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I'll just leave my opinion there because of something weird that happened not too long ago.
I was a plat terran, facing a good diamond terran ( not trying to boost my ego or anything , but people are obviously going to ask what level of play, so yeah, diamond eu ).
I must point out that i have not played many 1v1s in SC2 ( maybe 30 ? I don't know exactly, but so few TvTs ) so we both do classic tank marine builds, 1rax fe into tank rine push with combat shield and two medivacs for me and none of us takes much damage, and gets to expand somewhat safely. We end up kind of splitting the map and my goal at this point is to deny the 6 o'clock while taking the bases on my side of the map. ( My goal is pretty much to starve him ) I end up loosing the game and GGing. After the game i ask him why i lost. The answer ? The execution of the build was okay but i lost almost every engagement due to my army being split. So then i ask him : "How should i do to deny this base ?? " - You can't. I was apparently playing the game wrong.
See most of my experience of mid / late game TvT comes from watching BW games where there's a lot more positioning involved, and siege tanks actually murder marines. I was trying to hold positions with a reasonnable amount of tanks and some marines to buffer and to be used as anti air. He proceeds to telling me that i just can't deny this base, i have to give it to him somehow. The thing he suggested me to do was try to leave a few siege tanks in the middle and mimmick his movements with my ball of marines medivacs and tanks.
I am a nobody in the scene, i am not even GM, so take my opinion for what it's worth but you can't really break up the ball because it's just so eifficient. I just can't hold a position with a limited amount of units, at least not as terran, but i don't see it happening too much with the other races, we do see HTs or infestors being left at bases but you just can't do anything when a maxed out army comes knocking at your door, and it's not about making units that utterly destroy all of the opponent's ball, it's about giving units that, if left somewhere, can trade very cost eifficiently ( picture a storm killing 10 hydras in BW for instance, or a couple of siege tanks +1 bunker behind supply wall on one of those side expos on Fightning spirit ) if left in small numbers.
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On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the best thing you can ask for if you are a spectator .
huh WTF?! It's indeed the worse thing.. Don't you think it's way better to watch several small fights everywhere around the map with counter attacks, drops, etc?
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On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group?
With smaller control groups, it would be almost the same. It will take a bit more skills, but good people will be able to have like 5+ control groups for their army and do 1a2a3a4a5a at the same point, only to have all their units in deathball once again. The solution has been suggested many times, and it is to naturally make units avoid other units so you actually need many more clicks if you want to keep them in a tight group (not just 1a2a). But then, they would need to completely rebalance the game around that (particularly AoE, it'd need to be stronger).
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I think you missed to add the Viper - 'Abduct'.
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On July 02 2012 01:16 Snoodles wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the best thing you can ask for if you are a spectator . Are you serious? As a spectator when I'm watching a ZvP I tab out for a few minutes because everything in the first 10 minutes is just watching two guys macro.
And how does that relate to deathballs? You can get high tier units in a game without pure macro for the first 10 minutes. That is just a function of how the match up has evolved up to this point.
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On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to
the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball.
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On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the best thing you can ask for if you are a spectator .
Romanians have learned sarcasm : D
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Russian Federation823 Posts
I dont liek these approaches:
- Tempest will fit very well into a deathball, also Viper.
- The mines will be added to secure counter attacking paths when nmoving out the mech deathball. In BW actually units were necessary to lay the mines, which made them a separate squad on the map.
I only see two options, as blizzard will never remove collossus (i never will understand why):
- decrease dps of general purpose units
- add friendly fire to splash damage (liek already in tanks)
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On July 02 2012 01:27 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:07 Fragile51 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:01 Existor wrote:
WIth new raiders you will have 1-2 less zealots/roaches or 3-4 marines less, nothing more.
It's more interesting how old unit combinations will work vs new ones. Like BattleHelions + marauders or Warhounds against protoss and zerg.
ANd also remember, that widow mine can be edited hugely, so it can take ZERO time do detonate, but it's a new ability for raven, that got cheaper cost. It's only example. That widow mine can be built from tech-lab only or realized as a new ability for Warhound. Come on, don't act like everyone's just going to make one of these units and call it a day. Imagine having 4 oracles shutting down 4 bases of mining at the same time if you have the multitasking to pull it off. Imagine having 2 tempest on two different sides of the map, harassing the production in the main as well as the mining on the 5th. I dgaf about the new unit comps, i'm happy that large amounts of mutlitasking will be rewarded and even encouraged in HoTS. Multitasking? Lol, it will take virtually no multitasking to manage 4 Oracles, since they're so fast and are guaranteed to survive. Tempests won't be a worthwhile investment unless you're SUPER ahead, because both Terran and Zerg already mass up Vikings/Corruptors respectively.
why don't we wait until beta comes out before making these kind of statements, especially regarding to units interactions and balance
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On July 02 2012 00:58 BiG wrote:
I dont even think the deatball is a problem anymore. The whole thing was present like 1 year ago, but nowadays there is so much harass/drop involved in all races.
also i dont think those new units will change anything in that regard. yes there might be more harass, but in the end you need a fighting army.
If you can't see the deathball today, then you need glasses son. It's just as much of a problem today as it was a year ago.
No, I don't think HotS will fix this. It will never be fixed unless Blizzard sucks it up and admits that their pathing engine is the problem and fixes it.
the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball.
No, it's a direct result of the pathing AI. Pathing is what allows splash damage to be so effective and reduces the effectiveness of melee units against a clump of ranged units.
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On July 02 2012 01:43 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball.
deathball is a result of units interaction, not unlimited unit selections. There just need to be greater reward for mult-tasking then pros will head toward that direction.
TvZ and TvT are both good example, until recently. Having units moving so fast such as lings, units synergy like protoss death balls and no option for heavy AoE type dmg is why sc2 shifts toward deathballs. But even then, as player gets better those problem shifts away slightly
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the "deathball" is the worse thing to have ever happened to this game.
the main contributors are colosus, and brood lords(the fact that they spawn broodlings).
both of these units are the biggest A move units in the game. u do not micro them what so ever unless they are in danger of dying in which case the only "micro" u do is to pull them back behind ur main army....... thats why i find it insanely annoying when a caster compliments a pro player about his "amazing" colo micro or that he microed his colo "well". srsly...
but this game has many problems aside from the mighty ball of death. ever race (witth the exception of terran) has a unit that they HAVE to make because without that unit they just flat out lose the game.
for toss its sentries. you pretty much need sentries in any army comp u make for early and mid game unless ur going pure blink stalkers.
for zerg its infestors. you pretty much need them. without infestors even ur broodlords will fall quickly to simple marine compositions. without infestors ultras are even more useless then they already are. the only case in which you do not need infestors is if your going a muta baneling build, and if ur going muta bane you HAVE to make banelings. if u dont make banelings u just flat out lose, unless you have infestors instead of banes......
the game is just at a very stupid place right now and i hope HoTS fixes alot of whats wrong with the game by introducing a ton of new strats combined with old strats.
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On July 02 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:43 a176 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball. deathball is a result of units interaction, not unlimited unit interaction. There just need to be greater reward for mult-tasking then pros will head toward that direction. TvZ and TvT are both good example, until recently. Having units moving so fast such as lings, units synergy like protoss death balls and no option for heavy AoE type dmg is why sc2 shifts toward deathballs. But even then, as player gets better those problem shifts away slightly
i agree. i absolutely hate what tvz has become (ling infestor into broodlords). Watching marine tank vs ling bling muta back in the day was the best thing I have seen in this game to this date. The amount of micro and control required to fight that comp was incredible.
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On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group?
That's my dream, i want less units in group control
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Imo the best way of splitting up the deathball is increasing AoE damage.
If you have a lot of single targeting units (e.g. marines) you want them clumped up so that more can fire at the same time.
However if powerful AoE is on the field the best players will split their army up and spread it out. This already happens quite a lot in SC2.
What i would like to see is yet more firepower given to aoe units so that moving around a big army becomes extremely dangerous due to the way units naturally clump up and so the metagame of strategies and tactics will change to reflect the danger of having a big ball of units.
This would be good for the game because spectators could watch either multiple small engagements around the map, or one big battle which would be lengthened by the fact that players couldnt keep their whole army together and it would become more of a running battle with constant reinforcing. This makes micro more apparent and more important (as there would simply be more of it to do).
There's been a huge amount of discussion over how sc:bw is better than sc2 or bw has a higher skill ceiling and similar topics. A large amount of that is down to how in BW you had to do a whole lot of babysitting of your units or they'd be unable to cross a bridge or something. In BW the units had a tendency to spread out, when a lot of the time you wanted them clumped up for the single-target dps to be higher. There's no reason why SC2 can't require the same sort of control but in the opposite direction; splitting up units and avoiding aoe.
This happens a lot already i know, but i reckon storm, fungal and siege tanks should all have an increased damage radius in HotS
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On July 02 2012 01:52 rysecake wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:43 a176 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball. deathball is a result of units interaction, not unlimited unit interaction. There just need to be greater reward for mult-tasking then pros will head toward that direction. TvZ and TvT are both good example, until recently. Having units moving so fast such as lings, units synergy like protoss death balls and no option for heavy AoE type dmg is why sc2 shifts toward deathballs. But even then, as player gets better those problem shifts away slightly i agree. i absolutely hate what tvz has become (ling infestor into broodlords). Watching marine tank vs ling bling muta back in the day was the best thing I have seen in this game to this date. The amount of micro and control required to fight that comp was incredible.
the main problem with mutas bling is that it was a very fragile comp. terrans have learned to deal with it in a very simple way. get 3 atk and 3 armor on marines and split.
turtling up and making a ton of orbitals also makes harassing scv lines not nearly as effective as it should because of mules from a ton of orbitals.
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On July 02 2012 01:55 Ballistixz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:52 rysecake wrote:On July 02 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:43 a176 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball. deathball is a result of units interaction, not unlimited unit interaction. There just need to be greater reward for mult-tasking then pros will head toward that direction. TvZ and TvT are both good example, until recently. Having units moving so fast such as lings, units synergy like protoss death balls and no option for heavy AoE type dmg is why sc2 shifts toward deathballs. But even then, as player gets better those problem shifts away slightly i agree. i absolutely hate what tvz has become (ling infestor into broodlords). Watching marine tank vs ling bling muta back in the day was the best thing I have seen in this game to this date. The amount of micro and control required to fight that comp was incredible. the main problem with mutas bling is that it was a very fragile comp. terrans have learned to deal with it in a very simple way. get 3 atk and 3 armor on marines and split.
im not gonna get into whether it was easier to execute for terran or zerg, don't like getting into that bullshit. but the fact that it required lots of micro from both ends was what made it interesting. ling infestor is such a boring comp to watch. press f and a.
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On July 02 2012 01:53 Zrana wrote:
Imo the best way of splitting up the deathball is increasing AoE damage.http:/www.teamliquid.net/forum/smilies.php
If you have a lot of single targeting units (e.g. marines) you want them clumped up so that more can fire at the same time.
However if powerful AoE is on the field the best players will split their army up and spread it out. This already happens quite a lot in SC2.
What i would like to see is yet more firepower given to aoe units so that moving around a big army becomes extremely dangerous due to the way units naturally clump up and so the metagame of strategies and tactics will change to reflect the danger of having a big ball of units.
This would be good for the game because spectators could watch either multiple small engagements around the map, or one big battle which would be lengthened by the fact that players couldnt keep their whole army together and it would become more of a running battle with constant reinforcing. This makes micro more apparent and more important (as there would simply be more of it to do).
There's been a huge amount of discussion over how sc:bw is better than sc2 or bw has a higher skill ceiling and similar topics. A large amount of that is down to how in BW you had to do a whole lot of babysitting of your units or they'd be unable to cross a bridge or something. In BW the units had a tendency to spread out, when a lot of the time you wanted them clumped up for the single-target dps to be higher. There's no reason why SC2 can't require the same sort of control but in the opposite direction; splitting up units and avoiding aoe.
This happens a lot already i know, but i reckon storm, fungal and siege tanks should all have an increased damage radius in HotS
This is incorrect. In BW, they didn't tend to spread apart; there was an AI "box" that was made whenever you moved your units. Your units would keep the same formation that they had when they were standing still and you selected them (as far as this was possible, considering obstacles/change of direction). This is exactly what SC2 needs. In SC2, if I manually spread units out, then select them in one group and right click to a location, they will immediately clump together to move there, which is terrible and incredibly annoying.
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On July 02 2012 01:55 Ballistixz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:52 rysecake wrote:On July 02 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:43 a176 wrote:On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to the deathball is a direct result of unlimited unit selection. it allows players to be lazy. it allows lazily designed units (read: colossus, tempest) to be overly effective. you dont see harassment groups in sc2 because static defense like a PF is so strong. you need a bigger and bigger ball to take it down; the unit ball is intrinsically more powerful the bigger it gets, so in the end there's no incentive for players to break up the deathball. deathball is a result of units interaction, not unlimited unit interaction. There just need to be greater reward for mult-tasking then pros will head toward that direction. TvZ and TvT are both good example, until recently. Having units moving so fast such as lings, units synergy like protoss death balls and no option for heavy AoE type dmg is why sc2 shifts toward deathballs. But even then, as player gets better those problem shifts away slightly i agree. i absolutely hate what tvz has become (ling infestor into broodlords). Watching marine tank vs ling bling muta back in the day was the best thing I have seen in this game to this date. The amount of micro and control required to fight that comp was incredible. the main problem with mutas bling is that it was a very fragile comp. terrans have learned to deal with it in a very simple way. get 3 atk and 3 armor on marines and split.
muta/bling/ling is still very viable and good against marine heavy comp. the reason why it shifted away is two fold
1) Zerg doesn't need to harass, they are the defender race (unlike in bw). Harassing is optional, and they have a better chance of winning by defending against all harass and powerup in economy, and muta is mainly a harass unit
2) T3 is way too good. Why spend gas on mutas that will eventually be shifted out mid game when you can save all your gas for those amazing t3. Lings, queens, and few infestors are perfectly capable of defending any and all aggression
A direct nerf to T3 or make zerg not a defender race would probably forward this game in a better direction. (At the same time give them gas heavy t2 unit)
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On July 02 2012 01:53 Zrana wrote:
Imo the best way of splitting up the deathball is increasing AoE damage.
If you have a lot of single targeting units (e.g. marines) you want them clumped up so that more can fire at the same time.
However if powerful AoE is on the field the best players will split their army up and spread it out. This already happens quite a lot in SC2.
What i would like to see is yet more firepower given to aoe units so that moving around a big army becomes extremely dangerous due to the way units naturally clump up and so the metagame of strategies and tactics will change to reflect the danger of having a big ball of units.
This would be good for the game because spectators could watch either multiple small engagements around the map, or one big battle which would be lengthened by the fact that players couldnt keep their whole army together and it would become more of a running battle with constant reinforcing. This makes micro more apparent and more important (as there would simply be more of it to do).
There's been a huge amount of discussion over how sc:bw is better than sc2 or bw has a higher skill ceiling and similar topics. A large amount of that is down to how in BW you had to do a whole lot of babysitting of your units or they'd be unable to cross a bridge or something. In BW the units had a tendency to spread out, when a lot of the time you wanted them clumped up for the single-target dps to be higher. There's no reason why SC2 can't require the same sort of control but in the opposite direction; splitting up units and avoiding aoe.
This happens a lot already i know, but i reckon storm, fungal and siege tanks should all have an increased damage radius in HotS
I completely agree with this: making some units actually scary ( siege tanks and HTs come to mind ) who, through sheer imbalance of their splash damage, can make it so that numpbers don't really matter too much, would greatly help reduce this " deathball syndrome "
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EPT
