EPTOn July 31 2012 03:16 Grapefruit wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Okay, so a few days ago I made a thread about Terran in HotS, which was closed pretty much immidiatly. A few days later a new thread was made that only covered one of the topics I used, which is very active right now. I'm not sure how this is fair. Sure, my thread wasn't as facy but it seemed like people were actually starting a discussion rather than premature balance whine.
Threads here:
+ Show Spoiler +
Because of this situation I'll give my other topic a second try, more fancy this time. Please note that this is NOT a balance thread. Balance has NOTHING to do with this. It's about poor design that needs to be discussed. I know that a huge portion of the community is under the impression that the changes to the other races are OP while their race is getting the short end of the stick. Please try to be a objectively as possible. I also know that the beta isn't even out, but I think that we all want a solid game, so the earlier the community has an opinion on something the sooner potential issues can get sorted out.
Let's start by re-watching the introduction of it in the latest HotS video Blizzard put out.
Skip to 2:38
Awesome, huh? A little unit that does "terrible, terrible damage". Admitetly, it LOOKS really strong in the video, so strong indeed that there are a lot of people who're worried that it might be overpowered, even Blizzard seems to think so:
This is our biggest fear with this unit and why we aren't entirely sure about it in its current state. It's really hard to balance it in terms of a good cost to make it useful, but at the same time not overly powerful. We are still playing with costs, stats and build times to find the right fit. What you saw in the MLG build certainly isn't final.
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/4940524507#9
But let's look closely at those situations.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8GEN8.png)
We have 15 Speed Roaches vs. 4 Marauders, 10 Marines and 4 Widow Mines. The Roaches "catch" the mines and the Terran units run away, BOOM Roaches dead. That's what it looks like but if you watch closely you'll notice a cut in the scene, which isn't only there to not stretch the video, no the problem is that you can't just run with Bio from Speed Roaches for 10 seconds without losing a big chunk of your squad, and that doesn't even take into accound that a situation like this would almost never happen in a game, there would always be Lings that would force a fight. My point: The way the scene is made makes the Widow Mine look a lot stronger than it actually is, because if the Terran has to run away from the fight you have 10 seconds to remove the units with mines from your army and that should be doable even with bronze level APM and micro.
I can see many of you thinking something like this now "Okay, so the mine isn't effective if your army is to small to engage the enemy but what if it is? Then the opponent has to fight you and deal with the mines that the same time. That IS strong."
No, it isn't strong, it is a gamble at best. Consider the same fight with a few Marines added, so that Terran could take the fight. We could get into a situation, where the outcome of the battle is dependant of the explosions of the Mines, as in if the Mines explode with within the army the Terran wins if not otherwise. So far so good, but this is where we get to the biggest flaw of the Widow Mine, if the unit the Mine is attached to dies, the Mine is gone. So, as a Terran, you would want the units with Mines live for 10 seconds so that they can explode, but that's hardly even possible. You'd have to anti-focus fire the units with Mines (not a-move but pick 2-3 units and let them attack units individually and assigning them a new target once it dies so they don't start to attack the units with mines). Really, think about how high the chances are that you unintentionally take out a unit with a Mine, that doesn't only lose you potential damage, you also basically kill one of your own units. That doesn't even take into consideration that the other player can influence this with his micro.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the second scene.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5ErFw.png)
We got 10 Zealots, 9 Stalkers, 1 Immortal and 2 Collossi versus 10 Battle Hellions, 7 Warhounds and 3 Widow Mines. In Blizzards video the Mines attach themselves to the Colossi and 1 Stalker and Terran wins the fight pretty easy.
I've recreated this scene in a HotS unit tester, trying to be very precise about the units placements and this is what happened:
Note, not a single Mines gets to detonate because the Zealots, who caught them, die far too quick.
You might think that it's okay that they sometimes attach to "good" and sometimes to "bad" units, which is a risk you have to take.
That's bad for three reasons, first of all, SC2 isn't a game about luck second what is even more important: even if it lands on a "good" unit you might not even want it to live that long and try to snipe is ASAP and now the third and biggest reason: If you get units instead of the Mines you win the fights straight up! (3 Marauders in the first scene and 1 Warhound and 1 Battle Hellion) So why would anybody want to take that risk?
Also take into consideration that the other player will know about the option of Widow Mines and play accordingly. Protoss, will have an Observer (like pretty much always) Zergs will have Overseeers and Terran will scan like for burrowed Banes or maybe even build Ravens. That reduces the chance of a successful detonation pretty much to zero.
The only usage that leaves for the Widow Mine is to put it in chokes or defensive position to spot for units and deal some damage. The problem with that is that this neither is how the unit is promoted nor is this needed in the Terran army. Terran already has Sensor Towers, Bunkers, Turrets, Tanks, Scans and Pfs, which offer great tools for map awareness as well as defensive options.
Okay, that much to the current situation, now my idea how to change this, feel free to criticize it and suggest changes, because that's want this thread is for.
I think a good option to make the Widow Mine viable as the unit it is promoted as would be to let the Mine deal damage even if the units its attached to dies. I think a good way to do this would be to to let it deal percentaged damage depending on how long the Mine has to detonate naturally. Example: The max damge is 200 after 10 seconds, if the Mine unit gets killed after 1 second it deals 20 damge if it dies after 5 seconds 100 and so on. I think this could lead to exiting moments and intense micro battles.
Okay, now what do you think about this matter? Remember this is not about balance or races, it's about getting viable units that enrich the game, not units that nobody ever uses because of certain issues.
EDIT:
To all the people that keep saying that it is not intended as a direct combat unit:
If it is not intended like that they shouldn't promote it like that. This is totally misleading.
Okay, so a few days ago I made a thread about Terran in HotS, which was closed pretty much immidiatly. A few days later a new thread was made that only covered one of the topics I used, which is very active right now. I'm not sure how this is fair. Sure, my thread wasn't as facy but it seemed like people were actually starting a discussion rather than premature balance whine.
Threads here:
+ Show Spoiler +
Because of this situation I'll give my other topic a second try, more fancy this time. Please note that this is NOT a balance thread. Balance has NOTHING to do with this. It's about poor design that needs to be discussed. I know that a huge portion of the community is under the impression that the changes to the other races are OP while their race is getting the short end of the stick. Please try to be a objectively as possible. I also know that the beta isn't even out, but I think that we all want a solid game, so the earlier the community has an opinion on something the sooner potential issues can get sorted out.
I think the Widow Mine is fundamentally flawed in its design and I am going to explain why.
Let's start by re-watching the introduction of it in the latest HotS video Blizzard put out.
Skip to 2:38
Awesome, huh? A little unit that does "terrible, terrible damage". Admitetly, it LOOKS really strong in the video, so strong indeed that there are a lot of people who're worried that it might be overpowered, even Blizzard seems to think so:
This is our biggest fear with this unit and why we aren't entirely sure about it in its current state. It's really hard to balance it in terms of a good cost to make it useful, but at the same time not overly powerful. We are still playing with costs, stats and build times to find the right fit. What you saw in the MLG build certainly isn't final.
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/4940524507#9
But let's look closely at those situations.
We have 15 Speed Roaches vs. 4 Marauders, 10 Marines and 4 Widow Mines. The Roaches "catch" the mines and the Terran units run away, BOOM Roaches dead. That's what it looks like but if you watch closely you'll notice a cut in the scene, which isn't only there to not stretch the video, no the problem is that you can't just run with Bio from Speed Roaches for 10 seconds without losing a big chunk of your squad, and that doesn't even take into accound that a situation like this would almost never happen in a game, there would always be Lings that would force a fight. My point: The way the scene is made makes the Widow Mine look a lot stronger than it actually is, because if the Terran has to run away from the fight you have 10 seconds to remove the units with mines from your army and that should be doable even with bronze level APM and micro.
I can see many of you thinking something like this now "Okay, so the mine isn't effective if your army is to small to engage the enemy but what if it is? Then the opponent has to fight you and deal with the mines that the same time. That IS strong."
No, it isn't strong, it is a gamble at best. Consider the same fight with a few Marines added, so that Terran could take the fight. We could get into a situation, where the outcome of the battle is dependant of the explosions of the Mines, as in if the Mines explode with within the army the Terran wins if not otherwise. So far so good, but this is where we get to the biggest flaw of the Widow Mine, if the unit the Mine is attached to dies, the Mine is gone. So, as a Terran, you would want the units with Mines live for 10 seconds so that they can explode, but that's hardly even possible. You'd have to anti-focus fire the units with Mines (not a-move but pick 2-3 units and let them attack units individually and assigning them a new target once it dies so they don't start to attack the units with mines). Really, think about how high the chances are that you unintentionally take out a unit with a Mine, that doesn't only lose you potential damage, you also basically kill one of your own units. That doesn't even take into consideration that the other player can influence this with his micro.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the second scene.
We got 10 Zealots, 9 Stalkers, 1 Immortal and 2 Collossi versus 10 Battle Hellions, 7 Warhounds and 3 Widow Mines. In Blizzards video the Mines attach themselves to the Colossi and 1 Stalker and Terran wins the fight pretty easy.
I've recreated this scene in a HotS unit tester, trying to be very precise about the units placements and this is what happened:
Note, not a single Mines gets to detonate because the Zealots, who caught them, die far too quick.
You might think that it's okay that they sometimes attach to "good" and sometimes to "bad" units, which is a risk you have to take.
That's bad for three reasons, first of all, SC2 isn't a game about luck second what is even more important: even if it lands on a "good" unit you might not even want it to live that long and try to snipe is ASAP and now the third and biggest reason: If you get units instead of the Mines you win the fights straight up! (3 Marauders in the first scene and 1 Warhound and 1 Battle Hellion) So why would anybody want to take that risk?
Also take into consideration that the other player will know about the option of Widow Mines and play accordingly. Protoss, will have an Observer (like pretty much always) Zergs will have Overseeers and Terran will scan like for burrowed Banes or maybe even build Ravens. That reduces the chance of a successful detonation pretty much to zero.
The only usage that leaves for the Widow Mine is to put it in chokes or defensive position to spot for units and deal some damage. The problem with that is that this neither is how the unit is promoted nor is this needed in the Terran army. Terran already has Sensor Towers, Bunkers, Turrets, Tanks, Scans and Pfs, which offer great tools for map awareness as well as defensive options.
Okay, that much to the current situation, now my idea how to change this, feel free to criticize it and suggest changes, because that's want this thread is for.
I think a good option to make the Widow Mine viable as the unit it is promoted as would be to let the Mine deal damage even if the units its attached to dies. I think a good way to do this would be to to let it deal percentaged damage depending on how long the Mine has to detonate naturally. Example: The max damge is 200 after 10 seconds, if the Mine unit gets killed after 1 second it deals 20 damge if it dies after 5 seconds 100 and so on. I think this could lead to exiting moments and intense micro battles.
Okay, now what do you think about this matter? Remember this is not about balance or races, it's about getting viable units that enrich the game, not units that nobody ever uses because of certain issues.
EDIT:
To all the people that keep saying that it is not intended as a direct combat unit:
If it is not intended like that they shouldn't promote it like that. This is totally misleading.
If your first thread was anything like this, then guess what? It was closed because it's a balance whine. The benefit of the widow mine is supposed to be AWAY from your main army, as stated by Blizzard in roughly 100 interviews about HotS.
The widow mine might detonate after 10 seconds (making it fairly weak) or it might detonate after 2 seconds (making it much stronger). It might be OP as shit and detonate instantly, dealing 800 damage in a 10 AoE or it might be completely useless, waiting 20 seconds to detonate and deal 16 damage in a 1.5 AoE. These are just simply stat changes, no change to the actual design of the unit.
Also, even in it's current form, every single problem you state the Widow Mine has, can be fixed by using them better. Put them further ahead of your army, put them (as Blizzard have told us to do) in a counter-attack path, guarding your back-door when you move out.
You haven't given ANY examples of how it's badly designed, only how it's weak. If it's too weak, it'll likely be buffed (I'd like to see maybe less damage, but more AoE and much faster detonation time).
EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that the way to make a deathball less-strong is not to pull supply out of it, as Dustin Browder often suggests (like an idiot), it's to give ways of controlling areas without using up a lot of supply when defending (eg: spider mines, 2 supply tanks, canons + 1-2 HT with the old psi-storm radius, small group of lurkers with a couple of defilers).
