There is an element of design that has gone into a lot of great strategy games which I think SC2 has not sufficiently addressed – and that is the ability to defend and play defensively. From castling in chess to militia in WC3, the importance of defense and the defender's advantage in strategy games has always been of the highest importance. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that no strategy game which does not give sufficient importance to the defender's advantage can be considered a complete strategy game. The purpose of this post is first, to explain why having adequate opportunities for defense and adequate defender's advantage is important, and second, to present elements of gameplay that seem symptomatic of a lack of defender's advantage.
“But why must defense be so important?” you might ask.
In the game of risk, battles are won and lost by roles of the dice. We’ll use this game to look at these types of games from a purely design perspective, without things like skill or other elements of strategy to confuse the issue.
Risk and Relevant Rules (skip if you know the game) + Show Spoiler +
The attacker may roll one for each army he has attacking, to a maximum of 3, and the defender may roll one for each army defending, to a maximum of 2. When the dice are rolled, the highest and second highest of each roll is compared, and if the attacker tied the defender’s roll or worse, he loses an army, where if the attacker rolled higher, the defender loses an army. When the defender loses all their armies or the attacker only has one army left, the battle is over. If the attacker won, he takes the country he was attacking.
The math behind the dice-rolling in Risk implies that the defender has a very slight advantage*. However, each player has a notable advantage once the other is no longer able to do so. So, in areas where both have an equally large number of armies, the attacker is at a slight disadvantage, and in areas where both have an equally small number of armies, the attacker is at a large disadvantage.
But now, let’s say we want to change that. Defending is boring – let’s make it more rewarding to attack by taking away the defender’s advantage. Let’s say each player can only roll 2 dice, and on a tie nothing happens. That makes it even. Should make things more fair. Seems logical, right? You’d probably think that until you see a spot where it looks like your opponent will attack at their next convenience, and you realize – “Hey, he’s going to attack me on his next turn. Why don’t I attack him first? It’s the same roll either way, and this way, if I win – I get his territory.” And then you see a place where your opponent isn’t ready to attack and you think to yourself – “Shouldn’t I attack him there? Otherwise, I’m just waiting for him to be ready to attack. I’ll just attack him when he’s not ready instead!”
Don't let the cover fool you - this game's all about sitting at a table rolling dice.
Then, you realize that if he’s not going to attack, you attack him, and if he is going to attack, you… still attack him. The most reasonable strategy is just attacking everywhere you can at every opportunity, and then you realize that you’re just sitting down and putting a bunch of markers on a board that doesn’t really matter and rolling dice until you pick almost all of them up again – and the game is ruined. You’re now just rolling dice to see who’s better at rolling dice. Arguably, that’s the biggest part of risk anyway – but my point is that when attacking isn’t strictly worse than defending, strategy goes away and we’re left with just execution because both sides always want to attack. When you attack you get stuff (in, SC2, destroying bases) and when you defend you don’t. So, if defending isn’t easier, why would you ever defend?
See the point? If you make defense equal to or harder than attacking, the game becomes merely attacking whatever you can whenever you can attack it. That's doesn't make for a good strategy game because it removes a basic component of strategy - should I be attacking right now or defending? Imagine that attacking is actually easier than defending - and whatever decisions you had before are simply gone.
Now we come to SC2, which I will argue has not given sufficient attention to defender's advantage and to defensively oriented units and structures.
Don't buy that defender's advantage is really as crucial as I'm claiming? That's actually fine, because even if you don't, it's worthwhile to note that games of SC2 tend to be at their best when they’re long. Some people feel that this is because long games are so rare, but I feel that's an inadequate explanation. If there were as much or as intense action going on in the early game as their is when each player has taken 3-4 bases, I might accept that explanation - but the two are just completely different in terms of difficulty. Personally, I think the reason these games are so epic is that more is happening, so action prioritizing matters more and those with great multitasking are truly able to show their prowess. I also think that the general shortness of games and relative effectiveness of strategies which emphasize only the early game is one of the reasons why people have said that SC2 is so easy comparatively
I. Rush Builds
This is, in my humble opinion, the biggest evidence there is of a lack of sufficient defender’s advantage. I’m not a pro player, but I watch enough streams and tournaments to know that people still rush each other, and it’s even a pretty normal occurrence. I have no problem with this necessarily, but from a game design standpoint, the best case scenario is that the earlier the attack, the harder it will be to make successful.
Why? Let’s go back to our earlier logic. Defender’s advantage exists because there needs to be a reason people defend – otherwise everyone has only attacking on their minds, because attacking wins games, where defending only keeps you alive. Now, let’s get in the mindset of a rush build, where the aggressor isn’t just only thinking of attacking – he’s thinking of attacking as early as he can with as much as he can. To make the distinction more clear, pressure builds don’t build with the goal of exerting pressure, they build with the later goals in mind, and add whatever pressure they can, while they’re doing something else. Rush builds, on the other hand, seek only to have as much pressure as they can right away.
Let’s say your opponent comes into the game with a rush build in mind. You, on the other hand, the defender, having not come into the game with that idea in mind, will be behind, then, when you scout what is coming. The point is that defender’s advantage can’t just be some tiny little tie-breaker like it was in risk – because in a game of rush build vs. no-rush build, it’s not a tie at the time when the rush hits. The earlier the rush, the less prepared a person is, and therefore, the more the defender’s advantage must compensate. Earlier attacks are also easier to make and repeat, and if battles are close (i.e. the defender doesn’t have a lot left when the attack is repelled), the larger burden is on the shoulders of the defender. The attacker can force a mistake, and again, when your attack is successful in SC2 you often just win the game.
I don’t seek to do away with rush builds. If you’ve got a 3-gate rush build you’d like to put into your Bo3 series, great. Maybe you’ll catch him being greedy. But I think everyone would be happier if the game made it so that you *really* had to outplay your opponent to just outright win with it at the 7-minute mark. This is really my problem with the current rush builds. I never watch someone lose to a rush and think “the defender played perfectly, he absolutely couldn’t have stopped that”. Yet seldom do I watch a successful rush and think “that look really hard to do – he totally deserved that win”. In fact, often I’ve seen games where it looked to me like the defender’s control was better – yet the rush build still won out.
ok, so Huk gave up a bad position, but who is metroSG? And can anyone argue that he played particularly well? Seems to me losing 2 siege tanks in good position to an immortal and a stalker is a pretty serious blunder, doesn't it?
[more rush defense VODs go here for examples - updating later, feel free to add requests]
Someone who's used to rushing might see this and think: "this is completely unfair because now I can't punish him for being greedy". That's completely not so. If he tries to take his third before making units and you're rushing, any reasonable defender's advantage isn't going to save him (on this point, though, I think it would be best if the heightened defense came as some kind of tech unit, so you do can't entirely fixate on economy). What if he's only being reasonably greedy? Then the heightened defense actually works in favor of a more rush-oriented build. Let's say you commit to some early pressure, but are in a bad position to force the opponent off his nat. In the current game, he's enough ahead of you economically that in a short amount of time, he's going to have a reasonable amount more food than you do, and just be able to a-move you. Therefore, you need to continue to push even if things look bad. But with heightened defenses, you can pull back, expand a bit later, and try to catch back up. In addition, if being lenient on greedy play is what is needed, perhaps the "heightened defense" could come through tech or as an addition to unit-producing structures. It need not be 3 minute rush distances, or something that is available everywhere right away.
I guess what I'm really saying is that heightened defender's advantage takes the emphasis off of the early game, and that's good because that's the stage of the game that's easiest to execute and hardest to scout.
II. Deathball-style combat
We’ve all seen them. Every race has them (though protoss is clearly the most infamous for them). You build up your food slowly, get all your upgrades, get a few power units, maybe make an engagement here and there. Then you take your giant army to your enemy’s door and each of you mash your armies against one another.
There’s some positioning micro to do, you might have some spells to cast, you can’t let your macro drop, but all of the action is centered on one big clash in the center of the map. The winner of the engagement comes out way ahead, the loser gg’s because he’ll never catch back up. Sure, sometimes it happens that you and your opponent lose about the same amount – you might go back and forth trading blows for a while, but you’re fighting like a Boxer… no, not even like a boxer – like a rock ‘em sock ‘em robot. Both you and your opponent only have one option – to hit each other right in the face, the only skill comes in reaction and execution.
After carefully examining the replay, Kaarthock determines that punching is imbalanced.
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
So what’s the problem? Why isn’t this how the game is now? The answer is simple – nobody leaves their deathball because if they lose a bunch of units, they’re suddenly vulnerable to their opponent’s deathball. If you take 20 food worth of guys and tell them “take that expansion” and take another 20 food and make a drop, and the forces hitting an expansion run into the enemy’s deathball – the deathball only has to run them over, counterpush and the game is likely over. The reason the game is over is that defender’s advantage is not sufficient to save you when you’re caught in situations where you find yourself reasonably behind in the army size (relative to race, of course).
III. Maps
The ramp connected to every player’s main is a big defender’s advantage early on – but only as far as 1-base play is concerned. Often, this used to mean that players (generally protoss) end up waiting on 1 base to assemble an army to expand with. Recently, more and more maps are being released which also have a ramp, or at least a choke point (albeit wider) at the natural expansion. This is a big deal with regards to holding rushes for P and T, and a critical extension of defender’s advantage. More could be done here, however. Maps (at least those released by Blizzard) seem to be designed with the idea that, as you expand, your bases ought to be more and more vulnerable. Of course, I’m not suggesting that all maps have a bunch of mineral patches right in your base with you – just that expansions involving the forfeiture of what little defender’s advantage you have (and in some cases, they give the high ground advantage to the attacker) create ideal situations for deathball-style attacks. Throw everything into this one area and you’ll win if you have as much or more than your opponent. That’s not good design. And of course, rush distances could be longer. Maps are really important – just about every problem we have in the game could conceivably be addressed with maps, so it’s worth noting that even without the units and gameplay we feel we need to have for equitable and entertaining competition, maps can fix it.
IV. Protoss
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.
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. I think they’ve hit that window – but because some weakening must be done, rushes become more difficult to hold. I’d argue that the game hits somewhere in the middle right now, with gateway units being at a disadvantage strength-wise, but with pushes being still stronger than any push a Terran could see from another Terran in a TvT. But again, I’m no one of incredible skill and experience, just someone writing his observations, so my thoughts here may be incorrect.
Next, there's Photon Cannons. Photon cannons are fine in early game defense, and yet, you see less cannons from Protoss than you see spines/spores from zerg and bunkers/turrets from Terran. Why? The main reason is that they lack the sturdiness and versatility that the other race's structures have. Terran can repair their structures. Zerg can infuse their structures. When a protoss structure gets attacked, the only thing protoss can do wait for it to die and rebuild it. This means photon cannons for early game defense are only as good as the amount of health they have.
V. Conclusions
I’d argue that SC2 as a game needs more in the way of defender’s advantage, whether that comes as unit additions/changes, map changes or strategy changes.
Now obviously, defender’s advantage cannot be overpowering, or no one will ever attack, and every game will end in a draw. And additionally, if implemented poorly, a heightened defender’s advantage which one is able to get at every location at any point in time actually punishes small engagements, but my argument is this: it’s almost 2 years since the game came out, and a lot of the defensive problems we ran into early on in SC2’s history still exist.
When I said defender's advantage, this isn't exactly what I had in mind...
I’m not arguing this because I really like sitting back and defending. Strangely, I’m arguing for greater defense because it will open up the ability to attack more freely, all over the map, instead of the current deathball format – because even if you lose smaller engagements in the attack, you know you have a strong defense to fall back on if a large direct push should come.
Don't get me wrong - I love SC2. This really isn't a thread about how terrible the game is and how it needs to change. The game's developers have already determined it will change. This is more about putting out there how I'd like to see it change. Whether they go this direction or not, I'll still be playing. But the game is young and has a lot of time to grow, so as long as that's the case, I'd like to weight in on it.
I’d argue that there’s hope they’re already ahead of us on designing with some of these ideas in mind, maybe even as early as HotS. The shredder has the potential to be that heavy defensive unit for terran, and protoss has a big question mark where the ability to use nexus energy for things like defensive structures has been brought up. Zerg has a ton of changes which could blow their matchups out of the water, too. Who knows - maybe zone-controlling units will be back on the table by the end of the HotS beta. Nothing is out of the question yet – the beta's not even out. But when it does take center stage, hopefully they will be open to this direction.
Edit: * This is only true in the case of army sizes 11 or smaller. For 12 or higher, the attacker has a slight advantage. See http://www.dandrake.com/risk.html for details.
Edit 2: Here is a compiled list of benefits to being attacked which you don't also get while attacking:
Terran Rush Distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless using PF at the natural on a map with no choke) Use of Simcity against low range attackers Use of already sieged tanks Use of PFs Use of Bunkers (diminished at open expansions) Use of Turrets
Zerg Rush distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless expanding on a map with no choke at natural - not really useful with zerg's T1 units) Use of Simcity against low range attackers (not useful with zerg's T1) Use of Queens Use of Creep Use of Spine Crawlers (diminished at open expansions) Use of Spore Crawlers
Protoss Rush distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless expanding on a map with no choke at natural - FF makes this big) Use of Simcity against low range attackers Use of Photon cannons (diminished at open expansions)
This list should be used to create discussions about the aspects of defender's advantage needed and whether each aspect is being addressed in each matchup. Yes, the protoss list is shorter and the Terran list is longer, but this isn't a complaint about balance - warpins are very strong for attacking and deathball style play, both of which are prevalent in WoL, so a lesser defense out front or a slower expansion as a result may be warranted. Terran, in addition, is required to put a lot of money into building infrastructure, especially in the early game, so greater defense or a faster expansion here may be warranted.
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.
Treehead, if you'd designed the game, what would you have added to have more of a defender's advantage.
Also, I would make the argument that a good reason Terran has been seen successful for a long time is because they have the strongest defender's advantage. They have walls and all ranged units that can sit behind and shoot, in addition to siege tanks and a very effective anti-air in the form of turrets + repair.
Zerg primarily have creep spread as a form of defender's advantage which Terran have learnt to control well with hellions early game. I admit Protoss' lack of a defender's advantage like you said but sentries work best at choke points. In fact, Protoss are sort of over-reliant on sentries.
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.
There's a big hole with your logic that i've noticed. You claim that the earlier the attack, the less successful it should be (ideally) because if you're defending, by nature of being the defender you should have a distinct advantage.
What you haven't considered is that people rush because instead of going for an economic advantage, they go for units early as a means to capitalize on your opponents being greedy. The reason people are defending in the first place is because they're being more greedy than their opponents so by nature of NOT being the one rushing, they'll have less units at that point in the game.
So by nature of greedy play, I would say the opposite of your logic is true. If two players were to rush vs the same economic build, the earlier rush would be the more successful, not the later one.
There is an element of defenders advantage simply because of proximity. The only issue that arises because of this is proxy pylons and proxy barracks, but even so, this isn't a "defender's advantage" scenario, this is an all in scenario which just requires scouting and the proper response.
Arguments towards defenders advantage is most relevant simply to midgame pushes straight into the heart of your opponent. In order to accomplish such an attack, you simply have to be on his/her side of the map, where it's more easy for that person to reinforce, so when you do a push like this you're basically telling your opponent that you think you have more than them and want to muscle them out of the game, provided there isn't anything fancy going on like drops/nukes, etc
On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote: Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p
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.
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.
On January 21 2012 00:56 Stropheum wrote: There's a big hole with your logic that i've noticed. You claim that the earlier the attack, the less successful it should be (ideally) because if you're defending, by nature of being the defender you should have a distinct advantage.
What you haven't considered is that people rush because instead of going for an economic advantage, they go for units early as a means to capitalize on your opponents being greedy. The reason people are defending in the first place is because they're being more greedy than their opponents so by nature of NOT being the one rushing, they'll have less units at that point in the game.
So by nature of greedy play, I would say the opposite of your logic is true. If two players were to rush vs the same economic build, the earlier rush would be the more successful, not the later one.
There is an element of defenders advantage simply because of proximity. The only issue that arises because of this is proxy pylons and proxy barracks, but even so, this isn't a "defender's advantage" scenario, this is an all in scenario which just requires scouting and the proper response.
Arguments towards defenders advantage is most relevant simply to midgame pushes straight into the heart of your opponent. In order to accomplish such an attack, you simply have to be on his/her side of the map, where it's more easy for that person to reinforce, so when you do a push like this you're basically telling your opponent that you think you have more than them and want to muscle them out of the game, provided there isn't anything fancy going on like drops/nukes, etc
Actually I did consider this. Look at the end of the section on rushing. My point is that with a greater defender's advantage, it's actually ok to be a bit behind in army size, in economy, or in tech. This takes the emphasis off the early game. See that section?
Why are these threads still popping up. Listen to any sc2 programer (except idra) and they will they you that people right now simply isnt good enough to know when to harass, when to micro(or rather cant micro because they "suck") and when to deathball it up. Deathball it up is the easiet/safest of the three, so ofc people will start with that.
We have to start acknowledging that the game is still to young to be compared to BW, or games that have been out a long they. Compare a match played a year ago, and a match now and you will probably find that the game played now has a lot more harass/smaller army's moving out, and this will only happened more. Until HOTS come out and ruin everything =)
Im sorry i dont you have thought this through enough. The effect of economy is missing in large parts of your discussion for instance. Also i think lately people write LONG post instead of concise to make it less likely the threads will be closed. If your interested in this topic dont write a lecture like you have it all figured out when this is just your friday afternoon thoughts (which is fine)
On January 21 2012 00:56 Stropheum wrote: There's a big hole with your logic that i've noticed. You claim that the earlier the attack, the less successful it should be (ideally) because if you're defending, by nature of being the defender you should have a distinct advantage.
What you haven't considered is that people rush because instead of going for an economic advantage, they go for units early as a means to capitalize on your opponents being greedy. The reason people are defending in the first place is because they're being more greedy than their opponents so by nature of NOT being the one rushing, they'll have less units at that point in the game.
So by nature of greedy play, I would say the opposite of your logic is true. If two players were to rush vs the same economic build, the earlier rush would be the more successful, not the later one.
There is an element of defenders advantage simply because of proximity. The only issue that arises because of this is proxy pylons and proxy barracks, but even so, this isn't a "defender's advantage" scenario, this is an all in scenario which just requires scouting and the proper response.
Arguments towards defenders advantage is most relevant simply to midgame pushes straight into the heart of your opponent. In order to accomplish such an attack, you simply have to be on his/her side of the map, where it's more easy for that person to reinforce, so when you do a push like this you're basically telling your opponent that you think you have more than them and want to muscle them out of the game, provided there isn't anything fancy going on like drops/nukes, etc
Actually I did consider this. Look at the end of the section on rushing. My point is that with a greater defender's advantage, it's actually ok to be a bit behind in army size, in economy, or in tech. This takes the emphasis off the early game. See that section?
There shouldn't be an emphasis taken off early game though. As far as the game stands now, it's very balanced especially in the early and mid game. If you increase defenders advantage, that'd allow players to be much much much greedier and would throw off the balance of the game entirely. You'd see protoss players going nexus first on xel naga vs zerg, terran going 3 orbitals before barracks, zergs going 4 hatch before pool. It would absurdly favor greedy play, nullifying any pressure any player can do, because any player would be 100% safe from anything until their economy is almost perfectly where they want it to be.
It's an okay concept, but would fail miserably in practice.
On January 21 2012 00:54 frucisky wrote: Treehead, if you'd designed the game, what would you have added to have more of a defender's advantage.
I intentionally didn't do this because it bothers me when players suggest things which are hard to implement and harder yet to balance, but when you say it, it sounds great and easy. For that reason, I won't make up something new.
I will point to WC3, where each race has non-worker defenses such as militia, orc burrows, attacking builds (trees), etc. They've done that in the past and I think it worked well.
On January 21 2012 00:56 Stropheum wrote: There's a big hole with your logic that i've noticed. You claim that the earlier the attack, the less successful it should be (ideally) because if you're defending, by nature of being the defender you should have a distinct advantage.
What you haven't considered is that people rush because instead of going for an economic advantage, they go for units early as a means to capitalize on your opponents being greedy. The reason people are defending in the first place is because they're being more greedy than their opponents so by nature of NOT being the one rushing, they'll have less units at that point in the game.
So by nature of greedy play, I would say the opposite of your logic is true. If two players were to rush vs the same economic build, the earlier rush would be the more successful, not the later one.
There is an element of defenders advantage simply because of proximity. The only issue that arises because of this is proxy pylons and proxy barracks, but even so, this isn't a "defender's advantage" scenario, this is an all in scenario which just requires scouting and the proper response.
Arguments towards defenders advantage is most relevant simply to midgame pushes straight into the heart of your opponent. In order to accomplish such an attack, you simply have to be on his/her side of the map, where it's more easy for that person to reinforce, so when you do a push like this you're basically telling your opponent that you think you have more than them and want to muscle them out of the game, provided there isn't anything fancy going on like drops/nukes, etc
Actually I did consider this. Look at the end of the section on rushing. My point is that with a greater defender's advantage, it's actually ok to be a bit behind in army size, in economy, or in tech. This takes the emphasis off the early game. See that section?
There shouldn't be an emphasis taken off early game though. As far as the game stands now, it's very balanced especially in the early and mid game. If you increase defenders advantage, that'd allow players to be much much much greedier and would throw off the balance of the game entirely. You'd see protoss players going nexus first on xel naga vs zerg, terran going 3 orbitals before barracks, zergs going 4 hatch before pool. It would absurdly favor greedy play, nullifying any pressure any player can do, because any player would be 100% safe from anything until their economy is almost perfectly where they want it to be.
It's an okay concept, but would fail miserably in practice.
Make the defender's advantage through gainable only though teching or through making unit producing buildings - or from the units themselves and everything you've said isn't true. It's odd that you know the game would break even though I haven't given any specifics, just given a general intended mindset.
It does favor greedy play in some ways, but doesn't in others. For instance, you may get a 100-food army a full minute earlier than your opponent due to a ramped up economy - but if he hasn't been throwing away his units, what good does that do if he can still defend it?
One of my favorite things about Warcraft 3 was early-rushes against a teching opponent, who then had to use his base defenses to survive and eventually win because of his tech advantage. Especially if it's a tower rush, I think. Like, human vs a fast expanding/teching night elf who has a lot of moon wells, powerful heroes, ancient of wars and has to defend long enough for either his eco advantage to kick in or to get out enough dryads/druid of the claws. It was just fun because it was very position based and was like a super prolonged early game skirmish with a lot of micro. In Starcraft 2 you don't really have things like that because it's all based on defending ramps or having wall-ins. Defending a ramp is a binary thing pretty much, so while sentries are good base defense they're also not very dynamic. The game isn't designed for this, of course, but I'd be interested in if Starcraft 2 would be a better game if the main bases weren't protected by ramps, they were just open and maybe you had some additional base defense to help out.
I think as far as SC2 goes, maybe it would help if static defense could benefit from upgrades. Spine crawlers start to get pretty useless in defending marine/zealot attacks late-game because they need more armor, basically.
On January 21 2012 01:08 Grumbels wrote: One of my favorite things about Warcraft 3 was early-rushes against a teching opponent, who then had to use his base defenses to survive and eventually win because of his tech advantage. Especially if it's a tower rush, I think. Like, human vs a fast expanding/teching night elf who has a lot of moon wells, powerful heroes, ancient of wars and has to defend long enough for either his eco advantage to kick in or to get out enough dryads/druid of the claws. It was just fun because it was very position based and was like a super prolonged early game skirmish with a lot of micro. In Starcraft 2 you don't really have things like that because it's all based on defending ramps or having wall-ins. Defending a ramp is a binary thing pretty much, so while sentries are good base defense they're also not very dynamic. The game isn't designed for this, of course, but I'd be interested in if Starcraft 2 would be a better game if the main bases weren't protected by ramps, they were just open and maybe you had some additional base defense to help out.
I think as far as SC2 goes, maybe it would help if static defense could benefit from upgrades. Spine crawlers start to get pretty useless in defending marine/zealot attacks late-game because they need more armor, basically.
Yeah, I loved that part of WC3, too - it was one of the few things I liked about that game more than this one. The idea that "ramp = defender's advantage" has issues with expansions, in particular with the way this constricts attack paths. Baking defender's advantage into something that doesn't require a ramp would have major consequences in terms of what they were able to do with multiple lanes of attack.
This is unfortunate, because right now a wide open natural is a dead natural - and yet a wide open natural is really what makes things like counterattacking, flanking, and other strategic options possible.
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.
I might agree that SCII has too little defender's advantage, but I would absolutely not go any farther than the slightly greater strength static defenses had in SCI. If you've ever played Total Annihilation, you know that there can easily be too much of a defender's advantage. I would argue, in fact, that what has made Starcraft the greatest RTS franchise has been its emphasis on the attack.
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?
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.
You forgot to mention in the OP that the reason Photon Cannons are seldom used in early game defense is because you need a Forge, not a Gateway, to build them. A lot of early builds don't include a Forge, whereas with Spine Crawlers and Bunkers can be built only requiring a Barracks or Spawning Pool, which would be equivalent to Cannons being built from the Gateway. However, I think Sentries and the FF ability go a long way though, and are the Protoss equivalent of Spine Crawlers and Bunkers for early game defense.
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.
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.
I hate to be that one guy, but I really think that adding things like the reaver, lurker, vulture or virtual equivalents of those in HotS would be a wonderful step forward not only in watchability and progame excitement factor, but in defender's advantage (it's much harder to micro a reaver in a shuttle to attack than it is to defend with one, harder to use mines offensively than having your opponent clear them to attack, harder to get detection over a lurker, etc), and might remove the need for any adjustment to game mechanics if they were available early or easily, not to mention the positional aspects added to the game if these were reintroduced =/.
Edit: Holy shit TheBronzeKnee, Coming of the Horde was my absolute favorite WC3 map :O
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?
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 ; )
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.
I definitely don't wanna see stronger static defence.....Cannon rushes are already ridiculously strong for a strat that is kinda brain dead. Especially in lower leagues, I'm pretty sure it's actually a nightmare there.
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
If there were Lurkers, Spider Mines/Better Tanks and Shield Batteries/Reavers we would have all the defender's advantage we need. Blizzard howerver insists on adding gimmicks like Swarm Hosts, Shredders and the Cannon spell.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Interesting thread, pretty well written OP I'm glad you included pictures too in order to keep the attention span for the length of your post. I feel like you bring up a few valid points but they've already been said quite a bit. SCII does sort-of allow for worse players playing a risky rush strategy to succeed against more skilled players and it does so more-so than BW ever did. Still, I feel like it would take quite a bit of changes to really rectify the current problems that you mention and it would most likely imbalance the game. You don't really present many ideas of how to fix the game, rather it seems more like a whine post. Do you maybe have any specific ideas for how to improve the game or how HotS might address some of your concerns?
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're wrong about RISK, however. The attacker has a slight advantage. I know this after playing years and years of risk with plenty of other top players from conquerclub.com. It's been written up tons of tons of times the exact percentages on that site for the exact attacker's advantage, and the defender is most definitely at a disadvantage, which is why people fucking jump the gun so often.
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.
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.
This sounds like that thread that was popular 2 days ago, at least the defenders advantage and units clumping thing.
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.
ok, so Huk gave up a bad position, but who is metroSG? And can anyone argue that he played particularly well?
I know him. hes a GM terran on EU and he clicks all upgrades and clicks many other things and got low apm and bad macro + average micro. Wouldnt say hes good at all.
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
On January 21 2012 03:04 Mataza wrote: I´m gonna cite Day[9]: "The system is never flawed"
(some other stuff)
I might not have said it outright yet, but you seem to be just another balancewhiner. Have a nice day.
Day[9] was talking about mentality. My mentality is fine in game. I'm not posting this because "this stinks and it's total BS I don't win more". My post really has nothing to do with me or my play (I suck, and I'll admit that as I have in other threads I post in). It more has to do with the game we have, the game as it could be, and how to resolve the differences between the two.
This has NOTHING to do with balance. The game as it is is not built to rely on a moderate defender's advantage - it's built to be "he who attacks with more of the right stuff wins". That's what it seems like now, anyway.
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.
I'm not saying Protoss isn't good. Obviously they are. If you need evidence, watch any of the 8 protoss who made to to Code S this time around. I'm saying warpin has a weird affect on defender's advantage that hurts matchups both in their favor and against their favor.
On January 21 2012 04:21 Mr. Black wrote: How many times this week is this thread going to be made?
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
Good point. Why would I try to think when I can practice? Those two activities totally fill the same role for me.
Also, making a thread about defense is very much like making threads about unit mechanics or units which have really high dps.
Is your complaint that we're all talking about the same game here, or that we're all thinking critically about said game?
On January 21 2012 03:45 Zombo Joe wrote: If there were Lurkers, Spider Mines/Better Tanks and Shield Batteries/Reavers we would have all the defender's advantage we need. Blizzard howerver insists on adding gimmicks like Swarm Hosts, Shredders and the Cannon spell.
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.
Agreed - that makes two ideas I like for adding defensiveness to the game without that we've seen in the past hasn't been gamebreaking - the type that was in WC3 and the type that was in BW.
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.
I also want to add that after watching the game linked, that I believe that was a problem with the map and the ability to scout (I mentioned scouting in my post on page 3), not with SC2 itself. That map favored 1 base play heavily, and it also a really bad map, and it was removed from the ladder.
On January 21 2012 04:25 R3DT1D3 wrote:...and I don't think Blizzard understands how to make defendable areas other than chokes/ramps.
Blizzard has more trick of their sleeve... Collapsible rocks! As if Destructible rocks to block people from playing macro games weren't bad enough...
On January 21 2012 03:30 Omsomsoms wrote: Edit: Holy shit TheBronzeKnee, Coming of the Horde was my absolute favorite WC3 map :O
People get so offended when others' express their thoughts and opinions and it baffles me.
There is no harm in speculation, thinking out loud, or exploring various potential causes for what a person sees as being a problem with the game. Furthermore, as many have so astutely pointed out, these threads won't change the game, and are more often than not, a vehicle for discussing strategies and tactics in a roundabout way. It's just the way people think, and if you want to be constructive and informative, try understanding their point of view and responding in kind. If you think the game is just fine, explain why that is rather than just bashing peoples' thought-out and unique posts.
Nice writeup. I agree that the defender doesent benefit enough from being the defender.
The matchup were you see most from the defenders advantage is ZvZ? That's just how I feel about it!
Then again. We're all very bad at this game at this moment and if you give Sc2 another year I'm sure that the timings will be more figured out and you'll see the defender benefit more from defending
IEM has to many breaks, all around IEM there are always the same threads popping up about how bad this game is. If it would be that bad no one would play it. Blizzard didn't really throw out tournaments like crazy to enforce a scene around the game.
I am fine with the defenders advantage now, but i disliked that they nerfed the early game so heavily until the defenders advantage became so enormous, that early aggression is almost deadly if the opponent isn't greedy.
Fully agree. These thoughts were always in my head, but I never could explain it in a good, constructive way. I wish blizzard listened to these and try to make a better game. Right now sc2 is kinda meh.
On January 21 2012 04:30 Alacast wrote: People get so offended when others' express their thoughts and opinions and it baffles me.
There is no harm in speculation, thinking out loud, or exploring various potential causes for what a person sees as being a problem with the game. Furthermore, as many have so astutely pointed out, these threads won't change the game, and are more often than not, a vehicle for discussing strategies and tactics in a roundabout way. It's just the way people think, and if you want to be constructive and informative, try understanding their point of view and responding in kind. If you think the game is just fine, explain why that is rather than just bashing peoples' thought-out and unique posts.
Some people just only know how to think critically when they're angry at something, so they imagine when I talk about SC2 in any way other than complimentary that I'm really saying "Hey, y'know what sucks? THIS GAME! Y'know what's awesome? ME!" It really doesn't matter how many times you say that this isn't what you mean, until a person is able to think critically about something while also appreciating it, they will not be able to understand that this is what I'm doing. It's how empathy works, and at some point it's something we just have to live with, whether it's frustrating or not.
I would agree that this issue needs to be looked into. I am a much more defense oriented player, mostly because I want my games to get to the 3 base play where attacks are happening everywhere and macro becomes such a bigger deal. I hope that it is at least being considered by blizzard. Not to say that they should make the game cater exactly to what i want but i would like it.
zZzZzZz to be honest the problem with the game is people just havent become gosu enough or exploited the game enough to really show its true potential because people have been lazy relying on death balls to win things earlier on in the history of sc2
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.
Well-constructed post, and in general, I agree. Defender's advantage does not mean early rushes will no longer be viable, nor does it mean you can expand 3 bases instantly with just defensive structures. Defender's advantage means once you gain advantages through positioning (higher ground - cliffs, ridges, ramps) and planning (zone control units, unit composition), you can overcome the incoming attack of similar or even slightly greater forces.
Defender's advantage should allow well-positioned and prepared army of 90 supply to overcome a hasty, over-zealous, spam a-moving attacking army of 120 supply. It means that there will be greater room for multi-tasking; in other words, higher skill ceiling. It means more and more professional players will learn to overcome build-order disadvantages through fantastic multi-tasking and micromanagement. Well, that's at least how I see it.
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.
God. What a way to end your post.
First off, Day9 isn't fucking Jesus. He has to talk positively about the game because it's his income. Can you imagine if Day9 started saying things like "Holy shit, is that ever OP!" it'd look bad, and it'd be bad for his business. His entire job is predicated on him being "the guy who always has an answer" and he is the unofficial spokesperson for the game, I'd say. He has to be unbiased - but I shit you not, if you could sit down with him for a drink "off-the-record" he'd probably have a few choice words about certain units/strats.
Second, the replay in question is just one example out of tonnes. You may be right, scouting might have been a problem - but I can cite you other examples where it wasn't a problem, and the defender just gets sodomized all the same. I don't see it a problem for people to point out issues in the game. We all want it to be better. It's lunacy to think this game is fine - it's not. This game is nowhere near as deep as BW (enter "but this isn't brood war" squeals here).
Third, OP wrote a really good, well-thought post, and you reduce him to a "balancewhiner." Seriously? That's pretty weak.
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
Spreading out against a deathball makes it stronger. Unless you're being facetious and you're suggesting the offensive player spreads out their deathball for the sake of courtesy - then why bother playing to win.
Also, SC:BW should be the model here. It's the best RTS of all time and the precursor to SC2. It is also leagues better than SC2 in terms of balance, strategy and tactics - and was so when it was the same age SC2 is now. God forbid anyone suggest that here, though.
I think that your point about maps being a primary culprit of this is going largely unnoticed. Take a look back at some of the BW maps: multiple high and low ground areas with tangled pathways leading to bases and the ability to hide units behind scenery. I think we will need more variety in our map terrains: right now, it's largely this: double high main, single high natural, third/fourth/etc. low ground, flat middle with 1-4 watchtowers, and anywhere from 0-8 chokepoints of varying size without extra terrain variations, you can argue that some maps deviate slightly from this (Antiga, Tal'Darim, etc.), but in general, the maps are focused on a set characteristic of bases with little terrain/environmental benefits comparatively speaking.
In addition, the techniques of zoning I think are going to ramp up HUGELY in HotS. The Viper, Shredder, Swarm Host, and Oracle are all going to be absolutely key in gaining control of certain areas and pushing back forces. In addition, Recall/Arc Cannon on the Nexus as well as Ultralisk Burrow Charge, Burrow-move Banelings, Battle Hellion mode, etc. are all going to impact the viability of simply 'smashing armies together'.
I don't think we want to overthink the defender's advantage situation in too much detail. Chess is a great example of how not attempting to improve the defender didn't actually decrease the viability of defense. The last major rule change in terms of pieces was the addition of a couple of things: Queens now moving anywhere, and Bishops gaining the ability to hit multiple squares. Also, en passant was added, which is in fact a 'nerf' to defense, since you can no longer block forward pawns from pawn reinforcement if your opponent doesn't let you. The amount of attacking traps and minefields you can lay for the defender is astounding, yet, even today, the first move advantage that White gets still does not creep up over 55% (I think - it's not exact, so don't quote me on that number). Chess is as complex and strategically rich today as it has ever been, without fundamental changes to give defenders an advantage.
I read this and it just reads 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.
Defenders advantages for each race: (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
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.
Ummmm, so what about first strike advantage and initiative in any battle?
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.
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
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
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.
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. Also i disagree that protoss units are weaker than terran early game, it just comes down to your composition, positioning and how its controlled.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
meh nah i disagree. 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.
The game-design article mentions defenders advantage and I think offers some interesting insights.
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.
Agree that warp in screws PvP the most and the other match-ups somewhat. However i don't think defenders advantage is too low in SC2, its just not evenly distributed amongst the match-ups.
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.
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.
Even if this topic has been discussed a lot, I really liked the read and the use of risk to explain, thanks for the great write up
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
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.
On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote: Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p
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).
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
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.
On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote: Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p
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).
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 00:50 statikg wrote: Sorry, the greatness of the starcraft franchise has always revolved around the fact that offence is the best defence.
On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
On January 21 2012 06:52 Treehead wrote: I found the percentages for it on the first page.
On January 21 2012 00:56 Treehead wrote:
On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote: Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p
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).
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.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was suggesting 1v1. It'd be a terrible comparison to SC2 if you had several opponents to worry about.
On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
On January 21 2012 06:52 Treehead wrote: I found the percentages for it on the first page.
On January 21 2012 00:56 Treehead wrote:
On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote: Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p
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).
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.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was suggesting 1v1. It'd be a terrible comparison to SC2 if you had several opponents to worry about.
Well, I guess, but RISK wasn't ever intended to be a 1v1 game. I mean, for 1v1 you have completely different rules as well to even try to make it fair, like neutral armies, etc. But true, I probably should have realized you were referring to 1v1, where the "I should just attack on my first turn everything as long as I have the maximum amount of attackers" IS the actual strategy to use... kinda makes it boring .
OP doesn't take into account any kind of map awareness of mind games whatsoever.
People who always stick to big deathballs do it because they're bad and they can't finely tune their skills enough to know where the opponent's army is likely to be or what he can get away with.
There is always something you aren't doing that you could be doing that could give you an advantage, no matter how good anybody ever gets at this game, it will be true. Obviously there is a threshold below which micro won't save you, but that point is much lower than just about anybody realizes.
I think terran and protoss have fine defenders advantage, with bunkers and forcefields. In fact, FF are a HUGE defenders advantage, almost too strong. Zergs defenders advantage relies on being able to scout coming attacks with lings and overlords and quickly produce a force to deal with it.
I do think that defensive structures need to be stronger though. Having 2 sunkens in bw is absolutely nothing like having to spines. I feel helpless behind 2 spines, even against a single dropship.
The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
A big problem is that you can't defend positions and expansions really effectively with Protoss or Zerg. Terran is kinda good at it with tanks, that's why TvT and TvZ are imo the best matchups, but tanks aren't even strong enough rly.
Zerg/Protoss rly need effective units for defending, so better static defense and units like Lurker. Also maps need to make bases/areas that can be defended more effectively from ground attacks.
If this doesn't happen then it will be forever be the deathballs running around the map , attacking and defending the expansions.
On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote: The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
Skepticism and critical analysis is never a problem. It should be mandatory. Any argument that can't be criticized is in fact invalid.
Next, there's Photon Cannons. Photon cannons are fine in early game defense, and yet, you see less cannons from Protoss than you see spines/spores from zerg and bunkers/turrets from Terran.
pretty much the only thing i disagree with strongly, pretty sure photon cannons get used a lot for the same reason terrans get turrets: mutalisks. Terrans don't use bunkers in the late game at all really, although maybe they should.
You see a "lot" of static defense from zerg because they have a supply efficiency problem in the late game, so base defense that costs 0 supply is really good (although you have to split between ground and air). Cannons get used a LOT, and half their health regenerates anyways, if they don't die. Weak argument.
On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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 know with ZvZ, why didnt they just give hatcheries a medium structure only attack (less than a spine does to armored) with like planetary fortress range. then spines could ahve a much more reasonable build time since spine rushes wouldnt work. might hit bunker rushes as well i guess.
One thing I'd like to point out is that no matter how big the defender's advantage is, there are always going to be rush builds. When you can defend with fewer units, people will just play greedier on average and really good players will always be pushing the boundaries of how greedy you can be. They'll still be punished for stepping over the line; the line will just be in a different place. However, with a strong defender's advantage, there will be a much wider spectrum between safe and greedy, so not only will players be able to get bigger economies faster if they choose so, but they'll also be able to play extremely safe in order to defend a rush.
The more important argument in my opinion is that the stronger defender's advantage will lead to better overall games, regardless of which strategies are chosen. The current problem I have with SC2 is there's too much brute force and not enough finesse. There's not enough impact from micro relative to macro, which makes it more important to just have a million units than to position them well. This is fine when one player clearly has better macro than the other, but between two equal players there are flaws. When the only way to defend is to just have a lot of stuff, players are forced into mass-units style plays because no matter how good they are, having less stuff is a deathwish.
I would way rather have a game where a player with godly micro like MC or MMA can dance around the map with a small army while being greedy as fuck back at home. By being able to defend with a smaller army, the game becomes more deep strategically. When you remove the constraint of 'I need 6 gateways of units or I'll just die to mass roach,' you'll see much more creative strategies start to emerge. I think this is the main reason why carriers are rarely seen: you simply need that extra 18 food of carriers and the 1800/1600 of resources tied up in stargates and producing carriers. If you could micro your way past that deficit, carrier usage would spike dramatically.
The problem is that defender's advantage is such a vague concept that it's hard to come up with an exact fix. Does it come from the overall game engine? Is it entirely dependant on unit design? Is it in the maps? That being said, I've come up with a few ideas. Please note that I'm not saying implement them 100%. These are just ideas that have popped into my head and made me say "that may work":
1) Give units shooting from high ground to low ground +1 range, and vice-versa
This is my favorite. It gives a clear advantage to players who posess high ground, which makes positioning far more important in the middle of the map. Also, it favors the defender in a rush game. However, I've never seen it used to I have no idea whether it's too strong or too weak
2) Give units shooting from high ground to low ground +1 damage, and vice-versa
This is used in Age of Empires, and it works pretty good. It's very common to see a really good player micro his units back up hills to get that little bit of extra damage and it's very possible to squeeze a win out of a disadvantageous position.
3) Buff static defense.
Pretty obvious. It makes a commitment to defense more obviously available, but it makes defensive play much more linear. Also, it likely favors protoss and zerg over terran as you can't exactly buff bunker damage without buffing marine damage. Not my favorite but it could work.
the aggressor isn’t just only thinking of attacking – he’s thinking of attacking as early as he can with as much as he can.
I don't think that defininition of rushing works out. I figure rushes as gearing up to attack your opponent at a specific time, in order to win the game. "as early as he can with as much as he can" Sounds like I should six pool every game.
Now I must nitpick your example game
ok, so Huk gave up a bad position, but who is metroSG? And can anyone argue that he played particularly well? Seems to me losing 2 siege tanks in good position to an immortal and a stalker is a pretty serious blunder, doesn't it?
This comment lacks game understanding. I don't care if you can get right next to the enemy's tanks if the tanks and his army are attacking you.....You pretty much said "He lost some units, that should be bad, no?" Without saying "Huk ran through the marine and siege tank fire to kill the siege tanks." Terrible example.
Which moves on to my next point about your article section I: Rushes. When playing the game, it is necessary to assume all rushes can be held off with some sort of standard build. In my opinion, this has to be done by: 1. Scouting 2. Good positioning/control(each rush has it's own way to be defended) 3. adapting your build to the rush.
I think it is possible to hold off all rushes this way.
Another thing you said, In your risk section:
If you make defense equal to or harder than attacking, the game becomes merely attacking whatever you can whenever you can attack it.
This is all well and good, but I am of the opinion that defending should be possible and defending a pressure or rush WELL should put you ahead. It doesn't matter if the pressure or rush is easier to do than the defense, as long as the defense is possible, it is what should happen. I know that quote didn't really mean that, but I feel this needed to be said.
On the deathball:
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
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.
Finally, I'll address the protoss plus rest of the treatise.
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.
And on the topic of photon cannons: Defense like this should only hold off early game pushes. Otherwise, it should delay drops and harassment until defense can get there. If you watch the earlier pvts in this GSL season, you'll see(I think it was genius?) make a lot of cannons at his bases as he makes more bases. Cannons just aren't used right, Imo.
Finally, a response to this:
I’m not arguing this because I really like sitting back and defending. Strangely, I’m arguing for greater defense because it will open up the ability to attack more freely, all over the map, instead of the current deathball format – because even if you lose smaller engagements in the attack, you know you have a strong defense to fall back on if a large direct push should come.
I would argue what you want to happen already happens in zvt, tvt, zvp if you know how to play it, zvz has a cool way of this, with tvp and pvp only being the real ones missing the ability to have enough defenders advantage,
I guess in tvp the argument could be you shouldn't be able to onesidedly lose your army. and pvp is pvp..
On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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.
Lategame both terran and protoss armies have so much DPS that you see extremely lopsided battles. IMO it does get hard for terran because a straight up engagement is about 60-40 in favour of protoss lategame. The early game though is when defenders advantage is supposed to be the largest.
Early on, let's say player A pushes with 15 supply for a pressure. Player B is macroing equally, and when player A arrives, his army is 20 supply. Player B has 33% more supply than Player A in his army, and will win all fights.
Now, in protoss matchups(not including pvp), let's say a rush build has 20 supply, and a greedy build has 15 supply, and you can make 5 supply during rush distance
Offensively, protoss rushing a greedy build will have 20 supply against 15, but the game is balanced so the other races can hold with 15 against 20 supply.
Defensively, a rush build will attack protoss with 20 supply, and during rush distance protoss also gets up to 20 supply. But, since the game is balanced around the other races being able to hold 15vs20, maybe with static D, the other races are just stronger at this point in time.
This is a simplified example, but this coupled with the inability of protoss to get early static D without delaying production/tech is really what hurts protoss early game against rushes.
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
Spreading out against a deathball makes it stronger. Unless you're being facetious and you're suggesting the offensive player spreads out their deathball for the sake of courtesy - then why bother playing to win.
Also, SC:BW should be the model here. It's the best RTS of all time and the precursor to SC2. It is also leagues better than SC2 in terms of balance, strategy and tactics - and was so when it was the same age SC2 is now. God forbid anyone suggest that here, though.
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.
On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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.
Lategame both terran and protoss armies have so much DPS that you see extremely lopsided battles. IMO it does get hard for terran because a straight up engagement is about 60-40 in favour of protoss lategame. The early game though is when defenders advantage is supposed to be the largest.
Early on, let's say player A pushes with 15 supply for a pressure. Player B is macroing equally, and when player A arrives, his army is 20 supply. Player B has 33% more supply than Player A in his army, and will win all fights.
Now, in protoss matchups(not including pvp), let's say a rush build has 20 supply, and a greedy build has 15 supply, and you can make 5 supply during rush distance
Offensively, protoss rushing a greedy build will have 20 supply against 15, but the game is balanced so the other races can hold with 15 against 20 supply.
Defensively, a rush build will attack protoss with 20 supply, and during rush distance protoss also gets up to 20 supply. But, since the game is balanced around the other races being able to hold 15vs20, maybe with static D, the other races are just stronger at this point in time.
This is a simplified example, but this coupled with the inability of protoss to get early static D without delaying production/tech is really what hurts protoss early game against rushes.
But you are completely ignoring the existence of forcefields. Obviously gateway units have to be a bit weaker than Terran units, because in combination with collossi and forcefields you could never lose if that wasnt the case.
All I get from what most people here say is: "herp derp gateway units weaker". 100% ignoring the advantages that protoss has. The fact that gateway units are weaker let's you have sentries, warpgates AND collossi. If gateway units were stronger you would have to give up at least two of these three things.
On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote: The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
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.
Perhaps people learned something from the OP. That's great, if it raises the level of discourse.
This writeup, like the other recent "let me tell you all about it" posts, fails to attain the level of rigor and abstraction required to make solid points about the design issues.
All of these writeups have discussed play issues and basic sandbox knob-twisting, not high level design, though they purport otherwise. (Though perhaps not explicitly in this case.)
Treehead, please don't take it personally I don't mean offense and my intent is not empty criticism. I am glad you took the time to offer your thoughts. I just want to offer a view to set others straight.
Can I ask what level you play at? (Just curiosity.)
I think protoss and zerg need a stronger defenders advantage, expecially in their mirror matchups in early game. (i think buffing the queens combat abilities in zvz and delaying warpgate tech even more would make these matchups more stable, however delaying wg in tvp and pvz would be nuts i think.
I think that the defender's advantage is there in the very early stages of the game, however as the game is drawn out the defender's advantage is not there (i.e 1 spine will *usually* hold 2rax bunker rushes, however 5minutes later 1-2 spines won't do shit to dropped hellions).
I think from the number of base trades we see, there is definitely merit to the OP. Even if we use SC2 is a new game argument, was there really that much base trading in 99-00? It used to be a pretty rare thing (like once or twice in an entire season of GOM Classic that I can remember- 3 relocation of floating all the barracks and factories to another corner), but in SC2 it's pretty common where pro's just say to hell with it, I can't get back in time, let's see who can kill stuff faster.
Having said that, while tough defences are necessary for more harassment, more expansions, and more tech builds, there also needs to be some pretty good siege units late game to break the fortifications. Broodlords/Guardians, Darkswarms, or Doom Drops, Carriers, Mothership/Arbiter recalls, and uh... mass dropship/medivacs and tanks? Or Nukes and Battlecruisers? Not really sure.
Point is, late game needs a way to bust down tougher defences without being overpowered where it's just a mothership rush.
I like alot of the arguments that were brought up. With a little bit more defenders advantage in the game, it would lead to more games that include well thought out strategies and it would allow games to be less decided by one player catching his opponent off guard.
I feel that the core problem is that, relatively speaking, so few of the games battle happens in the middle (I will call this the midfield) and too many right outside bases. If we assume the same play-style as the current on the same maps and stronger defensive units the defenders advantage may actually be too much. That is we get turtling.
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.
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
Spreading out against a deathball makes it stronger. Unless you're being facetious and you're suggesting the offensive player spreads out their deathball for the sake of courtesy - then why bother playing to win.
Also, SC:BW should be the model here. It's the best RTS of all time and the precursor to SC2. It is also leagues better than SC2 in terms of balance, strategy and tactics - and was so when it was the same age SC2 is now. God forbid anyone suggest that here, though.
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.
I pretty much agree with the OP.. However being a monumentally lazy ass I think that the problem can be solved with very little effort. Basically Blizz are already aware that deathball vs deathball is dull and are introducing new units in HOTS to compensate for this. I think by the time we see the 3rd expansion the issue will be largely resolved.. In the meantime I could suggest that you try zerg as this race has more of a harass multiple engagement style.
to get rid of the "deathball" fights you need to get rid of the fucking A move, 1 click kill unit clumping bullshit you get with the hellion, colossus, and in even some cases, fungal. Defilers were so much more fucking badass than pressing F and watching your opponents units sit there and take damage. Colossus are the most pussy shit i've ever seen, and hellions are reavers that require no micro. I mean, i fucking love this game and how far its come, but that Air unit for protoss that kills a clump of mutas ( a SHOULD be staple unit in zvp ), the fucking SHREDDER, and again no siege for zerg ( i think they are getting a siege unit but it won't be like defiler lurker was ), it will possibly DEGRADE the game.
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.
In risk the attacker has the advantage 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
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..
although the high ground advantage in bw was sorta random, it was at least something. that made people think twice before attacking into enemy territory on higher ground.
Defender's advantage's purpose is to make the game not completely about who gets the strongest army the quickest and then the one fight to decide the winner. It allows comebacks, teching and expanding strategies. It makes the game more accessible to newbies, it allows for having your units out on the map without losing to any harass right away.
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.
Defender's advantage is quite simple really, it gives a different way to capitalize on an advantage. Instead of "go fucking kill him" you can gain a macro advantage, scouting advantage, tech advantage, or positional advantage. Defender's advantage forces players to branch out in terms of both decisions in how they gain advantages, but also how players mitigate those advantages.
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.
The pure defender's advantage in SC2 is fine as it is. The top notch pros should determine how the game development should be measured, and if you watch GSL you will see a normal game nowadays get to the 3-5 bases scenario. Rushes do work, but to a limited extent and most of the time you will see them get crushed. Also they are very map dependant, and there are still bad maps out there. A 1-1-1 rush on Crossfire for example can be really frustrating.
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.
On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote: The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
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.
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.
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
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 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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 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..
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?"
On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote: The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
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.
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.
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
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 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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.
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.
On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote: The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
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.
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.
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
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 06:59 SolidMoose wrote: Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
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.
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.
Rushing I really don't mind, but without the deathball style starcraft 2 would be a muuuch more fun game to play. Hopefully something Blizzard are aware of and fixing.
While I don't necessarily disagree with your analysis, it is interesting to consider the history of the game so far, and the builds being used in professional matches.
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.
I don't agree with this post at all. There are already enough factors causing a defensive advantage in this game imo and defending is really not that hard compared to other games. The problem why rushes are so darn effective imo is caused by two other problems: - 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!
My only real issue with your arguement is that breaking a turtling protoss is hard enough as it is. If you made the defender's advantage even greater, breaking terran / toss turtling OR merely playing well will be nigh impossible as zerg. And then people tell me "BroodLords!", but they again have their counters, especially terran ones.
I like the idea of def advantage, but it seems you'll struggle to give it to zergs, severly lacking in ranged dps units that are good in defence (i.e NOT roaches, Hyrdras only - and Hyrdras suck).
I dont really take sides on this but I can tell you that a lot of people I know who have stopped watching StarCraft all together have voiced concerns very similar to a lot of the points you have raised.
I think 2011 was a great year for StarCraft but I also think a lot of the hype is gone. I firmly believe there is a much larger 'hardcore' fan base now than there was at the end of BW, but I also think a lot of things need to change for StarCraft to have longevity.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
One opinion that I've held for a long time (keep in mind my opinions on things change constantly based on the more I learn/more experience I have) is that having units do BONUS damage to certain armor types rather than REDUCED damage vs the other types plays a huge role in how battles unfold in SC2. The deaths of units is ramped upwards which makes for most battles ending in the blink of an eye. Keep in mind, in BW a unit never did more than 100% damage, some times going as low as 50% depending on the armor types.
I'm torn on if anything should change or not because I both love BW and SC2 independently. I dunno, tough call!
The OP does not suggest that to directly strengthen defender's advantage would be good. In fact it would probably be bad considering bunker rushes/cannon rushes would just get stronger. Rather defenders advantage could be something that you upgrade to (PF is a good example) Think about how difficult it is in PvT to push into a PF with MMM waiting - it damn near impossible unless you have a stupid amount of forces. Of course this doesn't have to be at that level - shield battery would be an amazing addition to protoss early game defense
The OP also notes of the somewhat ease of executing early game aggression rather than defending it (111, marauder/hellion,3-rax, 11/11) - These builds certainly take much less "skill" to execute and its up to the defender to hold it. We should not have static defense buffed - perhaps something like the shield battery or Blizzard will rework high ground, but it should be something that takes skill to execute
On January 21 2012 12:16 Husky wrote: One opinion that I've held for a long time (keep in mind my opinions on things change constantly based on the more I learn/more experience I have) is that having units do BONUS damage to certain armor types rather than REDUCED damage vs the other types plays a huge role in how battles unfold in SC2. The deaths of units is ramped upwards which makes for most battles ending in the blink of an eye. Keep in mind, in BW a unit never did more than 100% damage, some times going as low as 50% depending on the armor types.
I think dps is too high, but this isn't why. The armor type system is exactly the same as BW's, the difference is purely semantic. The #'s may be off (we both feel they are) but there's no real difference between doing bonus damage vs armored and normal to everything else, or reduced damage to everything else and normal damage to armored.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
Yeah, I hear that. I like to keep an open mind, because I don't think many of us have a solid idea on what engagements should be, and how exactly they should be different. I just think we had a concept in our head of how it would look and feel and then what we are seeing is that this concept isn't meshing well with the actual game.
I think a lot of people would like more defensively oriented games - but maybe they wouldn't. It really all depends on how the engagements feel. I personally think that every idea we throw out there will *sound* wrong to most people, but hopefully something will make it through to the game that *feels* better. Better to watch, and better to play.
I will add this, though. Someone made a comment a while back that what I'm describing is something that is close to happening in pro-level TvZ right now (where rushes are obsolete and no one aims for the deathball) - and maybe I'm behind on the times, but isn't TvZ largely considered to be the most entertaining matchup to watch? Just food for thought.
On January 21 2012 12:17 cpomz wrote: The OP does not suggest that to directly strengthen defender's advantage would be good. In fact it would probably be bad considering bunker rushes/cannon rushes would just get stronger. Rather defenders advantage could be something that you upgrade to (PF is a good example) Think about how difficult it is in PvT to push into a PF with MMM waiting - it damn near impossible unless you have a stupid amount of forces. Of course this doesn't have to be at that level - shield battery would be an amazing addition to protoss early game defense
The OP also notes of the somewhat ease of executing early game aggression rather than defending it (111, marauder/hellion,3-rax, 11/11) - These builds certainly take much less "skill" to execute and its up to the defender to hold it. We should not have static defense buffed - perhaps something like the shield battery or Blizzard will rework high ground, but it should be something that takes skill to execute
- if all else fails maps will solve this issue
What do you know.... marauder hellion definitely isn't easy to pull off, you need alot of micro/stutter stepping/focus firing with this strategy and 11/11 isn't easy either, unless your zerg opponent makes it easy for you.. And 3 rax? Really? When's the last time someone lost to 3 rax all-in?
You complain about the ease of terran all-ins, wanna hear some protoss all-ins that are ridiculously powerful yet extremely hard to stop? 1 base immortal all-in vs. 1 rax expo, 6 gate, 2 base collossus rush, warp prism all-ins, etc..
All of these builds require hardly any skill to pull off and are extremely hard to defend, it's not always just terran that has easy builds, protoss has alot easier builds and is arguably much easier to play in a macro game anyway, so is it really surprising that so many terran resort to using all-ins? This is yet another protoss whine thread, where some gold league players share their wisdom and complain about 3 rax and all that stuff. If you seriously think 3 rax is hard to stop then you are just bad. You can even beat a 3 rax all-in by sacking your expo and fast teching to collossi (I think this was the case at HSC where cloud killed the protoss's expo with a 3 rax and then died to collossi because he had no vikings/medivacs).
Learn to play.
edit: And a PF is hard to attack into in PvT? protoss is probably the one race that has to fear PFs the least because they can either storm the scvs, or kill it with collossi which just so happen to have a higher range than the PF. Hardly any terran will tell you that PFs are good in TvP, they are really good against Zerg, because Lings just get owned by PFs, but they are not problematic in TvP at all.
edit: And let me just say this. PFs are the only way for terran to fortify their bases, yes you have bunkers, but you need supply in those bunkers. Protoss and zerg have cannons and spine crawlers to fortify their bases without losing fight supply, so the terran equivalent to that is the PF, if Terran couldn't build Pfs how would you ever fortify your bases vs. ling runbies or zealot warp-ins? Leave 2 bunkers at each base full of units so that your main army is -30 supply when you are maxed? Some people complain and complain all the time but they never really use their brains. But yes, you are of course right, let's take out PFs so that terran has no way of ever fortifying a base, this is something only Zerg and Protoss should be able to do. /FACEPALM
On January 21 2012 12:16 Husky wrote: I dont really take sides on this but I can tell you that a lot of people I know who have stopped watching StarCraft all together have voiced concerns very similar to a lot of the points you have raised.
I think 2011 was a great year for StarCraft but I also think a lot of the hype is gone. I firmly believe there is a much larger 'hardcore' fan base now than there was at the end of BW, but I also think a lot of things need to change for StarCraft to have longevity.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
One opinion that I've held for a long time (keep in mind my opinions on things change constantly based on the more I learn/more experience I have) is that having units do BONUS damage to certain armor types rather than REDUCED damage vs the other types plays a huge role in how battles unfold in SC2. The deaths of units is ramped upwards which makes for most battles ending in the blink of an eye. Keep in mind, in BW a unit never did more than 100% damage, some times going as low as 50% depending on the armor types.
I'm torn on if anything should change or not because I both love BW and SC2 independently. I dunno, tough call!
That's a very good point but I think units die faster in Sc2 because of how the unit AI bunches up. Even BW siege tanks take a long time to kill an army because of how spread out a BW army was.
i totally agree with this. but the whole problem is this game is incomplete. the game is how blizzard intended it to be and thats with terran being the only finished race. ex. rising/lowering supply depots, planetary/bunker/turret upgrades and you know the rest..toss got chronoboost and zerg got queens.
and imo, TVT is really the most exciting match for me to watch just because of siege tank lines. the most memorable game for me will always be GSL FINALS AUGUST : IMMVP versus oGsTOP set 1. the best and most exciting game ive ever witnessed in sc2.
i hate to bring it up and we all know it already but they only want our money and couldnt give a damn about sc2 as a competitive e-sport.
I believe that there is enough of a defender's advantage in SC2. This wasn't always the case but with nerfs like the supply before barracks, increased training time for zealots, and increased research time for warpgates I think it's fine now.
Good thing most will be addressed in hots. I really think lack of defenders advantage for Protoss is reason for thier poor w/l records and no Korean Protoss, not even the best of them has over 60% WRs vs T or Z as opposed to the best of those respective race have WRs over 70%. If you ever notice protoss seem to lose earier than later making these "imba" stats while game is pretty well balanced 12-15 min in and maybe even favors toss at that point when they can project and defend with WG. Lack of defenders advatage is also the reason 4 gate is still so strong vs toss and not so much with other races.
I disagree with U on WG mechanic. Like I said 4 gate is garbage vs T & Z these days while still working fine vs Toss. WG is not the issue. If it were T&Z would fall to 4gating at rate Protoss does. They don't. It's virtually no defenders advantage. Take WG away and it will be just the same rushes and proxies PvP.
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.
On January 21 2012 12:16 Husky wrote: I dont really take sides on this but I can tell you that a lot of people I know who have stopped watching StarCraft all together have voiced concerns very similar to a lot of the points you have raised.
I think 2011 was a great year for StarCraft but I also think a lot of the hype is gone. I firmly believe there is a much larger 'hardcore' fan base now than there was at the end of BW, but I also think a lot of things need to change for StarCraft to have longevity.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
One opinion that I've held for a long time (keep in mind my opinions on things change constantly based on the more I learn/more experience I have) is that having units do BONUS damage to certain armor types rather than REDUCED damage vs the other types plays a huge role in how battles unfold in SC2. The deaths of units is ramped upwards which makes for most battles ending in the blink of an eye. Keep in mind, in BW a unit never did more than 100% damage, some times going as low as 50% depending on the armor types.
I'm torn on if anything should change or not because I both love BW and SC2 independently. I dunno, tough call!
That's a very good point but I think units die faster in Sc2 because of how the unit AI bunches up. Even BW siege tanks take a long time to kill an army because of how spread out a BW army was.
Not just the spread but also the fact that you had 10 tanks shooting one unit where 7 of them wasted a shot for no gain.
if there was no risk of losing to an early rush, then ppl would play blindly and be even more greedy in earlygame because they don't have to prepare as much for a rush attack... you're supposed to scout and then prepare, a greedy gamble is a calculated risk you've made.
imagine a game of boxing, except you only get half a point score from the early rounds. it would lead to more defensive and conservative play. in almost every competitive sport/video game - defensive play is BORRRRRRRRRING.
On January 21 2012 12:16 Husky wrote: I dont really take sides on this but I can tell you that a lot of people I know who have stopped watching StarCraft all together have voiced concerns very similar to a lot of the points you have raised.
I think 2011 was a great year for StarCraft but I also think a lot of the hype is gone. I firmly believe there is a much larger 'hardcore' fan base now than there was at the end of BW, but I also think a lot of things need to change for StarCraft to have longevity.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
One opinion that I've held for a long time (keep in mind my opinions on things change constantly based on the more I learn/more experience I have) is that having units do BONUS damage to certain armor types rather than REDUCED damage vs the other types plays a huge role in how battles unfold in SC2. The deaths of units is ramped upwards which makes for most battles ending in the blink of an eye. Keep in mind, in BW a unit never did more than 100% damage, some times going as low as 50% depending on the armor types.
I'm torn on if anything should change or not because I both love BW and SC2 independently. I dunno, tough call!
that doesn't really make much sense.
you could just as well say that marauder does 100% damage versus armoured or 'large' units and only does 50% damage versus other unit types.
also, i kinda disagree that the 'hype' has gone. we still get 40-60k stream viewers for the popular tournaments, that's as high as it's ever been. not to mention there's plenty of pro's who stream their practice/ladder games and often have >3000 viewers. that's as good as it's ever been as well.
the problem with sc2 imo is some things don't feel 'right'. such as protoss being so fragile in early game with the sentry, warp mechanic creating a silly PvP early game or zerg not being able to fight cost effectively against a turtle in an entire game (before safe broodlords). but i'm hopeful that HOTS will change all of these awkward parts for the better (the changes are godlike imo).
no this is just not true :D different race has difference defence advantage atm lol
is pretty simple, just ask yourself, 'who can turtle well?' if you are thinking about 'hmmm....when x race is turtling it is very very very annoying' then you know they still need to work on the defence mechanism.
Edit: I'd also like to add that if the defenders advantage doesn't appeal to you enough, then you must not have liked 300, or Lord of the Rings Two Towers or the end of Saving Private Ryan or 13 Assassins. History (and consequently our movie industry) is filled with epic examples of how the defenders advantage can decide the outcome of a battle (war).
The OP is simply stating that without the strategic element of "the defenders advantage" then the game becomes nothing more than a matter of numbers. SC 2 heavily lacks clear design for the defenders advantage and as a result suffers from a lot of numbers battles (read death balls). Any veteran of RTS or strategy games in general would know how important this is.
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.
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.
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.
On January 21 2012 00:54 frucisky wrote: Treehead, if you'd designed the game, what would you have added to have more of a defender's advantage.
Also, I would make the argument that a good reason Terran has been seen successful for a long time is because they have the strongest defender's advantage. They have walls and all ranged units that can sit behind and shoot, in addition to siege tanks and a very effective anti-air in the form of turrets + repair.
Zerg primarily have creep spread as a form of defender's advantage which Terran have learnt to control well with hellions early game. I admit Protoss' lack of a defender's advantage like you said but sentries work best at choke points. In fact, Protoss are sort of over-reliant on sentries.
This.
Though I do agree with OP that Defender's advantage is pretty much ballz-to-none in SCII. Warp mechanics especially make Protoss a very special case - they can turn from "defence" into all-out attack in a short space of time.
I get what you are saying to an extent, but to be honest I feel that there is a defenders advantage just by the fact that if the early pressure / push fails its pretty much gg at that point, cause you are so behind economically. In my opinion this game is balanced really really well, I mean its almost perfect. Of course I cry imba when I loose to something I feel I should not have, but after I step back. I realize that I lost because I either did a lot wrong leading up to the battle or I just completely screwed up the battle. To another point saying that any early push or all in is easy is really overlooking a large portion of what this game is about(micro). I guess this whole thing is moot anyways since the game will be completely different after HOTS. Interesting talking point though.
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?
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 ; )
Canons are not needed since you can warp units anywhere.
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 see - so you're saying defenses were more needed in BW because more expansions were needed to be effective, and that if we did the same in WOL, we would see people maxing and turtling off two bases. That's a good argument. My question, though, is if 200-food deathballs become far less effective - wouldn't that also make "turtling" a horrible strat? Is the turtling a problem if the deathball is no longer useful?
On January 21 2012 18:57 mEtRoSG wrote: thx for supporting my games but u obviously have no idea what your talking about, before u argue about high lvl play pls get there first
Darn, I guess my argument is completed invalidated by this infallible logic. Do you have a complaint about my argument or are you upset that I didn't know who you were since you're not in tournaments?
This was a great game. I'm not an expert on TvT, though I've seen complaints that it can get "too turtley" so maybe my points don't apply there? I'll admit I haven't researched many matchups that don't involve P, but IIRC haven't the other races had some issues with rushing at high levels too? I know zerg has been complaining about allins since the beginning of time, and I thought there were rushes in TvP/Z which were crazy hard to hold - maybe those are gone now though. Idk.
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!!!!
On January 21 2012 23:56 Drizzle wrote: I get what you are saying to an extent, but to be honest I feel that there is a defenders advantage just by the fact that if the early pressure / push fails its pretty much gg at that point, cause you are so behind economically. In my opinion this game is balanced really really well, I mean its almost perfect. Of course I cry imba when I loose to something I feel I should not have, but after I step back. I realize that I lost because I either did a lot wrong leading up to the battle or I just completely screwed up the battle. To another point saying that any early push or all in is easy is really overlooking a large portion of what this game is about(micro). I guess this whole thing is moot anyways since the game will be completely different after HOTS. Interesting talking point though.
I know balance and game design are VERY related... To discuss game design you have to use real in game examples. But they are not the same! This thread is not about balance, its about game design. Rock, paper, scissors is fricken balanced! But how fun would that be to play online over again (bad game design).
Proposing changes to this game is the goal of these threads.
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 see - so you're saying defenses were more needed in BW because more expansions were needed to be effective, and that if we did the same in WOL, we would see people maxing and turtling off two bases. That's a good argument. My question, though, is if 200-food deathballs become far less effective - wouldn't that also make "turtling" a horrible strat? Is the turtling a problem if the deathball is no longer useful?
You know maybe if there were some other style to games like these? Like counter attacks, drops, harrass, flanking, holding down an area of the map, seiging such points.... Oh and doing that ALL AT ONCE, ALL GAME LONG! Yeah that sounds more fun then death ball wars... If only deathballs were weaker O.o
I get what you're saying even though other people are not.
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...
No, it really doesn't. Why would you ever deliberately lose a battle? Even if you know that you are relatively safe after losing the battle, you are still behind in efficiency. If both players have really strong defensive mechanisms that allow them to defend just about everything, then the logical consequence is that the game will go into ulta lategame until both players are mined out and then the player with the better "unit lost" efficiency is going to win the game, in other words the player who was just defending all game and won every single battle.
How are you supposed to win a game when you lose fight after fight? it doesn't matter if you don't die to counter attacks, because you will ultimately lose due to a lack of efficiency.
it's ridiculous to think that any smart human being would ever attack knowing that they will lose the battle in 90% of the cases. What exactly is the purpose of attacking when you put yourself at a disadvantageous position by doing so?
And if you can't die to counter attacks after losing a big battle then how on earth is the game ever going to end before the ultimate lategame? If you can't even kill your opponent after crushing his entire army, then it's basically impossible to kill him at all until you are both mined out and somebody just hasn't got any money left.
I can't even imagine how retarded SC2 would be if blizzard really designed the game like you want it. Just think about it for a second.
edit: And the fact that you want such extremely strong defensive structures in SC2 actually supports deathballs, because if they are supposed to be so strong to stop your opponent's counter attacks entirely after losing a big battle, then the only way to break these defenses is to build up a huge ball of death, because a small bunch of units is just going to get destroyed. If a big army can't kill it, there is no way a small army is going to be able to. So you don't want deathballs in SC2, but by asking for extremely ridiculously powerful defensive structures you force everyone to build really strong armies to break the defense. Why would anyone ever drop, knowing that the opponent probably has this "super gun" thing in place? why would anyone ever attempt to snipe a base, knowing that the defenses are so strong that there is no way he can snipe a base without bringing his entire army? It really does not make any sense at all.
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...
No, it really doesn't. Why would you ever deliberately lose a battle? Even if you know that you are relatively safe after losing the battle, you are still behind in efficiency. If both players have really strong defensive mechanisms that allow them to defend just about everything, then the logical consequence is that the game will go into ulta lategame until both players are mined out and then the player with the better "unit lost" efficiency is going to win the game, in other words the player who was just defending all game and won every single battle.
How are you supposed to win a game when you lose fight after fight? it doesn't matter if you don't die to counter attacks, because you will ultimately lose due to a lack of efficiency.
it's ridiculous to think that any smart human being would ever attack knowing that they will lose the battle in 90% of the cases. What exactly is the purpose of attacking when you put yourself at a disadvantageous position by doing so?
And if you can't die to counter attacks after losing a big battle then how on earth is the game ever going to end before the ultimate lategame? If you can't even kill your opponent after crushing his entire army, then it's basically impossible to kill him at all until you are both mined out and somebody just hasn't got any money left.
I can't even imagine how retarded SC2 would be if blizzard really designed the game like you want it. Just think about it for a second.
You should re-read the OP. Defender's advantage is a slight advantage, not an unbeatable obstacle.
Also I did not say lose your army on purpose? I said that if you feel safer then you can then explore more options rather than adding to your death ball. This would lead to a better game.
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...
No, it really doesn't. Why would you ever deliberately lose a battle? Even if you know that you are relatively safe after losing the battle, you are still behind in efficiency. If both players have really strong defensive mechanisms that allow them to defend just about everything, then the logical consequence is that the game will go into ulta lategame until both players are mined out and then the player with the better "unit lost" efficiency is going to win the game, in other words the player who was just defending all game and won every single battle.
How are you supposed to win a game when you lose fight after fight? it doesn't matter if you don't die to counter attacks, because you will ultimately lose due to a lack of efficiency.
it's ridiculous to think that any smart human being would ever attack knowing that they will lose the battle in 90% of the cases. What exactly is the purpose of attacking when you put yourself at a disadvantageous position by doing so?
And if you can't die to counter attacks after losing a big battle then how on earth is the game ever going to end before the ultimate lategame? If you can't even kill your opponent after crushing his entire army, then it's basically impossible to kill him at all until you are both mined out and somebody just hasn't got any money left.
I can't even imagine how retarded SC2 would be if blizzard really designed the game like you want it. Just think about it for a second.
You should re-read the OP. Defender's advantage is a slight advantage, not an unbeatable obstacle.
I think you all ignored Lalushs post completely. I think he is right: In BW you had to take more bases to have a good economy, but in SC2, more than 3 mining bases are mostly used for extensive gas mining in the ultra late game. Drop play is encouraged by many bases which are spread all across the map. So a solution might be that you reduce the mineral patches/gas to maybe 4/1 per expansion. Then people will need to take more bases and this should support drop play b/c if you waltz out with your deathball to kill a 4/1 expansion the other guy will simply walk into your main.
its amazing how people still think that defenders adv is not what is a huge hole in sc2.
besides the fact that early game all ins are not fun to play or watch its not as skilled. also again ignoring the fact that death ball pushes exist and games can be decided under 4 seconds we still need defenders adv.
if we lose a fight it must be hard to win against the defender. if we win a fight our goal should be to get ahead with bases not go and kill. all the sc2 mechanics lead toward going and killing
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...
No, it really doesn't. Why would you ever deliberately lose a battle? Even if you know that you are relatively safe after losing the battle, you are still behind in efficiency. If both players have really strong defensive mechanisms that allow them to defend just about everything, then the logical consequence is that the game will go into ulta lategame until both players are mined out and then the player with the better "unit lost" efficiency is going to win the game, in other words the player who was just defending all game and won every single battle.
How are you supposed to win a game when you lose fight after fight? it doesn't matter if you don't die to counter attacks, because you will ultimately lose due to a lack of efficiency.
it's ridiculous to think that any smart human being would ever attack knowing that they will lose the battle in 90% of the cases. What exactly is the purpose of attacking when you put yourself at a disadvantageous position by doing so?
And if you can't die to counter attacks after losing a big battle then how on earth is the game ever going to end before the ultimate lategame? If you can't even kill your opponent after crushing his entire army, then it's basically impossible to kill him at all until you are both mined out and somebody just hasn't got any money left.
I can't even imagine how retarded SC2 would be if blizzard really designed the game like you want it. Just think about it for a second.
You should re-read the OP. Defender's advantage is a slight advantage, not an unbeatable obstacle.
See bunker, cannon, spine crawler.
All everyone is saying is that the defense in this game is too weak. Not just static D but over all everything favors massing up and attacking. If you think that the answer to everything is have more units than your opponent has at a certain point then go attack it and you win that area, then you are setting yourself up for a poorly designed game.
There should be methods and avenues in place that a defender can do to improve his chances of defending when an imminent push is coming (something other than having more units).
Watch this.
I remember seeing it in a TL featured article.
Look how slowly a Terran must push in this game to make it across the map. Its a constant struggle. Savior has a weaker army over all when Terran started to march (5 tanks, 40 marines/medics, and 2 vessels against a paltry 12 mutas and 7 lurkers). But through skill, Savior slows down the push and musters up an army to beat the push. Thats fun, thats strategy and thats skill. If Savior messes up one aspect of this he dies. The Terran isn't always going to lose this push because of the defenders advantage.
Lastly Savior is not even defensive (what you call boring) he's aggressive as hell.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 (??)
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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 21:56 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.
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.
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.
Not going to lie, I didnt read it all but I read most of it. Judging from your post I dont think you read anything more than the title. As it stands what he is saying is that the less offensive and more passive you play the better off you are.
For example on Artosis stream multiple times he has stated that he would rather turtle (maybe slightly harass) and just keep taking bases and reinforce // turtle up econ.
Just because you play a defenders advantage does not mean you cant harass with small groups of units, you see Grubby do this ALL the time with drops and blink stalkers. You see CatZ do it with his crazy overlord usage, and White-Ra with his warp prisms.
I enjoyed this read very much, thanks for it. There has been a burst of these game design threads recently, they are at their worst when they become propriety; X race is OP, SC2 should be more like Y game. Reading this I feel you took some time to try to avoid this -though of course it creeps in in the comments- and it is appreciated.
Just based purely on what I hear from my fans and close friends, there seems to be a little something missing when it comes to the engagements throughout a game. No one really seems to agree or even know what that something is though.
Yeah, I hear that. I like to keep an open mind, because I don't think many of us have a solid idea on what engagements should be, and how exactly they should be different. I just think we had a concept in our head of how it would look and feel and then what we are seeing is that this concept isn't meshing well with the actual game.
I think a lot of people would like more defensively oriented games - but maybe they wouldn't. It really all depends on how the engagements feel. I personally think that every idea we throw out there will *sound* wrong to most people, but hopefully something will make it through to the game that *feels* better. Better to watch, and better to play.
Personally, I have a pretty solid idea about what makes an exciting game to watch I also happen to think that most people would agree with me... Here's a few thoughts.
1. Engagements, or at least the threat of engagements should occur throughout the game, these engagements should evolve over the course of the game as armies grow and tech up.
2. There should be a balance between the slippery slope and perpetual comeback. (old article but an interesting read if you are interested in game design). If a player loses a close engagement they shouldn't just die or there is only one engagement per game but they should be at a disadvantage otherwise engagements have no consequences and so feel purposeless.
3. Clever battle tactics and good execution should have an effect on the outcome of an engagement.
I'd say that the primary disagreement you see in these threads, before people even talk about what might be done to change things, is whether SC2 has these things well balanced or not. I agree with the OP that while SC2 does things well, it could do things better.
Some match ups are more interesting than others. For me PvT is a boring game to watch or play. Looking at my short, incomplete list above I'd say that:
1. In PvT there are usually very few engagements and they tend to look very similar. Early it's bio vs. gateway, later add templar/ghosts colossus/viking.
2. PvT has a very sharp slippery slope, in many cases if you lose 1 engagement, even by a small margin, the game is over.
3. Battle tactics are simplistic. We both have a ball... Did he EMP my ghosts? Did I position and control my vikings well? Is he stutter stepping? These are the only questions that need answering and for the most part they are pretty binary.
All these things are a matter of taste of course, you might feel that the sharp slippery slope in this match up is a good thing, or that the battle tactics are hard enough to execute and complex enough for it to be interesting. But for me the whole thing lacks depth. I agree that the defenders advantage being a little stronger in PvT would help the situation as it would reduce slippery slope and add stronger positional considerations when thinking tactically. It's also possible that we might see wilder tech because you could defend with fewer units and tech harder and you might see greater unit variety because harassment would become more important, though that's really tough to predict.
On January 21 2012 00:39 Treehead wrote: Maps are really important – just about every problem we have in the game could conceivably be addressed with maps, so it’s worth noting that even without the units and gameplay we feel we need to have for equitable and entertaining competition, maps can fix it.
This is a really well observed point. I think it's a big contributing factor that lead to BW's famed balance. But in order to really balance a map, a map maker needs a strong and diverse toolkit. I think a stronger high ground advantage would be one way to give map makers the tools to balance the game.
On January 21 2012 12:04 Arghnews wrote: I like the idea of def advantage, but it seems you'll struggle to give it to zergs, severly lacking in ranged dps units that are good in defence (i.e NOT roaches, Hyrdras only - and Hyrdras suck).
This is an important point as a slightly stronger defenders advantage will effect different matchups in different ways.
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.
There was a great thread about this but i couldn't find it. Largely it comes down to the old SCV AI being shitty so lower saturation increased mineral intake in an incremental way. I think this would help encouraging players to take more bases but I don't think it means that the defenders advantage wouldn't also change the game for the better. Although you might well have a point.
On January 22 2012 02:46 Treehead wrote: 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.
You should try a few TvZs and TvTs, they aren't flat out more interesting to watch than other match ups but you are missing out on the whole breadth of play that is available in the game.
It is interesting to see at high levels how much easier it is for Terran to expand against Zerg compared to Protoss against Zerg. Protoss lack of defense advantage is what leads to the death-ball play.
Looking at the mirror matchups the difference in defender's advantage between the races is even more obvious. In PvP it is very hard to expand early, in ZvZ it is a lot easier and in TvT it is usually no problem what so ever.
Edit: Just heard a brilliant idea, make protoss able to chronoboost their cannons.
"Units die too fast." "There's no way to hold map control." "Deathballs, waah." "One battle decides every game."
What RTS (besides SC:BW) should be the model here? If you don't like deathballs, don't use them -- spreading out actually works pretty well. PLAY THE GAME BETTER.
Spreading out against a deathball makes it stronger. Unless you're being facetious and you're suggesting the offensive player spreads out their deathball for the sake of courtesy - then why bother playing to win.
Also, SC:BW should be the model here. It's the best RTS of all time and the precursor to SC2. It is also leagues better than SC2 in terms of balance, strategy and tactics - and was so when it was the same age SC2 is now. God forbid anyone suggest that here, though.
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.
You are right. Basically, I need to just stop reading these threads and, when I do, rather than responding, I need to (for my own good) just go play the game or do something better with my time. At the very least, these threads shouldn't make me mad :D
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.
How does being super passive aggressive help at all? This guy wrote a massive essay about discussion points he thinks we should be talking about but anyone who doesn't agree is like "LOL QQ MORE BABY".
On January 21 2012 08:51 Falling wrote: I think from the number of base trades we see, there is definitely merit to the OP. Even if we use SC2 is a new game argument, was there really that much base trading in 99-00? It used to be a pretty rare thing (like once or twice in an entire season of GOM Classic that I can remember- 3 relocation of floating all the barracks and factories to another corner), but in SC2 it's pretty common where pro's just say to hell with it, I can't get back in time, let's see who can kill stuff faster.
Having said that, while tough defences are necessary for more harassment, more expansions, and more tech builds, there also needs to be some pretty good siege units late game to break the fortifications. Broodlords/Guardians, Darkswarms, or Doom Drops, Carriers, Mothership/Arbiter recalls, and uh... mass dropship/medivacs and tanks? Or Nukes and Battlecruisers? Not really sure.
Point is, late game needs a way to bust down tougher defences without being overpowered where it's just a mothership rush.
...SC was infinitely worse of a game than SC2 as far as balance goes in 99-00 (as far as it was understood, of course). That is such a worthless analogy. New game argument still stands. They don't have all the same problems.
1) Everyone complains about the unit balls, and normally they point out the pathing because with it all the units clumped up really makes it look like a ball.However, the problem lies not only on them being so close to each other, but also the sheer number of units contained.
2) The best games seem to be where back and forth action keeps happening. And that's really hard with a) units that make it impossible to retreat (slow, fungal, forcefields) b) small defender's advantage.
I hope someone from Blizz really take a look a these factors.
ive posted my opinion in this thread before so I'm not gonna report. but I'm happy to see the reactions of the majority of people here.
just wanted to ask if you (the OP) have considered posting this on the blizzard forums. As far as i know blizzard does read its own forums. I think this article is very well written and deserves to be at least looked at by blizzard.
On January 23 2012 18:37 Xacalite wrote: ive posted my opinion in this thread before so I'm not gonna report. but I'm happy to see the reactions of the majority of people here.
just wanted to ask if you (the OP) have considered posting this on the blizzard forums. As far as i know blizzard does read its own forums. I think this article is very well written and deserves to be at least looked at by blizzard.
Good point, perhaps I will. Though, at this point, there hasn't exactly been a resoundingly positive response. The most recognizable poster who has responded on this topic, LaLush, has indicated that they think heightened defenses would cause more problems than they would solve.
On January 24 2012 01:21 Snijjer wrote: There is isn't a defenders advantage in Risk. Attacking player is usually rolling 3 die to the defenders 2...
There is one, just not for large army sizes (which is actually fine, since large armies don't tend to stay on the board without attacking long - i.e. you very seldomly have an attacking and defending force of 10 or higher). Defender gets the tie on dice rolls. In other words, if the attacker rolls a 6, a 2 and a 1, and the defender rolls a 6 and a 2, the attacker loses two armies.
I don't think there is a "natural" advantage missing... I think there are just not enough "super" effective unit combinations when defending...
SC/BW: Terran: Siegetanks for Terran were just stronger and basically just "better" at defending than their SC2 counterparts, in combination with Vultures/Mines they held ground way better... Seeing a few Tanks actually made you think if you should charge them due to the damage you will take from Mines while you run up to them... Attacking a siegeline was a way bigger commitment than it is in SC2 (where Mech isn't even viable against P anymore?...). They also had way more impressive cannon sound in SC/BW ... Oh how I hated that sound :D..
Protoss vs Z: Templars + Cannons (or Reavers + Cannons) let you defend seriously big scary attacks when you reacted/controlled it well. You truly needed overwhelming forces to go "in there" or had to have some way of dealing with the templar/reaver before you sent in the bulk of your army... Else you would end up with a big sea of blood and next to no success wondering why the fuck your playing zerg because this is obviously imba .
Zerg vs Terran (mainly): Defiler + Lurkers + Scourge = YOU SHALL NOT PASS (whiteout detection and melee units or/and irradiate/storm) :p. This sometimes looked downright stupid when 2-3 Lurkers held of a giant Terran ball just because the Terran lost his Vessels and had no way to hurt the Lurkers under Swarm.. .
Or in short:: SC2 is not necessarily lacking a "natural" defensive advantage (I HATED that in WC3)... It is lacking unit combinations that can be EXTREMLY cost efficient at holding ground/defending a base against WAY superior forces. I mean... You think a well placed Immortal whiteout much support killing 6 Roaches on it's own is "cost efficient"? Lol, a Reaver only killing 6 (cheap) units would be called a failure/waste and be laughed at by his friends...
On January 24 2012 01:21 Snijjer wrote: There is isn't a defenders advantage in Risk. Attacking player is usually rolling 3 die to the defenders 2...
There is one, just not for large army sizes (which is actually fine, since large armies don't tend to stay on the board without attacking long - i.e. you very seldomly have an attacking and defending force of 10 or higher). Defender gets the tie on dice rolls. In other words, if the attacker rolls a 6, a 2 and a 1, and the defender rolls a 6 and a 2, the attacker loses two armies.
This is a bit off topic, but the size of the armies doesn't matter if it's more than 2 attacking and more than 1 defending in risk. The odds favor the attacking units (you can look up the math).
On topic -- I disagree with the OP. i think SC2 (especially most recent GSL) is becoming truly awesome to watch the way it currently is. I wish to let pros progress without changing the game. There have been some truly insane back and forth games with battles all over the map
There is a defenders advantage. You get high ground in several situations. Small ramps and quicker reinforcements. Their main is more open and vulnerable. Don't mistake a lack of defenders advantage for a lack of scouting and a lack of perpetuation.
I. Rush Builds The defender should not have any advantage and the attacker should have an advantage for rush builds. The rusher is at a disadvantage should their rush fail so obviously the only reason people would rush is if they have an advantage when rushing. Now the sooner they rush the greater they are at a disadvantage should the rush fail, so this should translate into greater attacking advantage. Rushes can be a build-order win but again this is not a problem with the "defenders advantage" but rather it is simply a build order win.
And for your example with Huk, can you argue Huk played particularly well? Simply saying the attacker did not play well is not fair to the defender who arguably played worse. The attacker had better positioning, timing, and most importantly Huk made multiple mistakes. Huk lost not because of his lack of defenders advantage but because he was outplayed.
Lastly, emphasis on the early game is not a bad thing. Already the early game is often extremely boring, if there was even less emphasis on it no one would bother watching the first 8 minutes of a game or so. So taking emphasis off the early game is a poor idea, imo, since it would become even more boring than it already is.
II. Death-ball style combat
This is a problem with the death-ball not with defenders advantage. A greater defender's advantage would not address the death ball "problem". People would find it even easier to make deathballs and would have less incentive for attacks. If attacking expansions with 20 food is already difficult, then a greater defender's advantage would discourage these types of attacks.
III. Maps
Your main point here is that maps should have easier to defend expansions, less vulnerable / open, etc. Obviously this favors some races over others. For instance in ZvP, Zerg is at a disadvantage as Protoss accumulates more bases. Maps with easier to defend bases are a huge disadvantage to the Zerg players.
IV. Protoss A 26 food Terran army should lose to a 26 defending gateway Protoss army since the Protoss army has sentries. So the sentries can just forcefield the ramp and instead of being a 26 food vs 26 food the Terran's army is split and it becomes an easier battle. And assuming gateway units are weaker than bio units, then the Terran has sufficient defenders advantage as well.
Protoss static defense may be weaker than Terran and Zergs, but Protoss can also warp in wherever there is a pylon. Near instant reinforcement is fairly strong defender's advantage.
V. Conclusion
The problems noted are not related to defender's advantage but are related to the metagame and current balance issues.
Rhetorical question: why TL doesn't implement some sort of minimum age / literacy requirement to post in forums? I mean, I just watched planet of apes a few mins ago, and before I start with analogies I better change the topic...
I don't necessarily agree with OP on every single point he made, but they are very well thought points backed by strong arguments. I believe that theoretically fixing early defense can improve SC2 greatly. But will it? Depends on implementation of course. I hope Blizzard is looking into this. I always believed (and still do) that WoL is more of a test than a complete game. HotS will most likely be the same. By the time of LotV Blizzard will have enough data to make a perfect game they probably intend to. Until then I'm just not taking SC2 balance issues too seriously. It's like playing beta, of sorts...
On January 24 2012 03:30 Romandragon wrote: I. Rush Builds The defender should not have any advantage and the attacker should have an advantage for rush builds. The rusher is at a disadvantage should their rush fail so obviously the only reason people would rush is if they have an advantage when rushing. Now the sooner they rush the greater they are at a disadvantage should the rush fail, so this should translate into greater attacking advantage. Rushes can be a build-order win but again this is not a problem with the "defenders advantage" but rather it is simply a build order win.
And for your example with Huk, can you argue Huk played particularly well? Simply saying the attacker did not play well is not fair to the defender who arguably played worse. The attacker had better positioning, timing, and most importantly Huk made multiple mistakes. Huk lost not because of his lack of defenders advantage but because he was outplayed.
Lastly, emphasis on the early game is not a bad thing. Already the early game is often extremely boring, if there was even less emphasis on it no one would bother watching the first 8 minutes of a game or so. So taking emphasis off the early game is a poor idea, imo, since it would become even more boring than it already is.
II. Death-ball style combat
This is a problem with the death-ball not with defenders advantage. A greater defender's advantage would not address the death ball "problem". People would find it even easier to make deathballs and would have less incentive for attacks. If attacking expansions with 20 food is already difficult, then a greater defender's advantage would discourage these types of attacks.
III. Maps
Your main point here is that maps should have easier to defend expansions, less vulnerable / open, etc. Obviously this favors some races over others. For instance in ZvP, Zerg is at a disadvantage as Protoss accumulates more bases. Maps with easier to defend bases are a huge disadvantage to the Zerg players.
IV. Protoss A 26 food Terran army should lose to a 26 defending gateway Protoss army since the Protoss army has sentries. So the sentries can just forcefield the ramp and instead of being a 26 food vs 26 food the Terran's army is split and it becomes an easier battle. And assuming gateway units are weaker than bio units, then the Terran has sufficient defenders advantage as well.
Protoss static defense may be weaker than Terran and Zergs, but Protoss can also warp in wherever there is a pylon. Near instant reinforcement is fairly strong defender's advantage.
V. Conclusion
The problems noted are not related to defender's advantage but are related to the metagame and current balance issues.
I. Rush builds will always be at an obvious advantage. If you're rushing, there's a window where you have more units. Increased defender's advantage doesn't mess with that - it just messes with how effective it is. Right now, the most siginificant defender's advantage there really is comes in the form of ramps and "well he can pull probes".
With the Huk replay, it seems like you're saying someone should have to play really well just to make it to the midgame. Is it fair given Huk's mistakes that he was able to siege down the expo? Probably. But is it good game design that Huk's mistakes cost him the game, while his opponent lose almost nothing in the engagement with Huk's army? I'd argue that this isn't great design, personally. And that's not to say "marine/tank imba!", because in the context of a game where rushing or being rushed happens often and takes huge advantage off of any mistakes for all races and strategies, it's fine. What I'm saying is - I don't like that, and it seems I'm not alone.
Regarding games being uninteresting - do you think TvT is boring? I don't, personally, and there often aren't large scale rush builds being geared up for then in TvT either (from what I hear, not exactly a terran expert).
II. I'm not saying it should be something available all over the map, or even that I know what it is exactly - I'm just pointing at a problem - early and late game, defense against big, direct pushes is very difficult.
IV. Forcefielding a ramp implies no early expand, or sacrificing one. This almost always leads to an overwhelming bio push shortly after the terran's expansion kicks in.
V, I like to think that the metagame hasn't arbitrarily completely ignored a viable option for defense yet. Maybe it has, this is another possible source of "heightened defense" - learning a trick that makes defense easier. If that's out there, great! I'm just doubtful it is. I believe the game is relatively balanced within the context of what the game is. If you're trying to macro every game or rush every game, it won't seem like it, but the fact that GSL Code S remains pretty split between the three races (bit more emphasis on Terran) tells me it isn't hopelessly unbalanced.
Rhetorical question: why TL doesn't implement some sort of minimum age / literacy requirement to post in forums? I mean, I just watched planet of apes a few mins ago, and before I start with analogies I better change the topic...
I don't necessarily agree with OP on every single point he made, but they are very well thought points backed by strong arguments. I believe that theoretically fixing early defense can improve SC2 greatly. But will it? Depends on implementation of course. I hope Blizzard is looking into this. I always believed (and still do) that WoL is more of a test than a complete game. HotS will most likely be the same. By the time of LotV Blizzard will have enough data to make a perfect game they probably intend to. Until then I'm just not taking SC2 balance issues too seriously. It's like playing beta, of sorts...
well, I don't think Blizzard is looking into the problem, atleast not the problems we are discussing here. Last showcase of HotS' new units/abilities made it clear that they are trying to make the game more attractive rather than dealing with fundamental design issues. I don't usually believe in conspiracy theories but I think there is someone influential who forces blizz game-designers to make it eye-candy-like, everything flashy like in hollywood. tbh Dustin and David didn't seem so enthusiastic when they were showcasing new units. Because It definitely going to affect the already 'volatile' balance of the game. maybe I fantasize too much, but thats my general impression. I remember an interview of WhiteRa (too lazy to find the link). He said something like "sc2 needs less spells and more raw power units so that players use pure skill rather than relying on success/luck of some game-deciding spells (EMP, storm, fungal..)". Thats what I think too.
on topic: Defender's advantage and positioning are bread and butter of any strategic game. Basically, in any RTS you have to defend your weak points, and find weak points of enemy. Thats how you show your superior skill, your intelligence or smartness. Micro, reactions and speed are secondary factor which come into play when two players are equally smart. In SC2 defender's advantage kinda matters when small groups are fighting but it gets out of control when big ones start. we should look into late game defender's advantage, PF being only viable option now.
" He said something like "sc2 needs less spells and more raw power units so that players use pure skill rather than relying on success/luck of some game-deciding spells (EMP, storm, fungal..)". Thats what I think too."
?? like what, micro ability? or are you talking about the guy who macros first and A moves wins type deal?
I think one of the most simple ways of creating defenders advantage is more maps where the entrance to the main has specific places you can exploit. (Think siege tanks in the main on Shakuras being able to defend the natural but more-so than that)
Had you made this post less the protoss part 6 months ago i'd of been inclined to agree that there is an issue with defense with no fix in site.
Knowing what's potentially coming in HoTS to address P and T defensive issues at various points in the game, along with fixes to zergs attacking issues at various points of the game. I can't help but see the lack of what you are trying to bring attention to that isn't already getting attention.
Will HoTS and the proposed changes fix things, who knows for sure. Will hopefully the changes made in HoTS bring the game closer to the strategic level of BW, one can only hope.
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.
In the Age of Empire series, your central Town Center was able to fight back from the first second of the game if you were attacked, making many early rushes impractical. In addition, using ranged units to take control of any hills near your base afforded you a slight damage bonus. As a result, games would typically revolve around trying to poke at the fringes of your opponent's base, and battles came down to intense wars of positioning where you had to have the right number of melee and siege units to take down a Town Center before defending ranged/melee/cavalry could obliterate you. However, I think that AoE was overall not as fast-paced or as good a game in general (seriously, go back and play the series; what is with some of those design decisions?)
Again, I think there are many aspects of this (defender's advantage) related to the metagame. Remember a few months ago when 4-gate was unbeatable? Terran and Zerg (unfortunately not Protoss) just laugh at 4-gate now. Remember when 1-1-1 was at about a 95% winrate versus Protoss (if pulled off correctly)? Yes, they buffed Immortals, but Protosses also figured out some much better ways to deal with 1-1-1s that didn't involve weak expands and a ton of Stalkers that died instantly to Tank/PDD.
Defender's advantage does NOT mean you auto-win versus any aggressive moves that aren't perfect. Defender's advantage does and SHOULD mean assuming equal play (i.e. equal numbers, tech, position, and micro techniques), the one who is being attacked at his fortified or already-held position will have the natural upper hand. If any of those things - overall numbers, level of tech, quality of defensive position, or micro - is significantly behind his opponent, then the defender can and should be punished for his poorer play. *A clarification: I don't mean that if a defender has 4 or 5 less supply he should be punished. I'm talking about someone being super greedy and not at all close: like if a Terran made 6 marines and a maruader versus a full fledged 4-gate trying to expand too early.
I believe that we are starting to see the results of this already, and it will keep adjusting as the metagame fluctuates. See my examples about aggressive rushes earlier. HotS and presumably LotV will make significant contributions to this dynamic as they come out. Look at how many technical or spellcaster units are being added: Viper, Oracle, Nexus abilities, Battle Hellion transformation, Shredders, Swarm Host, Replicant. All of these units are units that will require finesse in their usage, and open up options for players. One of the arguments that I think has real teeth is that SC2 units are less improved by micro than their BW counterparts. I believe that all of these spellcasters and finesse/situational units will aid that. No one in their right mind would make an entire army of Swarm Hosts or Shredders, they simply add options to your positioning.
Defenders advantage is already completely implemented. You just need to learn how to take advantage of it. Comparing starcraft with risk is quite a far fetch, even though i get the picture.
Just a few examples of what already exists in the game: ramps at entrance of main or natural or both (map example of existing defenders advantage), building placement (brain usage to amplify defenders advantage), units walking faster on creep(race related defenders advantage).
I really dont believe any modification on this aspect of the game should be implemented. This is a game of timings, of scouting, nothing is unstoppable, but you ve got to be punished by lack of map awareness, no scouting. etc.
On January 25 2012 00:11 Douillos wrote: Defenders advantage is already completely implemented. You just need to learn how to take advantage of it. Comparing starcraft with risk is quite a far fetch, even though i get the picture.
Just a few examples of what already exists in the game: ramps at entrance of main or natural or both (map example of existing defenders advantage), building placement (brain usage to amplify defenders advantage), units walking faster on creep(race related defenders advantage).
I really dont believe any modification on this aspect of the game should be implemented. This is a game of timings, of scouting, nothing is unstoppable, but you ve got to be punished by lack of map awareness, no scouting. etc.
I'll edit this into the OP, because it's important to keep in mind. Edit: Again, this isn't a complaint about balance - warpins are very strong for attacking and deathball style play, both of which are prevalent in WoL, so a lesser defense out front or a slower expansion as a result may be warranted. Here are the list of benefits to being attacked vs. attacking:
Terran Rush Distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless using PF at the natural on a map with no choke) Use of Simcity against low range attackers Use of already sieged tanks Use of PFs Use of Bunkers (diminished at open expansions) Use of Turrets
Zerg Rush distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless expanding on a map with no choke at natural - not really useful with zerg's T1 units) Use of Simcity against low range attackers (not useful with zerg's T1) Use of Creep Use of Queens Use of Spine Crawlers (diminished at open expansions) Use of Spore Crawlers
Protoss Rush distance (except against gateway units) Able to pull workers Use of Ramp to bottleneck attackers (unless expanding on a map with no choke at natural - FF makes this big) Use of Simcity against low range attackers Use of Photon cannons (diminished at open expansions)
Did I miss anything? Ok, now let's say you're playing a PvP on a map with an open natural - or worse, on a map with no ramp. Do you see that your "defender's advantage" becomes "Able to pull workers"? Are you suggesting Protoss simply need to get better at fighting with workers and the defender's advantage will be fine? What constitutes a good defender's advantage? I have no doubt that matchups may exist where defender's advantage is fine, but I have just as little doubt that all matchups have a sufficient defender's advantage.
On January 24 2012 23:51 Nerski wrote: Had you made this post less the protoss part 6 months ago i'd of been inclined to agree that there is an issue with defense with no fix in site.
Knowing what's potentially coming in HoTS to address P and T defensive issues at various points in the game, along with fixes to zergs attacking issues at various points of the game. I can't help but see the lack of what you are trying to bring attention to that isn't already getting attention.
Will HoTS and the proposed changes fix things, who knows for sure. Will hopefully the changes made in HoTS bring the game closer to the strategic level of BW, one can only hope.
Do you disagree that Protoss mechanics mess with defender's advantage? Personally, I think the idea that warpgate can be used to negate rush distance as a form of defenders advantage has a big effect on things. Also, yeah, things are getting attention in HotS (as far as I can tell) - but shouldn't we keep an eye on the implementation and remember what the things we are getting are supposed to be for?
I think the issue of defender's advantage also stems from the fact that the High DPS/Splash Damage units all fire less damage in one burst (think reaver vs. colossus, siege reduced single hit, etc), even if the dps is equal to or greater the longer the battle goes. This prevents a smaller defender to deal adequate damage to make up for its losses - and it becomes a lopsided loss. This promotes more deathball-like armies, since smaller defensive forces cannot deal enough damage to make up for their cost, since a slightly greater attacking force is much more cost effective.
On March 18 2012 04:23 Forsy wrote: I think the issue of defender's advantage also stems from the fact that the High DPS/Splash Damage units all fire less damage in one burst (think reaver vs. colossus, siege reduced single hit, etc), even if the dps is equal to or greater the longer the battle goes. This prevents a smaller defender to deal adequate damage to make up for its losses - and it becomes a lopsided loss. This promotes more deathball-like armies, since smaller defensive forces cannot deal enough damage to make up for their cost, since a slightly greater attacking force is much more cost effective.
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![[image loading]](http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/08/risk.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gj7exPDP_sU/TcjG2GfbElI/AAAAAAAAAO8/wRcCu_JF2Zo/s640/1.JPG)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Lovedrop/tsl3/finals/g7p4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5wnsuvw0DIk/TIZu1IgNruI/AAAAAAAAAAk/kPyidEJz0oc/s1600/phpThumb_generated_thumbnailjpg.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/b/ba/Shakuras_Plateau_2.0.jpg/400px-Shakuras_Plateau_2.0.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://learningsc2.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Moving-out-with-your-ranged-units.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_s5cF89zQnlI/SpAkvLrn3jI/AAAAAAAAAO8/99ZElhqYjsA/scmotd-090609-1.png)
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... Oh how I hated that sound :D..
