EPTThis is def true, The main problem with SC2 is and will always be that some units kill stuff to easily compared to others, a single mistake ends u the game, sometimes u spend the whole game winning small advantages just to loose to 2 colossus because u dind't build 6 vikings/corruptorsthat's just bad design, many units in this game reward players in a monstruous way that it shoudn't, There are too many situations where a player loose independant of what happened before. Right now this game is all about preparation, as long as you have the right composition( usually a deathball army) u'll prob win the game no matter what happened, that's why Toss can do the (well i just lost my third so i'll just defend on 2 base build a massive army and hope my opponent doesn't build the counter)
Address the Deathball problem in SC2? - Page 4
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Bazik
Portugal104 Posts
This is def true, The main problem with SC2 is and will always be that some units kill stuff to easily compared to others, a single mistake ends u the game, sometimes u spend the whole game winning small advantages just to loose to 2 colossus because u dind't build 6 vikings/corruptorsthat's just bad design, many units in this game reward players in a monstruous way that it shoudn't, There are too many situations where a player loose independant of what happened before. Right now this game is all about preparation, as long as you have the right composition( usually a deathball army) u'll prob win the game no matter what happened, that's why Toss can do the (well i just lost my third so i'll just defend on 2 base build a massive army and hope my opponent doesn't build the counter) | ||
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Scorch
Austria3371 Posts
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tili
United States1332 Posts
ALso, someone should get the OP some shiny graphics  | ||
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FLuE
United States1012 Posts
Right now the game is just to AoE and hard counter dependent. It makes the outcomes of fights to predictable negating micro or positioning when you simply have the wrong composition. This relates to death balls because death balls are the easiest way to put out the most dps possible against any composition. Basically protect your high dps/AoE units and let your lesser units be worthless cannon fodder. I just think what happens in games is that when you realize you have the wrong composition players delay and ball their units up, wait for the best possible trade while banking resources in an attempt to get the right units. More units in sc2 need to be viable so that each race isn't so dependent on a few useful units, most of which perform best balled together. | ||
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Bazik
Portugal104 Posts
The Terran problem... since the pathing in this game allows units to cluster so much terran Bio Ball Is better the more you have it blizzard acknowledge this very early on, the units themselves create a wall around them making so that only a small group can be hit at a time hence the more u have the higher the percentage of units that are pretty much immune, if u add the fact that they also have very nice range... enough said The Protoss problem... very simple actually, that's how their designed... warp gate/forcefield/blink/storm are all mechanics that increase the power of the units exponentially so the units have to be garbage on their own, add that to the fact that protoss have units with insane (I MEAN INSANE) dmg in the form of colossus which can 2 shot something like half the units in the game, immortals have the same charectristic but only vs armored and void rays the same... basically since their dps outputs is so insane they have to be trash on their own or they would be invencible. The Zerg problem... Blizzard stated very early on they wanted Zerg to be the "mass" race basically they made all units bad so that ur forced to have many or their just bad... Examples 2 broods are terrible... 2 ultras are terrible... 10 roachs are terrible(forget that roaches are almost allways terrible[in the early game cause their week and in the late cause they cost too much supply] sorry for the rant) anyway my point about Zerg is that Zerg is very bad in low numbers, a few of anything on Zerg is just bad... U do a drop of 4 Hydras and u just laugh at how bad and cost inneficient they are on low numbers etc... These are just a few examples of major design (IMO mistakes) that have forced this deathball game we all love and cherish. Honestly if I could ask for something is for the game to not be so swingy sunddently i'm destroying my opponent he remembers he has dt's sends 2 to each expo and I proceed to loose a game that I have been destroying for the last 30m this has happened so many over the last few years is not even funny... My 2 cents | ||
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IcED Bk
Canada245 Posts
On October 28 2013 15:42 bearhug wrote: We all know that the deathball problem is a flaw of sc2. ... no offence that's just a dumb topic to start and assuming 100% of sc2 players agree with that statement. Essentially you started a flame war now between protoss vs zerg/terran. This was only posted because Dear won WCS champion and showed us unbelievable skill in micro and macro to hold off attacks, tech, and counter attack to win. Understand this is Dear, your not going to click find game and find anyone with similar abilities (maybe 1% I'm not even sure but its rare). Played all 3 races its hard for protoss to be the aggressor unless its some sort of all in. Hellons and speedlings give good map control and vision and come sooner then blink stalkers (there still good tho). Protoss turtle will just happen during this time, and then it leads into a death ball situation since zerg more then terran can somewhat throw away units at a better expense then a protoss army. Losing a couple units like sentry or immo can cost you the game if your army is outside the base and 50 speedlings run by or a stem bio ball rolls on top of your army. So why risk it? Death ball is not an issue, its part of RTS as well protoss since it is the SAFEST option (to turtle) for them to get their high end tech to be able to SURVIVE mid and late game. That's my opinion of the whole death ball ordeal. Hopefully people feel its not an issue with the game its how protoss has to survive. Its not like I particularly enjoy sitting in my base as if stepping outside is a high chance of death if I'm not comfortable. | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
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Suikakuju
Germany238 Posts
On October 28 2013 22:36 IcED Bk wrote: Death ball is not an issue, its part of RTS as well protoss since it is the SAFEST option (to turtle) for them to get their high end tech to be able to SURVIVE mid and late game. I really have to disagree here. I really think it is an issue, if you play the game or if you are an observer, it is really boring to watch/annoying to lose against death balls. Which makes the game uninteresting at some point of watching a game. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On October 28 2013 22:30 Bazik wrote: I think people should worry about defining why the deathballs are so effective in this game IMO it boils down to these and correct me if i'm wrong. The Terran problem... since the pathing in this game allows units to cluster so much terran Bio Ball Is better the more you have it blizzard acknowledge this very early on, the units themselves create a wall around them making so that only a small group can be hit at a time hence the more u have the higher the percentage of units that are pretty much immune, if u add the fact that they also have very nice range... enough said The Protoss problem... very simple actually, that's how their designed... warp gate/forcefield/blink/storm are all mechanics that increase the power of the units exponentially so the units have to be garbage on their own, add that to the fact that protoss have units with insane (I MEAN INSANE) dmg in the form of colossus which can 2 shot something like half the units in the game, immortals have the same charectristic but only vs armored and void rays the same... basically since their dps outputs is so insane they have to be trash on their own or they would be invencible. The Zerg problem... Blizzard stated very early on they wanted Zerg to be the "mass" race basically they made all units bad so that ur forced to have many or their just bad... Examples 2 broods are terrible... 2 ultras are terrible... 10 roachs are terrible(forget that roaches are almost allways terrible[in the early game cause their week and in the late cause they cost too much supply] sorry for the rant) anyway my point about Zerg is that Zerg is very bad in low numbers, a few of anything on Zerg is just bad... U do a drop of 4 Hydras and u just laugh at how bad and cost inneficient they are on low numbers etc... These are just a few examples of major design (IMO mistakes) that have forced this deathball game we all love and cherish. Honestly if I could ask for something is for the game to not be so swingy sunddently i'm destroying my opponent he remembers he has dt's sends 2 to each expo and I proceed to loose a game that I have been destroying for the last 30m this has happened so many over the last few years is not even funny... My 2 cents Such a bad post, not only are some statements pretty wrong (roaches bad in small numbers), you then complain about dts in a thread that is about deathballs, you cant be serious. At least you gave me a good laugh, ty for that. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
I think the biggest issues with the game at this point aren't anything to do with "deathballing", which is a largely solved problem on the highest level, but rather to do with viability of tech trees in certain matchups. Terrran in particular is forced into compositions that, while fun and micro intensive and rewarding of multitask, tend to be very samey from game to game in both TvP and TvZ. Blizzard's top priority at this point should be to solve the Terran tech tree issue. | ||
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Darkdwarf
Sweden960 Posts
On October 28 2013 15:53 Pandain wrote: I don't think deathball is playing as big of a role as you think it is lately. Agreed. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Another balancing factor was that the actual deathball was more like a large army. Only a third to half of a maxed army could be attacking at the same time in a full on engagement. Finally there were real tradeoffs to unit power in BW. Any unit with super strong abilities or splash attacks had some kind of massive disadvantage than meant they needed positioning or micro to not be easy targets. Siege tanks were immobile and had overkill/friendly fire, Lurkers were fairly short ranged and took a lot of time to build. Reavers were slow and had a really bad attack that just haapended to do a lot of damage. All units that could do a lot of damage with splash were significantly hindered in functioning as a deathball. I'm not saying that BW pathing and design are the direction to go, but we should look at the things in BW that forced players to play in exiting ways and find the reasons they worked. Make units that do a lot of damage have severe trouble fighting on the move or functioning without some level of micro. Let armies have good options for disengaging. Area control is being used as a buzz word far to often, but some kind of mechanic is needed to delay a big push to allow army repositioning. | ||
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meadbert
United States681 Posts
To discourage Deathballs you actually want to to have lots of AOE with areas that are as large as possible. The OP is correct that you want to have smaller ranges. You always want to prevent stacking of units (flying units and colossus promote death balls) Also having ability that do not stack on each other (Storm + Fungal) discourages deathballs. Basically there is little point in running around with 20 High Templar since you cannot storm with all of them at once. You are better off having a few here and a few there. Finally it is important to be able to disengage. If you can simultaneously attack on 3 fronts and then retreat where ever the death ball is but do economic damage on the other fronts then that forces players to split their armies. If instead the army that engages the deathball is stuck and unable to retreat then you lose 1/3 of your army for some economic damage and the multi-pronged attack loses some of its power. | ||
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TaShadan
Germany1979 Posts
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Squat
Sweden7978 Posts
On October 28 2013 22:55 awesomoecalypse wrote: The game at the highest level is currently less deathbally than its been at any point since the WoL beta. Virtually every game now features at least some degree of harass by both sides throughout the game, and multi-pronged attacks throughout the mid and late game are the norm in most matchups at this point. If you look at the most recent WCS Finals and the GSL right before that, the games where one side just turtled and macroed up a big ball and a-moved it across the map to win with one big battle are absolutely the minority at this point, and most of the games feature at least some degree of action on multiple fronts at various points throughout the game. I think the biggest issues with the game at this point aren't anything to do with "deathballing", which is a largely solved problem on the highest level, but rather to do with viability of tech trees in certain matchups. Terrran in particular is forced into compositions that, while fun and micro intensive and rewarding of multitask, tend to be very samey from game to game in both TvP and TvZ. Blizzard's top priority at this point should be to solve the Terran tech tree issue. It's definitely gotten better, though it still has a long way to go. Problem is, sooner or later you run into a ceiling for how much you can buff harassment tools, before they just take over gameplay. If we truly want to break the mold of 3 bases - turtle - 200 supply - move out in big clump scenario, there needs to be some real, substantial benefits to aggressive expansion all over the map, and units or defenses that can reliably defend outlying expansions against a superior force long enough for the player being attacked to have a realistic chance of responding, and also preferably making attacking into a defended position much less of an enticing prospect, even with a larger force. Right now, if a maxed army rolls into an expo with 20-ish supply of units and some static def there to defend, the blob army just sweeps everything aside while taking token damage at worst. This is why TvT is so amazing in HotS, because positional play and zone control is actually a viable method of taking and holding expansions. In ZvP, unless your maxed army is in position to defend your base against your opponents maxed army, that base is fucked. It's like watching two different games. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
This is why TvT is so amazing in HotS, because positional play and zone control is actually a viable method of taking and holding expansions. In ZvP, unless your maxed army is in position to defend your base against your opponents maxed army, that base is fucked. It's like watching two different games. Thats the thing though. Actually watching ZvP, I don't think its actually that deathbally at all, apart from a few specific builds (like the 2-1 all-in timings Stardust was using in every ZvP during the summer). If you watch Her0, or sOs, or Dear (all 3 of whom rank among the top PvZ players in the world), none of them have a playstyle that is deathbally at all. They're harassing with stalkers, prisms or stargate units throughout the entire game, they're active all over the map probing for weaknesses and counterattacking all over the place. Hell, when he played against Soulkey, Dear even managed to make Colossus fun, because he was just constantly moving them into better positions, splitting them up , pulling them back at the last second to save them ,etc. When I think PvZ deathball, I think stuff like a PartinG soultrain, or the old school Colossus+Gateway+Void Ray bigass ball a-moved for the win. But most of the best PvZ players in the world play nothing like that at this point. They play harass-oriented, multitask heavy styles with lots of prism, stargate and gateway heavy play often with blink. PvZ is a fun matchup these days. PvP is a great matchup. PvT has evolved the least in terms of composition, but the level of play has gotten unbelievably high. I don't think Protoss is in a bad place in terms of either spectator value or skill ceiling, and I don't think deathballing is really a big problem these days. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12435 Posts
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Squat
Sweden7978 Posts
On October 28 2013 23:30 awesomoecalypse wrote: Thats the thing though. Actually watching ZvP, I don't think its actually that deathbally at all, apart from a few specific builds (like the 2-1 all-in timings Stardust was using in every ZvP during the summer). If you watch Her0, or sOs, or Dear (all 3 of whom rank among the top PvZ players in the world), none of them have a playstyle that is deathbally at all. They're harassing with stalkers, prisms or stargate units throughout the entire game, they're active all over the map probing for weaknesses and counterattacking all over the place. Hell, when he played against Soulkey, Dear even managed to make Colossus fun, because he was just constantly moving them into better positions, splitting them up , pulling them back at the last second to save them ,etc. When I think PvZ deathball, I think stuff like a PartinG soultrain, or the old school Colossus+Gateway+Void Ray bigass ball a-moved for the win. But most of the best PvZ players in the world play nothing like that at this point. They play harass-oriented, multitask heavy styles with lots of prism, stargate and gateway heavy play often with blink. PvZ is a fun matchup these days. PvP is a great matchup. PvT has evolved the least in terms of composition, but the level of play has gotten unbelievably high. I don't think Protoss is in a bad place in terms of either spectator value or skill ceiling, and I don't think deathballing is really a big problem these days. Eh, agree to disagree then, I find any protoss matchup about as fun as shaving my balls with a cheese grater. It's better, but nearly good enough. The doompush is still far too powerful imo, and I would like to see the shit nerfed out of colossus/ff/swarm hosts/vipers. The less I ever have to watch those things, the better. TvT is still the only genuinely good match in SC2, maybe ZvT with some exceptions. As I said, I would like to see some real changes to the economy system and much better defensive tools against blob armies. | ||
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RampancyTW
United States577 Posts
Just look at this gem! On October 28 2013 16:53 Talin wrote: I don't think that games are better now than they were in 2010-11 skillwise. The builds are more refined and players have deeper knowledge of all the strategic nuances, but they're not any more skilled than they were back in the day. The game simply doesn't reward high-octane, high skill requirement plays - and more than often ends up punishing them for the smallest of mistakes. It's more of a flashy thing that ultimately doesn't have a lot of impact on the outcome of the game. You can have godly execution, but make one bad decision or misjudge the situation for a minute, and the player who was being taken to school all game long will suddenly get the correct composition and poop all over you. Yawn. The game will never evolve to the point of rewarding skill based plays, because it was not designed that way. I like that the more high-level players show that deathball play is suboptimal, the more idiots on TL whine about how the deathball is the death knell of SC2. Newsflash: the solution to deathball play is to stop playing with a deathball, because good non-deathball play will trump good deathball play almost every time. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
Eh, agree to disagree then, I find any protoss matchup about as fun as shaving my balls with a cheese grater. It's better, but nearly good enough. Yeah, I don't understand or agree with that at all. These most recent WCS finals were fucking fantastic and had tons of great games, and it was the most Protoss-heavy major tournament of the year. Nearly every match involved a Protoss, and it produced tons and tons of amazing games. Dear especially was just showcasing incredible play in every single game, and his series with Maru was jaw-droppingly good...and, more relevant to the thread at hand, almost none of the games featured "deathball" play in any meaningful sense. | ||
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