In real life, carriers have the longest range of *any* other vehicle on the planet. This is because it cheats and shoots airplanes. Yet the carrier has less range than a Siege Tank?
Fuck balance
Fuck viability
Carriers need to have longer range than siege tanks for fucking flavor
Imagine if carriers had 14 range (vision still the same) and so you could actually keep them far enough behind your army to be able to keep them safe from things like Corruptors and Vikings.
Carriers just need to have + 1 or +2 range to be usefull. As of now Vikings just hardcounter them and corruptors are just too cost effective againt carriers.
Carriers are boring in SC2, even if they buffed them to the oblivion it would be flying collosus. Its not about stats its about creating interesting gameplay and with heavy hitters like Viking/corruptor its impossible you have to scratch something either viking/cor or carrier, seeing how carrier was abandoned already in beta they already made their decision.
BW carrier was interesting unit just because of the fact you could not 1a (both ways) unless you were far ahead. It was positional battle, using terrain/micro and resource attrition as main factors. None of this is present given current carrier mechanics, air anti-air units. Ah also marines.
On May 30 2012 17:39 bgx wrote: Carriers are boring in SC2, even if they buffed them to the oblivion it would be flying collosus. Its not about stats its about creating interesting gameplay and with heavy hitters like Viking/corruptor its impossible you have to scratch something either viking/cor or carrier, seeing how carrier was abandoned already in beta they already made their decision.
BW carrier was interesting unit just because of the fact you could not 1a (both ways) unless you were far ahead. It was positional battle, using terrain/micro and resource attrition as main factors. None of this is present given current carrier mechanics, air anti-air units. Ah also marines.
Maybe change the Carriers mechanism of attack then, like it did with the Guardian/Broodlord.
I really want them to keep the carrier, but i hope they can add some versatility to it, I feel that if they remove the unit, it will take away from the StarCraft staple.
On May 30 2012 06:54 SirGlinG wrote: I can't say the same thing will happen to the carrier in 5 years. Nor can I say it about the mothership. I can't know that. So maybe removing them now is the right thing to do. Maybe my argument is screwed because of that. But then again u can't know that that the carrier won't make a BO comeback in a couple of years.
And what if they do?
You shouldn't make design decisions based on "what if"s. You make design decisions based on good, solid gameplay that actually works.
Yes, Valkyries got used again in 2008. But if they were replaced in 2003 with a much more reasonable air unit, then we would have had a full five years of better SC1 play.
On May 30 2012 06:54 SirGlinG wrote: Nukes were underused in brood war. But when they came, we in the audience came as well.
Seeing an underused unit intelligently used by a player who's seen potential us mortals have not seen. That's something I love about pro gaming. How something can change from useless to worthy through a pro gamers intelligent use. This is the point of E-sport Viewing value I'm trying to defend.
I disagree. Yes, it's nice to see something underutilized being used. But you shouldn't design things that way. You shouldn't be trying to make stuff do that. And most of all, you shouldn't leave something around just because it might, one day be used in a worthwhile game. Maybe once ever year. Or something.
I prefer increasing the viewing value of the average SC2 game, not the outliers. And if getting better games of SC2 means replacing units, so be it.
On May 30 2012 06:54 SirGlinG wrote: I think you mean that the game will be unnecessarily difficult to learn with too many units. If so I agree.
It has nothing to do with difficulty in learning the game. It has to do with the amount of design space they have to work with.
One of the strengths of SC has always been that most of the units are useful. This is true because the game has very few units; 12-15 per race or so. There aren't a lot of worthless units lying around.
The more units you have, the harder it is to balance the game. Either something's going to be useless due to role overlap, or something's going to be over-powered. Every change you make potentially affects every unit in the game. The more units you have in the game means that it's harder to make balance changes. Giving a unit an extra +5 vs Armored means that it must be balanced against every Armored unit in the game. If there are 40 Armored units it could shoot at, then you have a much greater chance of screwing something up. Worst-case, a useless unit goes from useless to OP, because the thing that made them useless was nerfed.
It's already hard enough to balance SC2 as is. They don't need to make it harder, which is all that having useless units will do.
Underused units are going to happen; no balance is perfect. But Blizzard should not be sanctioning them, not when they can replace them with something worthwhile.
On May 30 2012 19:54 treekiller wrote: Fuck the carrier. It should have been taken out of BW, Finally the moment of justice comes. Dont you dare mess this up for us.
Shut up and watch this.
Don't you dare to disrespect the legend and legacy of the carrier from Brood War, it was a viable unit in one match up and on certain maps, yes it wasn't seen very often, but when it did see action it gave us some of the most memorable games of all time.
I say fuck the tempest, the stupid a-move microless unit, and give us the real carrier, the BW carrier, the one that, controlled well, could swing the tide of battle just as much as well micro-ed marines can.
I agree with what some people say, in that, we deserve a unit that has more then marginal use, that you can see in at least two out of the three match ups or even all 3 on certain maps, and we deserve a unit that can be exciting, and can wow us of our chairs and blow our mind with how its precise and fine usage can win battles.
Well, I don't believe the tempest can be that unit, but I sure as hell believe the Carrier, if tweaked can be that exact unit that we want.
On May 30 2012 15:41 Sazbak wrote: I do remeber you seeing in the M23 Zerg keyboard topic where the OP posted a funny picture and after that all we could hear from you is butthurt whining and biased senseless comments like "Zerg is the most demanding race while Terran is the least", which is quite lol considering Zerg's almost 1aish battle micro and the fact that people in the Race switching topic generally say that terran is the most mechanically demanding.
Zerg is the most mechanically demanding, period. All you have to do is compare the APMs of pro Zerg, Terran, and Protoss players and you quickly see that Zerg pros have the highest APM, followed by Terran, followed by Protoss.
On May 30 2012 15:41 Sazbak wrote: So basically you are just a nomatterwhat-terran hater probably because you're losing against them a lot.
I play random, and consider Terran to be the easiest race to win with. What I hate is that Terran play is one-dimensionally marine-centric, instead of being a race with specialized units as in BW.
Also, did you seriously make an account just to troll me in two different threads? I'm guessing you're just a sockpuppet for someone who doesn't have the balls to debate honestly.
On May 30 2012 18:38 NicolBolas wrote: And most of all, you shouldn't leave something around just because it might, one day be used in a worthwhile game. Maybe once ever year. Or something.
If a unit, ability, building, or whatever has an application-- no matter how rare-- then that's justification enough for its existence right there.
On May 30 2012 18:38 NicolBolas wrote: I prefer increasing the viewing value of the average SC2 game, not the outliers. And if getting better games of SC2 means replacing units, so be it.
What happened to not making design decisions based on 'what if's? I don't see how you could argue that the carrier is hurting the game right now. Adding a new unit specifically to replace the carrier could easily be more harmful to the game than keeping the current underused one in place-- so why the need to toy with things?
On May 30 2012 15:41 Sazbak wrote: I do remeber you seeing in the M23 Zerg keyboard topic where the OP posted a funny picture and after that all we could hear from you is butthurt whining and biased senseless comments like "Zerg is the most demanding race while Terran is the least", which is quite lol considering Zerg's almost 1aish battle micro and the fact that people in the Race switching topic generally say that terran is the most mechanically demanding.
Zerg is the most mechanically demanding, period. All you have to do is compare the APMs of pro Zerg, Terran, and Protoss players and you quickly see that Zerg pros have the highest APM, followed by Terran, followed by Protoss.
On May 30 2012 15:41 Sazbak wrote: So basically you are just a nomatterwhat-terran hater probably because you're losing against them a lot.
I play random, and consider Terran to be the easiest race to win with. What I hate is that Terran play is one-dimensionally marine-centric, instead of being a race with specialized units as in BW.
Also, did you seriously make an account just to troll me in two different threads? I'm guessing you're just a sockpuppet for someone who doesn't have the balls to debate honestly.
I whole heatedly disagree, Terran is by far more mechanically demanding and at the very least on par with Zerg in terms of mechanical difficulty. I can also look at a pair of replays and tell you that I notice on average Terrans have more APM then both Zergs or Protoss. The problem with your argument though is that, APM doesn't directly equate to mechanics, having high APM is a perquisite to having good mechanics but it doesn't correlate on a 1 to 1 ratio.
So your argument is invalid for several reasons, and you didn't even post numbers, if you want us to believe Zerg is more mechanically demanding, post a compilation of statistics gathered over 100 + games, because your argument holds no weight or substance.
And you playing random doesn't prove anything, you might just be playing at a level where you find zerg mechanics difficult but just bellow the level of where you feel that Terran mechanics are actually more demanding.
Now back on topic, some of the suggestions for carrier buffs are somewhat exaggerated and ridiculous. Extra range and/or movement speed aoe upgrades aren't the solutions. Carriers aren't supposed to fight Vikings and Marines, carriers need to have counters too.
What carrier needs are a meta-game change, a situation where mech is viable in TvP in such a way that a carrier transition is viable to counter mech. And for PvZ it needs a more ground centric late game, something like Swarm Host, Ultra, Queen, Ling, Infestor, a composition that is hard to transition into air that gives the carrier a timing window to do damage. The problem is not really the units, its the meta-game and many, many of you fail to realize this.
The meta-game will change in HOTS, the question is if it will change enough. I'm not saying that carries don't need any buffs/tweaks, they certainly do and they have tons of problems, but 80% of the problem lies in the meta-game now.
On May 30 2012 21:05 Destructicon wrote: So your argument is invalid for several reasons, and you didn't even post numbers, if you want us to believe Zerg is more mechanically demanding, post a compilation of statistics gathered over 100 + games, because your argument holds no weight or substance.
The APM and relative mechanical requirements of each race are well-known. It's ridiculous that Terran players are so insecure about their skill level that they have to dispute this, as if being the race with medium mechanical demands is the end of the world or something.
Feel free to read this thread, and use the search button or Google to easily find more discussions like it. On average, most people have higher APM with Zerg. Aside from the data, it's also pretty intuitive: there's more stuff to do as Zerg than there is as Terran, and more stuff to do as Terran than there is at Protoss.
You can also find replays of higher level Random players, and you'll quickly see that most people conform to this trend.
APM as a race has nothing to do with how hard it is to play it. Quite the contrary, actually : zerg macro might be more demanding, but it's hell of a lot easier to actually execute, so your APM is greater.
I play both zerg and terran, and zerg is a lot easier. You have a lot more error margin with larva bank, spamming like an automaton comes faster because you have only one building to worry about while terrans have three, and you don't have to add buildings and addons.
Edit : as for your "well-known" arguments.... I don't see anything actually proving anything.
On May 31 2012 01:14 ArcticRaven wrote: APM as a race has nothing to do with how hard it is to play it. Quite the contrary, actually : zerg macro might be more demanding, but it's hell of a lot easier to actually execute, so your APM is greater.
I don't disagree. I'm not arguing Zerg is a harder race than Terran. I simply stated the simple fact that Zerg has higher mechanical requirements; e.g. it requires more APM to play.
For some reason, this simple, self-evident, and easily confirmed fact is considered controversial by Terran players. Insecure much?
On May 31 2012 01:14 ArcticRaven wrote: as for your "well-known" arguments.... I don't see anything actually proving anything.
How about you actually read what I wrote, or take a look at the link I provided? Or do some basic Google or Teamliquid searching on your own?
i never liked the carrier. It is aweful to micro with him. As a support unit he is just to expensive. I played all three races pretty enduringly, so i am not really biased. Yes if you are really far ahead it might be enough to win, and maybe a carrier rush may extend in a win against zerg but really solid strategies? But 200/200 carrier with a good split can beat everything.
On May 30 2012 19:54 treekiller wrote: Fuck the carrier. It should have been taken out of BW, Finally the moment of justice comes. Dont you dare mess this up for us.
On May 31 2012 02:00 MateShade wrote: It's completely incorrect as well..
<3 would rather a useless carrier than a tempest anyday just because.
Seems to me like they want HOTS to be sufficiently different so people won't complain they're pulling a modern warfare. Sad that its at the expense of the carrier.