I have some questions about the fact that so many people think in SC2 worker harassment is more punishing than in Brood War. I play a ton of SC2 but also played many games of BW in the past. I don't understand the argument that in SC 2 worker harassment is more punishing.
Lets compare both games.
Harassment Options in Brood War
Terran: Vultures (including Drops), Marine Drops, Wraiths (i know its a huge investment), Siege Tank Drops (Boxer did them in the good old days), Since Vessel (irradiate against Zerg)
Zerg: Zergling run-by, Lurker Drops (where really dangerous could be game ending), Mutas, Zergling Drops.
Protoss; Reaver Drops, Goon Drops, Dark Templar, Storm Drops, Zealot Drops, Arbiter (extremely hard to counter in late-game), Scout (i know not effective but an option)
Zerg: Mutas, ling run-by, drops (mostly ling and baneling lurkers come too late), sometimes burrowed roaches
Protoss: Warp Prism, Oracle, Phoenix, DTs (not really effective because they come later than in Brood War), many kind of drops (Archon, immortal....), Disruptor (not really a good Option because really late)
I think these are the most important ways to cripple the economy of your opponent in SC II and SC I Brood War
I don't understand why people complain about harassment in SC II and say it was better in BW. A reaver drop could be game ending like an Oracle in SC II (and its about the same reaction time). Mines from vultures do a ton of damage if they hit your workers..... Boxer won games with one base marine harassment and many people say these are the most fun games to watch. Storm drops from protoss destroyed complete worker lines and came earlier in BW...Oh and by the way if you compare the Arbiter with the Warp Prism i think the Arbiter was more punishing. I know Arbiter came later but they were so hard to defend (no ghost for lock down all workers are dead and your expansions). DT harassment was more often game ending than in SC II because they came earlier (at least against terran). Also the argument against the liberator about a harassment tool is quite idiotic for me. It takes so long to get in siege position that anybody has enough reaction time to counter it. Also its an Investment for Terran to send a liberator like it is for protoss to send an oracle. The unfair thing is that there are map spots where you can hide a liberator and your opponent cant hit it. This needs to be addressed but not the potential risk of a liberator harassment.
I really don't understand why so many people think that worker harassment is a problem in SC II. It was never a problem in BW and you had also different tools to cripple the economy of your opponent. You also needed the same reaction time to defend it.
Economy damage is an important aspect in any good war strategy game. It doesn't matter if its turn-based or rts. Its a strategy and should stay as viable as it is. There are enough options to counter harassment and no you are not behind if you use some defense. Even pros have to accept that they cant just play too greedy. You don't lose a game if you have some defenses.
Worker harassment is also a comeback mechanic. Many comebacks in SC:BW and SC2 came from worker harassment. Also they bring some more diversity in the game. Its boring to just play the early game without threads.
Bw had a lot of worker harassment, but sc2 has more units, which can worker harass. Nonetheless bw was more punishing, because any distraction put you behind. You could not build workers and send them to minerals as easy as in sc2. You had no macro mechanics to close the gap after a worker loss. Also bases were not close and were hard to defend.
Most of the player in bw preferred team games or arcade games (ums games), where they could share the pressure and help each other out. The 1vs1 community was small. It is the opposite in sc2, 1vs1 has a lot of players.
Honestly, I think this was a bigger issue in LOTV. With the new fast paced economy and quick extra bases this feels less of an issue. But still in SC2 workers can be obliterated at such a faster level and it is a combination of harrasment units doing damage very fast and the defensive structure of sc2 vs sc1.
Vultures for instance are great harassment units but are not strong enough to win a game outright even with good attacks.
Vultures: TvZ Not as common early game vs zerg. By the time mech switch comes out zerg should have two things 1. Good sim cities to help prevent runbys 2. The remacro from multiple hatcheries across many base location + nydus canals to quickly defend each base make the zerg fierce defenders. Plus at this point defensive lurkers and sunkens will make it hard for 4 vultures to kill many workers before the vultures are killed.
TvP 1. Vultures don't get inside the base easily because a pylons plus rallied dragoons are usually blocking the natural 2. Vulture drops are deflected by good scouting pylon placements and macro dragoons pop out to kill of 4 vultures. 3. Protoss should always be out expanding Terran. So even if an exposed third nexus takes tons of probe kills, the protoss should be able to play defense and remacro workers.
So let's assume that vultures do harass at a level of significant damage in a TvP. Now protoss can expect a tank+vulture follow up and they do not have the economy to face Terran head on. Well Brood War has HUGE defensive advantages. High ground areas and cliffs can be used to cause missed tank shots or lower dmg attack. The bridges and choke points are major too because BW units are larger. You cannot stack them up in bundles as effectively as SC2. So you have dragoons hitting tanks from a high ground, zealots dropping on tanks, and all the while your Protoss army has it's back against 8-12 gateways bringing more units into the battle.
Another way too look at it though: On a broader scope every harrasment investment has it's drawbacks. Going for reavers and killing lots of SCVs doesn't mean that Terran loses outright. Terran off two bases can still defend Protoss armies for a very very very long time with a much smaller army of tanks and turrets.And teching to reavers may mean protoss took obs later, so then Terran responds with spider mine harassment. Reavers also mean less gas for goons, so now the protoss player cannot defend and two base timing push from Terran as easily. Especially if Terran can pull their 4 marines out of their bunker and pick of the shuttle containing the reaver. Then protoss is suddenly behind even after killing 10 workers.
The TLDR, is that all 3 races have ways to defend or comeback from heavy damage. It's tough, but smart players take risks and change tech paths that allow them to overcome the harassment.
In BW, the macro player was the one who spent extra clicks making sure workers got to the mineral line. The non-macro player could often get behind in workers just because he made some dudes and scouted.
As such, killing a few workers would often be backbreaking since most players physically could not keep up with continual worker production. Not "forgets to make workers" issues, but that they were too slow to click on the "build worker" button, do things for 16 seconds, go back and click the newly made worker, and then right-click on a patch.
In BW, two players could have the exact same strategy, and the exact same game sense, and the exact same game awareness--but if one person clicked a little bit slower than the other guy then he could be almost 10 workers behind the opponent by the midgame even if they did NR20. Oftentimes just forcing the opponent to chase your mutas around for 10-20 seconds is enough for them to not have time to move the latest batch of workers from their rally points to a mineral patch, causing severe damage without killing a single worker.
The same is not true in SC2, where the automation of worker production allows a more forgiving economic build up phase. As such, small amounts of damage is almost meaningless in SC2--you need bigger hits to affect the opponent. The same muta harass will often simply result with mutas getting chased away without any slowdown to the player's economy.
I haven't played BW in a long time, but from my experience even if someone successfully killed a bunch of workers, you still rarely died to the economical factor because it's much easier to turtle up in BW and the static defense is much stronger, which lead to longer games where with 1-2 good engages you can actually claw back into the game.
In SC2 for example if a drop kills 10-15 workers and you haven't done any damage to offset that loss, you're practically dead. I think Terran is possibly the only race in SC2, that can win playing from behind, due to it's ability to turtle up and the power of mules. Because even if you have the stronger army pushing into Liberators and Siege Tanks is always hard.
Just compare the concluded ASL with the current GSL. I would much rather have one long epic game than 2 disappointing short ones. BW just has the goods to make crazy things happen, while in SC2 you just die.
I don't think a lot of people view it as a problem, more as the main way to play the game.
There are a lot of things that go into winning in SC2 (and SC1), but a lot of the units seem to be built around extreme mobility & harassment options.
Mutas are fast and able to get in & out very quickly. Liberators & Banshees are able to get in and deal massive amounts of damage to workers very quickly.
Oracles & DTs can dismantle a player who is unprepared.
A lot of these units do a terrible job in fights alone (Liberators are great additions to armies, Mutas in big stacks can crush things, but you rarely see mass oracle play).
It's just an enormous focus of SC2, and can feel extremely frustrating to play against if you don't account for every possible angle that harassment can be flung into your face. Oftentimes it's one miss step before you have to have a make-or-break decision.
All in all, I think worker harass is a completely fine and valid point to the game. Basically it's two people trying to build their own towers (ideal army comp) while at the same time trying to upset the foundation of the other player's building.
On February 10 2017 00:29 Thieving Magpie wrote: In BW, the macro player was the one who spent extra clicks making sure workers got to the mineral line. The non-macro player could often get behind in workers just because he made some dudes and scouted.
As such, killing a few workers would often be backbreaking since most players physically could not keep up with continual worker production. Not "forgets to make workers" issues, but that they were too slow to click on the "build worker" button, do things for 16 seconds, go back and click the newly made worker, and then right-click on a patch.
In BW, two players could have the exact same strategy, and the exact same game sense, and the exact same game awareness--but if one person clicked a little bit slower than the other guy then he could be almost 10 workers behind the opponent by the midgame even if they did NR20. Oftentimes just forcing the opponent to chase your mutas around for 10-20 seconds is enough for them to not have time to move the latest batch of workers from their rally points to a mineral patch, causing severe damage without killing a single worker.
The same is not true in SC2, where the automation of worker production allows a more forgiving economic build up phase. As such, small amounts of damage is almost meaningless in SC2--you need bigger hits to affect the opponent. The same muta harass will often simply result with mutas getting chased away without any slowdown to the player's economy.
This doesn't add up in today's Brood War stages. Making workers and putting them on the mineral line is something that becomes second nature to even D+ ranked players. So you can't blame that task for being a game changer. And by mid game you can one player can have 50 workers on 3 bases and another can have 60, but that 10 worker difference isn't big at all. In fact, if players remain equal in everything else including bases, then the player with 60 workers is over mining on three bases and actually hurts themselves in the long run. The automation of workers just isn't a strong enough argument.
I totally understand your arguments. But if you look at BW games from boxer. There are manygames which he won only because of worker harrasment. Protoss players stomped terrans with Arbiter harrass in lategame....
I think you are underestimating how long it took to get equivalent harassment options to work in BW.
For example, a Reaver drop needed a Shuttle and Robotics Bay in addition to the Reaver itself. It's the same tech that you need for Disruptors, yet you claim that Disruptors are not effective because they come out so late. Storm drops also take a long time to come out since they need a Citadel of Adun, Templar Archives, storm research, Robotics Facility, and Shuttle in addition to the High Templar themselves, so they're not an early game option either.
In comparison, Phoenixes and Oracles just need a Stargate to be pumped out quickly, with an Oracle being functional the instant it pops out of the Stargate. Adepts are low tech, cheap, tanky, and slippery, and their effectiveness are leveraged by warp-ins under Warp Prisms.
Marine drops in both games need tech up to Starport to get the Dropship/Medivac, in addition to a sizable Marine/Medic force. That's reasonable. You needed more time to build up 3 or 4 Wraiths to 2-shot workers, whereas you can more quickly build a single Banshee to 2-shot workers. Liberators take few actions to use and are quick to be cost-effective if the response is even slightly delayed or sloppy, so they can be deadly in any situation that draws away the opponent's multitasking. Widow Mines don't even give a warning before they fire, so it's more difficult to react before damage is done.
So in general, harassment in SC2 is more powerful and comes out much faster than their equivalents in BW, so they are much more difficult to defend against in the early game since the small early-game income and army need to be stretched thin, sometimes even be preemptively prepared to adequately defend.
In addition, BW had a much stronger defender's advantage due to high ground advantage and various unit designs, especially more easily accessible space control options, so being hurt by harassment doesn't mean an instant death and can be stabilized from.
On February 10 2017 00:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: @ Kaewins
I totally understand your arguments. But if you look at BW games from boxer. There are manygames which he won only because of worker harrasment. Protoss players stomped terrans with Arbiter harrass in lategame....
That was 15+ years ago. The meta has changed since then. Arbiter harassment is still a thing, but too a much lesser degree. Find Mong vs Hint on circuit breaker in the ro16 of the ASL. Rush did a hallucination recall into terran's base. Mong lost all of his supply depots and lots of factores. But Mong got 2-1 on his tanks, turtled up until he got a third gas base and then death pushed his opponent in what was a miraculous comeback over the following 15 minutes since that recall.
On February 10 2017 00:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: @ Kaewins
I totally understand your arguments. But if you look at BW games from boxer. There are manygames which he won only because of worker harrasment. Protoss players stomped terrans with Arbiter harrass in lategame....
Here's the thing though, in BW worker harassment is a viable strategy and one aspect of the game, in SC2 worker harassment and killing bases is 95% of the game.
How many times since the launch of LotV had pro games been decided by massive army engagements? I can't remember very many. I guess Neeb in PvP comes to mind, which I must admit is quite exciting to watch, but outside of that games are decided way before we get to a stage where big battles are fought.
I feel I hear Koreans say 사기 (scam) when talking/complaining about SC2 [harassment]. It feels you're cheated out of the game and is just frustrating to play against. As someone said above, "you just die", if you have not already somewhat prepared for it. In BW, you are given more of a chance to deal with the situation before all is lost. There are just a lot more all or nothing situations in SC2.
Amazing game. I know what you mean. You are right that the strategies i mentioned are 15 years ago. But the BW strategies i mentioned happened and evereyone was entertained when someone get harrased to death in a pro game. I also liked to watch it. Again evereyone can prepare for harrass in SC II its an investment but you dont lose the game if you do slight prepares for it. At least not against earlygamee harrass.
@ Kaewins
I agree to some points of your arguments, but have you watched playing Scarltet in GSL round of 32. There were really good games. Especially TvZ can be really entertaining in SC II.
On February 10 2017 02:24 DieuCure wrote: Sc2 multitasking is higher.
I saw asl1 and 2 you can't compare.
And lotv is way more fast and intense, that's why some people can get frustrated about harass.
When bw is a slow game
Uh...wut? BW is by it's very nature (bad pathing, no auto mining, 12 unit select) a more multitask heavy game then SC2 imo, unless I miss read something here.
And I'm no BW fan, the 1v1 is straight up not fun to play so not sticking up for it, it's just ludicrously hard to play and thats why the upper levels of play were more "balanced" because racist strengths aside BW rewarded the better player more then SC2 does.
On February 10 2017 02:24 DieuCure wrote: Sc2 multitasking is higher.
I saw asl1 and 2 you can't compare.
And lotv is way more fast and intense, that's why some people can get frustrated about harass.
When bw is a slow game
Uh...wut? BW is by it's very nature (bad pathing, no auto mining, 12 unit select) a more multitask heavy game then SC2 imo, unless I miss read something here.
There are two different things being argued here.
BW is slower, not because the player has less to do, but because of the nature of the game: individuals actions and events are less impactful. As other people have mentioned, you can lose a fight, turtle, and then make a comeback in BW while in LOTV, if you lose a fight badly, the game is over because now you can't secure the next base you need as your mineral lines are drying up.
As for the multitasking required, BW require more overall due the things you mentioned. However, the spike in multitasking necessary during battles due to the micro certain units require to be effective, the burst damage in the game, the duration of battles (much shorter than in BW), and sheer number of abilities meant that big fights in LOTV take much more multitasking than they did in BW. There was too much to do and the window to do it was tiny.
And that caused control issues that leave players feeling powerless.
There was a reason the Koreans professional players complained about LOTV being too fast. We never heard that criticism from them of BW, and it is important to understand those differences between the games to understand why they were critical of LOTV.
On February 10 2017 02:24 DieuCure wrote: Sc2 multitasking is higher.
I saw asl1 and 2 you can't compare.
And lotv is way more fast and intense, that's why some people can get frustrated about harass.
When bw is a slow game
Uh...wut? BW is by it's very nature (bad pathing, no auto mining, 12 unit select) a more multitask heavy game then SC2 imo, unless I miss read something here.
There are two different things being argued here.
BW is slower, not because the player has less to do, but because of the nature of the game: individuals actions and events are less impactful. As other people have mentioned, you can lose a fight, turtle, and then make a comeback in BW while in LOTV, if you lose a fight badly, the game is over because now you can't secure the next base you need as your mineral lines are drying up.
As for the multitasking required, BW require more overall due the things you mentioned. However, the spike in multitasking necessary during battles due to the micro certain units require to be effective, the burst damage in the game, the duration of battles (much shorter than in BW), and sheer number of abilities meant that big fights in LOTV take much more multitasking than they did in BW. There was too much to do and the window to do it was tiny.
And that caused control issues that leave players feeling powerless.
There was a reason the Koreans professional players complained about LOTV being too fast. We never heard that criticism from them of BW, and it is important to understand those differences between the games to understand why they were critical of LOTV.
Just to preface as I go down this road, I've enjoyed both games since their releases and have a record of fair judgment on TL.
Above is a great point. Other then defensive advantages like high ground, SC1 gameplay is much slower. The overall SC@ DPS is extremely high compared to SC1. As an example of the faster pace and this is what I disliked most about the WOL era. The death balls were epic, but the fights themselves didn't last long enough for a viewer to see the micro of every individual unit (group of units). I've always been big on slowing down the damage output across the board for SC2.
Let's take storm as an example: In SC2: Storm has a smaller surface area, is shorter in time, and does more damage per second because of it's shortened time. By the time you see a Terran pull SCVs from a storm drop the storm is already over. Not cause the Terran reacts poorly but storm doesn't last long enough.
In SC1: Storm has a larger area and while it does great damage, you can see players react to each individual one because of the slower rate of damage.
edit: big fights in LOTV take much more multitasking than they did in BW. I do greatly disagree with this. I think this could be argued to death on both sides. Higher dps means a lot must be done in a short amount of time. But it also means that action is down quick. Meanwhile, SC1 fights last longer requiring a more exhausting level of effort over time versus in the moment. This is simply a SC1vsSC2 argument that no one can win.
"big fights in LOTV take much more multitasking than they did in BW"
Thanks for the laugh. Hahaha
No smart cast, 12 units per hotkey, insane DPS on units (hydras, marines, lurkers, zerglings, archons, reavers, siege tanks, spider mines,...), insane spells, pathing making all your units run in a straight line,... the list goes on.
EPT
