EPTYou gave me more to think about regarding some units that just feel off; like battlecruisers, queens, (and adepts). Some abilities too, like tactical jump and abduct.
But all in all SC2 is still a great game.
Look at Unit Design - Page 2
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AirbladeOrange
United States2573 Posts
You gave me more to think about regarding some units that just feel off; like battlecruisers, queens, (and adepts). Some abilities too, like tactical jump and abduct. But all in all SC2 is still a great game. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25071 Posts
On October 28 2020 10:43 AirbladeOrange wrote: Great post, OP. My main complaint about SC2 is how games can be over in a split second if you don't react correctly. It might be okay at the highest level of play, but for the rest of us, widow mines, banelings, and disruptors contribute to this. Or sometimes having the opponent's army jump on yours when you're not looking, or as Protoss your wall isn't perfect in the early game. Some harassment even falls into this category as it can often do devastating damage in a very short amount of time. You gave me more to think about regarding some units that just feel off; like battlecruisers, queens, (and adepts). Some abilities too, like tactical jump and abduct. But all in all SC2 is still a great game. I guess Queens have to be so good for all these crazy other units! Adepts work pretty well as an early scout/poke unit like the reaper does, and feel super wonky to me in the capacity of a stock combat unit (like early Legacy) or in adept printer builds. But yeah SC2 is still great for sure, to me anyway! | ||
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greenturtle23
86 Posts
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TheDougler
Canada8304 Posts
Compare the colossus to any other siege unit: Siege tank: need good positioning and you lose mobility to gain splash and siege range. Lurker: Similar to the siege tank, also have stealth. High in the tech tree too. Disruptor: Need to micro disruptor orbs to damage opponent. Colossus? Just a-move. Honestly I'm not entirely sure what Blizzard was thinking. I remember way back in 2007/8 though the two main features they were excited about with the colossus was the ability to walk up and down cliffs, and being a "tall" unit. But neither of those make up for the fact that the colossus has area effect damage at 9 range without having to "siege up", or be microed like reaver/disruptor shots, or anything else. Thank goodness they eventually made the disruptor as at least a more interesting unit. But it's important to learn our lesson from the colossus. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
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Malongo
Chile3472 Posts
. Healing for terran costs gas and healing for protoss can´t even be moved. There is never a choice of how to use mana with queens, and if there is any you just make more queens instead. | ||
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Morbidius
Brazil3449 Posts
However, especially in TvZ you often see the most impactful damage to be done when neither player is paying attention or microing with or against Widow Mines. Carriers have this exact same issue where they thrive on enemy AI doing dumb things and its a big reason why people hate playing against skytoss. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On October 28 2020 17:25 Morbidius wrote: Carriers have this exact same issue where they thrive on enemy AI doing dumb things and its a big reason why people hate playing against skytoss. Carrier hate is more about the critical mass. Once you have 8(?) carriers it becomes very hard to kill them. AT least the interceptors cost minerals, so if you get better trades you can wear down the Protoss. Also carrier doesn't kill 40 banes with one hit. It takes some time. IMO | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25071 Posts
On October 28 2020 14:17 TheDougler wrote: I nominate the colossus for one of the poorest unit designs. Compare the colossus to any other siege unit: Siege tank: need good positioning and you lose mobility to gain splash and siege range. Lurker: Similar to the siege tank, also have stealth. High in the tech tree too. Disruptor: Need to micro disruptor orbs to damage opponent. Colossus? Just a-move. Honestly I'm not entirely sure what Blizzard was thinking. I remember way back in 2007/8 though the two main features they were excited about with the colossus was the ability to walk up and down cliffs, and being a "tall" unit. But neither of those make up for the fact that the colossus has area effect damage at 9 range without having to "siege up", or be microed like reaver/disruptor shots, or anything else. Thank goodness they eventually made the disruptor as at least a more interesting unit. But it's important to learn our lesson from the colossus. It’s not especially fun to use either, basically doesn’t tick many boxes. Past a certain size of army it’s almost counter-productive to try and focus fire rather than a-move. Was chatting about the long-legged robot with a friend, as per unit design, the Frost Giant announcement has got people excited about such discussions in my circle, which pleases me. I think such a unit could work for me in a slightly slower game with a few tweaks. Separate the legs from the lasers, so it moves like a normal unit but the top half has an adjustable orientation, with a visible overplayed cone of fire from that (to the player and maybe opponent too), and make the adjustment of that relatively slow. You still get a mobile siege type unit this way, but it retains the drawbacks of slow siege units in deploying in a slightly different way. Would also enable way more counterplay that doesn’t revolve around hard air counters, and also would open up more of a gap between good and bad collosus use. I mean hey we’re all just spitballing, partly due to enthusiasm about a game with no tangible announcements that’s years away, but I just don’t think the Collosus as is has ever been a satisfying unit. | ||
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FluffyMaguro
16 Posts
On October 28 2020 02:06 Slydie wrote: The post is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all issues with the game, I picked ones I found interesting. I'm not a fan of Disruptors either. Perhaps it's their potential game-changing damage, randomness and binary interaction – you either manage to get on top of them or not. But they can be fun to watch as well: Medivacs picking up bio or Lurker micro.How are nukes a problem and not disruptors? On October 28 2020 03:54 _fool wrote: Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.Excellent read! I'm happy with the state the game is in currently, but this post really gives some new perspectives. One of my friends is playing very widow mine-heavy, and there have been numerous occasions where I lost a gush of banelings due to some random mines. So that one struck a chord with me  On October 28 2020 02:28 BisuDagger wrote: I think in the cases of cloak and nuke, there are better ways of doing it, and it would also make it more accessible for more players. I agree that you can't make a game accessible to everyone though. You try to make it accessible to as broad playerbase as possible without compromising the gameplay.... I think it is hard to balance a game around all of the imperfections of human beings and maybe it makes more sense to balance around the perfect human being and the dominant player can exemplify how much better they are physically and mentally then everyone else. That sounds much more appealing to me. | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
I'm pretty sure accessibility for nuke-dots has been addressed by the "colour-blindness" modes in the game. If that's still an issue for whatever reason, maybe the colour or actual texture can be looked at some more, or perhaps it can be different for different maps, where the map textures could obscure the dot. Aside from the game holding your hand, it matters where you look first for a nuke. You're able to narrow down the list of possible locations by having appropriately placed detection, units and by applying common sense. | ||
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kyarisan
United States347 Posts
Though I wouldn't really need convincing if someone genuinely thought it was too big of a nerf or something. | ||
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Clear World
125 Posts
On October 29 2020 02:53 dUTtrOACh wrote:Aside from the game holding your hand, it matters where you look first for a nuke. You're able to narrow down the list of possible locations by having appropriately placed detection, units and by applying common sense. Ah yes, just make sure you already have your bases cover and be on top of something that may not actually happen. Clearly it's not the fault of the the combination of game mechanics/interactions. It is the player's fault that didn't choose to react before the opponent actually committed in doing the action. | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
On October 29 2020 04:00 Clear World wrote: Ah yes, just make sure you already have your bases cover and be on top of something that may not actually happen. Clearly it's not the fault of the the combination of game mechanics/interactions. It is the player's fault that didn't choose to react before the opponent actually committed in doing the action. Considering the delivery mechanism of the ghost, they either walk in or are dropped in. There is no teleportation of a ghost, but teleportation of a BC is something you factor in once a starport exists. If you put a detector on every ground path once you are aware of the existence of ghosts, that just leaves air paths, which you should be covering for drops, libs, BCs, etc. So, yes, it is the player's failure to prepare that makes them more vulnerable to being blindsided. Otherwise, it's a multitasking win. It might be cool to have a growing shadow at the location of the nuke blip, to help accentuate it. EDIT: Widow mines are harder for me to see than nukes, personally. They never really interested me in any way, but I feel forced to use them in many situations. I would have prefered Thor AoE to be more impactful against mass light AA than its current state and have spider-mines on hellions, without hellbats. Spider mines at least had some fun/funny interactions. | ||
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tskarzyn
United States516 Posts
If Z and P were designed more like Terran, we could start removing bandaids and get more entertaining games. Start with the queen, collosus, melee units (e.g. cap army group sizes like in BW), and spellcasters (e.g no spell spamming like in BW). | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25071 Posts
On October 29 2020 08:55 tskarzyn wrote: Terran is, generally speaking, the best designed race. Any play style is available, the power of the race scales very tightly with player skill, and all units have a role. Does Tac Jump need to be removed? Absolutely. Why is it in the game? Because queens are broken and Terran harass needed a buff. Is WM a low investment/high reward unit? Yes. Does the game need it? Absolutely. Most Terran units require constant babysitting, and Zerg and toss would steamroll them with amove zealot units without them. If Z and P were designed more like Terran, we could start removing bandaids and get more entertaining games. Start with the queen, collosus, melee units (e.g. cap army group sizes like in BW), and spellcasters (e.g no spell spamming like in BW). Arguably all of the problems in the game stem to some degree from how crazy strong bio is, especially with medivac support. An ability like charge is clearly only there because otherwise Zealots wouldn’t get anywhere near well-controlled bio, to take one example. You have to throw a bunch of other tools, many of which aren’t satisfying to use to make melee units even vaguely viable against bio’s combo of incredibly concentrated DPS and decent mobility. Terran’s design is a mite overrated at a base level IMO. I find them the most satisfying to play but I do think a lot of flaws stem from there. Early WoL I still recall pretty well that you had to stick up your ramp or at least in a choke early game for the first Terran aggression or you simply died. Force field as a mechanic has got a lot of flak over the years but it exists for a reason. I’m unsure if Blizz thought it was cool and threw it in the game, or stuck it in to give Protoss a chance against bio in early builds, but I think both are equally plausible. Not 100% analogous but I do play Night Elf in WC3, I do tend to gravitate to the glass cannon/ranged kiting races in RTS, but that’s a different game with different mechanics. | ||
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AirbladeOrange
United States2573 Posts
On October 29 2020 09:24 WombaT wrote: Arguably all of the problems in the game stem to some degree from how crazy strong bio is, especially with medivac support. An ability like charge is clearly only there because otherwise Zealots wouldn’t get anywhere near well-controlled bio, to take one example. You have to throw a bunch of other tools, many of which aren’t satisfying to use to make melee units even vaguely viable against bio’s combo of incredibly concentrated DPS and decent mobility. Terran’s design is a mite overrated at a base level IMO. I find them the most satisfying to play but I do think a lot of flaws stem from there. Early WoL I still recall pretty well that you had to stick up your ramp or at least in a choke early game for the first Terran aggression or you simply died. Force field as a mechanic has got a lot of flak over the years but it exists for a reason. I’m unsure if Blizz thought it was cool and threw it in the game, or stuck it in to give Protoss a chance against bio in early builds, but I think both are equally plausible. Not 100% analogous but I do play Night Elf in WC3, I do tend to gravitate to the glass cannon/ranged kiting races in RTS, but that’s a different game with different mechanics. I agree 100% that Terran is the best designed race. One thing that has always bugged me about Protoss is the units and upgrades are supposed to be more expensive and take longer to make, but hit harder (or at least that's always been my interpretation). So why does chronoboost exist? I bet it was because they couldn't balance gateway units with warpgate. So chronoboost is a band-aid that makes no sense design-wise. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25071 Posts
On October 29 2020 10:41 AirbladeOrange wrote: I agree 100% that Terran is the best designed race. One thing that has always bugged me about Protoss is the units and upgrades are supposed to be more expensive and take longer to make, but hit harder (or at least that's always been my interpretation). So why does chronoboost exist? I bet it was because they couldn't balance gateway units with warpgate. So chronoboost is a band-aid that makes no sense design-wise. I don’t like WG as a mechanic full stop, I believe Protoss is actually miraculously balanced given it exists. I do like chrono as a mechanic though, not necessarily 100% how it’s implemented but the base idea. You can tailor your build to prioritise eco, production or tech progress with pluses and minuses of each (in theory) Opens a lot of theoretical options. Terran has options in terms of pure muling or saving for scans, Zergs can do both injecting and creep spread so there’s not much decision making. In pure theory anyway chrono is the best macro mechanic in terms of strategic variation, I don’t think it quite works but I like the central idea behind it. Probably because SC2 eco especially in SC2 is so rapid in ramping up. You could have interesting trade offs between hardcore chroning eco vs production vs tech. My guess on upgrade cost reductions is that gateway armies kinda suck against bio without an upgrade advantage once the midgame hits, and that especially with Legacy eco Zerg tends to have more income so it’s to compensate. I agree with you on how Protoss should be and feel, coming from BW, it can’t really have those characteristics if WG exists because allins would be absolutely ridiculous, and also imo because bio is too good. Not too good with all the AoE units, charge etc, but I think the existence of those is due to how good bio is vs the other races stock units. You have a composition that has huge DPS, moves quickly, a unit that slows units, and can be healed and is extremely microable. People will say this is good design and complain about the counter measures to that composition being bad design, despite it being basically the only counter measures possible without basically mirroring it. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20285 Posts
This leads to - especially in battles with fast-attacking units like marines - the "nuclear launch detected" sound being cut off almost instantly, drowned out by other sounds for the fraction of a second that it was actually playing. As an example you might just near "nuc-" playing simultaneously while a load of marines and zerglings attack each other, and then nothing because the sound is thrown out before it even finished the first one or two words. With a video recording you can go back in time, pay close attention and you can find this - but in the middle of an actual game, 9 times out of 10 when this happens it's not noticed by the player and you have effectively zero audio warning. Sometimes it can be caught by the alerts at the left side, but that's not reliable either. End result is nukes landing when players didn't even know that they had to look for the dot. This has happened dozens of times in games at the highest level of play and in my own personal games with first person video recordings and it's nothing short of disastrous for competitive integrity IMO. An additional effect of this problem, because of the way that it works on the engine side, is that you can't reproduce it properly by watching a replay. You need video and audio of the player's gameplay in real time in order to verify that this actually happened to them, which is something that i don't think most tournaments have. "The game never played the nuke alert sound" is simply not going to be accepted by a referee as a reason for rewinding the last 90 seconds of gameplay in a game that you just got fucked in even though it can knock somebody out of a tournament almost by luck. --- Being able to hide the red dot in ways that make it impractical to see, even when looking for it, is another major issue. | ||
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Clear World
125 Posts
On October 29 2020 11:03 WombaT wrote: I don’t like WG as a mechanic full stop, I believe Protoss is actually miraculously balanced given it exists. ... I agree with you on how Protoss should be and feel, coming from BW, it can’t really have those characteristics if WG exists because allins would be absolutely ridiculous, and also imo because bio is too good. I think this is an unpopular opinion, but I think WG as a mechanic was a great addition to the game. The problem I see is that the dev's intention with the mechanic and balance around were terrible. The thing is, WG doesn't have to be an allin mechanic, but the dev's as always wants to keep it as one for one reason or another. You could easily nerf the offensive potential of WG while maintaining it useful defensive potential. Simply make it not easy to have fast warp-in out of your base and/or make it more risky to warp near your opponent. And to be frank, WG isn't even the worst offender for being an all-in enabler, mechanically speaking & not balance wise. Nydus Worm is a far worse offender of something like that, but failed to achieve that because it was usually too nerfed to do it reliability/consistently for its cost. | ||
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