EPTI consider hydralisks, zlings, rines, dragoons, stalkers, and zealots to be breadandbutter units where they don't need to be amazingly cool, but rather do their job well, but for tech units they need to be cool and awesome and powerful, which is where I feel SCII sometimes fails. Thors are good because they're awesome, same as banelings; sometimes I think Blizzard focuses too much on giving units roles though, instead of having cool concepts and putting them in.
Reluctance to Re-Introduce BW-Units - Page 13
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Birdie
New Zealand4438 Posts
I consider hydralisks, zlings, rines, dragoons, stalkers, and zealots to be breadandbutter units where they don't need to be amazingly cool, but rather do their job well, but for tech units they need to be cool and awesome and powerful, which is where I feel SCII sometimes fails. Thors are good because they're awesome, same as banelings; sometimes I think Blizzard focuses too much on giving units roles though, instead of having cool concepts and putting them in. | ||
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canikizu
4860 Posts
On June 17 2012 10:52 Birdie wrote: Slightly offtopic but I should note that some SCII units are excellent. The baneling immediately comes to mind. A very awesome cool unit. SCII just needs more awesome cool units. The swarm host isn't very cool. Abduct is very cool. The tempest isn't very cool, the hellhound or whatever is OK but not great. Scouts in BW were not very cool, hence why they were never used much. I consider hydralisks, zlings, rines, dragoons, stalkers, and zealots to be breadandbutter units where they don't need to be amazingly cool, but rather do their job well, but for tech units they need to be cool and awesome and powerful, which is where I feel SCII sometimes fails. Thors are good because they're awesome, same as banelings; sometimes I think Blizzard focuses too much on giving units roles though, instead of having cool concepts and putting them in. Sshhh, people are gonna say baneling is a micmic of scourge, after all, BW invented suiciding units, you know, we've never seen that kind of units in history of warfare before. | ||
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urashimakt
United States1591 Posts
On June 17 2012 10:55 canikizu wrote: Sshhh, people are gonna say baneling is a micmic of scourge, after all, BW invented suiciding units, you know, you've never seen that kind of units in history of warfare before. Preposterous. The baneling is a mimic of the original Infested Terran. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16121 Posts
On June 17 2012 10:52 Birdie wrote: Slightly offtopic but I should note that some SCII units are excellent. The baneling immediately comes to mind. A very awesome cool unit. SCII just needs more awesome cool units. The swarm host isn't very cool. Abduct is very cool. The tempest isn't very cool, the hellhound or whatever is OK but not great. Scouts in BW were not very cool, hence why they were never used much. I consider hydralisks, zlings, rines, dragoons, stalkers, and zealots to be breadandbutter units where they don't need to be amazingly cool, but rather do their job well, but for tech units they need to be cool and awesome and powerful, which is where I feel SCII sometimes fails. Thors are good because they're awesome, same as banelings; sometimes I think Blizzard focuses too much on giving units roles though, instead of having cool concepts and putting them in. And here's evidence to just how subjective this whole thing is. I hate the baneling imo. It makes early game ZvZ a nightmare, is a no skill a-move unit whose role would be so much better suited to the Lurker. But that's just my opinion. | ||
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ixi.genocide
United States981 Posts
On June 17 2012 11:05 Vindicare605 wrote: And here's evidence to just how subjective this whole thing is. I hate the baneling imo. It makes early game ZvZ a nightmare, is a no skill a-move unit whose role would be so much better suited to the Lurker. But that's just my opinion. I hate the baneling as well. As a Z player it feels like the unit is so powerful that it kind of holds back the design of the Zerg race and justifies some of the overpowered aspects of the other races. A 1/2f unit that for 50/25 blows up, dealing massive amount of aoe damage is probably too good. | ||
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fuzzylogic44
Canada2633 Posts
They probably could have got away with one - either the reaver or the lurker, since they are so liked. But another thing to consider is that good untis in BW don't necessarily translate into good units in SC2. | ||
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VanGarde
Sweden755 Posts
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lichter
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
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figq
12519 Posts
The topmost reason for the need of these 3 parts of SC2 and the way they are designed is... money. But I'm fine with that! Buying Broodwar for 5 bucks I think nowadays doesn't represent accurately how much I'd wish to payback to Blizzard for making it. Buying 3 modern games from them for ~50 bucks is more like it. So it's okay, I'll pay, I think they deserve it for old times' sake, but please eventually just remake Broodwar in 3D and let it be. On June 17 2012 11:05 Vindicare605 wrote: Ever heard of manually exploding a baneling while it's moving between multiple moving enemy units to catch them all in one hit? Few pro's today even have the tactical timing and reaction to pull this off correctly, but with Kespa elite now rising the skill, hopefully we are yet to see some baneling control like we've never seen before.I hate the baneling imo. It makes early game ZvZ a nightmare, is a no skill a-move unit | ||
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Roarer
Hong Kong124 Posts
On June 17 2012 02:24 lorkac wrote: If you listen to a lot of Browder's interviews he actually gave a lot of sideways answers to your question. The main things that have stopped them from bringing them back is linked to the effectiveness, their desire for a linear design path, and their need for regulated succession of tech opportunities without causing overlap. For example, let us take the Lurker. (Everyone's fave go to unit when talking about this) Browder's team wants Zerg to have weak early game AA What does this mean? Zerglings, Roaches, and Banelings don't shoot up. Crawlers and Queens are stuck on creep. The Hydralisk at hatch tech would break that race design preference by being a mobile anti-air unit during the early game. Browder's team also wants for tech progression to be linear with fancier stuff being "up a notch" in tech. So hatch tech gets you Roaches, Zerglings, and Banelings while lair tech gets you Hydras, Infestors, and Mutalisks. The Hydras have to be Lair tech to give zerg a weak early game AA. So it would seam weird and non-linear to have Hydralisks AND Lurkers be available at the same tech--Lair Tech. So, much like Overseer and the Broodlord, the only logical place to put Lurkers would be Hive tech. What did this cause? I remember David Kim saying that it made the Lurker too weak in their testing. Why? Because hive tech does not normally come until way deep into the game. The Lurker could no longer play the role people wanted it to play because at Hive tech, the Lurker was already the Unit lurkers would stall the game to get to. In BW, Lurkers allowed you to be safe as you teched hard to defilers. Once you had Defilers and extra gas bases you were able to start pushing back. With the Lurker at Hive tech--it would turn from a defensive siege weapon with offensive capabilities based on timing attacks into a cloaked Hydralisk. So why isn't the Lurker in the game? Because of the combination of two philosophies that shoved the Lurker too high up the tech tree. Is it easy to fix? Yes, technically, but it would a restructuring of the game. Roaches and Hydralisks switch spots. Queen loses her AA ability becoming a purely melee unit while Hydralisks are slowed down even more off creep. (About the same speed as the queen off creep would suffice) Lair tech would then lead to our first overlap issue. Roaches and Lurkers seems to both take up the "burrowed combat unit" slot at the same tech juncture. How do you resolve it? You give us back the old roach and make the lurker move slow off creep (about as fast as the Hydralisk is now) 3 range, 2 armor, and 1 supply. This creates a dynamic choice in unit composition and tactical space control. Roaches would be really good at moving out into the map to do hit and runs. At lair tech they come late enough that marauders and Immortals will be online in time. The roaches will be a lot weaker (forcefields actually forcefields roaches) marines would actually be able to kite roaches, etc... but there will be more of them. Lurkers would be slow units that you use to hold key positions At hydra Speed you're more likely to be keeping them where you are spreading creep while needing drop tech to actually be able to harass with them. Why don't they do this? That I can't tell you. But I do know why they don't have the Lurker. At least, what I believe their reasons to be based off of how they talk about unit design in their interviews. It isn't important that we have our own logical reasons for having certain units "back," what you need to figure out is why it is that Browder and his team reached the conclusion they did. They will never listen to your logic of "It would be cooler" or "In BW it was like _____" because at the end of the day those types of arguments and reasonings are subjective. Hech, I could complain that Command and Conquer was way more fun than BW and that we should bring in MORE a-move units like the collossus/mammoth tank. Try thinking about things from Browder and his team's mindset, then see if there is a better way to present your case based on what it is that they're trying to do. Personally? I reserve judgement on unit design and unit choices for when Void comes out. We already know that the release of the expansion will not only add units, but it has the options to remove units and completely redesign them as well. Once the Beta is over the release of HotS will show how much they are willing to change their game from expansion to expansion in an attempt to reach a certain level of perfection. We have at least one more reset coming after HotS, I'd rather wait for that before I whine about Protoss not really having a dynamic spellcaster outside of the Sentry... This lurker analysis is what the community need to realize. Even if we put in the same unit in the game, it will not work out the way that we want unless the whole SC2 is revamp to copy the BW. And that's one of the reasons why Blizzard does not want to add those units into the game for the sake of adding them. This will just make the non-BW players think that the new game is just a new version of BW, and they will ask the same question, why would I play the new BW instead of the orginal one. They have no knowledge of BW and cannot tell much of the difference between the 2 games (SC2:BW vs SC:BW). The BW fans may cheer but the others will just take a look and turn away, especially for those who are not a fan of BW. Consequently, the fanbase of the new game will just remain the same, instead of expanding. Now, we add in the factor that the dynamic of the new game will be in fact different from BW, some of the BW fans might not even like it. They leave, and what we have left for the new game is just a shrinked BW fanbase. That is not what Blizzard wants, and that's why there must be something literally new in the game. We cannot simply hope for a BW2.0 to succeed as a new E-sports title. And the thing we used to cheer for will no longer exist in the new scene. The game developer have to find new things for players to cheer for, unfortunately, those might now be what you like, but to Blizzard, they will have more fans. For those who are not just wanting BW 2.0, BW units maybe a good fit for SC2 in some situations, but we have to be the one who explains why to Blizzard. Just to quote lorkac once more: + Show Spoiler + It isn't important that we have our own logical reasons for having certain units "back," what you need to figure out is why it is that Browder and his team reached the conclusion they did. They will never listen to your logic of "It would be cooler" or "In BW it was like _____" because at the end of the day those types of arguments and reasonings are subjective. Just imagine if SC2 is the one to come out first and SC:BW is the sequent , and SC2 fans are asking to replace defiler with vipers, replacing lurkers with swarmhosts, bashing dragoons cuz they cannot blink and have no idea how to walk, shitting all over scouts. How will you feel, do you think such an argument is enough? If you think they are not, then you should understand why Blizzard is not buying these arguments Colossus is not a great unit, but is reaver a better replacement? With the new path finding, will the sacrab be too strong? Will seeing the scarab always straight up hitting target kill the suspension? Will mass tightly packed zealots block the path of the scarabs? My take on the swarm host vs lurker: They both are good at controling space. However, they do it through different way. By spawning units, you can keep the opponent at bay but it gives the chance for the enemy to fire and retreat. The lurker do it through a straight up attack. The stragiht line attack can be very micro & positional dependent. Swarm host give players more time to react while the lurker punishes reckless opponents harder. Swarm host can cut off retreat paths better than lurker and of course give some air support. On the other hand, lurkers are better at agressions than swarm hosts. If you use swarm hosts the way you use lurker in BW , you are gonna get a lot less out of them from attack. In short, swarm host and lurker does the same thing through different ways, I do not think anyone of them have an edge over the other. It is more of a preference thing for someone to like it over the other one. In SC2 where terrible terrible damage is everywhere, swarm hosts maybe a better choice to implement to sprinkle in some longer and slower engagements. Thors do serve a different role than goliaths ...they heavily punish ill-microed muta, and can be mass repaired (I did not count stomping FF here) We have to take the active role to persuade Blizzard why those particular BW units should be there and those arguments are not just subjective opinions. Ultimately, we all want a better and bigger E-sports scene (at least for RTS). If the ideas we suggest are good for the scene, everyone would embrace them, no matter you are from BW or from SC2. Blizzard may not always make the best decision, but I am confident that they will always make good decisions to push the scene further. We should just discuss how the ideas would work and suggest them with open mind. Shooting down ideas just because of subjective opinions is never healthy. Stay objective and admit the difference between the new ideas and the original BW units. On June 17 2012 04:14 Wildmoon wrote: + Show Spoiler + Sometime people in this community are quite stupid if you ask me. They think just adding BW units to current SC2 and it will work without even thinking about it. | ||
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RmoteCntrld
United States596 Posts
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rezoacken
Canada2719 Posts
Ddifferent mechanics, different engine different everything. I even think the lurker would be a terrible decision if directly transposed into SC2, especially since units have a tendency to form balls in SC2. | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
There are two kinds of Starcraft fans: those for whom the Lurker was their favorite unit in the game/favorite zerg unit (maybe more so than any other unit), and those who never heard of it and don't care if it was in the original. Starcraft 2 needs more splash damage, not less. It's already bad enough that the Colossus can't one-shot bio and tanks have been almost completely neutered. The community needs to start thinking like game designers (dangerous, I know, but hear me out). You all assume that because things are the way they are in WoL, that HotS has to maintain the status quo. That is not so. Micro potential could be improved in a month or so, if they wanted to. Macro mechanics could be eliminated overnight, and the game would have more back and forth, and comebacks would be more feasible. Blizzard could declare they've decided to balance the game around very open maps, rather than using the closed off map pool as a crutch for hyper concentrated deathballs. Detection could become less of a commodity to give stealthy units like Roaches/Lurkers/Banes/DTs more excitement. Why are Ravens so rare? Because scan is now a commodity where it used to be a precious resource in BW. The assertion that reavers and lurkers and spider mines would be imbalanced in SC2 is ridiculous for two reasons. First, it's silly because they were all imbalanced in BW and that's what made it great. Secondly, it's silly because you exaggerate the effort required to make adjustments to the units for SC2. You would either tweak the damage or fix unit spacing to not overlap, and you're good to go. I believe the SC2BW guy has even developed the inconsistent Reaver shot and vulture patrol micro himself - how hard for Blizzard's competent team could that be? | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16121 Posts
On June 17 2012 12:30 0neder wrote: The reasoning that bringing a fan favorite unit back would leave it out of place and useless in SC2 is completely foolhardy. Sure, stats might be altered a bit, but it would be completely feasible. Opponents say it would require a restructuring of the game? OH WAIT, the game is being resructured anyway because of the expansion. Hence the discussion resurfaces. There are two kinds of Starcraft fans: those for whom the Lurker was their favorite unit in the game/favorite zerg unit (maybe more so than any other unit), and those who never heard of it and don't care if it was in the original. Starcraft 2 needs more splash damage, not less. It's already bad enough that the Colossus can't one-shot bio and tanks have been almost completely neutered. Woah now! This is the exact sort of subjective statement this entire thread is filled with. That sentence I bolded is simply YOUR opinion and there's plenty of people that would disagree whole heartedly with it. Having an opinion is fine, trying to use it to justify huge sweeping changes to core gameplay just to suit it is not ok. | ||
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rysecake
United States2632 Posts
On June 17 2012 12:02 figq wrote: How about: after Legacy of the Void (third and last part of SC2), and after some time, Blizzard publishes a fully precise 3D-version of Broodwar? (existing fan mod or mods, will never get as precise as Blizz could make them) The topmost reason for the need of these 3 parts of SC2 and the way they are designed is... money. But I'm fine with that! Buying Broodwar for 5 bucks I think nowadays doesn't represent accurately how much I'd wish to payback to Blizzard for making it. Buying 3 modern games from them for ~50 bucks is more like it. So it's okay, I'll pay, I think they deserve it for old times' sake, but please eventually just remake Broodwar in 3D and let it be. Ever heard of manually exploding a baneling while it's moving between multiple moving enemy units to catch them all in one hit? Few pro's today even have the tactical timing and reaction to pull this off correctly, but with Kespa elite now rising the skill, hopefully we are yet to see some baneling control like we've never seen before. but why not just play bw then? There's actually a custom mod called sc2bw already anyway. if ur looking for the sc2 graphics version of bw | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
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Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
On June 17 2012 12:30 0neder wrote: The reasoning that bringing a fan favorite unit back would leave it out of place and useless in SC2 is completely foolhardy. Sure, stats might be altered a bit, but it would be completely feasible. Opponents say it would require a restructuring of the game? Yet...the game is being resructured anyway because of the expansion. Hence the discussion resurfaces. There are two kinds of Starcraft fans: those for whom the Lurker was their favorite unit in the game/favorite zerg unit (maybe more so than any other unit), and those who never heard of it and don't care if it was in the original. Starcraft 2 needs more splash damage, not less. It's already bad enough that the Colossus can't one-shot bio and tanks have been almost completely neutered. The community needs to start thinking like game designers (dangerous, I know, but hear me out). You all assume that because things are the way they are in WoL, that HotS has to maintain the status quo. That is not so. Micro potential could be improved in a month or so, if they wanted to. Macro mechanics could be eliminated overnight, and the game would have more back and forth, and comebacks would be more feasible. Blizzard could declare they've decided to balance the game around very open maps, rather than using the closed off map pool as a crutch for hyper concentrated deathballs. Detection could become less of a commodity to give stealthy units like Roaches/Lurkers/Banes/DTs more excitement. Why are Ravens so rare? Because scan is now a commodity where it used to be a precious resource in BW. The assertion that reavers and lurkers and spider mines would be imbalanced in SC2 is ridiculous for two reasons. First, it's silly because they were all imbalanced in BW and that's what made it great. Secondly, it's silly because you exaggerate the effort required to make adjustments to the units for SC2. You would either tweak the damage or fix unit spacing to not overlap, and you're good to go. I believe the SC2BW guy has even developed the inconsistent Reaver shot and vulture patrol micro himself - how hard for Blizzard's competent team could that be? It's not that you need more splash damage, it's that you need more map control. Units that, if the other player attacked into, would be extremely cost inefficient. Siege Tanks up a cliff, for example. The problem with the colossus is that it is really mobile for its damage output. | ||
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asiantraceur
United States94 Posts
But anyways can't really re-add in BW units cuz then people will be like "You dumb Blizzard? Why did you take them out in the first place" BW units were really awesome tho so I guess they want to kinda imitate them...Loved so many BW units and abilities I love the old queen with infest and ensnare and brood lord just doesnt match up to spawn broodling...lurker vs marine was one of the best things ever...And who can forget Reaver Reaver Reaver Blizz should re release BW with awesome graphics to get it more popular :D Oh and my anit-air sucks now that I dont have scourge lol | ||
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figq
12519 Posts
On June 17 2012 12:48 rysecake wrote: They need to make BW look like a state of the art game, for those - surprisingly many - fans of gaming who don't take a game seriously, because "it looks like some cell phone java game". Also, they need to add stuff like observer information tabs, control groups, selecting workers to count them, total harvester count, total kills count etc. Observing in BW is too limited for nowadays standards.but why not just play bw then? There's actually a custom mod called sc2bw already anyway. if ur looking for the sc2 graphics version of bw As I said, no custom mods will ever be precise enough. Blizzard needs to do it themselves, and rework the core engine for that purpose too. 3D Broodwar will be so different from SC2 that it should not even be called a mod, because of different core engine concepts. | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
On June 17 2012 12:37 Vindicare605 wrote: Woah now! This is the exact sort of subjective statement this entire thread is filled with. That sentence I bolded is simply YOUR opinion and there's plenty of people that would disagree whole heartedly with it. Having an opinion is fine, trying to use it to justify huge sweeping changes to core gameplay just to suit it is not ok. My friend, with all due respect how familiar are you with BW? It was based around a handful of ridiculously overpowered splash units: Tanks, lurkers, corsairs, psionic storm, plague, and what players did to abuse them and overcome them. If you take the most exciting moments in BW gameplay, almost all of them involve splash damage. What made GGaemo's mouth drop open? OP Splash Damage. What made people wonder how Jangbi had the superhuman ability to manually cast all these storms? OP Splash Damage. What rewarded one of the best microers in the world with killing 10-16 supply with only 2 zealots? OP Splash Damage. What made this imbalanced reaver so exciting, even at the expense of low level players? OP Splash damage. What does OP Splash Damage like Lurkers do? It promotes ridiculous micro skill development (wouldn't you like to see more opportunities for SC2 careers to take off like marineking's? then put in more splash damage) Please tell me objectively why reducing splash damage is better for spectating excitement or players. Because objectively, we know that 'terrible terrible splash damage' is what makes SC exciting and is one of the main reasons it survived for so long. The more splash, the more risk, the more excitement. We can debate about units, but please don't say that reducing splash damage does not objectively hurt SC2's excitement for fans. | ||
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