
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