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.
Somehow it seems different. If you take TvT marine tank vs marine tank, you don't get situations where both armies stand there staring at each other just outside tank range, at least not for very long. Once you're in range of the tanks, you have to commit or retreat as you say, but in either case there are losses.
In the case of SH vs Tank/raven, the terran IS in range of the SH but they are forced to neither commit nor retreat, they can just wait. The zerg is already in range and "attacking" so he has no incentive to do otherwise.
Weird example but think of a pvp MMO game. If a dps is beating on a healer but the healer is healing himself and regening mana faster then expending it, you've got a stalemate. This is immediately boring for spectators and players alike and has to do with infinite resources.
Any game with infinite resources has a high potential for perpetual stalemate. Often this is resolved by alternative victory conditions (civilization space victory).
Imagine a unit in chess that spawns more pawns, high potential for stalemate I'd imagine. Or an infinitely sized board in Go.
Now infinite resources on something like psy-storm isn't that bad because templars alone can't kill everything, they are a support role. But give storm a root (aka WoL fungal) and suddenly you have mass infestors with infinite resources killing armies single handed. Same problem with swarm hosts. I don't think PDD is really guilty on this front as much, it just reacts poorly to the swarm hosts.
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.
hold on I need to clarify:
I love SC2
I hate turtle host because it always seems to turn into a stalemate. In EU PvZ if more protoss would just not attack, we would get more stalemates, but they try to win by attacking and lose because of a bad position or something.
In reply to snute:
What units would you give a higher gas cost? How would more gas not support a turtley composition? Protoss is gas starved and focuses on gas primary armies, and this is part of the reason hosts in PvZ are so problematic, we cant always get the bases we need to support our army. But once we do its a very very positional fight trying to kill the spores and then then the hosts. But even so its very fragile and not at all forgiving for protoss. which is fine, but what units would you make cost more gas for Zerg? Or Terran?
Its an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how it would work.
The problem with SC2 is, that the huge damagedealers have way too many dps and few drawbacks. Even though collossi, broodlords, tanks, swarmhosts, ravens, whatever have their weaknesses, they can be easily bypassed by just massing a fleshy ball around it. In WoL due to the unit design and maps, we had this peaking in deathball massing. The reason is easy - why would you split your army up if the only thing you had to do is to guard your main damage dealer with everything you have until he eats up the enemies army (which tries exactly the same). As of this, buildings have no value in the late late anymore - you can't go above 200 supply, therefore your army will never be stronger if you get a ton of bases - it will only get weaker if you split it up and have only 70 supply instead of 140 between your main damage dealers and your enemies army. But how to change it? If you ask me, the main point would be to learn from starbow/bw (I will focus on starbow since I didn't play the latter) - the higher the damage output, the higher the drawbacks I am not talking about the current drawbacks in sc2: "omg, the collossus can be attacked by air units, broodlords can't attack air" - NO! - they need to implement real drawbacks to those units. As a result, matches wouldn't be about massing high cost units and building a living/static defense shield around them. Games like the one we saw would never happen if it had a downside to mass ravens and swarmhosts. I am talking about things as ALL pdds in range cast their ability on EVERY single projectile, not one per pdd or swarmhosts having a longer timer inbetween locusts dying and locusts hatching, etc.
A simple solution to mass-SH play would be to nerf Locusts' range to 2: this way only few of them could shoot at the same time, so that massing SH beyond a certain number is useless.
What bothers me is that BOTH sides are willing to go into a turtle strategy. There needs to be an incentive to attack, like there was in WoL TvP where terran would play agressive and protoss turtle, or in TvT in mech vs bio. You can't just sit on your ass and watch the other guy build his army of doom. But you can only achieve that if one race has weaker late game. The proleague games were painful to watch and had to be boring as fuck to play.. But as Morrow said the problem probably comes from the fundamentals of the game (economy mainly), so unit design will never totally fix sc2's problems, and I doubt blizzard will resort to modify the economy mechanics. It's pretty sad but heh. At least they can try to make matchups entertaining via unit design, TvZ was pretty awesome for a while in HOTS.
I completely agree with Morrow here though. I think the core problem is the economy. If players were rewarded for taking more bases then the whole face of game-play would be different. Zoning units, like the swarmhost or the lurker are important when you try to defend 6-7 bases, but might not shine in a game which is based on having no more than 3 active mining bases at a time.
On February 11 2014 02:43 Liquid`Snute wrote: 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.
...
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.
Kind of big deal when you consider that it's meant to be a competitive E-sports title and Blizz throws money at it
@Plansix, BW mech was cool because you'd be down bases, holding territory and slow pushing, especially Protoss would have a big income/base advantage over you and try to tear you apart from multiple angles. Starbow Mech is kind of similar in a way, you CANNOT A-move into it and have to engage in cool ways, like with Zealot bombs or mine dragging I agree with you though, SC2 mech doesn't work like that and is so boring to me sometimes. Trying to force it into a game where it doesn't fit properly (imo due to the aforementioned 3 base being optimal), is actually damaging the game.
Combined air ups with mech upgrades have as predicted also enabled the dreaded SkyTerran with raven comp to be that much more effective.
This way, SH are a units that needs to move were your opponent is not to do damage. And you can also charge into the SH between two waves. But locusts are still dangerous and you have to be very cautious when moving around a SH army.
That's so obvious. We are many to suggest this since the beta...
And I agree with Snute. The core of SC2 expanding is the need of gas. So if you want to give players and advantage by expanding, make good units cost more gas.
There is a game of Zero vs Flash on a map I've forgotten taking place sometime I cannot remember in a tournament whose name has slipped my mind, but it was probably the most awe-inspiring Zerg vs Mech I've ever seen. Endless waves of zerglings and defilers, using dark swarm and plague to weaken flash's forces and gain territory, inch by inch.
8-9 bases for Zero, incredible macro and constant pressure, Flash with immaculate defensive play and layered defenses being worn down one by one by Zero's relentless onslaught. I was just gaping for the last 10 minutes at the sheer level of skill being displayed.
If Zerg could play llike that vs mech and toss in the late game in Sc2, I would weep in joy. But they can't because they'd get massacred, and because out-expanding your opponent in this game just doesn't give enough of an edge. There are more factors, but in the interest of keeping the post on the readable side of things: the host is a symptom, not the disease. The root causes are buried far deeper, in the economical system, macro mechanics, and other things.
The swarm host is simply the ultimate expression of the idiotic gameplay these mechanics produce. Zerg cannot function at the competitive level without this unit. Already in Korea, almost every macro ZvP features swarm hosts in relatively large amounts. In the coming year or so, if mech becomes the go to build for terrans vs zerg, virtually every game of ZvT and ZvP will be both players turtling to massive late game doom armies, which will then proceed to posture and grind one other down over a long period of time, with very little action. The risk of trying to be aggressive is too great, the reward to paltry.
We can remove the swarm host and just accept that zerg will no longer be viable for competitive play, but if we want to fix turtle play styles, we have to dig deeper. The odds of blizzard having the inclination or incentive to do so seem poor at best. The turtle is here to stay. This is what, at the very least, HotS is going to look like. As of right now, we'll have to work with what we have.
I think locust should be completely reworked. Ranged, high dmg, slow unit doesn't feel like zerg whatsoever. They should make locusts low hp, low dmg, maybe even melee with fast movement speed so it at least fits into the race.
I am kinda worried that swarmhost will work balancewise like infestor in end of WoL: Everyone knows they are stupid and boring but youo can´t nerf them because they are the only viable option.
I've not read the whole thread, just the OP, as I have to start my workday in a few minutes.
But, throwing something out there, how about less resources at natural and third (say 6+1) with the main as standard? You could have the fourth as a 8+2 location. And play with variations of these. The turtler has to then spread himself.
Edit/ Generally though, it's best not to knee-jerk react. We do this all too often. Top Korean P generally have little trouble against turtle SH style Z. We should not rush to changes on the basis of games played on lower skill levels. As to TvZ, that may be a case of two immovable objects staring at each other from opposite sides of the room. This is new-ish though. If it does become established though, turtle mech vs turtle SH then that certainly would be a problem for the game.
On February 11 2014 03:16 BisuDagger wrote: Flash vs Action. Winning with Mech in BW. You won't regret watching what I believe is a top 10 game for me on the entertainment level. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5YgKlhoC0
On February 11 2014 03:19 Nimix wrote: What bothers me is that BOTH sides are willing to go into a turtle strategy. There needs to be an incentive to attack, like there was in WoL TvP where terran would play agressive and protoss turtle, or in TvT in mech vs bio. You can't just sit on your ass and watch the other guy build his army of doom. But you can only achieve that if one race has weaker late game. The proleague games were painful to watch and had to be boring as fuck to play.. But as Morrow said the problem probably comes from the fundamentals of the game (economy mainly), so unit design will never totally fix sc2's problems, and I doubt blizzard will resort to modify the economy mechanics. It's pretty sad but heh. At least they can try to make matchups entertaining via unit design, TvZ was pretty awesome for a while in HOTS.
What if Locusts actually cost a small sum of 1 or 2 minerals each? Zergs would have the incentive to attack because at some point in the game they could no longer afford more Locusts? It may also be interesting to reduce the cost of SHs to something like 125/100 or 150/100 and add a more hefty price to locusts like 5 each. They would be better for certain timings, but pure defensive play would run out of minerals at some point. As the unit is used very rarely offensively right now, this might not be the worst alternative. Just from a lore standpoint it feels right that zerg should be the race to go for a final push in such stand-off situations.
Same ol' problems, same solution, need new designers; or to back one of the community modding efforts to make an alternate version. As always, I'm willing to do design work, but I haven't the community credibility for people to care.
Certainly there's plenty of ways to cut down on turtling behavior by changing in-game incentives.
On February 11 2014 04:01 aZealot wrote: I've not read the whole thread, just the OP, as I have to start my workday in a few minutes.
But, throwing something out there, how about less resources at natural and third (say 6+1) with the main as standard. You could have the fourth as a 8+2 location. And play with variations of these. The turtler has to then spread himself.
This was proposed in early WoL and has been discussed ever since. Blizzard basically said "nah, too much work" and then refused to comment further.
Also, Rain was up 7 bases to 4 today vs Roro and lost, quite badly.
On February 10 2014 22:07 TRaFFiC wrote: I never played broodwar, but I played other rts. I don't see any problem. I'm loving the diversity of strategies recently. There are so many ways to deal with mech. I enjoyed the match. Only problem I see is boring the noobie rts fans who aren't used to it or costing tons of extra money to power the studio lol
If you had a BW background the diversity would perhaps not seem so big as you find it now
Really? I constantly see vets fondly recalling how most of the BW matchups had one buildorder/strategy/playstyle that played out almost every time (per matchup) and anything else was basically a cheese build.
On February 11 2014 04:06 zlefin wrote: Same ol' problems, same solution, need new designers; or to back one of the community modding efforts to make an alternate version. As always, I'm willing to do design work, but I haven't the community credibility for people to care.
Certainly there's plenty of ways to cut down on turtling behavior by changing in-game incentives.
Blizzard has already allocated a lot of money into WCS, and a self-inflicting financial hit in making the arcade F2P. Granted, making the arcade F2P is an obvious ploy to generate future purchases of the game, but this is a longer process.
With the money already being allocated into WCS, etc., how is it economically feasible to re-design the game at this point? I would think re-design as an option for LoTV, but not right now.
Balance patches seem the only viable option at this time, but I certainly agree the turtle play is boring for many to watch. I would also counter that argument by looking to recent Proleague games that show more aggressive strategies for stereotyped "Turtle" units. Sometimes, things just need to play out more. This is particularly interesting for professional players with money on the line. I know if it were me, I would turtle, or do whatever I needed to do to win. After all, it is a job to these players.
EPT
