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Defense, the Defender's Advantage and SC2 - Page 9

Forum Index > SC2 General
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karpo
Profile Joined October 2010
Sweden1998 Posts
January 21 2012 17:16 GMT
#161
On January 22 2012 01:14 R3demption wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 21 2012 23:26 ChaosTerran wrote:
On January 21 2012 23:01 tdt wrote:
On January 21 2012 16:59 Malkavian183 wrote:
A good write up and a nice defense for your arguments but I don't think that there should be a defender's advantage just because he is defender.

If you compare Risk to SC2 then you are comparing a one dimensional mechanic two a three or more dimensional one. In SC2 defender has advantage if he scouts, continues to improve his economy and makes enough units to defend. This is by no means a flawed logic. All-ins are supposed to work like this. If you take this and give an advantage to defender i think the essense of strategy, scouting and reacting will be lost. Of course this sometimes leads to build order wins or losses but that is just natural.

Anyway, I don't think defender should have an advantage just because he is the defender. Scouting, being aware and being able to react is a part of this game and your biggest mistake is to compare apples and oranges.

But good write up, keep analysing!


Defenders advatage makes sense because all forms of warfare have defenders advantage. Whether just knowing terran, being "dug in" and/or support from civilian population its just the way it is. In the Winter war Russains lost like 1 million compared to 10000 Fins with sniper rifles in the forrests due to excellent defenders advantage. Not to mention it makes for better game play as discused.



The problem is, if you take defenders advantage to such extremes in SC2, then absolutely nobody would ever attack. Or would you take a fight where you need 1 million troops to kill 10000 when you know that befhorehand? In a game like SC2 that has economical and supply restrictions that are very clear this obviously wouldn't work.

If you give people too much defender's advantage then nobody would ever attack if they are smart, simply because their chances to win are smaller if they do.

More defenders advantage actually results in deathballs, I don't know how you could think the opposite.


This isn't true. People would attack all the time, knowing that they are relatively safe because if they lose an attack they will then have a defenders advantage vs the counter attack! Get it? Makes sense...

You can summarize SC 2's first 2 years as very volatile and unstable (talking about the pro scene). Its hard to be very consistent because the game itself is explosive. Even Nestea loses to stupid ass 1 base aggression from Gsl Terrans.

I can summarize it again from my own experiences, I never ever ever want to move out vs T or Z. If I do I do it very anxiously. Because I know that if I lose one single fight I will have nothing to fall back on besides sub par static defenses and as many warp ins as I can muster.

Its not fun (just this issue! The rest of the game is awesome) its not strategic and there is hardly any security in being a defender, and there should be!!!!




From your post it sounds like you want to be safe when attacking and if you lose your army you're safe anyways due to defense. Sound stupid to me, isn't moving out with your army a decision that's supposed to be risky?

Consistency overall isn't as bad as people always claim. There's new builds all the time and they mess players up. Isn't that to be expected from a new game? There's several consistent players in the GSL that have been in code A/S for ages. Nestea lost to one base stuff but beside the marine+scv all in there's flaws in his play that allowed a good one base push from a terran to win. Why is that horrible?
Hryul
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Austria2609 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-21 17:34:29
January 21 2012 17:22 GMT
#162
On January 22 2012 02:13 R3demption wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 21 2012 23:02 LaLuSh wrote:
You can't expect to implement the same sort of defender's advantage as in BW.

The single biggest factor to SC2 playing out so differently from BW is the revision of mineral gathering. They entirely changed max saturation levels; they changed how much each subsequent produced worker is worth; they changed the amount of workers required to harvest gas to smoothen the effects of the former; they introduced macro mechanics and warp-in.

All speeding up the game, all lessening the effects a higher number of expansions.

You don't just go in and introduce defensive super units after having made all these changes. It'd break the game even more.



I feel like an increased economy just leads to an accelerated pace of the game. I don't see why it would make a difference in the game in terms of how many expansions you want. You always want a better economy than your opponent but going econ will lower your army strength if your opponent forgoes econ, but the exact same was true in Broodwar as well.


As I stated above my idea was to reduce the resources per expansions (lets say 4 min 1 gas) to force a wider spread out system of bases which would be more susceptible to drops/flanks while you have to continue your dance with deathballs on the main attacking route to your main.
I thought of this because I can't see the debate about the defenders advantage going anywhere. plus: the maps we play tournaments on are actually made by the community and not blizzard so we could influence this process way better.

E: I also don't think we can completely get rid of deathballs as long as the players choose to let them ball up (bad grammar?!). you'd have to spread your units out in order to avoid AOE, which was done automatically in BW (??)
Countdown to victory: 1 200!
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
January 21 2012 17:43 GMT
#163
I actually don't think that there is any strategy that is not kind of defensive in the first 10-15 minutes, that has a >=50% winrate (I don't really count harass as offensive... harassment is not the strategy, but rather a tool in a strategy).
This can only mean that defenders advantages plays a huge role in SC2.

Also a note here, because people keep arguing about "deathballs":
apart from TvP, I can't see any matchup in highlevel play that really is being played with "deathballs" on high level anymore. Probably Mech-focused builds can be regarded as such too, but that's actually why people like mech.
All other matchups - PvP, PvZ, ZvZ, ZvT - usually have a lot of action all around the map in highlevel play and it is only a matter of time and skill until this catches on to lower levels.
Eventually if you can't win the game with those kind of engagements, you will end up with a clash of big armies in the middle, because the middle is the only area where you still can win in the end game, due to defenders advantages.
Treehead
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
999 Posts
January 21 2012 17:46 GMT
#164
On January 22 2012 02:16 karpo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 22 2012 01:14 R3demption wrote:
On January 21 2012 23:26 ChaosTerran wrote:
On January 21 2012 23:01 tdt wrote:
On January 21 2012 16:59 Malkavian183 wrote:
A good write up and a nice defense for your arguments but I don't think that there should be a defender's advantage just because he is defender.

If you compare Risk to SC2 then you are comparing a one dimensional mechanic two a three or more dimensional one. In SC2 defender has advantage if he scouts, continues to improve his economy and makes enough units to defend. This is by no means a flawed logic. All-ins are supposed to work like this. If you take this and give an advantage to defender i think the essense of strategy, scouting and reacting will be lost. Of course this sometimes leads to build order wins or losses but that is just natural.

Anyway, I don't think defender should have an advantage just because he is the defender. Scouting, being aware and being able to react is a part of this game and your biggest mistake is to compare apples and oranges.

But good write up, keep analysing!


Defenders advatage makes sense because all forms of warfare have defenders advantage. Whether just knowing terran, being "dug in" and/or support from civilian population its just the way it is. In the Winter war Russains lost like 1 million compared to 10000 Fins with sniper rifles in the forrests due to excellent defenders advantage. Not to mention it makes for better game play as discused.



The problem is, if you take defenders advantage to such extremes in SC2, then absolutely nobody would ever attack. Or would you take a fight where you need 1 million troops to kill 10000 when you know that befhorehand? In a game like SC2 that has economical and supply restrictions that are very clear this obviously wouldn't work.

If you give people too much defender's advantage then nobody would ever attack if they are smart, simply because their chances to win are smaller if they do.

More defenders advantage actually results in deathballs, I don't know how you could think the opposite.


This isn't true. People would attack all the time, knowing that they are relatively safe because if they lose an attack they will then have a defenders advantage vs the counter attack! Get it? Makes sense...

You can summarize SC 2's first 2 years as very volatile and unstable (talking about the pro scene). Its hard to be very consistent because the game itself is explosive. Even Nestea loses to stupid ass 1 base aggression from Gsl Terrans.

I can summarize it again from my own experiences, I never ever ever want to move out vs T or Z. If I do I do it very anxiously. Because I know that if I lose one single fight I will have nothing to fall back on besides sub par static defenses and as many warp ins as I can muster.

Its not fun (just this issue! The rest of the game is awesome) its not strategic and there is hardly any security in being a defender, and there should be!!!!




From your post it sounds like you want to be safe when attacking and if you lose your army you're safe anyways due to defense. Sound stupid to me, isn't moving out with your army a decision that's supposed to be risky?

Consistency overall isn't as bad as people always claim. There's new builds all the time and they mess players up. Isn't that to be expected from a new game? There's several consistent players in the GSL that have been in code A/S for ages. Nestea lost to one base stuff but beside the marine+scv all in there's flaws in his play that allowed a good one base push from a terran to win. Why is that horrible?


The complaint isn't that it's risky - it's that it's too risky. If you and you opponent move out with 100 food armies, and (throughout the course of a 15 second battle, he kills 80 food but loses his whole 100 food, he probably just lost the game. When you see it on paper (80-100) doesn't that seem like a decent enough performance to stick around? The complaint is not that if you move out, deal no damage and lose 100 food, you should be fine - it's that if you move out, do a respectable amount of damage but don't do as much as was done to you, you shouldn't just lose the game immediately.

The old addage "when you're ahead, get more ahead" applies a lot less to this game. In this game, it's more like "when you're ahead, if the amount you're ahead is not miniscule (e.g. 10 seconds on expo timing, a few probes, a slight tech advantage), you win the game".

The above is probably not true for TvT, but it may be that I've not watched the right TvTs - I tend to watch games featuring Protoss.

On January 22 2012 02:05 Iamyournoob wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 21 2012 23:02 LaLuSh wrote:
You can't expect to implement the same sort of defender's advantage as in BW.

The single biggest factor to SC2 playing out so differently from BW is the revision of mineral gathering. They entirely changed max saturation levels; they changed how much each subsequent produced worker is worth; they changed the amount of workers required to harvest gas to smoothen the effects of the former; they introduced macro mechanics and warp-in.

All speeding up the game, all lessening the effects a higher number of expansions.

You don't just go in and introduce defensive super units after having made all these changes. It'd break the game even more.


Higher number of expansions?

To be honest, in Broodwar PvZ Protosses tend to stay on 2 bases for a very long time, since they can do a lot of mean pushes off of 2 bases. The same kinda applies for Terrans in TvP as well.
I really have the feeling that staying on 2 bases for a long period of time is way more common than it is in SC2. In SC2 I always feel so urged to take a 3rd very quickly regardless of the match up.
In Broodwar operating off of 2 bases doesnt seem to be that much of an issue and quite advantageous in many cases.


Speculating here, but is it possible that prolonged 2-base play could be because it was safer then than it is in SC2? In SC2, if you take expansions late and your opponent doesn't, there's just a very small window where you can attack - and if you don't win the game you got crushed. If this wasn't how it was in BW - could this be the effect of the superior defenses we were just discussing? Is this maybe what LaLush was saying would be broken - that a Protoss could FFE into 6-gate into taking a third without being too far behind?

This is really just thoughts and speculation - I'm at the mercy of others' expertise when it comes to BW comparisons. That's why I used risk.
Mr Showtime
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1353 Posts
January 21 2012 17:56 GMT
#165
On January 21 2012 00:44 Gamegene wrote:
i wish there were more early marine vs stalker types of battles where you can't vaporize the opponent's units instantly.

every unit in sc2 is a glass cannon, easy to destroy, especially if you separate them.


EXACTLY how I feel about SC2. I love SC2 and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But if there's anything it needs from BW, it's this. There is too much death ball style combat. Part of this falls on unit design, and the other part of map design.
Twiggs
Profile Joined January 2011
United States600 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-21 18:04:05
January 21 2012 18:00 GMT
#166
On January 22 2012 02:16 karpo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 22 2012 01:14 R3demption wrote:
On January 21 2012 23:26 ChaosTerran wrote:
On January 21 2012 23:01 tdt wrote:
On January 21 2012 16:59 Malkavian183 wrote:
A good write up and a nice defense for your arguments but I don't think that there should be a defender's advantage just because he is defender.

If you compare Risk to SC2 then you are comparing a one dimensional mechanic two a three or more dimensional one. In SC2 defender has advantage if he scouts, continues to improve his economy and makes enough units to defend. This is by no means a flawed logic. All-ins are supposed to work like this. If you take this and give an advantage to defender i think the essense of strategy, scouting and reacting will be lost. Of course this sometimes leads to build order wins or losses but that is just natural.

Anyway, I don't think defender should have an advantage just because he is the defender. Scouting, being aware and being able to react is a part of this game and your biggest mistake is to compare apples and oranges.

But good write up, keep analysing!


Defenders advatage makes sense because all forms of warfare have defenders advantage. Whether just knowing terran, being "dug in" and/or support from civilian population its just the way it is. In the Winter war Russains lost like 1 million compared to 10000 Fins with sniper rifles in the forrests due to excellent defenders advantage. Not to mention it makes for better game play as discused.



The problem is, if you take defenders advantage to such extremes in SC2, then absolutely nobody would ever attack. Or would you take a fight where you need 1 million troops to kill 10000 when you know that befhorehand? In a game like SC2 that has economical and supply restrictions that are very clear this obviously wouldn't work.

If you give people too much defender's advantage then nobody would ever attack if they are smart, simply because their chances to win are smaller if they do.

More defenders advantage actually results in deathballs, I don't know how you could think the opposite.


This isn't true. People would attack all the time, knowing that they are relatively safe because if they lose an attack they will then have a defenders advantage vs the counter attack! Get it? Makes sense...

You can summarize SC 2's first 2 years as very volatile and unstable (talking about the pro scene). Its hard to be very consistent because the game itself is explosive. Even Nestea loses to stupid ass 1 base aggression from Gsl Terrans.

I can summarize it again from my own experiences, I never ever ever want to move out vs T or Z. If I do I do it very anxiously. Because I know that if I lose one single fight I will have nothing to fall back on besides sub par static defenses and as many warp ins as I can muster.

Its not fun (just this issue! The rest of the game is awesome) its not strategic and there is hardly any security in being a defender, and there should be!!!!




From your post it sounds like you want to be safe when attacking and if you lose your army you're safe anyways due to defense. Sound stupid to me, isn't moving out with your army a decision that's supposed to be risky?

Consistency overall isn't as bad as people always claim. There's new builds all the time and they mess players up. Isn't that to be expected from a new game? There's several consistent players in the GSL that have been in code A/S for ages. Nestea lost to one base stuff but beside the marine+scv all in there's flaws in his play that allowed a good one base push from a terran to win. Why is that horrible?


Not all the time, just safer than it is now. From a Protosses point of view now, I can't really split my army up for fear of losing the big engagement. Idk it forces me to deathball.

Also youre speaking in absolutes, I feel Nestea is soooo gooood and he losses to things (same with Idra) that seem pretty stupid. He shouldn't always win obviously. But I feel Zerg early game is too volatile.
My life for Auir | FLASH . JD . BISU . HERO . Nony . Incontrol . FIGHTING
Hryul
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Austria2609 Posts
January 21 2012 18:48 GMT
#167
But you have to admit that you always have to invest into defense which cuts into your ability to build an army thus leading to a higher chance of losing said engagement? such advantages would just come into play once you are maxed out and even then you could kill zealots to replace them with archons.
Countdown to victory: 1 200!
mEtRoSG
Profile Joined January 2011
Germany192 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-21 19:27:13
January 21 2012 19:25 GMT
#168
heres my argument, if you would have ANY idea about the game you would know its impossible to walk through forcefields and block immortals from killing tanks, explain o me what was a "huge blunder" in my play, i had a perfect siege on his ramp and nexus and he came down with an all out attack blocking away my marines with forcefields, even mvp cant deny that tanks are killed in that situation, therefore u have absolutly no idea what ur talking about

besides the arguement "i dont know who that is" is no argument at all since anyone could play on that smurf, u cant just say "i dont know him so huk should win 100% of his games vs him"
bokeevboke
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Singapore1674 Posts
January 21 2012 19:32 GMT
#169
On January 22 2012 03:48 Hryul wrote:
But you have to admit that you always have to invest into defense which cuts into your ability to build an army thus leading to a higher chance of losing said engagement? such advantages would just come into play once you are maxed out and even then you could kill zealots to replace them with archons.


Before throwing something blunt like this try to give a deeper thought. Don't think shallow. Try to answer to "Why we need defender's advantage?". sc2 is not Mortal Kombat where two players always clash at one place and the weaker dies. RTS or any other strategy doesn't work that way. There are two main reasons you need defender's advantage:
1. You want to confront his main army with less army (less supply) and survive. And attack him at his weakest place at the same time (drop back of his base).
2. You see that opponent is gearing up to attack you. You make just enough army/defense to survive his attack and invest into economy or tech. You make a long-term strategic decision. If enemy loses you have an advantage, but that doesn't mean you win at once, he also tries to defend and get back into the game. Game goes back and forth, better player eventually wins.
These two points alone make the game far more interesting and challenging.

But SC2 works smth like this: oh you making army to attack me? okay, I will also make as much army. And BOOM, we clash, everything dies in 5 secs, game is over. I might be talking too harsh, but I feel this is the way how it works. Just watched WhiteRa-Kas series, they're 2-2. Games are all the same, make more units and win...
Its grack
Flowjo
Profile Joined March 2011
United States928 Posts
January 21 2012 19:52 GMT
#170
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. The stationary defensive buildings fulfil specific rolls and if you made them more powerful you would actually see alot less multitasking and alot more deathball type play. Think about it a little bit.


It's like you didn't read...
IMNestea's biggest fan.
forSeohyun
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
504 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-21 19:59:17
January 21 2012 19:54 GMT
#171
On January 21 2012 23:02 LaLuSh wrote:
You can't expect to implement the same sort of defender's advantage as in BW.

The single biggest factor to SC2 playing out so differently from BW is the revision of mineral gathering. They entirely changed max saturation levels; they changed how much each subsequent produced worker is worth; they changed the amount of workers required to harvest gas to smoothen the effects of the former; they introduced macro mechanics and warp-in.

All speeding up the game, all lessening the effects a higher number of expansions.

You don't just go in and introduce defensive super units after having made all these changes. It'd break the game even more.


Very valid points.

What was the motive behind Gold mineral patches being introduced? In my opinion to give a player the (economical) incentive to occupy/siege the midfield. It was a good thought behind it but the incentive didn't work the way I think they intended it to.

The defender's advantage can't/shouldn't be equally strong over the whole map, a contain at either player's base should be sufficiently easy to break for example. Defender's advantage is very much a map thing. Topography, distances and economics work together.
Seohyun fan
Dbla08
Profile Joined March 2011
United States211 Posts
January 21 2012 20:25 GMT
#172
This is quite a well-thought out and explained stance on some of the prevailing trends in SC2 at the moment. Though far from an expert myself, I often find myself in a similar situation (primarily in TvP) where our balls of death clash and if I lose the battle, I've lost the war. On the other hand, I feel that a zerg can crush one of my pushes but still has a very tough time breaking through (depot walls). I would love to see some equity in this regard.

In general, I agree that it would help break the action up, but I'd love to hear what other people think about this.


this. i've thought this since i started playing zerg, and imo its due to how they tried using range to balance the units (horrible idea, as it lead to dps balancing to be completely impossible, which is why marines are so op in the early game.) marine vs stalker is mostly balanced only because stalkers have 1 more range (which is impossible to correctly abuse due to marines having instant damage) not because they have dps/cost efficiency. zergs can't break walls because all of our ranged units either have too short of range (4 range roaches are not enough to try to bust walls down and not lose everything your doing it with) or are so weak they never live long enough to break through. ( zerglings melt to everything except stalkers roaches rauders, and they only win those fights because of slower attack speeds and higher dps until stim is researched, then lings suck in any engagement without a 3:1 advantage in numbers and a perfect surround.) also, to add to my rant...why do hydras need a 150/150 upgrade just to have equal range as marauders and stalkers? rauder = 100 mins, 25 gas. 6 range, dbl damage to armored and potential for infinite kiting with conc shells which costs nothing and takes hardly any time to upgrade. stalker 125 minerals, 50 gas, 6 range, super versatile. hydra 100 minerals, 50 gas, 5 range, slow as fuck, dies almost as fast as a marine, costs 3x as much (more if you consider the 4:1 value of vespene to minerals) and is zergs only real offensive/defensive unit that can attack ground and air. oh, and hydras take a whole step higher of tech to even be able to tech to. maybe if they made hydras even remotely reasonable to use, zergs would be able to defend attacks, and secure games when a huge advantage is taken. protoss and terran can a move marines and zealots at you until you die, as a zerg, if you fall behind in both economy and army. if a zerg gains the army and economic advantage we have to either make a shitload banelings and pray that either spreading them to avoid tank fire will work, or the protoss is retarded and can't hit f fast enough. Or we try to tech to broodlords and outplay the opponent by denying expansions and any harass that could allow the game to equalize in the process. so hive, 100 secs, greater spire, 100 seconds, morphing broodlords (i don't remember exactly) somewhere abouts 30s, 230s = 3 minutes 50 seconds. and thats just to tech to it, assuming perfect timings for spire/hive etc, then it takes broodlords at least another 60 seconds to move from your natural to your opponents (usually its more like 70-80) and start the siege, then probably another minute before broodlings can actually break a wall. so, in an IDEAL situation, if you can't break their wall due to siege units on the defensive or excessive static d, it takes about 5 minutes to present a real threat to your opponent other than denying expansions (which isn't really a threat other than them running out of money.) a large chunk of the tech tree for zerg needs to be revamped, we lack the utility to play games on an equal footing, which is why the "stay 1 base ahead" mantra was created, because if we have equal production equal economy and equal army, we're behind.
Xacalite
Profile Joined September 2010
Germany533 Posts
January 21 2012 20:39 GMT
#173
one of the best posts ive read in a while. No whining, no flaming. only analysing. well done. i really like your ideas and arguments. but as mayn people have stated before im really curious as to what you would add to (or take away from) the game to achieve an adequate defenders advantage.

thx for your post. well done

<3 peace
I feel fear...for the last time
Alakaslam
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
United States17336 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-22 02:45:49
January 21 2012 21:45 GMT
#174
On January 22 2012 04:25 mEtRoSG wrote:
heres my argument, if you would have ANY idea about the game you would know its impossible to walk through forcefields and block immortals from killing tanks, explain o me what was a "huge blunder" in my play, i had a perfect siege on his ramp and nexus and he came down with an all out attack blocking away my marines with forcefields, even mvp cant deny that tanks are killed in that situation, therefore u have absolutly no idea what ur talking about

besides the arguement "i dont know who that is" is no argument at all since anyone could play on that smurf, u cant just say "i dont know him so huk should win 100% of his games vs him"

Edit: Situation was tactfully dealt with.
If you think Elon Musk is a Nazi, it is because YOU radicalized him!
EternaLLegacy
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
United States410 Posts
January 22 2012 00:07 GMT
#175
On January 21 2012 23:02 LaLuSh wrote:
You can't expect to implement the same sort of defender's advantage as in BW.

The single biggest factor to SC2 playing out so differently from BW is the revision of mineral gathering. They entirely changed max saturation levels; they changed how much each subsequent produced worker is worth; they changed the amount of workers required to harvest gas to smoothen the effects of the former; they introduced macro mechanics and warp-in.

All speeding up the game, all lessening the effects a higher number of expansions.

You don't just go in and introduce defensive super units after having made all these changes. It'd break the game even more.


It's all about map control.

The macro system SC2 has puts a hard cap on what you can do with map control. There is no benefit to having it past getting your 3 base up and running. Introducing more heavy zone control/map control devices provide no benefit because even if you could play defensively with zone control, it provides no benefit.

Simply, there's no reason to control lots of 'nodes' because they offer no benefits.

LaLush is one of only a handful of people who seem to understand this, and he's the first to point it out all the way back in beta. Listen to this guy.
Statists gonna State.
forSeohyun
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
504 Posts
January 22 2012 00:41 GMT
#176
On January 22 2012 09:07 EternaLLegacy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 21 2012 23:02 LaLuSh wrote:
You can't expect to implement the same sort of defender's advantage as in BW.

The single biggest factor to SC2 playing out so differently from BW is the revision of mineral gathering. They entirely changed max saturation levels; they changed how much each subsequent produced worker is worth; they changed the amount of workers required to harvest gas to smoothen the effects of the former; they introduced macro mechanics and warp-in.

All speeding up the game, all lessening the effects a higher number of expansions.

You don't just go in and introduce defensive super units after having made all these changes. It'd break the game even more.


It's all about map control.

The macro system SC2 has puts a hard cap on what you can do with map control. There is no benefit to having it past getting your 3 base up and running. Introducing more heavy zone control/map control devices provide no benefit because even if you could play defensively with zone control, it provides no benefit.

Simply, there's no reason to control lots of 'nodes' because they offer no benefits.

LaLush is one of only a handful of people who seem to understand this, and he's the first to point it out all the way back in beta. Listen to this guy.


That LaLush says "lessening the effects a higher number of expansions" and you saying it has "no benefit" (at all) seems to indicate that you don't agree 100% with one another.

There still could be and are economical/tactical/strategical benefits to have control of the midfield, but are they suitably large?
(Let's imagine a map where the midfield controls the paths to the player's third and fourth for example, why are there so few maps like this in SC2?)

However, I agree with you that a lot of defensive units won't solve the problems alone, there is a lot more to it than that, maps-economics-units and of course the players themselves.
Seohyun fan
SovSov
Profile Joined September 2010
United States755 Posts
January 22 2012 01:24 GMT
#177
amazing read

very true

i think it just comes down to a lack of zone control units. terran has a good defenders advantage but toss/zerg don't.
Kluey
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada1197 Posts
January 22 2012 01:36 GMT
#178
The units are all flashy and cool but don't serve the right purpose. Everything does too much damage/ has too little HP. Timing attacks are usually cool but those can be very a-clicky too.
Treehead
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
999 Posts
January 22 2012 01:54 GMT
#179
On January 22 2012 04:25 mEtRoSG wrote:
heres my argument, if you would have ANY idea about the game you would know its impossible to walk through forcefields and block immortals from killing tanks, explain o me what was a "huge blunder" in my play, i had a perfect siege on his ramp and nexus and he came down with an all out attack blocking away my marines with forcefields, even mvp cant deny that tanks are killed in that situation, therefore u have absolutly no idea what ur talking about

besides the arguement "i dont know who that is" is no argument at all since anyone could play on that smurf, u cant just say "i dont know him so huk should win 100% of his games vs him"


Dude, calm down. I'm not saying you're horrible. You beat huk at one point in time and you should feel good about yourself for it. I don't think I could do the same. But claiming the engagement you made was a good one is silly at best. You placed all your marines on the other side of a choke point from your tanks between the ramp and a piece of terrain. Why did you do this? What was the rush? You had the siege position - he had to move down the ramp eventually or he's lose his expo, so as long as you were patient you had him. You weren't so one immortal was able to clean up two of your tanks. Huk didn't move down the ramp optimally either, but let's not pretend that splitting your marine army apart from your tank army was brilliant strategy. Yet, and this was my point, it was still easily your game.

Also, the argument "I don't know who that is" goes like this. Huk makes a ton of money playing a video game. I think if that guy "metroSG" were as good as he was and could make a ton of money winning tournaments, he'd do it. What about that argument is fallacious?

Again, just so it's clear. I don't think you're bad. I don't think you're intentionally abusing an unfairness in the game. I also don't think I've said anything, however, which warrants a tongue-lashing. I said "here's a game, I noticed a mistake, and I don't know who the guy who never seemed to be close to losing anyway is". Do you imagine your play is perfect? If not, why get on my case for pointing it out when the point of this thread has nothing to do with you? Also, if the posters above me are correct, and you're a semipro trying to go pro or something, I'd like to point out something to you:

On January 18 2012 21:55 halpimcat wrote:
I'll have to disagree with tasteless here. That was a piss-poor game with some weird decisions made.


On January 18 2012 21:56 PikaXchU wrote:
Happy just has no idea what he's doing. Completely lost in this matchup, not knowing when to attack and where to defend.


On January 18 2012 21:59 dashmode wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 18 2012 21:56 PikaXchU wrote:
Happy just has no idea what he's doing. Completely lost in this matchup, not knowing when to attack and where to defend.


So true, terrible game by happy and awful decision making, just like brown.


These were comments made by GSL Code S level players over in the tournament section that I found after about 5 minutes of browsing. I don't think anything in my post was even close to this blatantly disrespectful. I had no intention of insulting you. I only wanted to point at mistakes and call them as I saw them. Hopefully you can forgive my analysis for not being nice enough to you.



RedMosquito
Profile Joined September 2010
United States280 Posts
January 22 2012 03:57 GMT
#180
great discussion topic and very well put together.

in terms of the deathball style of play, i do not think that increasing defender's advantage (in the form of static defenses like spine crawlers, bunkers ect) will really make a huge difference. Sure it will help against timing attacks and defending all ins but eventually the game will be decided by your army ball against his army ball with a few small battles elsewhere on the map. Buffing bunkers or spine crawlers will just allow someone to macro to that deathball a bit quicker. the end scenario i think would still be blob vs blob.

The real problem imo is that you cannot divide your army too much(except for maybe tvt) or you risk getting run over. This really limits the action if you think about it. Ideally you want games where you are fighting for several positions around the map, not just one position with one army.

I think what sc2 needs is for the most powerful units in the game to not be so deathball happy. The best example really is the collosus: highly mobile, no friendly splash, long range, farely fast moving, can walk over cliffs, ect. You slip that puppy into your ball and bam your blob is ready to go. make powerful units like this more difficult to use and i think you can alleviate the deathball stuff a tad which would be nice for the game imo.
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