A twice monthly streamed talk show featuring the Team Liquid Strategy Members talking (and occasionally ranting) about a wide variety of subjects. This will be fairly informal and will be treated as a discussion between the TL Strategy members. We will have occasional guests with us to discuss the various topics.
We will take questions near the end of the show. You can post questions you would like answered in the thread here, on the stream during the question period, or tweet them to us at TLStrategyChat.
Featuring Your TL Strategy Team: Matteo "Teoita" Lucchini - Wok master and lord of the rant. Supreme Commander of the TL Strategy forums. Joel "Whitewing" Silverman - Game designer, strategy analyst, economist and teacher. Writer for TL Strategy and random player. Christopher "SC2John" Meek - Strategy analyst and writer for TL Strategy. Former Zerg and Protoss player, now working mostly with the Heroes of the Storm team. Jeremy "Jer99" Lalonde- Terran player, does interviews sometimes. The glove Terran. Luis "Zeromus" Conceicao- Protoss player, did that economy article that was popular, wife is more attractive than he is. Leader of the TL Strategy team.
Next Show: Currently on Hiatus for Holidays! Subject of Discussion: - Stream: twitch.tv/johnsc2
On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
On July 01 2015 04:56 Ovid wrote: On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
Oh absolutely, you can't discuss map control without discussing maps.
On July 01 2015 04:56 Ovid wrote: On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
Oh absolutely, you can't discuss map control without discussing maps.
In the other thread Meavis the ex map maker/map maker offered to take part if the subject related to maps, are you going to bring him or another map maker on to help the discussion?
On July 01 2015 04:56 Ovid wrote: On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
Oh absolutely, you can't discuss map control without discussing maps.
In the other thread Meavis the ex map maker/map maker offered to take part if the subject related to maps, are you going to bring him or another map maker on to help the discussion?
We won't be discussing map design and layout beyond how it relates with map control, so this is not a map specific episode. That said, it's certainly an idea to consider.
We will have a show on maps that's separate from this one at one point.
Reminder that we will be hosting our second show this Saturday at 5:00pm EDT again! The subject this week is going to be Map Control and how units/maps relate to the concept :D.
Also, remember that you can follow us @TLStrategyChat on Twitter for up-to-date info!
Some insight, hydra shows +1 attack on the lings really early, trying to get lilbow to go blink stalkers to deal with muta. (he doesn't go muta) Lilbow scouts and goes chargelot archon. If you could talk about this game i think it would be interesting. It was a really good read by lilbow (who hydra would have seen him play a scouting heavy style and beat bunny by faking strength.) and heavily under appreciated. I think it also gives insight into the style lilbow plays as i think he is one of the best strategic protoss players at the moment.
Some insight, hydra shows +1 attack on the lings really early, trying to get lilbow to go blink stalkers to deal with muta. (he doesn't go muta) Lilbow scouts and goes chargelot archon. If you could talk about this game i think it would be interesting. It was a really good read by lilbow (who hydra would have seen him play a scouting heavy style and beat bunny by faking strength.) and heavily under appreciated. I think it also gives insight into the style lilbow plays as i think he is one of the best strategic protoss players at the moment.
I'll just address it here in the thread ^^.
This game sucks. Lilbow does a completely blind 3-base chargelot/archon build which Hydra fails to respond properly to. Basically, both players are completely tunnel-visioned into doing the strategy they prepared for the map, so much so that there is literally no real strategic interaction between the two of them. The fact that Lilbow's build just happens to get 2 archons at the exact timing that Hydra's roach timing hits is pure coincidence, and honestly only his excellent micro allows him to avoid outright losing there.
Don't copy this build on ladder unless you're okay with a 50/50 chance of winning.
First of all, who the fuck is Lilbow lol, and why is he playing in the WCS finals. I've been out of the loop quite a bit, so my analysis may not be 100% on point, but I'll give it a go.
So the game starts with a risky gold base first, which doesn't actually gets scouted; To follow up, Hydra gets ling speed fairly quickly in order to defend it (6:15). So, from what I can tell, Lilbow blindly takes a 3rd nexus, and even though Hydra has the potential to rush out ~30 lings at 6:30, he chooses not to on the assumption that the gold base will get him further ahead in the long run. Tbh, I feel like Lilbow's early build matches up with Hydra's purely out of luck. Had Hydra just gone gasless triple hatch with the gold base, he would have been super far ahead; granted, that's unlikely, but the fact that Lilbow has no opportunity to punish Hydra's expansion is merely a factor of luck.
The chargelot/archon build was more pure luck. He starts charge before even scouting Hydra's base, so it was obviously a pre-planned build. Perhaps there's room in the build to cancel charge and go blink as he scouts the gas counts at the Zerg natural and 3rd (full gases at all bases mean no roach timing, likely mean mutalisks). The combination of only 3 bases and a total of 4 gases (assumed that the main base has both gases taken) means that Hydra is most definitely gearing up for a roach timing. The defense of the roach timing is absolutely beautiful. Again, the fact that this is a blind 3-base build going up against a Zerg player who went gold base first into ling speed into a fast third base means that the timings coincidentally lined up for the archons to just BARELY be able to get up in time. However, the micro is excellent.
The reason why chargelot/archon died for such a long time in pro play is that 1) colossus-less styles got LOLed on by swarm hosts, and 2) the threat of a heavy ground army (roaches/hydras) vs the threat of mutalisks made zealot/archon a huge risk -- you'd end up losing way too much trying to defend mutalisks to be able to make use of the raw power of the composition. As for new swarm hosts, I can't confirm on their efficacy versus gateway armies, but I assume they still do decently well if you pat attention and kite with them. In this scenario, Hydra panicked after losing his roach push so horribly and began spamming ling/roach while trying to do a cute counterattack with the swarm hosts. What he should have done instead was used the swarm hosts to kite the gateway army while using his ling/roach group to counterattack and building static defense at home. This would have whittled away the gateway numbers before Lilbow could move across the map and also forced defensive warpins to happen at home, allowing Hydra's superior 4-base economy to translate into a tech advantage and just steamroll the inferior zealot/archon composition.
Half way into the VoD, so everyone here has studied math or something related? Awesome!
Edit: It's really interesting how everyone has his own little view on this topic of hard counters and strategical diversity and strategical equilibria. Like, I would totally agree with Whitewings view when it comes to the Nash-Equilibrium stuff. But then again, I would totally take a very "vanilla" stance on what a hard counter is and why I think they are much worse than what you people say. (which has to do with the different definition I'd use)
On July 01 2015 04:56 Ovid wrote: On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
Oh absolutely, you can't discuss map control without discussing maps.
In the other thread Meavis the ex map maker/map maker offered to take part if the subject related to maps, are you going to bring him or another map maker on to help the discussion?
We won't be discussing map design and layout beyond how it relates with map control, so this is not a map specific episode. That said, it's certainly an idea to consider.
We will have a show on maps that's separate from this one at one point.
If you guys are planning to have a map related/focused show I would really like to be there and talk about things, sounds lots of fun.
On July 01 2015 04:56 Ovid wrote: On the subject of map control will you be discussing maps and map design and how it affects the ability of each race at different points to gain map control? If you are will you dicuss particular map features that enable more dynamic back and forth mapcontrol based aggression.
Oh absolutely, you can't discuss map control without discussing maps.
In the other thread Meavis the ex map maker/map maker offered to take part if the subject related to maps, are you going to bring him or another map maker on to help the discussion?
We won't be discussing map design and layout beyond how it relates with map control, so this is not a map specific episode. That said, it's certainly an idea to consider.
We will have a show on maps that's separate from this one at one point.
If you guys are planning to have a map related/focused show I would really like to be there and talk about things, sounds lots of fun.
We absolutely will be doing a map focused show in the future.
For those that couldn't make it for the show yesterday, the VoD and audio are up officially up! Let us know what you think of the show here, in the Youtube comments, or @TLStrategyChat on Twitter! We welcome feedback freely :D.
For those who are having trouble finding it on the TL calendar when it's going on, we're working on that. Apparently my stream was not linked to my account, and so it wasn't showing up on the sidebar. Along with fixes there, we're looking into getting some more pull with upper management to make it easier to find and watch Strat Chat from TeamLiquid.net.
I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
On July 13 2015 21:05 BlackLilium wrote: I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Travel time is significant to a specific location, you are correct that we didn't mention it and might have.
On July 14 2015 02:55 Whitewing wrote: I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Defending a point X by reinforcing X is very different in my eyes, than defending X by reinforcing/attacking Y. Some units or compositions are better suited for one thing or another, usually not both.
On July 14 2015 02:55 Whitewing wrote: I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Defending a point X by reinforcing X is very different in my eyes, than defending X by reinforcing/attacking Y. Some units or compositions are better suited for one thing or another, usually not both.
That is true, but I don't see a difference in terms of whether that area is controlled or not, and I don't see a strategical difference, merely a tactical one. The tools you use obviously influence the actual method, but the important thing is whether the space is controlled or not.
There is a difference in other ways (reacting to that area being controlled for example), but fundamentally there is no distinction between how a space is controlled when it comes to the basic question of: is the space controlled?
On July 13 2015 21:05 BlackLilium wrote: I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Travel time is significant to a specific location, you are correct that we didn't mention it and might have.
This is quite an interesting question, as then you could go further and define "direct mapcontrol" and "indirect mapcontrol" and such concepts*. And then ask the question, when talking about indirect mapcontrol, whether this is actual mapcontrol, or you can just punish him for certain moves which doesn't really include you "control" the area in question in a classic sense. So it's not really that you control that area per se, but that him taking control over the area is an overcommitment that you can punish by controlling a different, much more valueable area, e.g. his base.
Maybe this roots in the question whether you accept "dead areas", or if in the definition of mapcontrol you automatically assign the whole map to one or another player at all times.
*which you kind of did, but I think you didn't go deeper into it
On July 13 2015 21:05 BlackLilium wrote: I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Travel time is significant to a specific location, you are correct that we didn't mention it and might have.
This is quite an interesting question, as then you could go further and define "direct mapcontrol" and "indirect mapcontrol" and such concepts*. And then ask the question, when talking about indirect mapcontrol, whether this is actual mapcontrol, or you can just punish him for certain moves which doesn't really include you "control" the area in question in a classic sense. So it's not really that you control that area per se, but that him taking control over the area is an overcommitment that you can punish by controlling a different, much more valueable area, e.g. his base.
Maybe this roots in the question whether you accept "dead areas", or if in the definition of mapcontrol you automatically assign the whole map to one or another player at all times.
*which you kind of did, but I think you didn't go deeper into it
Well, I didn't because strategically it doesn't actually make a difference. It makes a big tactical difference, because it impacts how your opponent must respond in the immediate (but not in the broad) sense and how you follow up to a breach of your control area, but either way a controlled space is a controlled space and it functionally limits your opponents movement and enables yours in exactly the same way.
On July 13 2015 21:05 BlackLilium wrote: I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Travel time is significant to a specific location, you are correct that we didn't mention it and might have.
This is quite an interesting question, as then you could go further and define "direct mapcontrol" and "indirect mapcontrol" and such concepts*. And then ask the question, when talking about indirect mapcontrol, whether this is actual mapcontrol, or you can just punish him for certain moves which doesn't really include you "control" the area in question in a classic sense. So it's not really that you control that area per se, but that him taking control over the area is an overcommitment that you can punish by controlling a different, much more valueable area, e.g. his base.
Maybe this roots in the question whether you accept "dead areas", or if in the definition of mapcontrol you automatically assign the whole map to one or another player at all times.
*which you kind of did, but I think you didn't go deeper into it
Well, I didn't because strategically it doesn't actually make a difference. It makes a big tactical difference, because it impacts how your opponent must respond in the immediate (but not in the broad) sense and how you follow up to a breach of your control area, but either way a controlled space is a controlled space and it functionally limits your opponents movement and enables yours in exactly the same way.
Exactly, the question is whether you break it down into a tactical or strategical point of view. And I 100% agree with what you are saying, I just really like the discussion about it. I think talking about this differs strongly depending on whether you play the game right now, or whether you do an analysis afterwards. Because in game it is often not obvious that you had control in the broad sense. You just go for the attack and hope it works, but it may not. Only once you have all the information - which is usually only after the game - you can really say: "Yes, I won here because I actually could punish him for moving into this area, which obviously was not under his control." Or you couldn't and you lost trying to counterattack, running into your death.
While with direct area control you can just say: "I have forces here and you don't", or "I can reinforce this area faster than you can attack it". Which is a much more graspable concept in a game.
Also an interesting aspect in that regard is incomplete information. For example, what is a hidden base? Do I have control over it? Does my opponent? I feel like this becomes kind of a dead space that noone is controlling (unless of course you can just defend it, but say Protoss hides a base against Zerg and doesn't canon it to no end). Because the hiding player cannot really defend the base so he has no control, but the opponent obviously does not punish it until he has confirmed its existance and directly taken control of the base area (assuming the hiding player cannot indirectly control the area of course). Again, this is much more tactically speaking of course than in the broad sense.
On July 13 2015 21:05 BlackLilium wrote: I really enjoyed both shows and looking forward for more! For me a "map/board control" is more about a denial of enemy movements rather than making your own. Sometimes you can achieve that without necessairly having units in the middle, but just by having a potential threat that prevents the enemy from doing something.
The Hellion or Mutalisk map control examples that you bring throughout the show - you don't really defend the map with them. You don't need them in the middle. But if the opponent moves out, you can counter-attack. Other units that can function similarly are Oracles, Warp Prisms, loaded medivacs... even a network of Nydus tunells can go in this direction!
Regarding map design for map control, there is one broader feature that I think it was missed: travel time. If there are two or more routes from A to B with one route being shorter than another, it gives one side a tool to control both points, and hence maintaining map control over that area more effectively. This scenario can appear even on a flat map without extreme chokes - just by having walls/cliffs defining what routes are possible.
Looking forward towards the unit design section, as I am starting to mess up with units in my mod - and your talk is very informative!
I don't see a fundamental difference between defending an area by being able to straight up kill anything that moves into it and defending an area by killing his base if he tries to take the area. Either way he cannot move into that area, and it is defended. And yes, we didn't cover anywhere near the totality of units that can be used for this purpose, we'd be here all day doing that =p.
Travel time is significant to a specific location, you are correct that we didn't mention it and might have.
This is quite an interesting question, as then you could go further and define "direct mapcontrol" and "indirect mapcontrol" and such concepts*. And then ask the question, when talking about indirect mapcontrol, whether this is actual mapcontrol, or you can just punish him for certain moves which doesn't really include you "control" the area in question in a classic sense. So it's not really that you control that area per se, but that him taking control over the area is an overcommitment that you can punish by controlling a different, much more valueable area, e.g. his base.
Maybe this roots in the question whether you accept "dead areas", or if in the definition of mapcontrol you automatically assign the whole map to one or another player at all times.
*which you kind of did, but I think you didn't go deeper into it
Well, I didn't because strategically it doesn't actually make a difference. It makes a big tactical difference, because it impacts how your opponent must respond in the immediate (but not in the broad) sense and how you follow up to a breach of your control area, but either way a controlled space is a controlled space and it functionally limits your opponents movement and enables yours in exactly the same way.
Exactly, the question is whether you break it down into a tactical or strategical point of view. And I 100% agree with what you are saying, I just really like the discussion about it. I think talking about this differs strongly depending on whether you play the game right now, or whether you do an analysis afterwards. Because in game it is often not obvious that you had control in the broad sense. You just go for the attack and hope it works, but it may not. Only once you have all the information - which is usually only after the game - you can really say: "Yes, I won here because I actually could punish him for moving into this area, which obviously was not under his control." Or you couldn't and you lost trying to counterattack, running into your death.
While with direct area control you can just say: "I have forces here and you don't", or "I can reinforce this area faster than you can attack it". Which is a much more graspable concept in a game.
Also an interesting aspect in that regard is incomplete information. For example, what is a hidden base? Do I have control over it? Does my opponent? I feel like this becomes kind of a dead space that noone is controlling (unless of course you can just defend it, but say Protoss hides a base against Zerg and doesn't canon it to no end). Because the hiding player cannot really defend the base so he has no control, but the opponent obviously does not punish it until he has confirmed its existance and directly taken control of the base area (assuming the hiding player cannot indirectly control the area of course). Again, this is much more tactically speaking of course than in the broad sense.
Direct space control is easier to read in the moment, that's true. It takes a bit of practice and experience to read how effective your indirect control is, and to know how to execute it. If you don't know how to punish a breach of your control area, then you don't really have control when you should. Also, a lot of lower level players (and by lower level, I mean below mid-high pro level players) don't always recognize when their opponent has indirect control and move out at bad times, forcing you to punish properly. I've seen a lot of lost games which should have been wins because a player has indirect control over an area, the opponent breached the area, but the player with control didn't know how to punish the breach.
With regards to a hidden base: hidden bases are generally hidden because you can't protect them, so you do not have control over the area. Your opponent typically DOES have control over the area (or else why hide it), so you are relying entirely on a mistake on your opponents part to defend it.
Occasionally hidden bases are taken when neither player can secure control of the map or important locations, but I don't actually think that's a good idea. Hidden bases should typically be taken only when you can't secure a safe base reliably (because of the added risk), or in a long series of matches (like a best of 7) in order to force your opponent to make sure he's crossing his t's and dotting his i's and not cutting corners. In cases like those, I would typically do it in game 2 or 3, since the first game is the most important statistically (for several reasons), but you want to do it early enough that your opponent must follow through on scouting properly for the rest of the series.
In the context of a single game, hidden bases work best when your opponent is using an immobile space control strategy, like a siege tank contain. In such situations, you can usually attempt a hidden base knowing that his forces are locked in place. Protoss and zerg especially can do this, because of warp-ins/mobile units which can force a significant commitment to destroying a hidden base, thereby forcing them to abandon their control zone, or let you have the base.
Watching the vod I can't really help but feel that you guys should really have had a mapmaker there... Talking about LoS Blockers, Xel'nagas, unit splitting for map control, terrain advantages for map control and all that without a mapmaker to aid you guys guide the discussion was really bad.
Talking with blanket statements such as "Great map", "Awful map", "More LoS Blockers", "Less Xel'nagas", is really really bad from a mapmaking perspective. The fact that you guys have no direct experience with maps outside of ladder does not really help either.
On July 15 2015 05:28 Uvantak wrote: Watching the vod I can't really help but feel that you guys should really have had a mapmaker there... Talking about LoS Blockers, Xel'nagas, unit splitting for map control, terrain advantages for map control and all that without a mapmaker to aid you guys guide the discussion was really bad.
Talking with blanket statements such as "Great map", "Awful map", "More LoS Blockers", "Less Xel'nagas", is really really bad from a mapmaking perspective. The fact that you guys have no direct experience with maps outside of ladder does not really help either.
We were being very general rather than specific for the most part, but would you care to elaborate?
On July 15 2015 05:28 Uvantak wrote: Watching the vod I can't really help but feel that you guys should really have had a mapmaker there... Talking about LoS Blockers, Xel'nagas, unit splitting for map control, terrain advantages for map control and all that without a mapmaker to aid you guys guide the discussion was really bad.
Talking with blanket statements such as "Great map", "Awful map", "More LoS Blockers", "Less Xel'nagas", is really really bad from a mapmaking perspective. The fact that you guys have no direct experience with maps outside of ladder does not really help either.
We were being very general rather than specific for the most part, but would you care to elaborate?
Sorry, I had forgotten that I had commented here, as you said you were all very general about maps and their features, but even when I know you weren't really serious about about saying things such as "great map" when referring to Ohana and others. But what really irked me was how away from applicability the whole thing when touching maps was, touching into unpathable areas without touching into other more linked things such as the general openness of the place, which is very very important when regarding unpathable areas on maps.
At the same time it is understandable because you wanted to stay in topic, but some of these topics, can't be touched without going into more detail, because map control and maps are so deeply connected, the fact that the big bulk of your contact with maps also comes from lader leaves a bad taste on my mouth too, but there's nothing that can be done about that.
Overall I really enjoy the show, it is that these things "rustle my jimmies".
On July 15 2015 05:28 Uvantak wrote: Watching the vod I can't really help but feel that you guys should really have had a mapmaker there... Talking about LoS Blockers, Xel'nagas, unit splitting for map control, terrain advantages for map control and all that without a mapmaker to aid you guys guide the discussion was really bad.
Talking with blanket statements such as "Great map", "Awful map", "More LoS Blockers", "Less Xel'nagas", is really really bad from a mapmaking perspective. The fact that you guys have no direct experience with maps outside of ladder does not really help either.
We were being very general rather than specific for the most part, but would you care to elaborate?
Sorry, I had forgotten that I had commented here, as you said you were all very general about maps and their features, but even when I know you weren't really serious about about saying things such as "great map" when referring to Ohana and others. But what really irked me was how away from applicability the whole thing when touching maps was, touching into unpathable areas without touching into other more linked things such as the general openness of the place, which is very very important when regarding unpathable areas on maps.
At the same time it is understandable because you wanted to stay in topic, but some of these topics, can't be touched without going into more detail, because map control and maps are so deeply connected, the fact that the big bulk of your contact with maps also comes from lader leaves a bad taste on my mouth too, but there's nothing that can be done about that.
Overall I really enjoy the show, it is that these things "rustle my jimmies".
Ah I see, well if it helps you feel any better, we have tested and played a good number of games on non-ladder maps, for fun and for the TL map contests, so it's not as if we only have ladder experience.
We did keep a lot of that to a minimum because we wanted to stay on topic. We are planning on doing a map episode in the future, so please wait for that ^_^.
On July 15 2015 05:28 Uvantak wrote: Watching the vod I can't really help but feel that you guys should really have had a mapmaker there... Talking about LoS Blockers, Xel'nagas, unit splitting for map control, terrain advantages for map control and all that without a mapmaker to aid you guys guide the discussion was really bad.
Talking with blanket statements such as "Great map", "Awful map", "More LoS Blockers", "Less Xel'nagas", is really really bad from a mapmaking perspective. The fact that you guys have no direct experience with maps outside of ladder does not really help either.
We were being very general rather than specific for the most part, but would you care to elaborate?
Sorry, I had forgotten that I had commented here, as you said you were all very general about maps and their features, but even when I know you weren't really serious about about saying things such as "great map" when referring to Ohana and others. But what really irked me was how away from applicability the whole thing when touching maps was, touching into unpathable areas without touching into other more linked things such as the general openness of the place, which is very very important when regarding unpathable areas on maps.
At the same time it is understandable because you wanted to stay in topic, but some of these topics, can't be touched without going into more detail, because map control and maps are so deeply connected, the fact that the big bulk of your contact with maps also comes from lader leaves a bad taste on my mouth too, but there's nothing that can be done about that.
Overall I really enjoy the show, it is that these things "rustle my jimmies".
Ah I see, well if it helps you feel any better, we have tested and played a good number of games on non-ladder maps, for fun and for the TL map contests, so it's not as if we only have ladder experience.
We did keep a lot of that to a minimum because we wanted to stay on topic. We are planning on doing a map episode in the future, so please wait for that ^_^.
Oh for sure Whitewing, I'll be absolutely looking forward to it.
Regarding the show itself as feedback, I realized that it would very nice if you guys used more graphics and drawings to express your ideas, specially when you are talking about army positioning and abstract things like that which need visual aid. I'm not saying that all of these graphics should be hyper top notch with graphic designers hired to do, but it would be really useful, for conveying ideas if you guys used programs such as Paint.net or others to show what you mean when talking about abstract things.
On July 17 2015 16:22 Uvantak wrote: Oh for sure Whitewing, I'll be absolutely looking forward to it.
Regarding the show itself as feedback, I realized that it would very nice if you guys used more graphics and drawings to express your ideas, specially when you are talking about army positioning and abstract things like that which need visual aid. I'm not saying that all of these graphics should be hyper top notch with graphic designers hired to do, but it would be really useful, for conveying ideas if you guys used programs such as Paint.net or others to show what you mean when talking about abstract things.
Yes!! A whiteboard... blackboard.... whatever you call it!
On July 17 2015 16:22 Uvantak wrote: Oh for sure Whitewing, I'll be absolutely looking forward to it.
Regarding the show itself as feedback, I realized that it would very nice if you guys used more graphics and drawings to express your ideas, specially when you are talking about army positioning and abstract things like that which need visual aid. I'm not saying that all of these graphics should be hyper top notch with graphic designers hired to do, but it would be really useful, for conveying ideas if you guys used programs such as Paint.net or others to show what you mean when talking about abstract things.
Yes!! A whiteboard... blackboard.... whatever you call it!
Hmm...we might try something like that in the future. I'll look it up.
Thanks everyone for all the feedback, we are really new to this, so anything helps .
EDIT: Also, remember that we have a show coming up this Saturday at 5:00pm EDT on Unit Design! Stream should be easier to find this week as well...we're working on getting it properly up on the calendar and getting it featured HOORAH!
Episode 3 on Unit Design is today at 5:00pm EDT. Unfortunately, we were unable to secure any pro guests for this episode, but we've still got plenty plenty to talk about . Also, another big thing is that we got it up on the calendar correctly finally, so it should be much easier to find the stream!
On July 25 2015 16:40 Garemie wrote: Just listened to the first two shows. I just put it on in the background while playing team games.
I truly enjoyed the in-depth discussion of the first two episodes, and I can't wait to hear episode 3.
I don't know if you guys are looking for suggestions or not but microphone quality is bothersome.
Cheers!
Thanks for listening!
Suggestions are always welcome! If you could be more specific on which mics in particular bother you, that would be helpful. We kind of know Jer's mic is shit, and Teo's sometimes picks up a lot of plosives if he doesn't put the mic far enough away from his face, but there might be other problems we're unaware of .
I wouldn't say it's anything in particular, and for where the show is at right now it's perfectly fine. However, in the future I think having some desk mics with proper booms and such would make quality of the show skyrocket, but obviously that won't be happening for quite some time if at all!
EDIT: In response to the blackboard/whiteboard idea as well. Perhaps a tablet such as a Wacom Bamboo and a screen capture would serve this purpose even better than a physical board.
During the show I asked in the chat, why do Adepts have so high attack bonus against light. I don't like units which are designed to be very good against A and very bad against B. I would prefer the effectiveness distance vs A and vs B reduced. The unit would still be better in certain situations, but it would not suffer from hardcounterness. The reasoning I got was that Adepts would be too powerful if they could snipe buildings and I agree with that. However, if that is the main problem, why that particular issue is not addressed more directly, e.g. by Adepts having reduced damage against Structures, or no damage at all? One could argue that the static defense would hard-counter Adepts, but Adepts have an unique ability to bypass static defense, unless the wall is completely sealed.
Ultimately, I would love to see Adepts gaining more flat damage (and less "vs Light"), while loosing some of its tankyness trait. Being a tank, that should be the domain of a Zealot.
On July 26 2015 11:47 Garemie wrote: I haven't been able to catch a live broadcast yet either, how has viewership been?
It's been around 30 viewers per show, which isn't bad considering that we basically just started, and this was the first time we actually managed to get it on the Event Calendar correctly. We would always love more smiling faces to chat with us during the broadcast .
On July 27 2015 00:39 BlackLilium wrote: During the show I asked in the chat, why do Adepts have so high attack bonus against light. I don't like units which are designed to be very good against A and very bad against B. I would prefer the effectiveness distance vs A and vs B reduced. The unit would still be better in certain situations, but it would not suffer from hardcounterness. The reasoning I got was that Adepts would be too powerful if they could snipe buildings and I agree with that. However, if that is the main problem, why that particular issue is not addressed more directly, e.g. by Adepts having reduced damage against Structures, or no damage at all? One could argue that the static defense would hard-counter Adepts, but Adepts have an unique ability to bypass static defense, unless the wall is completely sealed.
Ultimately, I would love to see Adepts gaining more flat damage (and less "vs Light"), while loosing some of its tankyness trait. Being a tank, that should be the domain of a Zealot.
I'm honestly not sure why Adepts deserve to have "+dmg vs light" other than the fact that zealots are melting too quickly before being able to deal with things like hydralisks and marines. Ironically, a small shield buff to the zealots instead would have probably fixed this up without having to create the adept at all, but it's possible that Blizzard was afraid late game zealot warp-ins would become too strong. Like we said in the cast, zealots still have a good role in harassment and cheap meat shield reinforcement, but Adepts seem to be better in big army engagements.
Tokinho (Ztokdo) brought up that he believes zealots are still better in army engagements than adepts, but I haven't seen a lot of support for this idea. Again, I think this goes back to the idea of zealots just getting kited to death by good players while adepts are somewhat immune to that sort of interaction, making unit tester examples perhaps not as accurate as actual gameplay.
How much shield buff would you give to Zealots? Interestingly it is also a change I am experimenting with in my mod.
In my opinion Adepts partially overlap not only with Zealots but also Stalkers. While Adepts are slower and tankier, their share with stalkers an activated ability that does similar things:
Ability to evade defenses and harass
Ability to force a battle or retreat from battle
Consequently, Adepts - similarly to Stalkers - cannot have too much basic damage output. In terms of DPS we now have:
Adept: 6.2, 14.27 vs Light
Stalker: 6.9, 9.7 vs Armored
A general damage output is very similar, the difference appears only in the "vs X..."
If it was up to me, I would strengthen Adept as a harasser/flanking unit (more mobility, less tankiness), while make Stalker more all-around unit with flat attack and more hp without blink... and call it a Dragoon maybe
I have been enjoying catching up on these shows. For feedback I would agree with the graphics idea. For example bring up the image of a map or screenshot of a game to point to certain areas and make comparisons. Maybe even play part of the replay of a game to highlight certain points. Although I have enjoyed the discussions so far and maybe it does not need any of that. I look forward to future shows.
On the unit design I think there is more subtlety to a unit than if it is strong it has to be slow. Lets say there are several categories for a unit;
damage dealt, damage taken, attack range, movement speed, abilities.
There are many sub-categories of each of the above.
Then as a rough idea, based on the tech level and cost you get a certain number of points to place into each area.
A unit can then be made fairly average, be strong in a couple of these areas and weak in the others or even extremely strong in one area and very weak in the others. Having a healthy mix provides variety and the potential for interesting interactions. Just adding abilities to everything makes the interactions less interesting.
As has been mentioned if the adept can take more damage and has low movement speed, then the zealot could have more movement speed, deal more damage and take less damage. The strengths of each could be reversed, however the adept needs a means of staying alive to be able to transfer to the shade, which is where the high shield-points that can regenerate come in. If it was fast moving with less hit-points it is more likely to die before transferring, and if the adept is fast anyway the shade becomes a less interesting ability.
Likewise the immortal could lose any shield ability and gain a range increase upgrade. lower the damage it can take and increase its range.
The colossus could have a larger splash radius but lower damage, or a greater number of weaker splash attacks that are then more affected by armour.
It all needs to find that subtle line between making units strong in some areas and weak in others but for them to still be usable in a variety of situations and not be to constrained with the situations in which they are useful. They also need to fit with the style of each race, where keeping the above categories in mind, roughly speaking,
Protoss units have greater strengths, where the units compliment and make up for each others weaknesses. fewer more expensive units. Terran units are more general purpose and are all around average or good in all areas. Zerg units have fewer strengths and greater weaknesses but are cheaper and more easily massed.
This may sound very critical, but I think in particular Whitewing got lost on his argumentation a lot of times and went too much into his specific opinion about something while the original argument was lost. For example in the "passive ability" discussion when it came to concussive shells, the original point why he didn't like passive abilities per se got lost. The only thing left was that he didn't like concussive shells - which I agree with - which doesn't necessarily have to do with the ability being a passive, but with the ability being a slow and slows/roots and others are just terrible for the game. At least there has not been a good one implemented.
In general I gotta say I don't agree with too many points that were made
tankivac being "out-of-the-way" design. Actually it is the other way around. A unit not being transportable was the original "out-of-the-way" design. It is thereby very well a synergy that tanks can now fly around in medivacs in my opinion and not tinkered into the game or something like that. The pre-LotV version (which I prefer) on which the synergy is arbitrarily blocked is the actual "out-of-the-way" design and part of what made the tank so unique.
counterplay in micro does very well exist. A classic example are non-target seeking projectile based attacks/spells as can be found in many classic RTS games (CnC, AoE) that you can outmicro. Of course that doesn't mean that strategical counterplay does not exist either. But I personally find abilities that have various outcomes not only based upon my own play, but also who my opponent microes after they are being used better for the game. That does not mean it is a strategically good decision to run Voidrays into parasitic bombs, but the outcome is not always the same if you start splitting the voidrays. The parasitic bomb remains a strategic counterplay because splitting the voidrays is not sufficient, yet it still counteracts the efficientness of the parasitic bomb.
about the forcefield: I fully agree that it is a problem with the PvZ matchup and the production/units of those races. But the forcefield spell is inherently bad design because what happens when a forcefield is cast is that afterwards there is nothing you can do about the forcefield and it stays for a very long time. It stops direct interaction between players and though that doesn't mean there is no counterplay to the forcefield, the counterplay is very boring most of the time. (unless you have a superfast dropship in your main army that can bypass forcefields with interesting micro) The usual counterplay is plainly to sit there and wait. So not only does the forcefield force you into pidgeonhold strategic counterplays very often, once it is casted it forces you into very specific tactical counterplay, and basically the most boring one which is "wait for it".
I very much agree with the point about the old Voidray and everything around it. (damage drop during combats)
Not through with it though, just wanted to comment so far. Really need to go to bed now :D
On July 28 2015 10:38 Big J wrote: This may sound very critical, but I think in particular Whitewing got lost on his argumentation a lot of times and went too much into his specific opinion about something while the original argument was lost. For example in the "passive ability" discussion when it came to concussive shells, the original point why he didn't like passive abilities per se got lost. The only thing left was that he didn't like concussive shells - which I agree with - which doesn't necessarily have to do with the ability being a passive, but with the ability being a slow and slows/roots and others are just terrible for the game. At least there has not been a good one implemented.
In general I gotta say I don't agree with too many points that were made
tankivac being "out-of-the-way" design. Actually it is the other way around. A unit not being transportable was the original "out-of-the-way" design. It is thereby very well a synergy that tanks can now fly around in medivacs in my opinion and not tinkered into the game or something like that. The pre-LotV version (which I prefer) on which the synergy is arbitrarily blocked is the actual "out-of-the-way" design and part of what made the tank so unique.
counterplay in micro does very well exist. A classic example are non-target seeking projectile based attacks/spells as can be found in many classic RTS games (CnC, AoE) that you can outmicro. Of course that doesn't mean that strategical counterplay does not exist either. But I personally find abilities that have various outcomes not only based upon my own play, but also who my opponent microes after they are being used better for the game. That does not mean it is a strategically good decision to run Voidrays into parasitic bombs, but the outcome is not always the same if you start splitting the voidrays. The parasitic bomb remains a strategic counterplay because splitting the voidrays is not sufficient, yet it still counteracts the efficientness of the parasitic bomb.
about the forcefield: I fully agree that it is a problem with the PvZ matchup and the production/units of those races. But the forcefield spell is inherently bad design because what happens when a forcefield is cast is that afterwards there is nothing you can do about the forcefield and it stays for a very long time. It stops direct interaction between players and though that doesn't mean there is no counterplay to the forcefield, the counterplay is very boring most of the time. (unless you have a superfast dropship in your main army that can bypass forcefields with interesting micro) The usual counterplay is plainly to sit there and wait. So not only does the forcefield force you into pidgeonhold strategic counterplays very often, once it is casted it forces you into very specific tactical counterplay, and basically the most boring one which is "wait for it".
I very much agree with the point about the old Voidray and everything around it. (damage drop during combats)
Not through with it though, just wanted to comment so far. Really need to go to bed now :D
I have nothing against passive abilities. The point I was making is that an ability is not inherently good or bad just because it is passive or active. Concussive shells was an example of a bad passive ability, to demonstrate that an ability being passive doesn't make it inherently good. This was a counterpoint to a common community complaint about active abilities being bad and passive being good.
Concussive shells is bad because it in no way shape or form changes the function of the marauder, nor is there any particular response to it. You don't change your play based on terran getting concussive shells: the response to marauders is the same when they have it and when they don't. Imagine removing concussive shells from the game entirely: what specific plays would suddenly become viable that weren't? The old concussive shell rushes which feature marauders running in circles around units forever is already dead because people learned how to stop those types of plays. It's an ability that doesn't really do much of anything except make kiting slightly easier. It doesn't in any way make kiting possible when it wasn't though: there aren't any situations I can think of where a bio ball is incapable of kiting without concussive shells but can with it. The kiting might be a bit easier with it and more forgiving, but it's hardly necessary (which I think is demonstrated by how nobody tries to get it early anymore).
The tankivac is a specific example of a unit interaction being created to force synergy by allowing one unit to break the way another unit functions. The siege tank is normally required to not be able to move at all while rooted for it's siege mode. Medivac previously could not overwrite that downside: I.E. the functionality of siege mode took priority and was not in any way impacted. Medivacs could pick up any unit that could not move, which is to be expected of a unit that roots itself to the ground. The new interaction was a deliberate modification of the siege tank and medivac to allow it to break the original intent of siege mode. This is an artificial interaction. Note that there is synergy there in one context of the word (units working together to do something better). However, as I define synergy, it is a unit working well with another unit without changing the way the unit works. The siege tanks "I can't move at all" mechanic is completely removed when a medivac lifts it. That's a specifically coded interaction with deliberate forced intent. The siege tanks "No movement at all" gets replaced with "No movement at all, unless a medivac lifts it". Note the exemption here: if you played zerg, mind controlled an scv, built an entire terran army, and tried to lift the sieged tank with an overlord, it would not work. That's not synergy as I generally define it, because it requires a deliberate modification of the unit to make it work.
My point was that the phrase "Counterplay" is typically incorrectly applied and misused in an RTS environment. Emphasis on game design necessarily focuses on strategic decisions with damage control micro situations being a secondary element. The appropriate strategic response to a play is the counter to it: sometimes that is micro if you already have the correct units, but the point is that being in a situation in which you cannot micro against what your opponent is doing is not an example of a lack of counterplay: you've already botched the counterplay by getting into that situation. In mobas (where the term as used comes from), there are only 5 heroes on the field for each team (or whatever number the game uses), and therefore counterplay refers to being able to respond to what a specific hero is doing. Incidentally, it often is done before the interaction in question comes up, such as by choosing the right talent ahead of time or buying the correct item.
As to the force field, there's nothing you can do once you're out of position and a doom drop winds up in your base either, beyond damage control. There are many mechanics in the game for which the optimal response after it hits is to cut your losses and try to see what you can make work after the fact. Forcefields are a mechanic by which a protoss can defend himself with a weaker force (necessary given production rates in PvZ and strength/weaknesses of units at specific timings), or can punish an unprepared or out of position opponent. Being unprepared or out of position (or poorly controlling your forces) is punished by many mechanics in this game, not just forcefield. In this way, forcefield isn't really any different than fungal growth causing an entire big ball of units to die because they got caught, or a ghost landing a nice EMP on important caster units, or any number of other punishing moves. Forcefields are a space controlling ability, you have to respect it ahead of time, and the correct response is to plan for it. The lack of a response to forcefields after you are caught is not an inherently problematic situation in an RTS. They would be problematic and would lack "Counterplay" if you also could not prepare a response ahead of time. There are a wide range of responses, which is why protoss doesn't just keep going mass sentry for the entire game. Just as the counterplay to blinking into a bunch of unseen bio units and getting blown up is to get vision of the map ahead before blinking forward, the counter to forcefields is to be prepared ahead of time, not react after they are down.
The point is, if you are caught by forcefields, it's because you made a mistake. You either engaged when you shouldn't have, were out of position, or were completely unprepared for them. There are a good array of responses to forcefields, like forcing engagements in wide areas of the map where they are ineffective, getting burrow move on roaches, massive units, flying units, avoiding the army, overwhelming the forces with flanks, etc. Most of them require you to make a decision ahead of time.
While there are bits where I didn't agree with Whitewing during the show (e.g. the Adept upgrade discussion), this response to Forcefields is great! It's not what you do after forcefields go up, it's what you do before that!
Correct if I am wrong - the early sentry/stalker pushes usually do not involve observers, right? How viable would it be to burrow some banelings on the likely path of sentries?
I have nothing against passive abilities. The point I was making is that an ability is not inherently good or bad just because it is passive or active. Concussive shells was an example of a bad passive ability, to demonstrate that an ability being passive doesn't make it inherently good. This was a counterpoint to a common community complaint about active abilities being bad and passive being good.
Sorry, I must have missunderstood your point there. I can fully agree with that.
Concussive shells is bad because it in no way shape or form changes the function of the marauder, nor is there any particular response to it. You don't change your play based on terran getting concussive shells: the response to marauders is the same when they have it and when they don't. Imagine removing concussive shells from the game entirely: what specific plays would suddenly become viable that weren't? The old concussive shell rushes which feature marauders running in circles around units forever is already dead because people learned how to stop those types of plays. It's an ability that doesn't really do much of anything except make kiting slightly easier. It doesn't in any way make kiting possible when it wasn't though: there aren't any situations I can think of where a bio ball is incapable of kiting without concussive shells but can with it. The kiting might be a bit easier with it and more forgiving, but it's hardly necessary (which I think is demonstrated by how nobody tries to get it early anymore).
I don't like the ability, but just because it doesn't have a strategical implication doesn't mean it is bad. It plainly makes the marauder a little better at kiting or in general in combat (opponents hit your army later, you get to do more damage). It is thus not different from a passive stats upgrade such as combat shields or chitinous plating. Which btw can also be considered a passive ability on its own (e.g. the ability to block 3incoming damage).
The tankivac is a specific example of a unit interaction being created to force synergy by allowing one unit to break the way another unit functions. The siege tank is normally required to not be able to move at all while rooted for it's siege mode. Medivac previously could not overwrite that downside: I.E. the functionality of siege mode took priority and was not in any way impacted. Medivacs could pick up any unit that could not move, which is to be expected of a unit that roots itself to the ground. The new interaction was a deliberate modification of the siege tank and medivac to allow it to break the original intent of siege mode. This is an artificial interaction. Note that there is synergy there in one context of the word (units working together to do something better). However, as I define synergy, it is a unit working well with another unit without changing the way the unit works. The siege tanks "I can't move at all" mechanic is completely removed when a medivac lifts it. That's a specifically coded interaction with deliberate forced intent. The siege tanks "No movement at all" gets replaced with "No movement at all, unless a medivac lifts it". Note the exemption here: if you played zerg, mind controlled an scv, built an entire terran army, and tried to lift the sieged tank with an overlord, it would not work. That's not synergy as I generally define it, because it requires a deliberate modification of the unit to make it work.
Has someone actually tried that? Because I would consider it weird if blizzard didn't plainly implement that synergy via the "cargo space" value of the unit which was previously 0 (=cannot be lifted) and is now probably 8 (=takes 8cargo space in a transport). Without trying it I would have assumed it was possible to lift a siege tank with an overlord in LotV. That the unit is visually rooted into the ground is a nice flavor to the unit, but not a gameplay functionality. In terms of being liftable, every other unit is liftable (even if it is way too big for the transport or way too heavy according to the lore - Thors, Ultralisks) so why wouldn't the siege tank be? The reason is to create artificially good gameplay and remove synergy where there would be.
My point was that the phrase "Counterplay" is typically incorrectly applied and misused in an RTS environment. Emphasis on game design necessarily focuses on strategic decisions with damage control micro situations being a secondary element. The appropriate strategic response to a play is the counter to it: sometimes that is micro if you already have the correct units, but the point is that being in a situation in which you cannot micro against what your opponent is doing is not an example of a lack of counterplay: you've already botched the counterplay by getting into that situation. In mobas (where the term as used comes from), there are only 5 heroes on the field for each team (or whatever number the game uses), and therefore counterplay refers to being able to respond to what a specific hero is doing. Incidentally, it often is done before the interaction in question comes up, such as by choosing the right talent ahead of time or buying the correct item.
Due to popular demand blizzard is trying to make it a more primary element. Though it can never replace the power of numbers and composition, it can take a much bigger role in the game and I really like that about the new unit/ability designs.
As to the force field, there's nothing you can do once you're out of position and a doom drop winds up in your base either, beyond damage control. There are many mechanics in the game for which the optimal response after it hits is to cut your losses and try to see what you can make work after the fact. Forcefields are a mechanic by which a protoss can defend himself with a weaker force (necessary given production rates in PvZ and strength/weaknesses of units at specific timings), or can punish an unprepared or out of position opponent. Being unprepared or out of position (or poorly controlling your forces) is punished by many mechanics in this game, not just forcefield. In this way, forcefield isn't really any different than fungal growth causing an entire big ball of units to die because they got caught, or a ghost landing a nice EMP on important caster units, or any number of other punishing moves. Forcefields are a space controlling ability, you have to respect it ahead of time, and the correct response is to plan for it. The lack of a response to forcefields after you are caught is not an inherently problematic situation in an RTS. They would be problematic and would lack "Counterplay" if you also could not prepare a response ahead of time. There are a wide range of responses, which is why protoss doesn't just keep going mass sentry for the entire game. Just as the counterplay to blinking into a bunch of unseen bio units and getting blown up is to get vision of the map ahead before blinking forward, the counter to forcefields is to be prepared ahead of time, not react after they are down.
The point is, if you are caught by forcefields, it's because you made a mistake. You either engaged when you shouldn't have, were out of position, or were completely unprepared for them. There are a good array of responses to forcefields, like forcing engagements in wide areas of the map where they are ineffective, getting burrow move on roaches, massive units, flying units, avoiding the army, overwhelming the forces with flanks, etc. Most of them require you to make a decision ahead of time.
That is the status quo and gameplay as you describe here is widely considered as unfun. Imo you are focusing too much on strategical interactions with the forcefield. What you are saying in essence comes down to "there is a response to forcefields so that you don't lose", i.e. it is not imbalanced. That doesn't say anything about its design. You talk a lot about how it creates strategical interaction. But creating strategical interaction is by far the easiest part of design, most things in the game have that. That doesn't make most things in the game good because of that. And the forcefield doesn't do a lot besides that and requiring skill for the user, while the opponent cannot do a lot besides fielding his strongest hardcounters to the sentry and maybe using the one or other gimmick to counter it.
On July 28 2015 18:09 Big J wrote: And the forcefield doesn't do a lot besides that and requiring skill for the user, while the opponent cannot do a lot besides fielding his strongest hardcounters to the sentry and maybe using the one or other gimmick to counter it.
Of course the opponent can do something about it - better positioning to avoid being blocked by the force-field. That's not a hardcounter nor gimmick. That's the whole point! Also note that sentries are rather slow. This gives the opponent a chance to define where the battle is actually going to occur.
To put a better emphasis on what happens before FF, I proposed a cast reduction from 9 to 5. This would make splitting an army with forcefield harder but not impossible. It would require better Sentry positioning and give a chance to the opponent to react to an incoming sentry before FF is cast. A gimmick, as you say, such as a FF destroyer - that's another story. I don't think it is absolutely necessary, I value this solution much less. This does not require positional micro, it's just a proper clicking response.
So, I just listened to the 3rd episode and... it would be nice if others would be talking as much as Whitewing(? not sure if he was the voice, I was listening to it at work and 1 voice ruled them all ). It felt as a one man show. I will listen to the others, it may be because too few people on the show(5 people layout vs 3 present).
On July 28 2015 18:09 Big J wrote: And the forcefield doesn't do a lot besides that and requiring skill for the user, while the opponent cannot do a lot besides fielding his strongest hardcounters to the sentry and maybe using the one or other gimmick to counter it.
Of course the opponent can do something about it - better positioning to avoid being blocked by the force-field. That's not a hardcounter nor gimmick. That's the whole point! Also note that sentries are rather slow. This gives the opponent a chance to define where the battle is actually going to occur.
To put a better emphasis on what happens before FF, I proposed a cast reduction from 9 to 5. This would make splitting an army with forcefield harder but not impossible. It would require better Sentry positioning and give a chance to the opponent to react to an incoming sentry before FF is cast. A gimmick, as you say, such as a FF destroyer - that's another story. I don't think it is absolutely necessary, I value this solution much less. This does not require positional micro, it's just a proper clicking response.
Say I position my army so well that forcefields don't work (and the map allows for that and yadayadayada) before the combat - then the Protoss shouldn't take the engagement and no forcefields should be casted. Say I position my army not as well as above - then my opponent casts his forcefields and that's it. There are no degrees of success. If the Protoss just places his forcefields somewhat well the combat is decided, the other 20seconds are just clean up.
A good combat in an RTS games is decided back-and-forth micro interactions and the forcefield isn't a such.
On July 28 2015 18:41 Big J wrote: Say I position my army so well that forcefields don't work (and the map allows for that and yadayadayada) before the combat - then the Protoss shouldn't take the engagement and no forcefields should be casted. Say I position my army not as well as above - then my opponent casts his forcefields and that's it. There are no degrees of success. If the Protoss just places his forcefields somewhat well the combat is decided, the other 20seconds are just clean up.
A good combat in an RTS games is decided back-and-forth micro interactions and the forcefield isn't a such.
Sometimes you take an engagement even if you shouldn't - simply because there is no other option. That's the engagement forcing.
Secondly, when your positioning is decent, but not great, it may happen that the opponent casts some but not all of his forcefields for whatever reason. It could be because of lack of his skill, or because your positioning was not that bad to start with. It may happen that he traps 5% of your units or 55% of your units. There are degrees of success.
Again, I agree on putting more emphasis on the before-FF micro interaction. But saying that there are none, that I have to disagree with.
On July 28 2015 18:41 Big J wrote: Say I position my army so well that forcefields don't work (and the map allows for that and yadayadayada) before the combat - then the Protoss shouldn't take the engagement and no forcefields should be casted. Say I position my army not as well as above - then my opponent casts his forcefields and that's it. There are no degrees of success. If the Protoss just places his forcefields somewhat well the combat is decided, the other 20seconds are just clean up.
A good combat in an RTS games is decided back-and-forth micro interactions and the forcefield isn't a such.
Sometimes you take an engagement even if you shouldn't - simply because there is no other option. That's the engagement forcing.
Secondly, when your positioning is decent, but not great, it may happen that the opponent casts some but not all of his forcefields for whatever reason. It could be because of lack of his skill, or because your positioning was not that bad to start with. It may happen that he traps 5% of your units or 55% of your units. There are degrees of success.
Again, I agree on putting more emphasis on the before-FF micro interaction. But saying that there are none, that I have to disagree with.
Yeah but that's 100% on the Protoss side. It has nothing to do with what I do. If the Protoss makes mistakes or missplaces his forcefields that is not back and forth micro and interaction. It is plainly just one player making a mistake in a situation that may as well be singleplayer.
It's similar to what Teo said about free units. There hasn't been a good implementation of them yet and the same goes for micro and interaction blocking spells and abilities like concussive shells, forcefield, fungal growth. Not one of them has been proven to be popular amongst the player base with very good reasoning. It does the opposite of what most people think is fun.
On July 28 2015 18:41 Big J wrote: Say I position my army so well that forcefields don't work (and the map allows for that and yadayadayada) before the combat - then the Protoss shouldn't take the engagement and no forcefields should be casted. Say I position my army not as well as above - then my opponent casts his forcefields and that's it. There are no degrees of success. If the Protoss just places his forcefields somewhat well the combat is decided, the other 20seconds are just clean up.
A good combat in an RTS games is decided back-and-forth micro interactions and the forcefield isn't a such.
Sometimes you take an engagement even if you shouldn't - simply because there is no other option. That's the engagement forcing.
Secondly, when your positioning is decent, but not great, it may happen that the opponent casts some but not all of his forcefields for whatever reason. It could be because of lack of his skill, or because your positioning was not that bad to start with. It may happen that he traps 5% of your units or 55% of your units. There are degrees of success.
Again, I agree on putting more emphasis on the before-FF micro interaction. But saying that there are none, that I have to disagree with.
Yeah but that's 100% on the Protoss side. It has nothing to do with what I do. If the Protoss makes mistakes or missplaces his forcefields that is not back and forth micro and interaction. It is plainly just one player making a mistake in a situation that may as well be singleplayer.
It's similar to what Teo said about free units. There hasn't been a good implementation of them yet and the same goes for micro and interaction blocking spells and abilities like concussive shells, forcefield, fungal growth. Not one of them has been proven to be popular amongst the player base with very good reasoning. It does the opposite of what most people think is fun.
No, it is not entirely 100% on the Protoss side - that's the point! You can position your units in a way that he simply cannot cast perfect forcefields, but can cast decent one... or mediocre ones... depending on the situation. With a cast range of 9 that can be hard, but I believe that something smaller, e.g. 5, can change a lot. You can see sentries moving forward, presumabely preparing to cast a force field. You can respond to step back a bit. Or to push even further forward to snipe those sentries. Or move sideways to force sentry repositioning... Or go around the army to hit in the back (sentries are slow)... or <insert another idea here> ...
On July 28 2015 18:41 Big J wrote: Say I position my army so well that forcefields don't work (and the map allows for that and yadayadayada) before the combat - then the Protoss shouldn't take the engagement and no forcefields should be casted. Say I position my army not as well as above - then my opponent casts his forcefields and that's it. There are no degrees of success. If the Protoss just places his forcefields somewhat well the combat is decided, the other 20seconds are just clean up.
A good combat in an RTS games is decided back-and-forth micro interactions and the forcefield isn't a such.
Sometimes you take an engagement even if you shouldn't - simply because there is no other option. That's the engagement forcing.
Secondly, when your positioning is decent, but not great, it may happen that the opponent casts some but not all of his forcefields for whatever reason. It could be because of lack of his skill, or because your positioning was not that bad to start with. It may happen that he traps 5% of your units or 55% of your units. There are degrees of success.
Again, I agree on putting more emphasis on the before-FF micro interaction. But saying that there are none, that I have to disagree with.
Yeah but that's 100% on the Protoss side. It has nothing to do with what I do. If the Protoss makes mistakes or missplaces his forcefields that is not back and forth micro and interaction. It is plainly just one player making a mistake in a situation that may as well be singleplayer.
It's similar to what Teo said about free units. There hasn't been a good implementation of them yet and the same goes for micro and interaction blocking spells and abilities like concussive shells, forcefield, fungal growth. Not one of them has been proven to be popular amongst the player base with very good reasoning. It does the opposite of what most people think is fun.
No, it is not entirely 100% on the Protoss side - that's the point! You can position your units in a way that he simply cannot cast perfect forcefields, but can cast decent one... or mediocre ones... depending on the situation. With a cast range of 9 that can be hard, but I believe that something smaller, e.g. 5, can change a lot. You can see sentries moving forward, presumabely preparing to cast a force field. You can respond to step back a bit. Or to push even further forward to snipe those sentries. Or move sideways to force sentry repositioning... Or go around the army to hit in the back (sentries are slow)... or <insert another idea here> ...
You can set up against everything in the game. If we go by this there is no bad design at all for as long as it is not overpowered. If we go beyond being able to set up before a play actually happens, then we have to consider how said play interacts with its enviroment after it has been initiated. The forcefield design is a miserable fail in that department.
Examples of spells that you can interact with after they are casted are: Psi Storm/Blinding Cloud --> the spell's effect can be run out of. The caster has paid energy for a certain time duration, but only gotten a small part of it. Parasitic Bomb --> the caster has paid for a splash effect, but you can evacuate every unit but one out of its area of effect Forcefield? the unit displacement happens instantly. There is no way to diminish the purpose of the forcefield, because the purpose of the forcefield is that you cannot go where it is. Dodging its location is exactly what the forcefield wants you to do. Destroying it is not possible*. + Show Spoiler +
*blizzard has actually realized a long time ago that this is a problem with forcefield and tried to fix it by being crushed by massive units. It just didn't work due to the lack of massive units for long game periods. There are a bunch of abilities nowadays that can influence positioning even if there are forcefields. It's blizzard's gimmicky bandaid way to repair forcefield while keeping the spell itself bad design.
The point still remains that destroying it is very complicated strategically and in many cases you are not rewarded to try and get the destruction techs (e.g. rushing to ultralisks to be safe against a 2base sentry play).
Examples of spells that can be interacted while being casted: Neural Parasite --> channeled effect. You can kill the infestor while it has to stay close to the neuraled target. new Snipe --> channeled cast. Can be interrupted. Disruptor --> indication that the spell is being channeled. Unit can be avoided to make the disruptor waste its effect. Forcefield? The whole effect takes place exactly when the spellcontroller wants it to take place. The sentry isn't bound to the forcefield in some way after being casted.
Examples of spells whose effects stick, but where the spell can be dodged: EMP/Fungal Growth --> no possible interaction with the effect, but you can dodge the projectile Forcefield? Instant cast. If the spell is badly placed it is just that, the controller of the spell placing it badly.
Again, you can set up for everything as long as it isn't overpowered (as this is basically the vaguest possible definition of something being not overpowered). Good design is a question that goes beyond that concept.
oh, I can make FF worse by design. Simply give a sentry an infinite casting range for example
I am not talking about the mere preparation for the battle. My point is that during battles you can still react to approaching sentries as they are about to cast their force field. There is not too much to maneouver right now with the high cast range (9), but with a lower one - I honestly believe that pre-FF interaction can be much more interesting. Of course, spells that do not affect movement give better interactions. I am also not claiming that FF is great. I understand that constraining movement is, by definition, limiting one side the movement posibilities once it is casted.
What I disagree with is the thinking that FF are unsalvageable and must dissapear completely. I am against absolute statements as "no interaction" or "everything is on the skill of one side". That's not true.
Compare it to... banelings. After the baneling explodes, neither side can do anything about it. It went boom. It's done. Period. What happens before the explosion is what matters. However, baneling explosion casting range is 0 - it explodes where the baneling is standing.
Imagine that a baneling could teleport in the range of 9 right before it explodes. Would it be an interesting ability? Not really. It would be overpowered and the defender couldn't do much about it. In terms of interaction it would be as broken as sentries are now. Now let us go to other extreme: imagine that force field is casted exactly where the sentry is standing (a.k.a. casting range 0). It would be very easy to avoid, most of the skill would be on the defender, not attacker, given that Sentries are slower than banelings.
Now, between these two extremes, I believe, there lies a "sweet spot" where both attackers and defenders fight with their positioning. One trying to position sentries in the best possible spot to forcefield the enemy, while the other side tries to deny that.
On July 29 2015 01:00 BlackLilium wrote: oh, I can make FF worse by design. Simply give a sentry an infinite casting range for example
I am not talking about the mere preparation for the battle. My point is that during battles you can still react to approaching sentries as they are about to cast their force field. There is not too much to maneouver right now with the high cast range (9), but with a lower one - I honestly believe that pre-FF interaction can be much more interesting. Of course, spells that do not affect movement give better interactions. I am also not claiming that FF is great. I understand that constraining movement is, by definition, limiting one side the movement posibilities once it is casted.
What I disagree with is the thinking that FF are unsalvageable and must dissapear completely. I am against absolute statements as "no interaction" or "everything is on the skill of one side". That's not true.
Compare it to... banelings. After the baneling explodes, neither side can do anything about it. It went boom. It's done. Period. What happens before the explosion is what matters. However, baneling explosion casting range is 0 - it explodes where the baneling is standing.
Imagine that a baneling could teleport in the range of 9 right before it explodes. Would it be an interesting ability? Not really. It would be overpowered and the defender couldn't do much about it. In terms of interaction it would be as broken as sentries are now. Now let us go to other extreme: imagine that force field is casted exactly where the sentry is standing (a.k.a. casting range 0). It would be very easy to avoid, most of the skill would be on the defender, not attacker, given that Sentries are slower than banelings.
Now, between these two extremes, I believe, there lies a "sweet spot" where both attackers and defenders fight with their positioning. One trying to position sentries in the best possible spot to forcefield the enemy, while the other side tries to deny that.
Banelings work like the projectile examples to some degree, with the difference that they are much slower and can be attacked, but don't have to detonate after movement.
True that forcefield could be tweaked. At least I believe everything can be tweaked in some ways to become better if not even good. The questions are how and why. The question is why you don't use better designs from your almost infinite idea pool to begin with instead of using resources to tweak inherently problematic designs until they become interesting.
First of all: burrowing banelings for 2-base all-ins (in HotS) is not doable because you can't guarantee they're going to hit the sentries, and if they don't, you're in a lot of trouble. Plus, you sacrifice higher tech like roaches and lair tech in order to do so, so it can be very punishing if you don't get the huge baneling hit you want. KawaiiRice used to do mass ling/bling with baneling drops onto the Protoss army + constant runbys into the Protoss base, but I have no idea how someone can manage that without the 400 APM he had.
Second, as for the discussion about Forcefield: I understand that it has been frustrating to deal with in WoL and HotS, particularly the 2-base all-ins. Outside of the all-ins (or defending all-ins) though, forcefield has very limited use because there are too many ways to decide WHERE you want to fight and HOW to deal with the forcefields (massive units breaking them, flying units sniping sentries, etc., etc.). In LotV, both Zerg and Terran have been given a lot more tools that provide counterplay to forcefields early on (particularly the ravager and cyclone), so I honestly don't think it's a bad ability at all anymore. It:
Forces pre-emptive positioning to make sure you don't engage in a choke where you can be forcefielded off. And vice versa, it requires Protoss to be mindful of their own positioning so that they aren't sitting ducks in open ground.
Has plenty of counter micro abilities to lessen the impact of good forcefields. Ravagers can break the forcefields, roaches can burrow out, medivacs can lift stuff out, cyclones can snipe sentries/stalkers over the forcefields, etc.
Has plenty of strategic counterplay available. For instance, the reason 2-base Protoss timings were so powerful was because you couldn't stop them from getting an early economy going and having similar or same workers by the time they decided to start warping in from 6+ gateways. With options like early overlord drops and cyclone openings as well as the changes in economy making those 2-base all-ins very unforgiving, there are plenty of ways to get around timings that would rely on forcefields.
That said, as much as forcefield has been hated in the past, I think it's fine the way it is now. Perhaps we have a bunch of forced interactions which could have been avoided if we had never made the sentry in the first place...but at this point, there's no reason to petition to remove forcefield from the game hehe.
I have nothing against passive abilities. The point I was making is that an ability is not inherently good or bad just because it is passive or active. Concussive shells was an example of a bad passive ability, to demonstrate that an ability being passive doesn't make it inherently good. This was a counterpoint to a common community complaint about active abilities being bad and passive being good.
Sorry, I must have missunderstood your point there. I can fully agree with that.
Concussive shells is bad because it in no way shape or form changes the function of the marauder, nor is there any particular response to it. You don't change your play based on terran getting concussive shells: the response to marauders is the same when they have it and when they don't. Imagine removing concussive shells from the game entirely: what specific plays would suddenly become viable that weren't? The old concussive shell rushes which feature marauders running in circles around units forever is already dead because people learned how to stop those types of plays. It's an ability that doesn't really do much of anything except make kiting slightly easier. It doesn't in any way make kiting possible when it wasn't though: there aren't any situations I can think of where a bio ball is incapable of kiting without concussive shells but can with it. The kiting might be a bit easier with it and more forgiving, but it's hardly necessary (which I think is demonstrated by how nobody tries to get it early anymore).
I don't like the ability, but just because it doesn't have a strategical implication doesn't mean it is bad. It plainly makes the marauder a little better at kiting or in general in combat (opponents hit your army later, you get to do more damage). It is thus not different from a passive stats upgrade such as combat shields or chitinous plating. Which btw can also be considered a passive ability on its own (e.g. the ability to block 3incoming damage).
The tankivac is a specific example of a unit interaction being created to force synergy by allowing one unit to break the way another unit functions. The siege tank is normally required to not be able to move at all while rooted for it's siege mode. Medivac previously could not overwrite that downside: I.E. the functionality of siege mode took priority and was not in any way impacted. Medivacs could pick up any unit that could not move, which is to be expected of a unit that roots itself to the ground. The new interaction was a deliberate modification of the siege tank and medivac to allow it to break the original intent of siege mode. This is an artificial interaction. Note that there is synergy there in one context of the word (units working together to do something better). However, as I define synergy, it is a unit working well with another unit without changing the way the unit works. The siege tanks "I can't move at all" mechanic is completely removed when a medivac lifts it. That's a specifically coded interaction with deliberate forced intent. The siege tanks "No movement at all" gets replaced with "No movement at all, unless a medivac lifts it". Note the exemption here: if you played zerg, mind controlled an scv, built an entire terran army, and tried to lift the sieged tank with an overlord, it would not work. That's not synergy as I generally define it, because it requires a deliberate modification of the unit to make it work.
Has someone actually tried that? Because I would consider it weird if blizzard didn't plainly implement that synergy via the "cargo space" value of the unit which was previously 0 (=cannot be lifted) and is now probably 8 (=takes 8cargo space in a transport). Without trying it I would have assumed it was possible to lift a siege tank with an overlord in LotV. That the unit is visually rooted into the ground is a nice flavor to the unit, but not a gameplay functionality. In terms of being liftable, every other unit is liftable (even if it is way too big for the transport or way too heavy according to the lore - Thors, Ultralisks) so why wouldn't the siege tank be? The reason is to create artificially good gameplay and remove synergy where there would be.
My point was that the phrase "Counterplay" is typically incorrectly applied and misused in an RTS environment. Emphasis on game design necessarily focuses on strategic decisions with damage control micro situations being a secondary element. The appropriate strategic response to a play is the counter to it: sometimes that is micro if you already have the correct units, but the point is that being in a situation in which you cannot micro against what your opponent is doing is not an example of a lack of counterplay: you've already botched the counterplay by getting into that situation. In mobas (where the term as used comes from), there are only 5 heroes on the field for each team (or whatever number the game uses), and therefore counterplay refers to being able to respond to what a specific hero is doing. Incidentally, it often is done before the interaction in question comes up, such as by choosing the right talent ahead of time or buying the correct item.
Due to popular demand blizzard is trying to make it a more primary element. Though it can never replace the power of numbers and composition, it can take a much bigger role in the game and I really like that about the new unit/ability designs.
As to the force field, there's nothing you can do once you're out of position and a doom drop winds up in your base either, beyond damage control. There are many mechanics in the game for which the optimal response after it hits is to cut your losses and try to see what you can make work after the fact. Forcefields are a mechanic by which a protoss can defend himself with a weaker force (necessary given production rates in PvZ and strength/weaknesses of units at specific timings), or can punish an unprepared or out of position opponent. Being unprepared or out of position (or poorly controlling your forces) is punished by many mechanics in this game, not just forcefield. In this way, forcefield isn't really any different than fungal growth causing an entire big ball of units to die because they got caught, or a ghost landing a nice EMP on important caster units, or any number of other punishing moves. Forcefields are a space controlling ability, you have to respect it ahead of time, and the correct response is to plan for it. The lack of a response to forcefields after you are caught is not an inherently problematic situation in an RTS. They would be problematic and would lack "Counterplay" if you also could not prepare a response ahead of time. There are a wide range of responses, which is why protoss doesn't just keep going mass sentry for the entire game. Just as the counterplay to blinking into a bunch of unseen bio units and getting blown up is to get vision of the map ahead before blinking forward, the counter to forcefields is to be prepared ahead of time, not react after they are down.
The point is, if you are caught by forcefields, it's because you made a mistake. You either engaged when you shouldn't have, were out of position, or were completely unprepared for them. There are a good array of responses to forcefields, like forcing engagements in wide areas of the map where they are ineffective, getting burrow move on roaches, massive units, flying units, avoiding the army, overwhelming the forces with flanks, etc. Most of them require you to make a decision ahead of time.
That is the status quo and gameplay as you describe here is widely considered as unfun. Imo you are focusing too much on strategical interactions with the forcefield. What you are saying in essence comes down to "there is a response to forcefields so that you don't lose", i.e. it is not imbalanced. That doesn't say anything about its design. You talk a lot about how it creates strategical interaction. But creating strategical interaction is by far the easiest part of design, most things in the game have that. That doesn't make most things in the game good because of that. And the forcefield doesn't do a lot besides that and requiring skill for the user, while the opponent cannot do a lot besides fielding his strongest hardcounters to the sentry and maybe using the one or other gimmick to counter it.
Concussive shells doesn't change whether the marauder can kite in any situation or not, it simply makes it easier. The marauder is already a good kiting unit: long range, high movement speed with stim, responsive control, etc. Concussive shells doesn't really change much of anything for the unit, which is why you hardly see anyone research it anymore, at least until much later in the game. More importantly, there's no change in behavior for the opponent to respond to it or plan for it. You already can't catch marauders with zealots, and stalkers already lose to them. The only thing concussive shells does is make a bad attack worse by limiting the damage control of the opponent, by preventing retreat. In a strategy game, any ability which does not have a strategic implication is a bad ability.
We're spitting hairs on this one: you see the siege tank siege mode as being the unique interaction whereas I see the medivac changing the functionality of siege mode as the unique interaction. The important thing to me on this one is that the siege mode is the defining feature of the tank, and the total and complete lack of mobility is intrinsic as a characteristic of the ability. Allowing siege tanks to rapidly change positions by using a medivac completely bypasses the intended weakness of siege mode, which is a compensating factor of the strength of it. In this way, the medivac accomplishes something significantly beyond what is generally intended of the medivac: healing and allowing ground units to bypass terrain. It entirely cuts out some of the required transformation time of the siege mode ability to reposition: medivacs change the way a specific ability works.
The whole point is that force fields aren't a bad ability by design just because you can't micro out of them because you are caught. You might as well argue that EMP shouldn't exist because it can't be dodged (too fast a projectile), or Yamato Canon because you can't dodge it. In an RTS, skill is not exclusively the domain of unit control and micro: it is primarily in the realm of strategic decision making, reading the field of battle, making good decisions and having good judgment. Micro is merely a way of optimizing the output of the tools you currently have at hand in the situation you find yourself in. The goal should not be to eliminate mechanics which limit that, because that's their way of optimizing their unit control. Rather, players have the responsibility of doing their utmost to avoid poor situations with their strategic decisions and planning.
You need to plan for what your opponent is doing and respond appropriately ahead of time. What's the counter to a DT rush? Scouting and then responding with detection. Forcefields are less binary because there are things both players can do to control their forces to limit or improve their effectiveness, but the basic principle is the same. Be prepared for them and be careful on your engagements and positioning. Micro'ing out after you are caught is the "Oops, I screwed up" response.
You complain about force fields being unfun. Firstly, that's subjective. Secondly, they are quite fun to use for the protoss player in many cases. Thirdly, many mechanics in the game are "unfun" for the opponent. I don't find mutalisks to be enjoyable to play against. I hate playing against doom drops. I rather dislike a number of things when they are used against me. That doesn't make them bad mechanics.
The design of the individual ability "Forcefield" is just fine. There's nothing inherently problematic about a terrain changing ability. I did mention I don't like it being available on early gateway units because of complications that go with that on the show, but that's a complaint about the sentry, not the forcefield ability.
I'm simply explaining what forcefields are from a game design perspective, and why they are not inherently problematic. They are a great ability by design: their existence drastically changes how the opponents have to respond to their presence, they enable different behaviors amongst the protoss units, they serve the purpose of zoning and space control admirably, and they are resource based and not free (I.E. cost). There's a noticeable skill difference between a great player using them and a mediocre player using them, and there are a wide range of responses. That's what good design is for an activated ability: it's existence changes the way the game is played without breaking the game and gives the unit an additional function. If forcefield were removed from the game tomorrow, sentries would only be made for scouting and guardian shield, and you might see 1-2 in an army at any given point in time at most. They wouldn't be threatening, and would be exceptionally boring. Force field defines that unit, and "I don't have fun fighting against it" is not a good argument as to why it's bad design as a mechanic.
The general point: I strongly disagree that in a strategy game or RTS, that the determining factor in a good battle is the micro. The determining factor in whether a batlte is good or not is the strategy involved. If the opposing player correctly responds and fields the correct units or, alternatively, forces the engagement in a better position, then micro is enabled. If he failed to do so, it's because he strategically screwed up. I don't see people suggesting that you should be able to micro corrupters against marines to kill them, but if you're fielding corrupters against marines, you've royally screwed up. If you're up against forcefields, choose any of the umpteen possible responses to it and use that. If you fail to do that, you're at a massive strategic disadvantage.
Forcefields are simply more visible, and that's why they are complained about. This is the underlying core mechanic of an RTS: If you fail to scout and plan appropriately, you will wind up bringing a knife to a gunfight (metaphorically). If I just make mass roach, skip burrow move, and try to ram them down a protoss's throat, I absolutely deserve to lose if he defends with forcefields well. That's my fault for making a bad decision. If a protoss moves out on the map with chargelot/archon and I crush them super hardcore with mass roach, there's nothing he can do to micro against that. Zealots and archons cannot beat mass roach in a normal game, they just flat out lose (which is why people don't really do zealot/archon). That's the players fault, not the game designers fault.
In a strategy game, any ability which does not have a strategic implication is a bad ability.
a) personal opinion b) concussive shell makes the marauder stronger as a fact. The strategical implication is that you need to counter marauders even harder. c) there is a prominent concussive shell strategy for which it is vital: the TvT proxy marauder rush Still agree that concussive shell isn't a good ability though, but for other reasons than the given generalization.
We're spitting hairs on this one: you see the siege tank siege mode as being the unique interaction whereas I see the medivac changing the functionality of siege mode as the unique interaction. The important thing to me on this one is that the siege mode is the defining feature of the tank, and the total and complete lack of mobility is intrinsic as a characteristic of the ability. Allowing siege tanks to rapidly change positions by using a medivac completely bypasses the intended weakness of siege mode, which is a compensating factor of the strength of it. In this way, the medivac accomplishes something significantly beyond what is generally intended of the medivac: healing and allowing ground units to bypass terrain. It entirely cuts out some of the required transformation time of the siege mode ability to reposition: medivacs change the way a specific ability works.
To go back to the start of the argument: It is still synergy. Even if you don't like it. Even if it feels against the identity of the tank. Whether or not the unit can't move or moves very slow (reaver+shuttle combo) without being lifted is besides the point. It is synergy to lift it and transport it around. And it is a good example how synergy isn't inherently always a good thing (in my opinion), as in this case it breaks the identity and a defining weakness of the siege tank.
The whole point is that force fields aren't a bad ability by design just because you can't micro out of them because you are caught. You might as well argue that EMP shouldn't exist because it can't be dodged (too fast a projectile), or Yamato Canon because you can't dodge it. In an RTS, skill is not exclusively the domain of unit control and micro: it is primarily in the realm of strategic decision making, reading the field of battle, making good decisions and having good judgment. Micro is merely a way of optimizing the output of the tools you currently have at hand in the situation you find yourself in. The goal should not be to eliminate mechanics which limit that, because that's their way of optimizing their unit control. Rather, players have the responsibility of doing their utmost to avoid poor situations with their strategic decisions and planning.
Yes and no. Of course you shouldn't be able to get a pass without strategic decisions. But if I take the last sentence of this quote this merely goes back to balance. For as long as matchups are balanced it is always the case that you can do something about what your opponent is doing. That doesn't mean we should call it a day just because there exist counter strategies. The counterplay that you call damage control is a major part of RTS games and there is nothing wrong with it being just as vital as proper strategic responses. It's exactly what the community has been asking for for a long time, from broodwar fetishist ("in BW a professional player would beat 200supply armies with a 1hp zergling") to popular community persons ("Boomerangs vs Frisbees" -Day9) to a thousand and one threads on all forums ("Why this game is dying --> microlimiting abilities") and lately blizzard themselves ("we want more micro"; "we want microbased counterplays"). In this case I fully agree that what seems like is the overwhelming majority of persons affiliated to starcraft are right, because I personally rather run ling/bling/muta into 4M all day and win purely based on "damage control" than to win or lose based on scouting that dark shrine or not.
And yes I do believe that Yamato Canon is a horrible ability (that we rarely see because the unit it is on is of very limited use), just like old Snipe was a horrible ability and the suggestion that EMP should get a slower projectile has also been brought up various times and I full agree with it. RTS games can obviously have these abilities, but they'd be better with inherent counterplay.
You complain about force fields being unfun. Firstly, that's subjective. Secondly, they are quite fun to use for the protoss player in many cases. Thirdly, many mechanics in the game are "unfun" for the opponent. I don't find mutalisks to be enjoyable to play against. I hate playing against doom drops. I rather dislike a number of things when they are used against me. That doesn't make them bad mechanics.
Yes, there is obviously the problem that noone wants to lose and thus the tools being used to kill you always can feel "unfun". Of course a lot of these opinions are always subjective. So it comes down to quality assessments whether a tool is actually bad, or you just don't like it because someone used it against you. I can fully relate to doomdrops and mutalisks in that regard, they have been overbuffed and Teo even mentioned mutalisks explcitly being somewhat bad design when it came to the "weak mobility" vs "strong immobility" discussion and I fully agree. I believe both of those options should be toned down for a better experience in the game. Because as you say, it isn't fun to chase an opponent that has most of his army flying circles around you with superior speed and usually greatly limiting the strategical choices you can make because the only choice you often have is to deal with that army as best as your race allows you to. To the question of forcefield, it goes back to the inherent lack of tools to interact with it after it has been casted. Which has been brought up very often. I very much agree with John's point on the matter for LotV, which in essence comes down to that there are now so many great tools to deal with bigger (and maybe even smaller) numbers of sentries that the spell is now pretty much powerless. Similar to how you said that you are fine with the current infested terran as free unit. It is such a weak spell that it hardly ever gets used besides superendgame turtle scenarios in which you have had the money and time to summon 8 unupgraded marines from a 2supply unit. It doesn't make the spell design good, it just means that it would be complaining about first world problems and not something that actually occurs a lot.
The general point: I strongly disagree that in a strategy game or RTS, that the determining factor in a good battle is the micro. The determining factor in whether a batlte is good or not is the strategy involved. If the opposing player correctly responds and fields the correct units or, alternatively, forces the engagement in a better position, then micro is enabled. If he failed to do so, it's because he strategically screwed up. I don't see people suggesting that you should be able to micro corrupters against marines to kill them, but if you're fielding corrupters against marines, you've royally screwed up. If you're up against forcefields, choose any of the umpteen possible responses to it and use that. If you fail to do that, you're at a massive strategic disadvantage.
I think I have most of this covered already, but I need to mention that most players view the corruptor as a very boring unit because it cannot interact at all with units as the marine. In comparison, a phoenix and a viking both can. They aren't good strategical counterchoices to marines, but they offer damage control/microbased counterplays or whatever you want to call it, besides running away from the marine (viking transformation and graviton beam). That's basically what I'm asking for. I don't want zerglings to break forcefields and be a great strategical option, but it would be nice if they e.g. could chip holes into a lair of forcefields to force a recast. So in a situation in which you are stranded with lings against sentries you could still optimize upwards with zerglings, even if it still leads to a loss. I don't want a "get out of jail card" by dodgin every bullet, but it would be nice if you could diminish the damage taken (or deal more damage yourself) pretty regardless of who meets who on the battlefield.
If I just make mass roach, skip burrow move, and try to ram them down a protoss's throat, I absolutely deserve to lose if he defends with forcefields well. That's my fault for making a bad decision. If a protoss moves out on the map with chargelot/archon and I crush them super hardcore with mass roach, there's nothing he can do to micro against that. Zealots and archons cannot beat mass roach in a normal game, they just flat out lose (which is why people don't really do zealot/archon).
The difference is that in the one scenario with enough forcefields the roaches do nothing. They only start to do anything once the forcefield energy has run out. In the other scenario, the zealot/archon player still damages the roach army.
The greatest example of a unit that got changed despite strategical depth is the old swarm host. And it's great that it won't be in LotV in the old version (even though I don't like the new version either because it keeps a lot of the old problems). The sentry with its forcefield falls into the same category, or at least it did pre-LotV. Unlike the swarm host it hasn't been adressed directly but indirectly with new counters and buffs to old counters. The result is hopefully the same, that we won't be seeing it again outside of exotic strategies.
While I appreciate that we're having a discussion here, I think this one has gotten a little out of hand now. It's literally just become a war of semantics and opinions, and no one is bringing up new points. Let's guide it to a conclusion or let it go so that we can move onto other questions and ideas.
Changing the topic.... in the Strat Chat #1 you mentioned a balance between Ground-to-Air and Air-to-Air. Generally, ground-to-air can, and probably should, be stronger. This is because air units can easily bypass terrain obstacles in such a direction where ground units cannot follow them. On the other hand, air-to-air units can follow and stick to their target, allowing them to do damage for a longer period of time - thus DPS can be lower, while remaining viable. In Starcraft 2 however, we have air killing air with high DPS: vikings, corruptors, phoenix. As a result, the best counter to air to get more air... This becomes particularly true when fighting mutalisks - which are not only fast, but have a high regeneration rate.
The question to you: what changes would you propose to shape GtA and AtA the way you described? Protoss and Zerg has only few units that shoot air in the first place. Viking, Corruptor, Phoenix are also units that shoot only air and can interact with ground only in a limited scope.
On July 29 2015 15:11 BlackLilium wrote: Changing the topic.... in the Strat Chat #1 you mentioned a balance between Ground-to-Air and Air-to-Air. Generally, ground-to-air can, and probably should, be stronger. This is because air units can easily bypass terrain obstacles in such a direction where ground units cannot follow them. On the other hand, air-to-air units can follow and stick to their target, allowing them to do damage for a longer period of time - thus DPS can be lower, while remaining viable. In Starcraft 2 however, we have air killing air with high DPS: vikings, corruptors, phoenix. As a result, the best counter to air to get more air... This becomes particularly true when fighting mutalisks - which are not only fast, but have a high regeneration rate.
The question to you: what changes would you propose to shape GtA and AtA the way you described? Protoss and Zerg has only few units that shoot air in the first place. Viking, Corruptor, Phoenix are also units that shoot only air and can interact with ground only in a limited scope.
Frankly, I'd just remove the bonus regeneration on the mutalisks. Right now, the only air army that protoss can't even attempt to fight with ground only units is mass muta. High templar are a good ground to air unit, and while stalkers and archons aren't great, they do okay in decent numbers. The issue is that mutalisks don't care with their regen rate, they fly in, do damage, run away and are back to full health in no time. While terran's anti-air DPS is so high mutas just plain die when they get close, Protoss is more based on high health lower damage units, so they can't just shred mutalisks.
Ground vs air isn't an issue in PvT. In TvZ it is with brood lords, but that's mostly because the goliath was replaced with the viking. That's not inherently problematic, since the viking is very weak vs. ground units and isn't extremely powerful straight up (it's strength is its range, not it's damage output), but brood lords still die if marines get under them pretty quickly, so I'm not too concerned about it.
Right now, the only real offender is the mutalisk.
How about ZvX? I have seen many Zergs complaining on the forums about lack of reliable anti-air, except for spine crawlers. I don't know how it is seen at higher levels of play. Infestor does not seem to be that common in the context of anti-air, as it used to be too... or?
On July 29 2015 15:59 BlackLilium wrote: How about ZvX? I have seen many Zergs complaining on the forums about lack of reliable anti-air, except for spine crawlers. I don't know how it is seen at higher levels of play. Infestor does not seem to be that common in the context of anti-air, as it used to be too... or?
Hydralisks and infestors do pretty well until the late game comes into fruition, for the most part. Spore crawlers help out a great deal as well. In HOTS it can be hard to deal with after the change to the swarm host, but in LOTV they have that new viper spell. Zerg doesn't have trouble vs air heavy armies until they start being super late game max air armies, and by then they can field vipers, infestors, mass corrupter, and a whole host of issues.
Zerg ground based anti-air does fine for most of the game, so it's okay for the most part.
I feel you are making many examples of how to deal with air using air.... you bring vikings, vipers, corruptors into the discussion. Of course that is viable and way to go and the game is overall mostly balanced because of those units. But it is also - in a way - symmetrical: you get air to fight air. Wouldn't it be more interesting if air-to-air was weaker and ground-to-air stronger? If you answer is no - and that's what I am getting from your responses so far - why did you bring the GtA and AtA into the discussion in the Start Chat #1? It becomes a bit confusing to me....
I can definitely agree that it would be nice to have better ground to air capabilities or rather air to ground wasn't as dominant. I think Protoss suffers the most from this, but I want to mention that Zerg only gets by in ZvZ due to the bandaid +30vs bio on spore crawlers and doesn't get by at all with GtA defense against the second dominant air unit which is the medivac and is therefore forced into spire play.
Since it's always the same two units - medivacs, mutalisks - that lead to problems the solution is rather simple, those units should be nerfed back to status they had before the HotS-buffs. Maybe some consensus between WoL and HotS could be found and maybe some other things would have to be adjusted (spore crawler, phoenix, photon overcharge), but that should be the general direction.
On July 29 2015 17:25 BlackLilium wrote: I feel you are making many examples of how to deal with air using air.... you bring vikings, vipers, corruptors into the discussion. Of course that is viable and way to go and the game is overall mostly balanced because of those units. But it is also - in a way - symmetrical: you get air to fight air. Wouldn't it be more interesting if air-to-air was weaker and ground-to-air stronger? If you answer is no - and that's what I am getting from your responses so far - why did you bring the GtA and AtA into the discussion in the Start Chat #1? It becomes a bit confusing to me....
Hrm, to be more explicit, in game design for an RTS, timings matter more than flat unit designs. For most of the game, until max army supplies, in those matchups ground vs air units do just fine. While it would be more ideal if the late game super air armies could be beaten by ground based armies as well, that can't be accomplished without completely scrapping many of the unit identities Blizzard has at the moment. The viking, for example, would have to go out the window entirely.
For example, if my opponent makes mutalisks in TvZ, I don't make air units to respond, I make marines, widow mines, and a thor or two. In PvT, if my opponent is making vikings or banshees, I can just get stalkers. In ZvP, if my opponent is massing void rays or going phoenix into void ray, hydralisks do great, and then I add infestors.
It isn't until the air army starts approaching max that the ground based forces start losing to the air ones, and that has more to do with the fact that air units can clump and can all fire and ground units are more spread out, and have difficulty all attacking at once due to terrain limitations. If you opened a unit tester and put 120 supply of void rays on top of 120 supply of hydralisks and then start the fight, the hydras blow them up quite quickly.
The tempest is also a problematic unit design, although we didn't touch on it at all due to time constraints.
The only matchup that has an air vs ground problem before super late game armies exist is PvZ, with mass mutalisk being too fast and durable for the low DPS stalker, and their regen being too much for high templars to whittle them down over time.
I generally agree that mutalisks should lose their bonus regen and medivacs should have their boost removed or weakened, but you'd have to be careful about compensating elsewhere for it. The mutalisk regen was put in place for ZvT, and it's probably needed there. It just happens to break ZvP. You can take it away, but zerg would need something to compensate.
Medivac boost tends to make dropping a little too safe an option I feel, but that's an opinion and I don't have anything objective to back that up.
On August 01 2015 12:53 SC2John wrote: Lucky lucky, we picked the topic of Macro Mechanics for next week's show, and just in time to discuss Blizzard's potential changes to them!
Now, thinking a bit slower, I realized that Warpgate does not give 1 extra round of units but around 1.75: It cuts down the reinforcement arrival time (the aspect you discussed), but also it gives the unit out before the cooldown and not after (minus the gateway-to-warpgate 10s transformation time - that gives 0.75) By increasing warp-in time from 5 to 16 seconds (or whatever time there is), it will be tuned down from 1.75 down to 1.25. It will be annoying but will it change the mechanic that much?
On August 16 2015 23:49 BlackLilium wrote: Now, thinking a bit slower, I realized that Warpgate does not give 1 extra round of units but around 1.75: It cuts down the reinforcement arrival time (the aspect you discussed), but also it gives the unit out before the cooldown and not after (minus the gateway-to-warpgate 10s transformation time - that gives 0.75) By increasing warp-in time from 5 to 16 seconds (or whatever time there is), it will be tuned down from 1.75 down to 1.25. It will be annoying but will it change the mechanic that much?
I maintain my point that instant reinforcement is the key factor here. As someone who has dealt with many 2-base all-ins in PvZ, the issue is not that the first group is too powerful, but that Protoss can warp units directly into the fights. There have been many times where I've been fighting a war of attrition and suddenly there's just more Protoss units than me because my units have to travel from my main to my third while Protoss has no travel time at all. This does not happen in TvZ because each race tends to reinforce in waves, and if the Terran is streaming units across the map, it is highly exploitable. Pretending like travel time doesn't matter significantly for warp gate timings is absolute silliness. In addition, a lot of problems were the result of scouting the pylon, witnessing the first warp-in, and not being able to really do much about it because the units would warp in before you could do anything more than shield damage. With a highly reduced offensive warp-in, the first warp-in actually has to be protected, and reinforcements aren't as powerful unless Protoss goes robo for a warp prism.
Sidenote: VoD and audio for Episode 4 are up. I think the video might still be processing on Youtube, but it should be up shortly.
In 2-base all-in PvZ which involves what... 7? 8 warpgates? That's 8 units more on the front from the start. No one is claiming that one extra round of units is insignificant, especially in early-to-mid game.
I agree that having a stream of units moving across a map, that can be intercepted, is a weakness. Protoss does not have that vulnerability. We were however not focusing on tactical aspect, but just on numbers: how much more of an army you have on the front thanks to warp-in? And the answer is: 1 (or 1.75) wave of units. The benefit is constant and persistent. It does not grow over time.
On August 19 2015 01:10 SC2John wrote: Sidenote: VoD and audio for Episode 4 are up. I think the video might still be processing on Youtube, but it should be up shortly.
but just on numbers: how much more of an army you have on the front thanks to warp-in? And the answer is: 1 (or 1.75) wave of units. The benefit is constant and persistent. It does not grow over time.
Warpgates themselves produce units more often than gateways, warp-in time aside.
Love it, would have to add a lot more, especially on the topic of injects and mules, but very much agree with what was said.
One thing about the mentioned inconsistency of blizzard by making the game "slower" when the direction before was "faster" is that I don't necessarily think that the direction was "faster", even though it may have turned out as such. So I think the reasoning behind the 12worker start is just that they wanted to get rid of those first 2mins of the game in which people only built 5workers and a supply depot/overlord/pylon. I think what they optimally hoped to achieve was that it turns out like when you jump into a VoD and then forward to the point where the player makes the first valueable decision of the kind of "do I build a barracks, a gas or safe money for a CC". The only reason why it is sped up a bit is because they didn't resynchronize it with the tech requirements for Protoss and Terran who still have to make pylons and depots before they can make that decision and for zerg it is a little bit of a set back to "only have 12workers when the other races also have 12workers", since zerg started with 3larva and larva spawn 2seconds faster than SCVs/probes build. So it turns out that you don't really start there, but again with building a depot/pylon/spending the larva-pool and thus everything happens of a little more money, which kind of accelerates the game a little, but that wasn't the reason why they did it. For the faster mine-out. I think the reasoning is not to speed up the game, just to give players more angles of attack. It feels faster in a way that you want to expand faster, but it actually is also slower because you spend more money on expansions and safety measures and max out slower. Again, there is a degree to which it feels faster, but that wasn't the original point. It was about punishing sitting duck strategies more and force them into more risks when they want to get the resources to build their superarmy. So in a way, maybe it is faster. But that isn't the main intention with those changes, but those are rather side effects.
I agree with BlackLilium about the unnecessary complexity of the warpgate change, but I also agree with Whitewing that it might be hard to find a simple solution that doesn't axe warpgate.
About the warpgate "snowball effect". I agree with Whitewing that it is "just one extra wave of units". But that extra wave of units does create a snowball effect! So say the unit ratios at the start are 4:4 but with the frontloaded reinforcements of warp-ins it is 5:4 for protoss. Now a trade occurs that the protoss takes in slightly advantageous manner because he has more forces and say it goes to 4.5:3 (0.5losses vs 1loss). Now reinforcements arive for both sides and we go into the next trade with 5.5:4. This trade is won even more overwhelmingly because the ratios are even more in protoss favor now. And this is repeated until the defender loses. So yes, there is a natural snowball effect to warpgate. But it's a snowball effect you will see with any type of gameplay in which you deploy more units initially and keep on reinforcing, e.g. as Whitewing mentioned the paradepush Terran-style. The blink and forcefield obviously play a large roles here, but that's just the means in which those protoss armies are balanced. If you take that away from the units the units would have something different that would let them trade advantegously if they were in an advantegous position at the start of the battle.
The difference between the marine-baneling and the roach-stalker battle is that in the first one stuff is dying faster and it is more volatile to control I think. So what happens is that a) there is a greater variety of outcomes in the marine-baneling combat based on micro and positioning while the PvZ roach vs stylker type of combats are a bit more numbers and timing based in my opinion. b) it's not so much that stalkers don't die because of blink, because that would just be an issue of bringing enough units to survive the initial blink/forcefield rounds and then you are still starting to take down stalkers. It's more the fact that the whole battle is very slow because of low dps units + blink/forcefield. So what happens is that often during the skirmishing both sides' armies start growing, which is an inherent advantage for the protoss because he has more range and thus his army has an advantage if it grows evenly with the lower ranged zerg army. On the flip side, the baneling/marine/widow mine type of relations make for huge drop offs in supply, which suddenly turns the counter relations around. Suddenly the numbers get so low that the reinforcing+left over zerglings start countering the reinforcing+left over marines and the terran has to retreat.
Loving the guests. Also 5 people feels like the right number for that long of a show.
On August 19 2015 05:29 Cyro wrote: Warpgates themselves produce units more often than gateways, warp-in time aside.
That is true and we totally neglected that fact.
It's mostly irrelevant, and isn't a product of the warp-gate mechanic inherently, and it would only matter in PvP if one player delayed warp gate for a while. You could easily just have warp-gates produce at the same rate, they just made it quicker because they wanted to make warp-gates the absolute way to produce and wanted to nerf proxy gateway rushes before warp gates.
As for your approx 1.75 number, that would be true if the warp gate attack hit the instant warp gates finished, which is generally only the case in PvP (if at all). Otherwise the initial burst production was already used and the lack of travel time for reinforcements isn't applicable.
Snowball effects occur because one player's forces are fighting more efficiently than the other player's, and is continuing to reinforce. It doesn't matter what form that reinforcing takes.
You could easily just have warp-gates produce at the same rate, they just made it quicker because they wanted to make warp-gates the absolute way to produce and wanted to nerf proxy gateway rushes before warp gates.
They significantly reduced the build times of gateway units to around the warpgate speed a long time ago in WOL era i think. As a result, IIRC toss players were going nex-gateway at the start of game vs zerg/terran and being able to survive even stuff like proxy rax. I think that was talked about as one of the measures to reduce the power of warpgate timings, but it never made it to live servers because protoss was too powerful in the first 6 minutes of the game with the capability to make units that fast.
As for your approx 1.75 number, that would be true if the warp gate attack hit the instant warp gates finished, which is generally only the case in PvP (if at all).
Some of hit with the first-second wave vs zerg/terran too. I've not played at any kind of high level for a few years but i did that stuff all the time at low master in WOL and early HOTS and i saw it used at higher levels often too outside of pvp
Even stuff like parting style immortal/sentry all in against zerg would move out before or with the first warp
Snowball effects occur because one player's forces are fighting more efficiently than the other player's, and is continuing to reinforce. It doesn't matter what form that reinforcing takes.
If you look at some of the more extreme gateway all ins pvz for example where you have few units and like 8 gates, if you compare protoss reinforcement to terran:
0:00 seconds - first wave of protoss units hit. Terran production starts 0:30 seconds - second wave of protoss hits. Terran starts second wave, first wave is walking across map 1:00 - third wave of protoss hits, terran starts third wave production - protoss has 3 waves of units at the opponent while terran has only 1
Even if the warp itself took 30 seconds, bypassing the travel time would be a big advantage. I can play protoss and high mobility zerg styles with some level of proficiency but playing slower styles or terran is really hard to get into the rhythm of because reinforcing is so difficult - that feels to me like the main difference between the races. Toss has warpgates and power units, zerg can put heavy emphasis on stuff like speedlings which produce fast and run very fast, terran is stuck in the stone age when it comes to reinforcement and it takes them far longer to go from production structures finishing to having 3 production waves of stuff in their opponents face. That's really the power of warpgates, when your 6 additional gates finish and within a minute of blizzard-time you have 20-25 finished protoss units units on his half of the map.
not really balance comments, just gameplay feel stuff from what's probably diamond league player at the moment with low master experience
On August 19 2015 05:29 Cyro wrote: Warpgates themselves produce units more often than gateways, warp-in time aside.
That is true and we totally neglected that fact.
It's mostly irrelevant, and isn't a product of the warp-gate mechanic inherently, and it would only matter in PvP if one player delayed warp gate for a while. You could easily just have warp-gates produce at the same rate, they just made it quicker because they wanted to make warp-gates the absolute way to produce and wanted to nerf proxy gateway rushes before warp gates.
As for your approx 1.75 number, that would be true if the warp gate attack hit the instant warp gates finished, which is generally only the case in PvP (if at all). Otherwise the initial burst production was already used and the lack of travel time for reinforcements isn't applicable.
Snowball effects occur because one player's forces are fighting more efficiently than the other player's, and is continuing to reinforce. It doesn't matter what form that reinforcing takes.
I don't see how or why 1.75 number is applicable only when the attack occurs the moment the warp gates finish. If I pit two players against each other, one with warpgate and the other without them - but otherwise having the same production time - then the warpgate guy will have approximately 1.75 wave of units more on the front (assuming the front is somewhere in the middle of the map). The value is not going to increase over time, unless - of course - the battle itself goes in one's favor. It will be so because
time of one production cycle is saved due to travel time. A newly created cycle for warpgate player is on the front, while the same newly created cycle for non-warpgate is in transit.
time of approximately 0.75 cycle is saved due to cooldown-after rather than construction-time. A newly created cycle for a warpgate player is on the map, while the same cycle for non-warpgate is in the construction queue.
The warpgate vs non-warpgate scenario is present in any matchup, most often in non-PvP.
Basically I am taking your own argument you gave on the show, and adding the cooldown-after effect. Unless I misunderstood your argumentation?
On August 19 2015 05:29 Cyro wrote: Warpgates themselves produce units more often than gateways, warp-in time aside.
That is true and we totally neglected that fact.
It's mostly irrelevant, and isn't a product of the warp-gate mechanic inherently, and it would only matter in PvP if one player delayed warp gate for a while. You could easily just have warp-gates produce at the same rate, they just made it quicker because they wanted to make warp-gates the absolute way to produce and wanted to nerf proxy gateway rushes before warp gates.
As for your approx 1.75 number, that would be true if the warp gate attack hit the instant warp gates finished, which is generally only the case in PvP (if at all). Otherwise the initial burst production was already used and the lack of travel time for reinforcements isn't applicable.
Snowball effects occur because one player's forces are fighting more efficiently than the other player's, and is continuing to reinforce. It doesn't matter what form that reinforcing takes.
I don't see how or why 1.75 number is applicable only when the attack occurs the moment the warp gates finish. If I pit two players against each other, one with warpgate and the other without them - but otherwise having the same production time - then the warpgate guy will have approximately 1.75 wave of units more on the front (assuming the front is somewhere in the middle of the map). The value is not going to increase over time, unless - of course - the battle itself goes in one's favor. It will be so because
time of one production cycle is saved due to travel time. A newly created cycle for warpgate player is on the front, while the same newly created cycle for non-warpgate is in transit.
time of approximately 0.75 cycle is saved due to cooldown-after rather than construction-time. A newly created cycle for a warpgate player is on the map, while the same cycle for non-warpgate is in the construction queue.
The warpgate vs non-warpgate scenario is present in any matchup, most often in non-PvP.
Basically I am taking your own argument you gave on the show, and adding the cooldown-after effect. Unless I misunderstood your argumentation?
So let's be clear: I'm referring entirely to the part of the warp gate that ignores travel time for reinforcements when I gave these numbers, the front loaded production was not included, because it's not a mechanic anyone ever complains about.
But yes, if you include the sudden transition from back loaded to front loaded production, then it's more like 1.75 waves of units out of the amount of warp gates you have when warp gate finishes.
On August 19 2015 23:23 Whitewing wrote: So let's be clear: I'm referring entirely to the part of the warp gate that ignores travel time for reinforcements when I gave these numbers, the front loaded production was not included, because it's not a mechanic anyone ever complains about.
But yes, if you include the sudden transition from back loaded to front loaded production, then it's more like 1.75 waves of units out of the amount of warp gates you have when warp gate finishes.
Both aspects compound to the same effect. People are complaining about the most obvious and apparent factor, but other aspects - like the after-cooldown exists as well. My ultimate point is that the longer warp-in on forward pylons may be less impactful as some hope it to be.
On August 19 2015 23:23 Whitewing wrote: So let's be clear: I'm referring entirely to the part of the warp gate that ignores travel time for reinforcements when I gave these numbers, the front loaded production was not included, because it's not a mechanic anyone ever complains about.
But yes, if you include the sudden transition from back loaded to front loaded production, then it's more like 1.75 waves of units out of the amount of warp gates you have when warp gate finishes.
Both aspects compound to the same effect. People are complaining about the most obvious and apparent factor, but other aspects - like the after-cooldown exists as well. My ultimate point is that the longer warp-in on forward pylons may be less impactful as some hope it to be.
The impact is mostly in the vulnerability of the units being warped in aggressively, and the extra time before the first wave is ready will make a difference at the pro level. Also, a not uncommon event is to locate a proxy pylon, start attacking it, units warp in to defend it, and the pylon lives. Now that won't happen: units will just die and the pylon will go down.
Circling around to attack the pylon will become a much more valid tactic than before.
There are some other reasons, but this won't completely kill offensive warp ins, just weaken them a bit.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/v1/works/stratchat.jpg)
). It felt as a one man show. I will listen to the others, it may be because too few people on the show(5 people layout vs 3 present).
