EPTDefense, the Defender's Advantage and SC2 - Page 6
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Trevi
Canada38 Posts
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forSeohyun
504 Posts
Why is then, IMO, camping the midfield (which IMO happens in the most entertaining BW-matches) is preferable to camping/turtling at the bases? 1. If camping the midfield is made a desirable situation (how?) for the players (economically or strategically or tactically) a lot of battles will occur by trying to get control of the midfield, which should be sufficiently large that it is possible to outmaneuver the defending players thus gaining local superiority in numbers. Therefore the midfield should shift hands between players of equal skill multiple times, which in my opinion makes for an interesting game. 2. If the middle of the map is where the majority of the army is, it invites for harassment of the opposing player's bases, particularly if the army is relatively immobile. This allows for comebacks and more dynamic play. So there are a lot of trade-offs and very difficult to achieve a balance: - Make the midfield desirable to hold, especially in the long run but make sufficiently hard to defend. - Give the bases enough defensive capabilities to hold off attacks without inviting turtling - Give the player who is currently behind the right amount of opportunity to harass and comeback. - Punish death-ball by giving the defender an (splash/AOE?)advantage without making the bases impenetrable. The gist of it: The game and certainly the maps should encourage battles to occur on midfield, IMO. Too strong defenders advantage at the bases can lead to turtling. | ||
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FlyingDike
United States221 Posts
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TheTurk
United States732 Posts
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Alacast
United States205 Posts
On January 21 2012 08:19 Mr. Black wrote: I don't really oppose the ideas as much as the fact that these threads are constantly saying the same thing over and over. The only difference in these threads (the ones I linked to and the OP) is that they each betray different thinly veiled racial balance biases. Why is the obvious thought and effort that goes into these threads not directed at developing new strategies and tactics and maps to open up the game? There are two possibilities: Starcraft 2 becomes a stable and closed system (or, eventually, 3 stable closed systems -- accounting for expansions). Any perceived imbalance or gameplay flaws are simply accepted and dealt with by players and map designers (as happened in SC:BW). If there truly is fundamental imbalance or gameplay issues, the pros gravitate to a certain race, or one of the other expansions becomes the competitive standard. The other possibility is that Blizzard forever tweaks the design of the game based on the feedback of a vocal minority. Pro players are forever arguing that there race is underpowered -- because of self-interest. SC2 becomes a game not of skill, but of politics -- whatever faction can convince Blizzard to buff their race, or to change the gameplay to suit a different style of play. I trust that given 3 opportunities, Blizzard will make a version of SC2 that will address all these concerns -- and each time, there will be a new crop of "game breaking" imbalance and design issues. Please, my friends, if you insist on making these threads, please include ideas and examples of solutions to these problems that do not come from Blizzard -- either map features or gameplay ideas and examples. SC:BW is and should be the main model for SC2. But we do not just want a re-skin of SC1 -- there is still an active BW scene if anyone wants to play a game that is "like brood war." Hell, a few months ago, I signed up on ICCUP and started getting owned. The game is fun as fuck, but there is no reason to make SC2 exactly like brood war. My question was getting at, "What are other games that have implemented these gameplay styles that I can go play and compare?" -- it was not a sarcastic or rhetorical question -- I just want to know of an RTS (not chess or risk) other than BW (which we all know about by now) that has successfully implemented defender's advantage in an otherwise fast-paced game. The WC3 comparisons in the responses are what I was asking for. Last point: I hate deathball on deathball fights. Like many terran players (I am new to terran and also terrible) I have trouble against late game toss deathballs. The only way for me to beat them is to make the other player spread out by pushing the front while sending as many simultaneous drops out as I can. It works -- and it usually means that there are numerous, small fights going on, and the games are usually decided by chipping away at the other player, rather than in one a-move fight. TL;DR -- SC2 should be a game of adaptation and skill, not the politics of securing favorable patch changes. Deathballs can be punished. I agree wholeheartedly with your argument here. I feel like to some degree, however, you're imposing a bit of your own (justifiable) bias against many posters who whine "OP/nerf/change/fix" every day onto a poster that intentionally refused to take some sort of "here's my ideas on how to 'fix' this problem." I dislike those types of posts just as much as you do, yet I think discussing certain aspects of the game can be vitally important to the development of new strategies and thought processes that elevate peoples' play. | ||
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Captain Calamity
United Kingdom38 Posts
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Grampz
United States2147 Posts
Not to mention, the fucking cannons you can make on any building with protoss....Are you kidding me??? Let's hope they listen to the people's voice and improve it as much as they can. | ||
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Rassy
Netherlands2308 Posts
This is needed in risk because else everyone would be doing nothing else but to skip his turn and placing extra armies (defending) till they placed all armies on the board (even with the attackers advantage this is the way the game goes) From a game point of vieuw i think its good that the defenders advantage in sc is small If the defenders advantage would be larger then attacking would be to bad and people would only attack when they can actually kill you outright (asuming you cant trade even when the defender has a clear advantage) If the defender has a bigger advantage, then that implies that you need a bigger advantage to actually win a game. This i think will mean that people wont be bothered to attack and do drops all over the maps since its basicly futile in breaking the enemys defended position in the end Your home is safe when doing so but you have only so little to gain that it might not be worth the effort of resources and apm to even try. In soccer the defender has a huge advantage The attacker need to do all creative things and difficult passes to even get a shot at goal, while the defender can just revert to the tackle to completely nullify an enemy attack In soccer this has led to the best teams playing from the defensive (yes there are exceptions, but in general) The strongest league in the world ( the italian one) is known for its extremely strong defensive play. My fear is that by increasing the defenders advantage the game will become alot more boring, both to play and to watch. The strongest defensive building in the game (planet fortress) is also one about wich the other races tend to complain alot. There are some sugestions though in this tread wich i like. High ground should give more advantages , maybe give all units on high ground +1 range and vission against units on low ground I dont know, Sc atm is verry fast paced and i kinda like that,making defending easier/stronger will make the game go alot slower/spectacular i am afraid | ||
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Cereb
Denmark3388 Posts
On January 21 2012 06:35 Flonomenalz wrote: Umm... you're heavily confusing defender's advantage and inability to scout. 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. Wow, lol, this is basically the 4 lines of wisdom in this entire thread. This makes much more sense. Stronger defense would make for more turtley playstyle with big armies just staring at eachother and alot of tactics and harassment being alot less effective which I'm sure most of us don't want. It's funny, this argument was all the rage some months ago..I guess people just sort of accepted that Blizzard weren't gonna do anything about it.. | ||
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29 fps
United States5724 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
The counter to such defense has always been that you can take control of the map and do anything you want, except for the tiny little space the opponent controls. In Starcraft 2 this translates to more expansions, more money and eventually just about unlimited access to tech units designed for breaking defenses. In Warcraft 3 this was access to creeps, so more experience and better items and eventually you could also take expansions, build siege units, try and unlock one of the siege ultimates and so on. In Starcraft 2 you get map control, not just based on army strength, but also based on speed and such. It's also cyclic, where e.g. zerg and terran alternate control based on the phase of the game. (zergling speed, medivacs out, mutalisks out and so on) You also risk losing map control by investing into expansions, simply because you can't sustain the army needed. It is because of defender's advantage there's even a point to such things though, because otherwise the moment you give it up, your expansion will get killed. It's not as simplistic as it is made sound, of course, since many unit compositions/tech options don't exactly give you 'map control', but do let you harass and possibly destroy expansions. But in general it is an important part of what makes the game dynamic. | ||
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EternaLLegacy
United States410 Posts
For instance, more macro usually means more bases, and more bases means more area to defend, and so the disadvantaged player can come back through good harassment. For tech, a player can scout and adjust his army comp. For scouting, a player can avoid risky moves and gamble plays. For positional advantage, a player can try to use harassment to draw the army out of position. This leads to a far more dynamic game with smaller sub goals and victories than simply winning the game in one fell swoop by having a better army. | ||
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Bommes
Germany1226 Posts
A struggle for not brilliantly good players is in my opinion how everything clumps together combined with a relatively fast paced game. Both defensive and offensive is really extreme this way. If you get doom dropped, your base is gone in a matter of seconds against 32-40 clumped marines and marauders. If you get caught off guard with your army, it is gone in seconds with all the splash. And even the best players still struggle with that sometimes. Brood War simply looked more appealing because less units could attack other units at once, because the units were just bigger, had less range and didn't clump up because their AIs sucked. I still like SC2 as it is  Everyone has to deal with it. Could be more spectacular as a viewer though. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On January 21 2012 08:23 EatThePath wrote: The OP is not insightful. It could be called expository, perhaps. The blunder with RISK shows Treehead has not thought long enough about the subject. There are always idiots who make useless responses, regardless of the quality of the OP. Ok, here's the thing: Go to: http://www.dandrake.com/risk.html Check out different army sizes. I figured 10 was big enough. Most attacking forces are not this big until way late in the game. You'll notice that for 11 and under, what I said was spot on. It's only over 12 that they give the slight advantage to the attacker. Maybe I didn't do everything that I could have done to make sure absolutely everything was true in every case, but I didn't and that's that. I updated the OP so that it's technically correct, even though the point I was making was clear without it. That has nothing to do with my "thought process". If you don't like what I have to say about this topic, fine. If you'd like to post opinions the the contrary, fine. I know there's only so much I'm qualified to analyze about the game because I'm not that good at it, but I'd like to know how you are qualified to post on how much thought I've put into my posts. On January 21 2012 08:08 Bippzy wrote: ... Terrible example. ... On the deathball: Yeah well, if there's anything I have learned attempting to improve as a zerg in sc2, deathballs shouldn't and don't work.The game goes through stages of aggression to stabilization to aggression, all revolving around expansions.Watching GSL, I don't think deathballs are just something you can go into, and so it's fine in my mind. If you are comfortably on 4 bases, I can see going deathball as a viability. hell, these scenarios of deathball vs deathball and then someone loses doesn't even happen in any sort of well played game. ... Protoss does have a reduced defenders advantage in terms of raw units, and that is supposed to be and in my opinion is completely negated by good simcity and forcefields. Yep, sentries. You can argue that they are bad game design, but I think they work just fine. ... Your comments on the huk example exemplify why no one can ever reference specific games. Did he play perfect? No. Did he play "terrible" (for a person whose idea of "terrible" is something below GSL Code A)? No. This was a rush performed by a player we know little about who doesn't go to tournaments who didn't play particularly well against one of the best protosses in the world - and it wasn't even close. Huk never even got to clearing the tanks. ... Deathballs exist. Yeah, it requires getting the resources to make the deathball, but they exist and they work. I'm not linking another replay though, becuase you're just going to tell me that Nestea played "terrible" if I show him losing to a deathball. ... I don't think sentries are bad game design (that's the other post - which really is nothing like this one). I do think sentries delay tech something fierce, are really hard to use against muta/ling in anything but a direct base assault (when does muta/ling do that?) On January 21 2012 07:44 ChaosTerran wrote: I don't see your point here. Are you saying that Blizzard should remove Warpgates and buff gateway units? How is that supposed to work in combination with collossi and high templars/archons? Just leave out the "warpgate mechanic" for a second and think about pure army strength, most players think that lategame favors Protoss already in a deathball vs. bioball situation due to pure army strength (thorzain said on his stream that a lategame protoss army is slightly stronger than a Terran lategame army), so the question is, how would you balance stronger gateway units in combination with collossi and/or archons/hight templars. You clearly would have to nerf collossi and other splash units to justify a gateway unit buff. edit: Also, alot of people complain that Protoss is very immobile and has troubles in dealing with multiple drops at once (I don't agree/disagree with this statement but it's what alot of protoss players say), so if you take out warpgate, that clearly would hurt the protoss in thet regard. Protoss would be less mobile, but have an even stronger lategame army. I don't see how that wouldn't break the game. Might wanna think that through again, mate. You don't see my point because you're looking for changes and I haven't listed any. All I've done is pointed at problems. I feel listing changes is somewhat needless, because the same thing happens every time. I say "would it be great if we had X?" Some people say yes, others say no and that I'm dumb (I have a master's in math and work as an analyst for a fortune 500 company, btw, so that argument doesn't work too well). Ultimately, I have no say and it just leads to a bunch of useless garbage. This is different, because if we can agree on *aspects* of things we want, we can look for those *aspects* in what they actually give us. It allows us to pick out what could be good - which I personally like because almost no one looks for good in games these days. On January 21 2012 10:08 Cereb wrote: Wow, lol, this is basically the 4 lines of wisdom in this entire thread. This makes much more sense. Stronger defense would make for more turtley playstyle with big armies just staring at eachother and alot of tactics and harassment being alot less effective which I'm sure most of us don't want. It's funny, this argument was all the rage some months ago..I guess people just sort of accepted that Blizzard weren't gonna do anything about it.. The game isn't based on perfect scouting and it shouldn't be. You should have to scout to distinguish between a few types of builds, but the decisions you have to make should be like "what should my last warpin before the attack hits be?" and not "are all those stalkers I already made useless now?" If you're lucky enough to scout an early factory, you can derive some information from this (hey look, he's not early expanding, and he's not doing a purely bio allin), but that still doesn't tell you "will zealots, sentries, and immortals be good or worthless when his push comes in a few minutes?" | ||
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EternaLLegacy
United States410 Posts
On January 21 2012 10:59 Treehead wrote: Ok, here's the thing: Go to: http://www.dandrake.com/risk.html Check out different army sizes. I figured 10 was big enough. Most attacking forces are not this big until way late in the game. You'll notice that for 11 and under, what I said was spot on. It's only over 12 that they give the slight advantage to the attacker. Maybe I didn't do everything that I could have done to make sure absolutely everything was true in every case, but I didn't and that's that. I updated the OP so that it's technically correct, even though the point I was making was clear without it. That has nothing to do with my "thought process". If you don't like what I have to say about this topic, fine. If you'd like to post opinions the the contrary, fine. I know there's only so much I'm qualified to analyze about the game because I'm not that good at it, but I'd like to know how you are qualified to post on how much thought I've put into my posts. Your comments on the huk example exemplify why no one can ever reference specific games. Did he play perfect? No. Did he play "terrible" (for a person whose idea of "terrible" is something below GSL Code A)? No. This was a rush performed by a player we know little about who doesn't go to tournaments who didn't play particularly well against one of the best protosses in the world - and it wasn't even close. Huk never even got to clearing the tanks. ... Deathballs exist. Yeah, it requires getting the resources to make the deathball, but they exist and they work. I'm not linking another replay though, becuase you're just going to tell me that Nestea played "terrible" if I show him losing to a deathball. ... I don't think sentries are bad game design (that's the other post - which really is nothing like this one). I do think sentries delay tech something fierce, are really hard to use against muta/ling in anything but a direct base assault (when does muta/ling do that?) You don't see my point because you're looking for changes and I haven't listed any. All I've done is pointed at problems. I feel listing changes is somewhat needless, because the same thing happens every time. I say "would it be great if we had X?" Some people say yes, others say no and that I'm dumb (I have a master's in math and work as an analyst for a fortune 500 company, btw, so that argument doesn't work too well). Ultimately, I have no say and it just leads to a bunch of useless garbage. This is different, because if we can agree on *aspects* of things we want, we can look for those *aspects* in what they actually give us. It allows us to pick out what could be good - which I personally like because almost no one looks for good in games these days. Unrelated, but what what your master's in specifically? I'm just curious. In any case, I agree with what you're saying pretty solidly. I think your perspective combined with my article that put emphasis on zone control and micro-heavy combat provides a good picture of what's going wrong with SC2. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On January 21 2012 11:08 EternaLLegacy wrote: + Show Spoiler + On January 21 2012 10:59 Treehead wrote: Ok, here's the thing: Go to: http://www.dandrake.com/risk.html Check out different army sizes. I figured 10 was big enough. Most attacking forces are not this big until way late in the game. You'll notice that for 11 and under, what I said was spot on. It's only over 12 that they give the slight advantage to the attacker. Maybe I didn't do everything that I could have done to make sure absolutely everything was true in every case, but I didn't and that's that. I updated the OP so that it's technically correct, even though the point I was making was clear without it. That has nothing to do with my "thought process". If you don't like what I have to say about this topic, fine. If you'd like to post opinions the the contrary, fine. I know there's only so much I'm qualified to analyze about the game because I'm not that good at it, but I'd like to know how you are qualified to post on how much thought I've put into my posts. Your comments on the huk example exemplify why no one can ever reference specific games. Did he play perfect? No. Did he play "terrible" (for a person whose idea of "terrible" is something below GSL Code A)? No. This was a rush performed by a player we know little about who doesn't go to tournaments who didn't play particularly well against one of the best protosses in the world - and it wasn't even close. Huk never even got to clearing the tanks. ... Deathballs exist. Yeah, it requires getting the resources to make the deathball, but they exist and they work. I'm not linking another replay though, becuase you're just going to tell me that Nestea played "terrible" if I show him losing to a deathball. ... I don't think sentries are bad game design (that's the other post - which really is nothing like this one). I do think sentries delay tech something fierce, are really hard to use against muta/ling in anything but a direct base assault (when does muta/ling do that?) You don't see my point because you're looking for changes and I haven't listed any. All I've done is pointed at problems. I feel listing changes is somewhat needless, because the same thing happens every time. I say "would it be great if we had X?" Some people say yes, others say no and that I'm dumb (I have a master's in math and work as an analyst for a fortune 500 company, btw, so that argument doesn't work too well). Ultimately, I have no say and it just leads to a bunch of useless garbage. This is different, because if we can agree on *aspects* of things we want, we can look for those *aspects* in what they actually give us. It allows us to pick out what could be good - which I personally like because almost no one looks for good in games these days. Unrelated, but what what your master's in specifically? I'm just curious. In any case, I agree with what you're saying pretty solidly. I think your perspective combined with my article that put emphasis on zone control and micro-heavy combat provides a good picture of what's going wrong with SC2. Mathematics - specialties didn't come in our program until we moved into the Ph. D program. My primary focus and the area I wanted to go into was combinatorics. Not surprisingly, I love game theory. That was before I decided to go have a family instead, though. Now I work with lawyers.... yay.... Yeah, zone control units would do the trick, but really, so would a lot of other things. I could see changing ramp design so that it's easier to punish a rush for trying to push up your ramp - or giving you access to places where you can shoot down at those assaulting your nat. Or they could give each race some way of hitting back with the structures they'd have built anyway. Or... well, like I said, there's a lot of solutions that could work - I just wanna leave myself open so I can find the good in what they give me instead of finding out (as I inevitably will) that what I really wanted didn't make the cut. | ||
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njtwkr
Sweden73 Posts
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lichter
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
During beta and the first open season of the GSL, it was almost impossible to go hatch first as zerg, or any fast expansion build as protoss or terran. Rushes were too strong during this phase of the game's history. During the 2nd-3rd seasons of the GSL, hatch first became possible, but bunker rushes became common (and annoying), as well as cannon blocking expansions, etc. Terran and Protoss also relied heavily on one base builds well into the 15 minute mark. Fast forward to around GSL May (maybe earlier), and zergs had figured out how to defend early rushes, and the other two races had figured out how to FE safely (3gate sentry expand, forge FE, can't remember what the terran expand build was at this point). Then by the time GSL October rolled around, FE builds became almost standard. Zerg with hatch first, or even 3rd hatch at 24-ish when the opponent goes FE; terran's had 1 rax expand, reaper expand, and even CC first; protoss can 1gate expand and even nexus first now. All of these builds were impossible to do back in early 2011, but as players figure out how to scout better, and how to defend better, multi-base builds are becoming the standard. I've even seen some protoss go a quick 3rd Nexus against CC first (NaDa vs Parting on Daybreak, I think), which I still think is insane... but pros can pull it off with proper scouting. Again, I don't disagree with you and do think defenders should have a greater advantage. But the game is still being figured out and you have to agree that the progression from one-base all-ins early in the game's history to today's ALWAYS FE standardness shows that people are finally understanding how to defend almost every rush. You'll also notice that the most successful players today don't rely on deathballs. It's effective, but I don't think a deathball player has won a GSL since MC? MMA (multi-drops), jjakji, MVP (methodical mech pushes, general tactical brilliance), Nestea... all non-deathball players.tl;dr: We've gone from one-base for all back in 2010 to FE 80% of the time today. Still think defenders should have a greater advantage, but I like how the game is developing. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
- scouting is insanely hard in this game. Terran can kill any scout before it sees anything especially when getting map dominance first with hellions for example. Protoss can hide warpgates everywhere. Zerg can obviously prevent critical tech being soon too. - there are too many aggressive options with wildly varying counters. It's not just enough in sc2 to know IF they are rushing but you also need to know quite well what exactly they are doing to counter it. Fairly hard counters are available quite early meaning you better make the right composition, for example cloak banshee vs no detection, blue flame hellion vs mass ling, +1 zealots vs mass ling etc. More defender's advantage can turn the game into a tech and camp game way too easily. I'd rather have the game slightly tilted towards rushing then towards camping because as random as all-ins can be camping games are much much worse imo because they last so much longer. PvP robo vs robo play is often a camping matchup in that respect. When colossi are out there is quite a big defender's advantage by being able to preset the perfect arc, which usually leads to both players teching upgrades ASAP and going for 200/200 with as much colossi as possible. Because protoss can't really harass much in this scenario it's just one boring matchup if both players play this style. Luckily it doesn't happen too often but too much nerfs to the other aggresive plays and it might just. Don't add more defender's advantage, just fix the randomness in this game by giving less rush options or easier scouting! Actual zone control units that would basically be able to stop any rush but give away map presence could be good too, though the sentry is already doing this a bit for protoss. And ofcourse give protoss a good harass unit, not some stupid oracle! | ||
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DarKcS
Australia1237 Posts
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