EPTDefense, the Defender's Advantage and SC2 - Page 2
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Sunrunner
United States80 Posts
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solidbebe
Netherlands4921 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:04 Mataza wrote: I´m gonna cite Day[9]: "The system is never flawed" My opinion is that there already is defender´s advantage. Basically an even bigger defender´s advantage would also mean that it is unreasonable to attack early on. Right now, pressure builds exist because Defenders advantage is not overwhelming. Typical rush builds lose if the first attack isn´t successful(obvious). Right now, SC2 games begin at about the time where the first feasible oppurtunity for aggression is. If there was no feasible alternative to a greedy start, you could just fast forward this part of gameplay because its always the same(That´s why Blizzard gives you now 6 workers instead of the 4 you got in SC:BW). Taking your Huk replay, he did not scout for an attack and his army was out of position. All he needed to do was keep a probe or a stalker at his opponents ramp or keep his army in the right spot. But he didn´t. He *could* have delayed the attack with 5 forcefields or engaged in equal terrain. Instead he had to crawl down a ramp which is in range of 3 Tanks. Tl;dr: The issue isn´t as big as you make it be. Huk lost in this game because of mistakes, like lack of scouting. Remember that Blizzard already announced changes do that end for HotS(summons a cannon on building). I might not have said it outright yet, but you seem to be just another balancewhiner. Have a nice day. Day9's quote is all very well and good, but if everyone thought the system is never flawed, then we would be stuck with alot of very very flawed systems. Also I vaguely recall him saying something about that you should always try to find improvements in that daily. Isn't this was the OP is doing? | ||
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HardlyNever
United States1258 Posts
There are two major things to consider when approaching this right now: 1. How would you give all 3 races an increase in defenders advantage? Besides just adding chokes, which is especially bad for zerg (terran actually like to fight in chokes with some rushes), what other neutral or map change would you make? You mentioned WC3, which I played a lot of. The problem with the defenders advantage in WC3(which were race specific) was two fold. One, most people agreed it was a tad too strong overall. Two, and probably more importantly, people found was to use things that were meant for defense in an offensive way. I don't know how many times a human would militia up early, run to my base (militia ran faster) start attacking, then build towers in my base. You could build AoW near your opponents base and use their attack (something designed as a defensive advantage) and attack with them. Think cannon rushing, but much much stronger. It is tough to come up with mechanics that can provide a defenders advantage that cannot be twisted around into an offensive role. 2. SC2, as a design principle, was made to favor aggression. That isn't to say they didn't want any sort of defenders advantage, but it was made clear from the start (I remember reading this in several Browder interviews, but I'm too lazy to find them atm) that they wanted a more "action" focused game, and one of the ways they planned to achieve this is make attacking less risky than other RTSs. They wanted action early and often, but maybe they went too far in this direction. I would like more of a defenders advantage, but it is hard to achieve, especially if you aren't trying to add more units to the game. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5217 Posts
Otherwise I mostly agree with your assessment, but I disagree with the conclusion. The real problem isn't defense, it is the ability (or lack thereof) to scout. We need better scouting mechanisms. Even if we had better defensive mechanisms, spending resources (minerals, gas,energy, apm, time, ect) on defense when there isn't an attack coming will put you behind, and then people aren't spending resources to defend anyway, and then we have people making threads about how we need more scouting mechanisms to know when they need to spend resources to defend or not. Imagine playing Risk, but not knowing where your enemies armies were. If you had to defend a wide front, the defenders advantage would evaporate again, and attacking would be King. Thus, in the end we need to know whether or not an attack is coming. Let's fix the real problem here (scouting) and not one its side effects. That said, I think what makes SC2 great is that attacking is powerful, leading to action packed games. When I made Coming of the Horde (a mod for WC3), I balanced it the same way, though I gave the Alliance (the defenders) powerful scouting tools. | ||
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Steel
Japan2283 Posts
I play Protoss. I also play Terran, but I only started after I got sick of the above types of games (all being deathball or losses to rushes). This is completely my opinion, again, but it seems to me that Protoss has some real problems with defense early – and watching the streams of pro players, it seems I’m not alone. I’m not going to claim that players don’t make mistakes or that there is a specific style of all-in which is completely unfair, but I will make the general comment that it seems like Protoss has more problems with early aggression – and, to my knowledge, PvP specifically is the only matchup dominated by rushes for as long as PvP has been. In my estimation, this is primarily because Protoss does a couple things very differently which lead them to less of a defender’s advantage. This isn't intended as a balance whine - and within the context of the current game, Protoss actually does fine (again, you've seen the deathball), but since I'm talking about defender's advantage - I'm going to bring up that they seem to be lacking specifically here. First, there’s the warpgate mechanic. This mechanic drastically reduces defender’s advantage. Why? Let’s say you’re in a TvT where both of you are making MM and he pushes, when his army size hits 20 food. A big part of defender’s advantage is the time it takes for one player to get to the other player’s base. During that time, let’s say you both produce 6 food worth of guys. Your 6 food participates, while his does not – so your larger army kills that many more of his units. But now, let’s say that instead of making MM in a TvT, you’re making gateway units in a PvT. I would have no problem with protoss not having warpgates if you want (I'm Zerg). Obviously, QQ, Protoss cannot attack and be aggressive anymore. What you're asking for here is to have a defenders advantage, and still have your (enormous) attackers advantage. All comes at a price. Besides, this lack of defenders advantage only applies in the very early game. As soon as you have sentries, on any map with a ramp or choke, an attacker shouldn't break you. I literally can NEVER attack protoss as Zerg if their army is at their base. Then, when you look at drops, as soon as you spot it you can warp in units to give you time to bring your army back. What do other races do? Just run away and take damage. Warp gates, and the ability to instantly warp in units, is a HUGE attacking AND defending ability. Let's you took a hidden base, have no units there and the terran drops it. If you're on 3 bases, you have enough warpgates to stop the drop cold, maybe losing a couple probes. Now let's look at the zerg perspective: A Terran or Protoss drops my hidden base. I doubt I can get units there in time to stop the drop from killing all my drones and my base, and besides zerglings dont fare too well against zealots, or marines. So, you have immediate access to several units for defense, and you're saying "this mechanic drastically reduces defender’s advantage." Okay, maybe for 1 base pushes (which you stop losing to pretty quickly). Otherwise, it's a huge advantage. Otherwise good post. | ||
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Omsomsoms
Croatia194 Posts
Edit: Holy shit TheBronzeKnee, Coming of the Horde was my absolute favorite WC3 map :O | ||
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Mataza
Germany5364 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:14 solidbebe wrote: Day9's quote is all very well and good, but if everyone thought the system is never flawed, then we would be stuck with alot of very very flawed systems. Also I vaguely recall him saying something about that you should always try to find improvements in that daily. Isn't this was the OP is doing? Well and right, but his presentation is still misleading. Huk losing against some no name because of lack of defenders advantage is an order of magnitude more severe than reality. I noticed also that 'spines and bunkers are used very much, cannons not', which is another way of saing "buff cannons". My other point still stands, there are changes announced for HotS.(Which will increase offense/variety for T/Z and defense for P). Don´t get impatient. The issues in WoL are minor at best, except for PvP of course ; ) | ||
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xsevR
United States324 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:15 HardlyNever wrote: Overall, I agree that the game lacks enough of a defenders advatange, and protoss seems to suffer the most from this, especially in PvP. However, there is a lot going on here, including unit interaction, especially in the early game. There are two major things to consider when approaching this right now: 1. How would you give all 3 races an increase in defenders advantage? Besides just adding chokes, which is especially bad for zerg (terran actually like to fight in chokes with some rushes), what other neutral or map change would you make? You mentioned WC3, which I played a lot of. The problem with the defenders advantage in WC3(which were race specific) was two fold. One, most people agreed it was a tad too strong overall. Two, and probably more importantly, people found was to use things that were meant for defense in an offensive way. I don't know how many times a human would militia up early, run to my base (militia ran faster) start attacking, then build towers in my base. You could build AoW near your opponents base and use their attack (something designed as a defensive advantage) and attack with them. Think cannon rushing, but much much stronger. It is tough to come up with mechanics that can provide a defenders advantage that cannot be twisted around into an offensive role. 2. SC2, as a design principle, was made to favor aggression. That isn't to say they didn't want any sort of defenders advantage, but it was made clear from the start (I remember reading this in several Browder interviews, but I'm too lazy to find them atm) that they wanted a more "action" focused game, and one of the ways they planned to achieve this is make attacking less risky than other RTSs. They wanted action early and often, but maybe they went too far in this direction. I would like more of a defenders advantage, but it is hard to achieve, especially if you aren't trying to add more units to the game. Just looking at the first point--don't all these things already exist in SC2? Tower pushes = bunker pushes, cannon rushes, and even the rare spine crawler push vs ffe. Proxying an ancient of war = proxy raxes, gates, hatches. The difference is 1) in ease of execution for the cheeser and 2) your forgetting about defender's advantage in these scenarios. If a human tower pushes me as an orc, at least I have burrows and possibly a shop at my base. A proxied AoW still isn't using the full Night Elf defender's advantage (although I think i've seen proxied moon wells too before haha) In SC2, you're still missing the basic defense mechanisms that exist in WC3, but have very similar offensive ones to be abused. I would also tend to agree that you can't have as strong of defender's advantage in a game like sc2 because the lack of heroes. In WC3, the obvious counter to a ton of static defense +basic defender's advantage is not only free expansions, but free experience, gold and the denial of your opponent getting to move out on the map. Simply, there's more important stuff on WC3 maps because of the hero mechanic, and being shut in your base is basically the equivalent to losing. | ||
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Cereb
Denmark3388 Posts
Static defence in wc3 was actually the worst thing for the entire game. Humans and Orcs turtling behind a wall of towers was the most hated thing by all players, even being used in pro matches by lesser players to win and it was completely retarded to watch. But there are still some valid points. Speaking from a Zerg perspective both in zvz and zvp, if you made just a couple of more workers than your opponent and he decides to do a timing attack you're basically dead. VS Terran I feel it's mostly the 1 base things that you hide behind a wall in that are abit silly. It's not that any of the attacks are unbeatable at all but the line is just abit thin. Not sure. Warp gate is a cool mechanic but I'd wish they could somehow make it so that you'd be punished on the cool down timer if you warped in and it'd build faster if you didn't. Of course you'd probably have to redesign everything cause 2 proxy gates would basically be unstoppable if they got warp gate cooldown time on normal gates  | ||
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Zombo Joe
Canada850 Posts
As of right now the only defenses that provide significant defenders advantage are bunkers with mass repair, forcefields on chokes, spines with mass transfuse. Outside of defending, none of these can be used effectively for attacking. In the late game they also fall flat to deathballs. | ||
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SnuggleZhenya
596 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:04 Mataza wrote: I´m gonna cite Day[9]: "The system is never flawed" I think you are mischaracterizing his argument. In the context of a competitive atmosphere, you do what wins and to blame the system isn't productive towards that goal. That isn't to say that the system couldn't produce more interesting games if it were changed. In fact I believe day9 has said on occasion that he think that SC2 would benefit a lot from more units which are able to control territory (like Sc1 siege tanks or lurkers). You can suggest changes to a system without letting it affect how you understand its current system. | ||
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Freye
Denmark14 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:04 Mataza wrote: I´m gonna cite Day[9]: "The system is never flawed" My opinion is that there already is defender´s advantage. Basically an even bigger defender´s advantage would also mean that it is unreasonable to attack early on. Right now, pressure builds exist because Defenders advantage is not overwhelming. Typical rush builds lose if the first attack isn´t successful(obvious). Right now, SC2 games begin at about the time where the first feasible oppurtunity for aggression is. If there was no feasible alternative to a greedy start, you could just fast forward this part of gameplay because its always the same(That´s why Blizzard gives you now 6 workers instead of the 4 you got in SC:BW). Taking your Huk replay, he did not scout for an attack and his army was out of position. All he needed to do was keep a probe or a stalker at his opponents ramp or keep his army in the right spot. But he didn´t. He *could* have delayed the attack with 5 forcefields or engaged in equal terrain. Instead he had to crawl down a ramp which is in range of 3 Tanks. Tl;dr: The issue isn´t as big as you make it be. Huk lost in this game because of mistakes, like lack of scouting. Remember that Blizzard already announced changes do that end for HotS(summons a cannon on building). I might not have said it outright yet, but you seem to be just another balancewhiner. Have a nice day. Day9 was addressing how to improve your strategy in the system. Therefore you cannot assume the system is flawed, as it will hinder your improvement. It is, however, a completely different thing to discuss flaws in the system by itself. We are not trying to make a strategy, we are trying to discuss flaws in the system. Every system can be improved, but it will never be improved without looking at it critically. Obviously Blizzard is the one who has to do this, but they do not have the resources nor the comptence to do such a thing on their own (not on purpose anyway). That would be nearly impossible to do for any developing company... Therefore there needs to be community feedback/discussions. | ||
IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On January 21 2012 00:50 statikg wrote: Sorry, the greatness of the starcraft franchise has always revolved around the fact that offence is the best defence. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? | ||
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RabidSeagull
United States220 Posts
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cydial
United States750 Posts
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rei
United States3594 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:57 IntoTheWow wrote: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Why are you sorry for voicing your opinion? could it be because you know your opinion is worthless and wast of time so you apologize in advance? Or perhaps you think the person you are talking to is too stupid and didn't realize the fact you inquired before he voice his opinion, therefore you are saying sorry for offending him by calling him stupid then proceed to tell him how stupid he is for writing this essay. Which one is it?? WHICH! | ||
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HwangjaeTerran
Finland5967 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:57 IntoTheWow wrote: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Hello, this is Lee Young Ho and I fully agree with this statement. | ||
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saus
United States59 Posts
Again, your opponent pushes at 20 food and again you’re able to make 6 more by the time he hits your base. His 6 food still isn’t there to participate, and yours is. But then, because you’re protoss, your 26 food cannot have the same strength early as 26 food worth of MM, because warpin enables you to use this food if you were attacking also. So, in order to maintain defender’s advantage on both sides, the game must be designed somewhere in between the situations where the Terran has to stop pushes which are equal in strength to the units he can possibly make to defend it and situations where the Protoss has units so weak that they can’t defend early pushes THANK YOU. There was another thread talking about how the warpgate mechanic inherently made protoss weaker, but as you eloquently stated, if the game is balanced correctly the end result is only less of a defender's advantage. Nobody understood me. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
In fact, when armies get large, say 300 vs 300 or more, which I've seen play out over one hundred times (probably over one thousand), I don't believe I've seen a SINGLE time the attacker hasn't won. Also, you clearly know little about risk, since the territory advantage is extremely minimal in your army count - the game revolves completely around cards. Even having continents are useless after the first 5 turns or so, so rarely does anyone ever go after Oceania or South America unless they start with 50% of the territories. Only time it does matter if you're playing with only 2-4 (MAYBE 5, but usually not) people. Reasoning is that every time you attack someone, you make yourself and that other person weaker, making everyone else on the board relatively stronger. So no one attacks, unless they make a killing move. There's an insane amount of strategy in risk, where you have to plan often 5 multipronged attacks in the same turn. If a single of the 5 multipronged attacks don't work, you will usually lose the game (unless say your very first of the 5 attacks doesn't work, then if you're lucky, you're just at a disadvantage). RISK requires significantly more strategy and planning than SC2. Luckily online there's an autoattack feature, so when it's 300 vs 300 you click autoattack and it does all the rolls out in a huge string. you'll usually see like 40+ armies left for the attacker. After searching on conquerclub.com, I have found a writeup (they invariably surface every 3 months or so) about exact percentages by one of the mods posting. + Show Spoiler + odds for dice in risk Odds of winning various dice combinations in Risk Attacker: one die; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 15 out of 36 (41.67 %) Defender wins 21 out of 36 (58.33 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 125 out of 216 (57.87 %) Defender wins 91 out of 216 (42.13 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 855 out of 1296 (65.97 %) Defender wins 441 out of 1296 (34.03 %) Attacker: one die; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins 55 out of 216 (25.46 %) Defender wins 161 out of 216 (74.54 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 295 out of 1296 (22.76 %) Defender wins both: 581 out of 1296 (44.83 %) Both win one: 420 out of 1296 (32.41 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 2890 out of 7776 (37.17 %) Defender wins both: 2275 out of 7776 (29.26 %) Both win one: 2611 out of 7776 (33.58 %) Sample interpretation of the last data above (three vs. two). If an attacker starts with 1000 armies and a defender starts with 1000 armies and a 3 vs. 2 attack is ensued, the results should be (given fair dice): after 100 rolls, each side will have lost 1 army about 34 times. The defender will have lost 2 armies about 37 times, and the attacker will have lost 2 armies 29 times. Therefore, after 100 rolls, the attacker should have 908 armies left, and the defender should have 892 armies left. Conclusion: heads up with three dice versus 2 dice, the attacker has an advantage in the long run. Similar interpretations can be made for the remainder of the data, which can be summarized as follows: Attacker 1 versus defender 1: defender has the advantage, winning about 4 out of 7 battles Attacker 2 versus defender 1: attacker has the advantage, winning about 4 out of 7 battles Attacker 3 versus defender 1: attacker has the advantage, winning about 2 out of 3 battles Attacker 1 versus defender 2: defender has the advantage, winning about 3 out of 4 battles Attacker 2 versus defender 2: defender has the advantage, winning about 3 out of 5 battles Attacker 3 versus defender 2: attacker has the advantage, but the advantage is much more narrow than any of the battles described above. The attacker's advantage is such that he will win about 7 out of 13 battles on average. | ||
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Witten
United States2094 Posts
I don't like to get in balance/ game-design arguments. They're pointless and don't get anything done and end up being either BW vs. SC2 or vice versa. And I don't like getting in those conversations. They never end well. | ||
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