Balance Test Map Update Incoming - July 15 - Page 15

On July 17 2014 05:07 Vindicare605 wrote:


I understand PO's importance to PvP, but I personally feel that PO is just a band aid that covers up huge design flaws in PvP that require a spell like it in order for the match up to have stability.

I'd rather fix PvP in a way that doesn't require a massive early game crutch if I had my way.

On July 16 2014 21:01 Teoita wrote:


Sure, but i feel like a huge reason why people enjoy mech is simply beause it's so rare outside of TvT. The tank is definitely a better unit than the colossus, but at the end of the day the playstyle of sitting on 3/4 bases and maxing on raven/tank/viking (or just a ground based mech army really) isn't all that different from Protoss or Zerg turtling. The positional requirements for tanks and colossi aren't all that different (get your expensive units caught out of position once and you die), and neither is the micro involved (focus on priority targets, that's it). Sure tanks are/look better for it, my point is that at the end of the day the difference isn't that huge.

On July 17 2014 06:28 Xequecal wrote:
I've posted it a lot, but the BW Mech dynamic does not work at all in SC2. Mech is frankly overpowered even in BW. There's a reason why Terran is by far the most successful race in professional BW. In SC2, it would be much worse.

In BW, a Mech army is basically unbeatable by anything that doesn't cost at least 200% of what it does. You simply cannot fight a Mech army unless they make a serious mistake (you catch them unsieged, drag a mine into 15 tanks, etc) or you have a massive tech advantage, such as having arbiters when they have no science vessels. The only drawback of the mech army is that it's very, very slow. You beat it by stalling, harassing, and then going around it. In TvP in BW it's not uncommon for a Terran player to build 100 missile turrets throughout the game to prevent recalls, drops, and scouting. That's 7500 minerals not being put into the main army, but in BW that's OK because the Mech army is so absurdly strong that it will still easily beat the opponent despite being 7500 resources down.

In BW, when the Terran mech army pushes towards an expansion, you're going to lose that expansion. There's nothing you can do about it, you can only slow them down. You win by causing more damage to them via harassment/drops/recalls while they slow push than the expansion was worth, and/or by taking two more expansions while they're slow pushing. In SC2, this kind of dynamic will never work because your economy caps out at 3 bases. The Terran player is basically assured that once he pushes over your third, you're going to lose about half of your economy right there, as your main is probably close to dry at that point. Even if you made two more expansions, you still have to worker them up after you lose your third. Remember that in BW you can profitably have 5 or 6 expansions with a dozen workers on each. Since the second worker per mineral patch in BW is far less efficient than the first, you hit diminishing returns after assigning just 11 workers to a base. This makes it effective to take many bases and also makes it hurt less if you lose one because there's fewer workers there. In SC2 you need 22 workers on a base before you hit diminishing returns, which makes it impossible to take many bases and makes losing one crippling.

This is why BW-style mech in SC2 would just be ridiculous. I'm going to push towards your third, you can't stop me from killing it, and you can't possibly do enough damage to me to make up for losing it. Even if you backstab my main and kill all my production, the mech army I have on the field right now is probably enough to kill everything you have plus everything you can still produce with the remaining resources in your main + natural.

On July 17 2014 06:22 pure.Wasted wrote:


Feel free to say something of substance that's Protoss biased.

On July 17 2014 06:23 Big J wrote:
People are hugely exaggerating when they talk about Turtleplaystyles in general. They are plainly not boring per se. Turtling is an art and breaking a turtling player or yourself in the process is the best gameplay possible in the genre. For as long as there is no requirement to turtle, I see no problem with it. The choice is yours!

The only problem that is around with turtling are incredibly dull lategame mechanics, but not the strategies per se. Swarm Hosts/Colossi/Tempests create boring games and Raven/BC/mass Mule allow Terrans to turtle beyond turtling.

On July 17 2014 06:58 Teoita wrote:


I have watched all 3 hours of soulkey vs reality. I have scars.

Late WoL TvZ Mech was interesting and kind of aggressive, but would often leave midgame vulnerabilities (and of course fell flat on its face against BL/Infestor most of the time)

Even the SH vs Mech scenarios of current TvZ can be very entertaining, if both players do actually try to push into each other (like Life vs Flash) and don't decide at 15mins to go for the mineou

Current Mech against Terran isn't that turtly, you can do 3-4base pushes.

On July 17 2014 07:02 Hider wrote:


Examples? Vods?

All I remember here is Ty dropping siege tanks vs broodlord/infestor, but he was the only guy who ever did that and probably only worked cus noone was expecting it.

Only thing different about that game from the average Avilo TvZ (besides quality) was the commentators. They can be good at deceiving people into thinking bad games are entertaining.

On July 17 2014 07:04 pure.Wasted wrote:


This is an excellent analysis (I read the one you posted before, as well), but I'm not sure if your cynicism is warranted. OK, mech doesn't work if it trades at 200% efficiency, what if it trades at 150% efficiency? What if it trades at 133% efficiency? So that there's no guarantee of it destroying an expansion, just a reasonable chance of it. Surely there has to be a number somewhere between 0% efficiency and 200% at which mech isn't garbage but also doesn't destroy the game.

Alternately, what if we introduce high-tech, mid/late-game ways of mining that don't rely on workers? That way it would be possible to have a 5/6 base economy going without crippling your army.

It really doesn't feel like all the options for making more than 1/2 of Terran tech tree usable are being explored, here.



Well, I did say "of substance."

I just can't agree with that. If you compare how Life tries to push the issue all game long to someone like Stephano immidiatly going into SHs upon seeing Mech,

Especially game 1 of this series, but also in game 3 where Lucifron turtles up much more after the banshee harass, he still really tries to push very aggressively in the lategame.