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blacksheepwall
China1530 Posts
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Foreverkul
United States1649 Posts
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Thobrik
Sweden1120 Posts
A lot of people here are commenting on the general game mechanics of terran. How is that relevant? Terran has gone through periods of utter domination as well as eras of submission to the other races without the mechanics being tweaked whatsoever. I think it's good that people maintain a critical eye, and granted, some game mechanics such as protoss warp-in, which date back to the beta of Starcraft still might require some changes. I just think that it's a better idea to look at topics like map size, and HOTS-related things like Photon Overcharge and Time Warp that are more recent in the game and might have affected the state of balance in different ways. Sure, PvT was far from perfect in WoL in terms of entertainment value, but at least it was pretty darn balanced. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9359 Posts
2 Medivacs get sent across the map. You're not babysitting them the entire way, so you have to watch the minimap to make sure they don't run into trouble. Suddenly you see red dots on the minimap, so you center screen on them and now have a decision to make. That decision is based on the following: are the dots Mutas, Zerglings, what? Let's say they're Zerglings, you afterburn to get into the expansion ASAP and unload the Marines, Stim them, and start killing Drones. This part's pretty easy. There's a Spore attacking your Medivacs so you have to move them out of the way, but not so far that they won't be useful. The Drones get pulled off the mineral line, so you have to give chase. Again, not that tough. Suddenly, 20 Zerglings and 10 Banes stream into the natural. Your Medivacs spot them early, so you've got time to maneuver. You stutter step your Marines back to the minerals to create a chokepoint, meanwhile targeting the Banelings because they're 1) expensive and 2) the biggest threat. You get into an advantageous position between the minerals and mow down a dozen Zerglings without much effort, but the Marines are getting low on HP, Queens are coming, so it's time to GTFO. You load up and get out. Suddenly, a small flock of Mutalists appears. You can't afford to lose the Medivacs, so you use the "drop Marines without stopping" trick to get the Marines fighting the Mutas, stimming them in small groups as they come out to maximize damage output. The Zerg isn't paying attention to his Mutas and you have a chance to kill them! You pull back your Medivacs to heal the Marines. The Mutas are dropping! Suddenly a clump of Banes appears rolling down at your Marines, you stutter as long as you can, and then deciding that the trade will be worth it for you, instead of picking up and leaving you split your Marines as best you can, making the Banes cost-ineffective. Your Marines are all dead and you afterburn those Medivacs back to base. This seems like a pretty good description of terran dropship micro potenital. I think there are times where I easily spent over 100 actions micro'ing a dropship because the skilcap is almost limitless. Zealotharass and lingrunbys... It's more about sending the units in the right directon as the actual contorl during the harass is somewhat limited (though lings have more potenital than zealots due to their speed). | ||
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fireforce7
United States334 Posts
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meshfusion
Russian Federation232 Posts
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bObA
France300 Posts
On July 10 2014 03:41 blacksheepwall wrote: This is an amazing post. Just now finally managed to read through the whole thing. yea that's a really good one ! Congratz | ||
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Inertiaddict
United States126 Posts
I was worried about this expansion from the second we began getting information about it. At the height of my ability at the end of WoL I was a Diamond Terran. Top 8, I was trying very hard to get Master. It never happened and when HotS came out I descended to Gold. I'm "bad", and I'm fine with that, I really don't care, I'm just writing this here to give you the satisfaction of letting you know I'm some mid-level random NA Terran. This article does a wonderful job of articulating the frustration that I feel about the game. Let me tell you, I love the Terran race. It's pretty exciting to see the professionals play it. They're great at it. It's not always a whole of fun for me to actually play, though. I personally dislike the new Terran army. The reason I dislike it is because it's basically the old Terran army with some Widow Mines sprinkled in and somewhat-quicker Medivacs. I don't go out of my way to rant about the game. I love the game and though I play it less, I still play it, and I will play LotV when that arrives, too. What I wish I saw, and what breaks my heart, is that the Terran units don't come from a cool enough place. They don't seem to be inspired by the challenges that Terran's face from the other two races. For example, I don't like the Widow Mine as it is. It's stupid that it's both autonomous yet it costs food. That just doesn't make sense. It's also not a Mine in any sense. It's a burrowed missile deployment system. I think it'd be as cool idea if the Widow Mine was a researched upgrade to the Siege Tank and that they collaborated together. Imagine a Siege Tank that had a Widow Mine on it that was deployable much like they are now (and maybe they could shoot in the air while docked on the tank so they aren't useless). I would add one other change, too. I would try letting them function like mini-sensor towers (only) when buried, and they would detect burrowed units since they're in the ground. Ghosts should be able to put personal force fields on other biological units as another way to deal with Banelings and we could say that this is adapted Sentry technology borrowed/stole/reverse-engineered from the Protoss during their WoL clashes. Humans would do this. They'd behave like this. They'd take what they have and they'd improve upon it or combine it. Protoss have their psionics. Zerg have their bio-mutations. Terran has their resourcefulness and adaptable technology. I don't know, maybe my ideas aren't good, or they wouldn't hold up to balance testing, but like, this article sums it up when it says that Terran is an expansion behind. I wonder if they're going to go bio? | ||
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mCon.Hephaistas
Netherlands891 Posts
So to those people that mindlessly ask for terran buffs are just stupid. Yeah sure protoss might be a bit strong right now and might need a nerf, but the core problem is maybe the mechanics(Protoss too forgiving and easier mechanics and maybe for zerg too, but less so.) | ||
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TurboMaN
Germany925 Posts
The major difference is that Terrans need more APM in fights. Why? Not only do you have more units which require abilities (Stim, Mines burrow, Siege mode, ...), but also because you usually fight with a smaller army vs a larger army. If you don't watch for a second you lose all of your smaller army while you may also lose your dropship. Microing the main army while microing a drop (or even multiple drops) at the same time is very exhausting. | ||
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Maniak_
France305 Posts
On July 11 2014 20:01 TurboMaN wrote: I also think that you need high APM to play Zerg effectively because of the mechanics in building and creep spreading. The major difference is that Terrans need more APM in fights. Why? I've got another "Why?". Why is the current popular subject in this topic a comparison of the (subjective and biased) skill needed to play zerg or terran, when zerg have won just as few tournaments as terrans? Isn't the main issue supposed to be protoss winning everything? | ||
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TurboMaN
Germany925 Posts
I don't want a Terran to win every tournament, I want a fair game with equal winning chances. Not a game where Terrans have to win within 15-18 mins or they lose. | ||
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Maniak_
France305 Posts
On July 11 2014 22:46 TurboMaN wrote: Right now Terran has major problems in lategame stages in both PvT and ZvT. This has to be fixed. I don't want a Terran to win every tournament, I want a fair game with equal winning chances. Not a game where Terrans have to win within 15-18 mins or they lose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main "real" issues seem to be related to game design, not game balance. Tweaking some stats here and there may help some problems (while potentially creating others), but the only way the basic, fundamental issues with each race could have a chance to be addressed is by changes to the actual game design. That would mean LotV, that would probably mean a lead designer other than DB and that would mean being willing to maybe break a lot of things in order to make the whole game better. Knowing and accepting the impact it would (temporarily) have on the pro scene. What are the chances of that happening? Other than that, we'll probably have to either throw in the towel and leave or accept that the way the three races are working now is the way it will stay and rely on maps (and the actual players) to try to work around the various game design problems. And that probably means having to accept that depending on the situation, each race may have to try to end the game before a specific time, else it will have no way to win, ever. When was the last time anyone at Blizzard gave any indication that they're ready to make whatever major changes are necessary to help the game? They said it at the last Blizzcon before HotS, announcing 'major' changes, unit removals and redesigns and... they went back on everything. Why would they do major changes now, before LotV, when it's already very much doubtful that they'd be willing to do it in the last expansion? | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3340 Posts
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mostevil
United Kingdom611 Posts
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padfoota
Taiwan1571 Posts
Goodbye Starcraft, thanks for the times. I still remember when HotS first came out I was practicing TvP with a korean GM who ONLY used Blink stalker, exact same build every game, and I used a different opening each game - 10 games straight. After the tenth, he told me, with his broken english, "Mine tank. Use mine tank". Two test builds later vs AI I ran into him again and used my build when it was at its most unrefined moment. I won. I realized I can refine this build a bit and push out with the build vs protoss. A month after I hit masters, internet became unstable and I left the game. Sometime later the widowmine patchnote came through, and since I havent been playing or caring about the game for a while, I only thought the mines were addressing TvZ and thought the tank buff was interesting, but never bothered to reinstall the game again. Reading the post made me remember that time. It was fun. I also remember arguing with TheDwf about the viability of mixing Hellbats into a bio army and upgrading the damage only in TvZ. He dismissed it with a long and lengthy argument that ultimately only ended with the point "not enough professional games to prove" This is the guy who wouldnt even bother entertaining the idea of a new build (that actually became pretty fucking strong during its time) without TOP TIER PRO PLAY EXAMPLE, who just wrote a huge fucking thesis on why terran have been slumping, while addressing hellbats and admitting them as broken, and providing ridiculous amounts of examples of top professional play for every possible rebuttal, and what does the general community of our beloved TL.net does? Dismiss it as balance whining. Real fucking scientists you guys jesus fucking christ. The forum was already a cesspool with allegedly US master players thinking they are good players and providing all kinds of poor information, leading all kinds of bad witchhunts, but reading this after a long time of not caring about starcraft I realize the real reason why I plain stopped playing this game in the first place. I bet if TheDwf came out with the cure to cancer, and all the evidence and proof behind it, TL community will still dismiss it as balance whining. | ||
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Socup
190 Posts
On July 12 2014 20:42 padfoota wrote: Reading through the replies makes me hate this game even more Goodbye Starcraft, thanks for the times. I still remember when HotS first came out I was practicing TvP with a korean GM who ONLY used Blink stalker, exact same build every game, and I used a different opening each game - 10 games straight. After the tenth, he told me, with his broken english, "Mine tank. Use mine tank". Two test builds later vs AI I ran into him again and used my build when it was at its most unrefined moment. I won. I realized I can refine this build a bit and push out with the build vs protoss. A month after I hit masters, internet became unstable and I left the game. Sometime later the widowmine patchnote came through, and since I havent been playing or caring about the game for a while, I only thought the mines were addressing TvZ and thought the tank buff was interesting, but never bothered to reinstall the game again. Reading the post made me remember that time. It was fun. I also remember arguing with TheDwf about the viability of mixing Hellbats into a bio army and upgrading the damage only in TvZ. He dismissed it with a long and lengthy argument that ultimately only ended with the point "not enough professional games to prove" This is the guy who wouldnt even bother entertaining the idea of a new build (that actually became pretty fucking strong during its time) without TOP TIER PRO PLAY EXAMPLE, who just wrote a huge fucking thesis on why terran have been slumping, while addressing hellbats and admitting them as broken, and providing ridiculous amounts of examples of top professional play for every possible rebuttal, and what does the general community of our beloved TL.net does? Dismiss it as balance whining. Real fucking scientists you guys jesus fucking christ. The forum was already a cesspool with allegedly US master players thinking they are good players and providing all kinds of poor information, leading all kinds of bad witchhunts, but reading this after a long time of not caring about starcraft I realize the real reason why I plain stopped playing this game in the first place. I bet if TheDwf came out with the cure to cancer, and all the evidence and proof behind it, TL community will still dismiss it as balance whining. Its entirely possible play like yours is the reason for the WM nerfs. additionally, how did you deal with splashing your own tanks when blink stalkers jump on top of them? Tank splash + WM splash seems like it's rape your own units, not theirs. I still find it hilarious that in a game where colossus or banes or fungal dominated Terran so much in WoL DK decided "hey, lets add yet another unit which splash kills T's own units". Seems like T is the race to play for suicide attacks. On July 11 2014 03:11 Thobrik wrote: From a terran perspective: A lot of people here are commenting on the general game mechanics of terran. How is that relevant? Terran has gone through periods of utter domination as well as eras of submission to the other races without the mechanics being tweaked whatsoever. I think it's good that people maintain a critical eye, and granted, some game mechanics such as protoss warp-in, which date back to the beta of Starcraft still might require some changes. I just think that it's a better idea to look at topics like map size, and HOTS-related things like Photon Overcharge and Time Warp that are more recent in the game and might have affected the state of balance in different ways. Sure, PvT was far from perfect in WoL in terms of entertainment value, but at least it was pretty darn balanced. It's not so much warp ins as training time for units with warpgate mechanics and chronoboost on top. In Brood War, those high templar were high value for tying up your gate, being costly, and limited gas. Minerals was another bottleneck to just spamming gates everywhere, but the main focus is that the same units which worked in brood war were ported to WoL and became dominating with the new "macro" mechanics as well as increased resource rates. Trying to get that HT doesn't make you temporarily weaker in terms of army units for long, if at all. P is capable of "covering all their bases" when building an army. Terran still works on mostly Brood War mechanics. Need more units? Spam more production buildings and pray. Reactors don't really help if the only thing you can reactor out is units which are going to be hard countered by the spam of HT/archon/whatever. The more I think about it, the more I realize the units for Z and T which benefit from SC2 mechanics are lower tier units that easily get crushed and chewed up by counters, while the units for P which benefit from SC2 mechanics are high tier and devastating more often than not. | ||
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frostalgia
United States178 Posts
Yamato Cannon does splash damage This is because it takes a long time to get the upgrade out and enough BCs. It's very committal, but it rarely pays off. Not nearly as well as mass Raven does, anyway. Seeker Missiles should instead be changed to do single-target damage. Just switch the damage values of Yamato and Seekers around. This would still be a great boost to help Terran in the lategame, and the charge-up shot still allows counter-micro. Time Warp does friendly-fire I don't think nerfing the duration is nearly as important as allowing Protoss units to slow down in the Time Warp as well. Right now, when a Time Warp drops on you, it's never worth retreating. This is because Protoss can run right through it. Changing this allows retreat to be an option. Photon Overcharge stops if the Mothership Core is destroyed Wouldn't it be awesome if Protoss had to protect the Mothership Core after using Photon Overcharge? Then if it's destroyed, the Overcharge goes away. This would make the spell more of a fair tradeoff. You can find more about my explanation for why this makes sense here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13422802153 | ||
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Butterz
688 Posts
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Gaskal
Canada241 Posts
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