EPTtl:dr,
defenders advantage doesn't seem to be as clearly defined in sc2 as it is in other games. I wish there are more opportunities in the future.
I seriously don't think there was a need to write an article this long about it.
Defense, the Defender's Advantage and SC2 - Page 4
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phiinix
United States1169 Posts
tl:dr, defenders advantage doesn't seem to be as clearly defined in sc2 as it is in other games. I wish there are more opportunities in the future. I seriously don't think there was a need to write an article this long about it. | ||
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Vapaach
Finland994 Posts
(Not going to mention workers, high ground/ramp or structures that might absorb some damage because they apply to all 3 races) Protoss - Cannons - Forcefields Terran: - Bunkers - Repair (on bunkers/units) - Siege tanks on siege mode Zerg: - Spine crawlers/spore crawlers - Queens - Creep All in all, I think there are quite a bit defensive advantages, even though some builds can ignore them (111 for example). I think defenders should have a slightly larger advantage, but I am not sure how it could be implemented. | ||
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windsupernova
Mexico5280 Posts
People blow the lack of defenders advantage way out of proportion. And even if ti was true defenders advantage comes more from the terrain and being prepared than anything. Its more of a map issue than anything. nice article but I disagree | ||
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raanwi
Germany14 Posts
On January 21 2012 04:25 R3DT1D3 wrote: The deathball concept comes up time and time again but I don't know how you avoid it. Terran is the only race that has drops of small units that are incredibly efficient and don't cripple the main army. Zerg pretty much only has ling runbys and Toss can do some small zealot harass if they're close to maxxed but that's very situational. The sad part is that the current game won't really support change well. The highground mechanic has been beaten to death since beta, warpgate has had too much work put in to be scrapped and rebalanced, and I don't think Blizzard understands how to make defendable areas other than chokes/ramps. Also, blink stalker + colossus ball with warpgate reinforcements pretty much destroys any defender advantage you mentioned. agreement on all points and from all sides good sir | ||
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Selendis
Australia509 Posts
On January 21 2012 05:15 Vapaach wrote: Defenders advantages for each race: (Not going to mention workers or structures that might absorb some damage because they apply to all 3 races) Protoss - Cannons - Forcefields Terran: - Bunkers - Repair (on bunkers/units) - Siege tanks on siege mode Zerg: - Spine crawlers/spore crawlers - Queens - Creep All in all, I think there are quite a bit defensive advantages, even though some builds can ignore them (111 for example). I think defenders should have a slightly larger advantage, but I am not sure how it could be implemented. I couldn't have said it better. I would also like to add that the warpgate mechanic doesn't completely destroy the defender's advantage. In fact the defender has an advantage in the instrinsic risk that a protoss player faces when he attacks; if the attack fails then there is no retreat. The routing protoss army will be chased and destroyed by either stimmed up bio or speedlings and without an army to defend the protoss is forced to GG. Can you imagine if protoss didn't have wg? The protoss would have to ONLY defend and turtle because the risk losing his army in an attack is too great without wg. | ||
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AcrosstheSky
United States237 Posts
What if he's only being reasonably greedy? This comes down to what your opponent strategy is. There is no reasonably greedy only what you can get away with. Taking a 3rd that soon in the huk vod would have been insanely greedy and any attack from anything at any time would have killed him, it would have only been plausible if his opponent had done something which showed he would be very very passive for along time. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On January 21 2012 05:30 Selendis wrote: I couldn't have said it better. I would also like to add that the warpgate mechanic doesn't completely destroy the defender's advantage. In fact the defender has an advantage in the instrinsic risk that a protoss player faces when he attacks; if the attack fails then there is no retreat. The routing protoss army will be chased and destroyed by either stimmed up bio or speedlings and without an army to defend the protoss is forced to GG. Can you imagine if protoss didn't have wg? The protoss would have to ONLY defend and turtle because the risk losing his army in an attack is too great without wg. If you're saying that all Protoss pushes have the slowest army of all the races, I think Mech and Broodlords would like to have a word with you. On January 21 2012 05:36 AcrosstheSky wrote: if you scout what he's doing you can prepare and have the "defenders advantage". Your vod with huk losing to an all is from 4 months ago? That was when people were learning to deal with the 111 all in, now people know how to hold it. Didn't he move out with just marines, tanks and SCVs? People have been doing that since the dawn of SC2. And anyway, I'm not saying people should never, ever be allowed to rush and rushing is bad, bad, bad. Rather, I am saying that because rushes like that are as effective as that even if you make some pretty big mistakes, it's symptomatic of a lack of defender's advantage. I'm not saying you can't hold it. Defender's advantage is about more than just defending rushes - it's about defending everything. You can have an insufficient defender's advantage and still do fine at holding rushes, for instance if defending in the late game is impossible without military superiority. | ||
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Selkie
United States530 Posts
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Selendis
Australia509 Posts
On January 21 2012 05:40 Treehead wrote: If you're saying that all Protoss pushes have the slowest army of all the races, I think Mech and Broodlords would like to have a word with you. Of course, Broodlords and Mech are slower, but how often do you see them? Playing against mech in every PvT is wishful thinking. It's nice when it does happen because retreats do become an option but for now Bio is still the standard for PvT. As for broodlords... They only come into the game pretty late, for the bulk of PvZ, there are no retreats for a lost battle. | ||
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di3alot
172 Posts
every race has some defending stuff the thing is that you can turn this shit around and use it offensive bunker, ffs, cannons, tanks, high ground do you rly want to make them stronger? in my opinion the economy is broken the inflation of gas you can mine gas to fast i know the game is balanced around but to see 6 colossus out of 2 base so fast is ridiculous and boring"i think the colossus would be a much cooler unit if you could afford 1 and barely a second" or something like 2port banshee something like this should not be possible of one base.or 1.1.1 High tech units should be special and you should have some of them but that should not be the core what do you see zerg have late game 2 types of units broods and infestor something like this should not be possible. just my opinion | ||
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Jermstuddog
United States2231 Posts
If you haven't read it, he basically says that SC2 needs more planetary fortresses. It sounds absurd at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Early game could probably use some minor tweaks, but the important part is midgame where small things like 16 lings or an octo-drop can take bases out in the blink of an eye, but can't equally be defended with reasonable investment unless the defender has an equally sized army sitting around waiting for said attack. | ||
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Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
Terran has a huge defenders advantage with wall-in, tanks and planetaries. Protoss is able to FFE building practically no army and still survive power droning against Z. The only problematic match-ups regarding defenders advantage is PvP and ZvZ a bit. Speedlings are very quick so being minor behind can be game deciding. Also creep does not fulfill its defenders advantage role in ZvZ. From a zerg perspective, rushes before the 10 minute mark do not really pay off at a high level, which points out that actually the defenders advantage is too high in ZvX. You rarely will see pro zergs attack early on a regular base. | ||
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Flonomenalz
Nigeria3519 Posts
The problem with SC2 rushes is just how hard they are to scout (think 1/1/1 from a Toss perspective, or hellion expand into 8 different follow ups from a Zerg perspective). The reason it seems like there's a lack of defender's advantage is because a lot of the time cheeses hit an opponent that did not prepare well enough because he didn't know they were coming. | ||
Sylailene
91 Posts
Also I would like to say the warp mechanic can help defend too, especially when you get to a lot of bases, for example if your moving out with your deathball or defending and push and a drop or mutas come, you can just warp in units, anywhere there is a pylon for instant defense | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On January 21 2012 05:45 Selkie wrote: I'm sorry, but I used to be obsessed with risk, and I actually ran the numbers: The attacker has a very, very tiny advantage, something to the order of 6 rolls in 5000 combinations It's far more significant than 6 rolls in 5000. It's more like 6 rolls per 100. More specifically, after about 100 rolls (assuming you have an army of 150 attacking each other), the attacker should have 58 armies left over, and the defender should have 42 armies left over, which is a 16 army discrepancy. It's actually a fairly significant attacker's advantage. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On January 21 2012 00:56 Treehead wrote: From: http://www.plainsboro.com/~lemke/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 %) So yeah, big army sizes favor attacking (think the number, based on how slight the advantage is above, is higher than 5, but still) - but all this means is that if you have a ton of stuff in one area, you may as well attack - which is the only reason you'd really want to have tons of stuff in one area anyway. This still leaves decisions for reasonable army sizes. Point is well-taken though, that risk was an unfortunate example. Like I said in this post - it's unfortunate that I chose Risk because the only time there's a defender's advantage is at small - reasonable army sizes (they're much more noticeably in the defender's favor when the attacker can no longer roll 3 dice). | ||
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SolidMoose
United States1240 Posts
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Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On January 21 2012 03:57 IntoTheWow wrote: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? He clearly never saw the game between Ret and IdrA where Ret never attacked =p. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On January 21 2012 06:52 Treehead wrote: I found the percentages for it on the first page. Like I said in this post - it's unfortunate that I chose Risk because the only time there's a defender's advantage is at small - reasonable army sizes (they're much more noticeably in the defender's favor when the attacker can no longer roll 3 dice). Unfortunately you're still wrong though. You then say "you might as well attack." You clearly don't know RISK if you're suggesting that. Every single time you attack an opponent, you're just making yourself and the other person weaker while making everyone else on the board stronger. Sure, what you say is true for 1v1, but no one plays RISK 1v1. It's meant to be a a game with multiple people. On January 21 2012 07:08 Whitewing wrote: He clearly never saw the game between Ret and IdrA where Ret never attacked =p. And won! | ||
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yawnoC
United States3704 Posts
...but... That picture made me really miss the UMS games from Brood War ... anyone wanna get together and play some? | ||
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