On November 05 2013 00:29 Wombat_NI wrote: It's cool occasionally to see some like that, mitigated by how little the other player can do to reliably avoid the spell.
we don't live in 2012 anymore, zerg has learnt how to bait forcefield energy by distracting/baiting, flanking etc
I still find the ability problematic, baiting and whatnot notwithstanding. If good forcefields are hit, youre fucked.
This for example, abusive forcefield on ramp. how life dealt with it? use two roaches to zone out the sentries.
Watching a player landing good forcefield nowadays is like watching a protoss landing a perfect storm, it is harder to do in Hots somehow and a lot more entertaining
On November 05 2013 00:29 Wombat_NI wrote: It's cool occasionally to see some like that, mitigated by how little the other player can do to reliably avoid the spell.
we don't live in 2012 anymore, zerg has learnt how to bait forcefield energy by distracting/baiting, flanking etc
I still find the ability problematic, baiting and whatnot notwithstanding. If good forcefields are hit, youre fucked.
On November 05 2013 00:29 Wombat_NI wrote: It's cool occasionally to see some like that, mitigated by how little the other player can do to reliably avoid the spell.
we don't live in 2012 anymore, zerg has learnt how to bait forcefield energy by distracting/baiting, flanking etc
I still find the ability problematic, baiting and whatnot notwithstanding. If good forcefields are hit, youre fucked.
On November 05 2013 00:29 Wombat_NI wrote: It's cool occasionally to see some like that, mitigated by how little the other player can do to reliably avoid the spell.
we don't live in 2012 anymore, zerg has learnt how to bait forcefield energy by distracting/baiting, flanking etc
I still find the ability problematic, baiting and whatnot notwithstanding. If good forcefields are hit, youre fucked.
What makes that different from other spells?
Exactly lol Landing a perfect Fungal + Blinding Cloud can literally kill a 200/200 army for free. Or perfect FF storm combo. Or a sick terran EMP on a toss storm based army. Or even fungal + banes. Or a sick widow mine hit (those might as well be categorized as spells lol) Etc etc etc
It's actually moments like THIS (and avoiding them as well) that give the "HOLY SH*T" effect to the game and make them extremely entertaining tbh
There's more you can do to mitigate damage of the likes of storm post-cast
EMP you have the ghost/Templar dance which is cool.
I do like Terrans using medivac pickups to get out of forcefields, would be nice if other races could do things like that reliably. Burrow micro being more responsive would be cool, but problematic given how much Protoss is currently balanced around the spell.
Brood War has spells that are just as potent, in fact some are stronger. The lack of smart cast + BW games not being as dependent on one or two big engagements make this less apparent.
On November 05 2013 01:39 Wombat_NI wrote: There's more you can do to mitigate damage of the likes of storm post-cast
EMP you have the ghost/Templar dance which is cool.
I do like Terrans using medivac pickups to get out of forcefields, would be nice if other races could do things like that reliably. Burrow micro being more responsive would be cool, but problematic given how much Protoss is currently balanced around the spell.
Brood War has spells that are just as potent, in fact some are stronger. The lack of smart cast + BW games not being as dependent on one or two big engagements make this less apparent.
there are actually. For zerg it isn't about using spells to counter Forcefields, it is actually repositioning of the army, which personally find it even cooler than bio split
look at how starbuck kept moving his right flank away, move back when the left flank is coming in after the FF expired, which allows him to get a better concave instead of right flank getting destroyed
Dear vs SoO Game 5 towards the end was pretty awesome too
On November 05 2013 01:39 Wombat_NI wrote: There's more you can do to mitigate damage of the likes of storm post-cast
EMP you have the ghost/Templar dance which is cool.
I do like Terrans using medivac pickups to get out of forcefields, would be nice if other races could do things like that reliably. Burrow micro being more responsive would be cool, but problematic given how much Protoss is currently balanced around the spell.
Brood War has spells that are just as potent, in fact some are stronger. The lack of smart cast + BW games not being as dependent on one or two big engagements make this less apparent.
I agree that FFs are one of the more problematic things in the game, though there is lots of stuff already out there that mitigates them. I think neutral (so no autoattack against them) FFs with 500-1000HP 1-2 armor + building tag would be really neat, as even just 500 HP is still a ton of damage you have to do (especially with 1-2 armor; maybe with shield upgrades), but there would be stuff you can do against it (blow them up with banelings - still needs tons of them, but you could do it in certain situations) or try to focus holes into the FF-wall and abuse them before the next FF can be cast. But with (soon) faster burrow movement, blink, massive units breaking FFs, medivacs (with boosters), more options outside of lowtier ground armies, more useful hydralisks and the overall increase in skill level and knowledge how to deal with FFs I think they have become much less of a deal anyways and are much less integral to Protoss gameplay. The time of the big forcefield gameplay is definitely over and there are only a few dedicated FF rushes/allins left.
On November 05 2013 01:39 Wombat_NI wrote: There's more you can do to mitigate damage of the likes of storm post-cast
EMP you have the ghost/Templar dance which is cool.
I do like Terrans using medivac pickups to get out of forcefields, would be nice if other races could do things like that reliably. Burrow micro being more responsive would be cool, but problematic given how much Protoss is currently balanced around the spell.
Brood War has spells that are just as potent, in fact some are stronger. The lack of smart cast + BW games not being as dependent on one or two big engagements make this less apparent.
I think the problem is sexiness.
Well placed storms in BW and SC2 shreds terran bio to shreds. And its cool *why* they die. Its someone summoning lightning from their mind burning the flesh of all his enemies.
Forcefields are bumps on the ground.
Both are powerful effects that, when used properly, is powerful. Storm requires spread out templars hitting from multiple spots using observers as spotters. They are used to soften bio compositions and tax medivac healing.
Forcefields are close range spells that requires a strong army supporting sentries in order to engage in a brawl with the enemy composition. Its a bit too thuggish for a spellcaster in my book.
On November 04 2013 21:51 dreamseller wrote: well to be fair, production booster mechanics, max supply too quickly, and unit density/clumping are the main premise of most of the conclusions about the design shortcomings in sc2.
i'm going to guess you don't disagree with these design shortcomings, just that the guy is repeating himself?
Unit density/clumping is not real problem though, considering that SC2's AoE even after all the nerfs is good enough to make clumping all the stuff in 1 ball not the best way to play. Production booster is subjective, max supply is legit, but supply workers take is more legit. And yes, repeating these formulae even when it is off-topic is straight up annoying. P. S. Did i say, that i want to see moar micro in SC2, but not moar ported-straight-from-BW-micro :3?
Yeah...no. Unit density and clumping is a problem when combined with what causes it: SC2's near-perfect pathing. In BW, horrible pathing meant chokes and ramps were actually really, really good places for a defensive force. A far smaller force could severely stall or even kill an absolutely massive force. This was because the bad pathing and lack of clumping made it so that only a fraction of a force could deploy their firepower simultaneously. This effect was made worse when an army was on the move, and still worse when the army had to navigate any real obstacle, like a choke or ramp. This played a large part in allowing BW to have massive numbers of engagements all across the map simultaneously. Even with the difficult-to-manage UI, the amount of action in a good game of BW can surpass a lot of SC2 games by a really good margin, with the exception of, say, TvZ 4M vs. ling/bling/muta wars. In SC2, this effect exists on a far, far smaller scale. Armies with perfect pathing and the resulting clumping can deploy the maximum possible amount of firepower nearly instantly, turning the defender's advantage of a superior position into a mere shadow of what it once was. Also makes it a lot more binary, too. Just because you have to split your army for a few seconds doesn't mean clumping is gone, it just means people learned how to dodge. At the very least, if clumping isn't a problem any more, it isn't because of AOE.
On November 05 2013 05:01 RampancyTW wrote: Oh look, another person that doesn't watch high-level SC2 complaining about fundamental problems that don't actually exist.
I actually wrote out several paragraphs taking on what I thought was an obviously wrong viewpoint. Put in similar effort please, this snide remark of yours is an absolute waste of space. You aren't telling me why I'm wrong or anything similar. You're just stroking your ego.
On November 04 2013 21:51 dreamseller wrote: well to be fair, production booster mechanics, max supply too quickly, and unit density/clumping are the main premise of most of the conclusions about the design shortcomings in sc2.
i'm going to guess you don't disagree with these design shortcomings, just that the guy is repeating himself?
Unit density/clumping is not real problem though, considering that SC2's AoE even after all the nerfs is good enough to make clumping all the stuff in 1 ball not the best way to play. Production booster is subjective, max supply is legit, but supply workers take is more legit. And yes, repeating these formulae even when it is off-topic is straight up annoying. P. S. Did i say, that i want to see moar micro in SC2, but not moar ported-straight-from-BW-micro :3?
Yeah...no. Unit density and clumping is a problem when combined with what causes it: SC2's near-perfect pathing. In BW, horrible pathing meant chokes and ramps were actually really, really good places for a defensive force. A far smaller force could severely stall or even kill an absolutely massive force. This was because the bad pathing and lack of clumping made it so that only a fraction of a force could deploy their firepower simultaneously. This effect was made worse when an army was on the move, and still worse when the army had to navigate any real obstacle, like a choke or ramp. This played a large part in allowing BW to have massive numbers of engagements all across the map simultaneously. Even with the difficult-to-manage UI, the amount of action in a good game of BW can easily surpass almost any given game of SC2 that isn't played at a low level. In SC2, this effect exists on a far, far smaller scale. Armies with perfect pathing and the resulting clumping can deploy the maximum possible amount of firepower nearly instantly, turning the defender's advantage of a superior position into a mere shadow of what it once was. Even worse, during those few times where the defender's advantage is really relevant (protoss forcefields), it is usually binary. Either the zerg walks up the ramp and dies to forcefields because he is bad, or he sits back, cancels the protoss's third and then wins the game after a few boring minutes of macroing up. Just because you have to split your army for a few seconds doesn't mean clumping is gone, it just means people learned how to dodge. It doesn't fix the underlying problems.
SC2's pathing is still terrible though, since it does not adjust the path on the fly unless you give repeated commands (and yes, i did test it). I won't comment on BW, since i am not qualified to talk about it (no big deal, SC2 is another game after all). I can agree, that defensive effect of BW's chokes (and resulting brainfarts of units) does not really exist in SC2 (well, mostly, lol). But i do not think that anyone needs to play SC2 (or BW even) to understand that before giving maximum amounts of damage output units need to have actual concave/surround , that suddenly needs superior positioning on attacker's side. Or ability to get it on the fly. And sorry, i was not talking about naked collosi or naked siege tanks (idea of them being actually fine on their own is bad for my common sense). And no, my common sense (yes, only it) tells me that BW had *more* engagements because a: limited unit selection does promote idea of actually splitting armies up. And ofc bad pathing neglecting any kind of power usual 1-a army in SC2 can possibly have (even in worst condition aka stalkers blocking zealots, collosi blocking collosi and templars lagging miles behind).
On November 05 2013 05:01 RampancyTW wrote: Oh look, another person that doesn't watch high-level SC2 complaining about fundamental problems that don't actually exist.
You are kinda annoying, these problems are there, even if you don't acknowledge them as problems. Just look at roachwars for example. Or pretty much all pvps, they all are one big blob that fights, even if there are some warpin zealots who try to harass. I mean i understand that you like sc2, i do too, but its pretty delusional if you think these problems don't exist (that means sc2 could be even better without these issues!)
On November 05 2013 05:01 RampancyTW wrote: Oh look, another person that doesn't watch high-level SC2 complaining about fundamental problems that don't actually exist.
You are kinda annoying, these problems are there, even if you don't acknowledge them as problems. Just look at roachwars for example. Or pretty much all pvps, they all are one big blob that fights, even if there are some warpin zealots who try to harass. I mean i understand that you like sc2, i do too, but its pretty delusional if you think these problems don't exist (that means sc2 could be even better without these issues!)
Roachwars feel like I'm playing the Nexus in League of Legends. Endless waves of short range troops smacking each other back and forth with a line stretching 1-3 screens of non-stop spitting.
Amazing work LuLush! I really hope that Blizzard truly considers all the points you have laid out on your video. Very informative! I hope they listen for the sake of eSports and the life of SC2
On November 05 2013 05:01 RampancyTW wrote: Oh look, another person that doesn't watch high-level SC2 complaining about fundamental problems that don't actually exist.
You are kinda annoying, these problems are there, even if you don't acknowledge them as problems. Just look at roachwars for example. Or pretty much all pvps, they all are one big blob that fights, even if there are some warpin zealots who try to harass. I mean i understand that you like sc2, i do too, but its pretty delusional if you think these problems don't exist (that means sc2 could be even better without these issues!)
Roachwars are almost entirely micro/positioning/multitasking games that strongly favor the defender. It's pretty much the worst possible example of no defender's advantage, deathball, etc. The actual roach fights might not be exciting, but roach war games make it VERY transparent who the better player was.
Also, modern PvP involves a lot of harrassment/blink-stalker hit squads/constant poking etc. Comments like yours are exactly why I make the "clearly don't watch high-level SC2" comments, because they present such inaccurate pictures of how the matchups are actually played.
On November 05 2013 05:01 RampancyTW wrote: Oh look, another person that doesn't watch high-level SC2 complaining about fundamental problems that don't actually exist.
You are kinda annoying, these problems are there, even if you don't acknowledge them as problems. Just look at roachwars for example. Or pretty much all pvps, they all are one big blob that fights, even if there are some warpin zealots who try to harass. I mean i understand that you like sc2, i do too, but its pretty delusional if you think these problems don't exist (that means sc2 could be even better without these issues!)
Roachwars are almost entirely micro/positioning/multitasking games that strongly favor the defender. It's pretty much the worst possible example of no defender's advantage, deathball, etc. The actual roach fights might not be exciting, but roach war games make it VERY transparent who the better player was.
Also, modern PvP involves a lot of harrassment/blink-stalker hit squads/constant poking etc. Comments like yours are exactly why I make the "clearly don't watch high-level SC2" comments, because they present such inaccurate pictures of how the matchups are actually played.
No they dont, i watch high level sc2 and i think it is pretty accurate. Roachwars and micro in the same sentence are pretty funny too, at least if we talk about real micro and not something like making a concave BEFORE the fight.
There are very flawed views of ZvZ and PvP going on in this thread, that's all I'll say lol I think Rampancy is being a tad bit aggressive, but he's right in saying you guys are a bit behind on how those matchups work.
On November 05 2013 06:08 The_Red_Viper wrote: No they dont, i watch high level sc2 and i think it is pretty accurate. Roachwars and micro in the same sentence are pretty funny too, at least if we talk about real micro and not something like making a concave BEFORE the fight.
Focus fire and burrow micro (and in case of well setup concaves pull-back micro) does exist, nobody has enough APM to incorporate it in useful amounts though.
EPT
