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On February 11 2014 01:53 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 01:40 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 11 2014 01:37 ETisME wrote:On February 11 2014 01:24 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 11 2014 01:18 Ravomat wrote:On February 11 2014 01:06 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 10 2014 22:08 labbe wrote:Morrow, switch to starbow  Even though it is unlikely, this is probably the most realistic solution. Assuming Blizzard will solve this issue is ignorant. They tried to solve it with HOTS, eliminating turtling that was a stated objective of theirs, but of course they manage to make the problem worse because the game designers don't understand the game. Remember how David Kim said they designed the Swarmhost to allow for Zerg to be aggressive in the mid-game? Look how that turned out. Time and again Blizzard has shown an inability to fix problems with SC2. According to DKs AMA recently they aren't unable they are unwilling. They like how it is. He made a critical logical error in his argument and I pointed it out. On February 06 2014 07:20 Pandain wrote:
Do you believe that the swarm host is proving to be used in the way that you wanted it to when you designed the unit for HotS? Do you like the way the swarm host is currently being used by pros? David Kim wrote:
The first question in our minds don't matter as much at this point.
He set out to fix a problem that he identified (Zerg not having aggressive options in the mid game). As we know, he failed. And now he says the problem doesn't matter? What happened to the problem of Zerg having issues being aggressive in the mid game? And why did he try to fix it in the first place!? By ignoring Pandain's question, he basically said the initial problem never existed. And what does that say about him? If the problem did not exist, why did he create the Swarm Host? Because he did think the problem existed, but he was wrong, and is unwilling to admit it. It proves he is unable to correctly identify problems in the game. It isn't that they are unwilling to fix them. They try to "fix" an issue, fail, and then forget about fixing said problem, because they realize the issue actually wasn't a problem in the first place. And we are left the the "results" (ie Swarmhost) which they then try to somehow fit into the game. And often the "results" overlap with existing units , ie Tempests. Remember Tempests solving the non-existent Muta problem in WOL? Yeah, me too. Now Tempests are just a replacement for the Carrier, performing nearly the same role (long range capital ship).Frankly, I'm not sure what is worse: Blizzard's inability to identify real problems with the game, or their inability to implement in the game what they had planned to implement. The Swarm Host is evidence of failure on both fronts. And it is why we are left with a unit that makes the game worse. Let's not even get started with other units like the Warhound. Mass Muta was a problem back in WoL. Tempest was introduced as a unit that is to counter mass muta once it reach critical number in the unit reveal panel, but they have changed it since the beta into a long range siege unit to focus on counting air massive unit The reason is because they went for a different direction on how to deal with mass muta, a buff to phoenix default range. This is probably because of a lot of players saying it will be useless since muta will be able to get a huge mid game advantage and roll the toss before (old) tempest can do anything. Let's assume you said is correct. It just goes to highlight how Blizzard is unable to solve problems in the game. I'd argue that Mass Muta wasn't a problem ,it just took some time to figure out. By the end of WOL, you never really saw it in tournaments, because Mass Blink Stalker and Storm handled it. It became a problem again HOTS when they introduced Muta regen. You can't just say "mass blink stalker and storm" without understanding the "problem" you should do some reading here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=287788it's all about how hard it is to grab that third for protoss and plus other strength. hots was revealed during the time when mass muta was a problem. And it is possible that because infestor broodlord became a big problem so that tempest got the change, which makes complete sense too.
I understand the problem. I was a High Master Protoss at that time. I lived through Mass Muta. But let's not discuss whether or not I actually understand the problem., because it doesn't matter.
We both know that it took some time to figure out. Which is what I said. Then the problem ceased being a problem. The Pheonix range change did not solve the issue, because Phoenixes can't transition. Mass Stalker/Storm did. And thus, by the end of WOL, no high level Zerg was massing Mutas.
And the question becomes, should Blizzard have been developing units to address swings in the meta-game? I feel like that is a rhetorical question, but the answer is no.
They should be developing units to address a stale meta-game.
You could make an argument that the Tempest did just that, being the answer to Broodlords. But then of course, you'd be ignoring the fact the Carrier was already in the game, performing essentially the same role (flying capital ship siege unit). Why didn't they just fix the Carrier and make it viable you might (or I might) ask?
Because they spent all this time developing the Tempest, and were too proud to admit it was time wasted chasing a swing in the meta-game.
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Honestly the main reason I switched from Zerg to random was because I didn't have fun with BL-infestor in WoL and I don't enjoy swarmhost turtle in HotS. I wish Zerg had more aggressive options besides Mutas
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The stronger lategame is still true for P vs. Hence the BW logic still applies in this matchup to some extend.
Perhaps when criticizing turtle playstyles you have to take into account how many complaints there are about all ins, not just blink but roach/bane etc. You cannot disincentivize turtle playstyles without making all ins more potent. It is all about the defenders advantage because strategies and unit compositions evolve meaning just nerfing a unit does not mean less effective all ins in the long run.
Starcraft is already a very volatile game. That means either you make it more volatile in order to encourage aggressive play but then you also encourage cheesing and all ins.
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Well Morrow i agree completly, however the problem does exist since WoL as you already mentioned. To change this (especially the economy system) you need fudamental changes which Blizz doesnt want to do, neither now nor in a addon.
I just can recommend you (and all the others who feel the same) to check out Starbow. It adressed those problems very well and if it keeps growing it might become something big (i hope so).
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Canada13395 Posts
I think this thread is starting to fall apart.
I love this game and these stalemates are extremely rare.
What isn't rare is how hard it is to break a lot of hosts.
They are too efficient in high numbers because they are so hard to break but too weakt to allow transitions with a smaller investment.
I for one would love to see the swarm host changed so that you can gain ground vs them more easily. From a protoss perspective there is no real way to clear locust waves fast enough to gain ground especially if there is static D there.
At least vs mech they need to move up unsieged and you can get a position vs them. Vs locusts you can force them to burrow but can't hold your ground without losing stuff.
I just think between the reach of the locusts their DPS and their beefiness its too hard to gain position or punish them easily before you have a lot of AoE as toss.
Maybe if the locusts spawned less frequently or if they lost HP the longer they were alive/further they've walked it could help.
Also can we stop bringing up starbow? It also has its own flaws and if you gave it enough time broken bits of the game would show themselves.
Hell BW had many broken things and there periods in time where a race was so dominant in a matchup it was considered unwinnable (pvz I'm lookin at you) until someone made a magic discovery and changed the game overnight.
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I really liked the Race design in BW, where Zerg just couldn't deathball against the other races, that way all matchups looked different.
Always felt like in Sc2 every race was balanced and could always deathball and actually had to, because it was to easy to defend the 2 or 3 locations you had. So sitting back and defending is really easy compared to trying to outplay the opponents army and thats why people go for it.
Personally I don't mind games like today happening, it will make players think about why they wasted 2 hours for a draw. And they sat at 70 apm in the end, while they could have actually still made useful actions. Maybe next time both will have better unit control.
+ Show Spoiler +For me the funniest part of the game was when Soulkey found out he can control the Locust themself and used it to dance around and not, like many already found out, that you can kill the Terran army with their own splash. Especially after he used it before to actually come back into the game
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On February 11 2014 02:21 ZeromuS wrote:
Also can we stop bringing up starbow? It also has its own flaws and if you gave it enough time broken bits of the game would show themselves.
The difference is the people who make Starbow are committed to improvement and listen to the community.
On February 11 2014 02:21 ZeromuS wrote:
I just think between the reach of the locusts their DPS and their beefiness its too hard to gain position or punish them easily before you have a lot of AoE as toss.
Again, this is the solution, and I proposed it during the beta:
Instead of having Swarmhosts spawn 2 ranged Locusts every 25 seconds, have a Swarmhost spawn 6-8 melee Broodlings (the same ones that come out of a kill Zerg building with the rough the same stats including fast movespeed) every 10 seconds. However the Broodlings have a timer of ~5 seconds (upgradable to ~8 seconds).
This means that Swarmhosts are much more powerful in small numbers and allow Zerg to tech to late game. But it also means that mass Swarmhosts don't work since Broodling can't walk through each other, and the low life timer means that most of the Broodlings from a mass of Swarmhosts just die off before they do any damage. Thus, once they reach a certain number they reach maximum efficiency and additional Swarmhosts would do literally nothing.
Finally, it means that Swarmhosts aren't really a siege unit anymore, because their range would be reduced. But they'd be really good for splitting up the attention of your opponent and as a harassment unit to harass expansions, and a few Swarmhosts could replace Zerglings for armies.
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You could also remove the locust timer but give them negative regeneration, so they're weaker when further away from their hosts. I don't know if I like this solution though.
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Sorry to bring up Starbow...again... but watching some random guys play starbow is almost as fun as watching kespa players tho i'd definately looooove to see some proper koreans get into starbow and use their apm over there to the fulluest. Would have been amazing.
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On February 11 2014 02:21 ZeromuS wrote:
I think this thread is starting to fall apart.
I love this game and these stalemates are extremely rare.
What isn't rare is how hard it is to break a lot of hosts.
They are too efficient in high numbers because they are so hard to break but too weakt to allow transitions with a smaller investment.
I for one would love to see the swarm host changed so that you can gain ground vs them more easily. From a protoss perspective there is no real way to clear locust waves fast enough to gain ground especially if there is static D there.
At least vs mech they need to move up unsieged and you can get a position vs them. Vs locusts you can force them to burrow but can't hold your ground without losing stuff.
I just think between the reach of the locusts their DPS and their beefiness its too hard to gain position or punish them easily before you have a lot of AoE as toss.
Maybe if the locusts spawned less frequently or if they lost HP the longer they were alive/further they've walked it could help.
Also can we stop bringing up starbow? It also has its own flaws and if you gave it enough time broken bits of the game would show themselves.
Hell BW had many broken things and there periods in time where a race was so dominant in a matchup it was considered unwinnable (pvz I'm lookin at you) until someone made a magic discovery and changed the game overnight.
I'm pretty much with you, even more, I do like it when those stalemates occur. They have their own beauty and there are definitely players who would have shown much greater power than SK or Reality in that game. Allowing them to end the game, given how bad both of them played game1 out while they still were mining and could make decisions.
Essentially, if it wasn't possible for those stalemates to occur, we would have to question the balance of the game, since it would mean that one endgame army beats another - which means ultimately all gameplay should devolve into turtling and rushing out that composition. (and we had those phases of gameplay; BL/Infestor, mass Ghost in TvZ)
But yes, some compositions/units seem to just lean towards this kind of gameplay to begin with and could use tweaks to allow for more momentum swings. Just throwing some random stuff out:
what if SHs were nerfed to something like 25locust lifetime/35cooldown (from 25/25), but had a 2min cooldown ability that lets them "go into overdrive" to spawn something like a double wave of locusts.
So they wouldn't pin down armies as efficiently, but they could actually release a lot of power at one point. Basically something exciting, that "you go for" in critical defensive situations or that you use to push into the opponent.
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4713 Posts
I think I want to add that. Another problem with turtle play, and in general SC2, the game engine is very, very easy to reach a strong localized critical mass.
As in, tanks aren't actually that strong compared to their BW counterparts, they deal way less damage per shot, cost more and take up more supply. The critical difference however, is that in SC2 if you can get a strong enough concentration of tanks into one tiny area, their combined damage makes them incredibly cost efficient.
So SC2 tanks had to be nerfed overall compared to their BW counterpart, because reaching a critical mass is far stronger then it was in BW. Obviously no one wants the old BW interface or pathfinding, I don't either, however there are still a lot of elegant ways to fix this.
Thus, the only good way to adress turtle play, is to tune ALL aoe units in such a way that they start having diminishing returns the more you get. For tanks it should be increasing their damage back but adding overkill. For SH (in case anyone wants to keep them), is as someone has proposed, to make them spawn broodlings, for a shorter period of time but in larger numbers. That way they work better in small numbers, but they trip over themselves once they reach too big a number. Another solution would be adding a sort of a debuff to the locust/broodlings that makes them weaker the more of them are near each other.
Mutalisk also need a fix, they aren't quite aoe units per see, but their bouncing shot is very similar and it allows the to snowball way beyond their regular strength the more there are. Again a solution would be a debuff that makes them weaker if there are too many in a clump.
There isn't any easy way out here, all the aoe units need to be looked at and reworked in some measure or another that makes them way worst in a clump.
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I think David Kims answer is going to be to Buff DT speed LOLOLOLOL all Jokes aside SC2 is a good game though there is no comparison to BW for the game I do believe they can fix the game to the point where it is a competitive game... BUT if they keep doing stupid stuff like Buff Oracle Speed and Nerf TW to 100 energy to Fix "Protoss Greed" LOLOLOLOLOL I STILL LAUGH AT THAT ONE..... Then the game is CTD (CTD = Circling the Drain of the esports society) This Saddens me very much to see things BLATANTLY IMbalanced with such questionable and non addressing ways then labeled as "The Fix"
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On February 11 2014 02:28 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 02:21 ZeromuS wrote:
Also can we stop bringing up starbow? It also has its own flaws and if you gave it enough time broken bits of the game would show themselves.
The difference is the people who make Starbow are committed to improvement and listen to the community. Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 02:21 ZeromuS wrote:
I just think between the reach of the locusts their DPS and their beefiness its too hard to gain position or punish them easily before you have a lot of AoE as toss.
Again, this is the solution, and I proposed it during the beta: Instead of having Swarmhosts spawn 2 ranged Locusts every 25 seconds, have a Swarmhost spawn 6-8 melee Broodlings (the same ones that come out of a kill Zerg building with the rough the same stats including fast movespeed) every 10 seconds. However the Broodlings have a timer of ~5 seconds (upgradable to ~8 seconds). This means that Swarmhosts are much more powerful in small numbers and allow Zerg to tech to late game. But it also means that mass Swarmhosts don't work since Broodling can't walk through each other, and the low life timer means that most of the Broodlings from a mass of Swarmhosts just die off before they do any damage. Thus, once they reach a certain number they reach maximum efficiency and additional Swarmhosts would do literally nothing. Finally, it means that Swarmhosts aren't really a siege unit anymore, because their range would be reduced. But they'd be really good for splitting up the attention of your opponent and as a harassment unit to harass expansions, and a few Swarmhosts could replace Zerglings for armies.
But then they would REALLY overlap with broodlords. It would also force what should be a ranged attack upgrade path into a melee one, making ultralisk / broodlord transitions even stronger. But then.... why bother making broods when they're pretty much exactly the same as swarmhosts?
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It makes it so that your investments and efforts can result in no actual damage. So, instead of having something where every single action and attack matters, you have these drawn out situations where players are just waiting on Time before they do another action. [Proleague match with Soulkey and Reality g1] Soulkey has a bunch of swarm hosts, a single infestor, a few spores and a few queens. Reality has a bunch of vikings, ravens, siege tanks, and a few hellions and thors. The locusts were indefinite while the PDD's were indefinite. So, neither player actually is making any real ground because neither player needs resources or a unit's life (SOMETHING FINITE, NOT INFINITE) to sacrifice.
This is a good point. There's a reason minerals and gas are finite.
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Norway839 Posts
What is the problem exactly?
You get a late-game, players expand towards each other, split the map and then they trade. Whoever trades better (this takes skill) wins.
There's not more to it and there is nothing wrong about it from a game perspective except for most humans finding it boring.
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Blizzard have all the options in the world to promote expanding and aggressive plays in SC2 by making gas units more worthwhile (buff), introducing gas units to T3/T4(!) tech, shifting the mineral:gas ratio of powerful units more towards gas ...
6 workers mining gas get 228 gas per minute.
6 workers mining minerals get 270 minerals per minute.
However:
Gas income is limited to 6 workers per base.
Mineral income is limited to 16-22 workers per base.
If massing gas units was more valuable than mineral units, there would be more incentive to expand without raising the supply cap. A player running on 14gas could very easily break a 8gas (4base turtle) player after accumulating a small bank.
But there are very few units that are heavier on gas than minerals. This is an opportunity that is currently not utilized by SC2.
Claiming the macro design in itself to be terrible is not entirely true because it's the unit costs and resulting compositions that are causing issues, not the mineral/gas game in itself. Very few seem mindful of this.
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On February 10 2014 21:55 MorroW wrote:
i just wanted to share my view on why we see stalemates in starcraft 2 more often than broodwar and why turtle playstyles are much less action packed and uninteresting than they were in broodwar.
Maybe you are just romanticizing broodwar because it was a new experience at the time, so in retrospect the games felt more exciting than in starcraft 2, which you have experienced in a more mature and studied approach.
I believe that to be the case. As such you are right, the problem is more basic than people believe, the problem is your lack of careful introspection, and your mistaken assumption that your experience of the game is to blame on the game, rather than yourself.
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Unfortunately the problem you're bringing up is so deep in the fundamentals of the game, we'll never see a solution for this not even in a new expansion, but only maybe in a new completely RTS game (SC3?). since the obvious solution will only be a stronger composition for the supply costing units vs the non-supply costing units. DK mentioned his thoughts about an increased damage for tempests vs buildings, but obviously this is not a proper solution for a no-camping game, since tempests are already a unit that is quite a camping required unit to get.
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On February 11 2014 02:42 spiralyguy wrote:Show nested quote +It makes it so that your investments and efforts can result in no actual damage. So, instead of having something where every single action and attack matters, you have these drawn out situations where players are just waiting on Time before they do another action. [Proleague match with Soulkey and Reality g1] Soulkey has a bunch of swarm hosts, a single infestor, a few spores and a few queens. Reality has a bunch of vikings, ravens, siege tanks, and a few hellions and thors. The locusts were indefinite while the PDD's were indefinite. So, neither player actually is making any real ground because neither player needs resources or a unit's life (SOMETHING FINITE, NOT INFINITE) to sacrifice. This is a good point. There's a reason minerals and gas are finite.
And unit shots are infinite too. And given enough range and damage (e.g. siege tanks, vikings, tempest) they don't sacrifice anything either and it's completely on the other player to
a) retreat
b) or charge into those units
which is the exact same as with swarm hosts or high energy spellcasters. That's exactly what happened in that game, two players that were sieging each others positions and retreating before actually taking damage, since charging into the opponent would have been suicide.
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4713 Posts
On February 11 2014 02:49 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 02:42 spiralyguy wrote:It makes it so that your investments and efforts can result in no actual damage. So, instead of having something where every single action and attack matters, you have these drawn out situations where players are just waiting on Time before they do another action. [Proleague match with Soulkey and Reality g1] Soulkey has a bunch of swarm hosts, a single infestor, a few spores and a few queens. Reality has a bunch of vikings, ravens, siege tanks, and a few hellions and thors. The locusts were indefinite while the PDD's were indefinite. So, neither player actually is making any real ground because neither player needs resources or a unit's life (SOMETHING FINITE, NOT INFINITE) to sacrifice. This is a good point. There's a reason minerals and gas are finite. And unit shots are infinite too. And given enough range and damage (e.g. siege tanks, vikings, tempest) they don't sacrifice anything either and it's completely on the other player to a) retreat b) or charge into those units which is the exact same as with swarm hosts or high energy spellcasters. That's exactly what happened in that game, two players that were sieging each others positions and retreating before actually taking damage, since charging into the opponent would have been suicide.
That true in nearly all situations and in regards to most units, except SH.
As I said in a earlier post, the problem with SH is that its a 3 in one unit, its both the equivalent of the hellbats protecting the siege tanks, and its also the equivalent of the siege tanks doing the shooting and, its also the vikings providing the spotting. If you factor into that creep, the SH can also siege from a far, far larger distance then both siege tanks or tempest. Both Siege tanks and tempest kind of still put themselves at risk of being destroyed even if they skirt at the edge of range, but SH defy that.
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On February 11 2014 02:53 Destructicon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 02:49 Big J wrote:On February 11 2014 02:42 spiralyguy wrote:It makes it so that your investments and efforts can result in no actual damage. So, instead of having something where every single action and attack matters, you have these drawn out situations where players are just waiting on Time before they do another action. [Proleague match with Soulkey and Reality g1] Soulkey has a bunch of swarm hosts, a single infestor, a few spores and a few queens. Reality has a bunch of vikings, ravens, siege tanks, and a few hellions and thors. The locusts were indefinite while the PDD's were indefinite. So, neither player actually is making any real ground because neither player needs resources or a unit's life (SOMETHING FINITE, NOT INFINITE) to sacrifice. This is a good point. There's a reason minerals and gas are finite. And unit shots are infinite too. And given enough range and damage (e.g. siege tanks, vikings, tempest) they don't sacrifice anything either and it's completely on the other player to a) retreat b) or charge into those units which is the exact same as with swarm hosts or high energy spellcasters. That's exactly what happened in that game, two players that were sieging each others positions and retreating before actually taking damage, since charging into the opponent would have been suicide. That true in nearly all situations and in regards to most units, except SH. As I said in a earlier post, the problem with SH is that its a 3 in one unit, its both the equivalent of the hellbats protecting the siege tanks, and its also the equivalent of the siege tanks doing the shooting and, its also the vikings providing the spotting. If you factor into that creep, the SH can also siege from a far, far larger distance then both siege tanks or tempest. Both Siege tanks and tempest kind of still put themselves at risk of being destroyed even if they skirt at the edge of range, but SH defy that.
When were Reality's Siege Tanks at the risk of being destroyed when they were hunting Soulkey's Swarmhosts and Spores around in circles? Charging anything that actually costs something into those tanks would have been as intelligent as unsieging the tanks and charging them forward to kill a few hosts before going down to the locusts.
Yeah, Hosts have a "bigger range" in absolutes. But absolutes mean little on their own, it's about speed and range and all the other relations to each other. And if all the locusts just die without doing anything, while all the tanks do nothing because the opponent already retreated neither of them actually "does more".
Sure, enough locusts tank for the hosts. On the same page, enough tanks don't need any tanking, because there is nothing getting into range to touch them to begin with.
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EPT
