The goal of this post is to look at few unit designs and unit mechanics that aren't working perfectly and learn from them. This is not meant to be a critique. We can learn a lot from StarCraft II, whether it is from its successes or failures. The ability to directly compare to Brood War, which shares a lot of characteristics, is very valuable as well. This post is posted on my blog as well.
StarCraft II isn't perfect. There is design baggage carrier over from Brood War, and not all new things worked out perfectly. That said, StarCraft II development team did a lot of great work to improve things since Wings of Liberty was released, leading to arguably the best game state StarCraft II has ever been in.
Force Fields, while originally very problematic, are in a good state today. Death-balling has been greatly reduced compared to Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm due to economy changes and good unit design. Similar thing has been done to the strength of air unit compositions. The economy model received improvements in Legacy of the Void, even if it's still in some ways inferior compared to certain double harvest models and Brood War economy model.
I'm including these units not because their design is bad altogether. I'm including them because despite some parts of their design aren't good, these units work surprisingly well in other aspects, and often lead to good interactions and fun game dynamics. This contrast makes them more interesting.
WIDOW MINE
Widow Mines are great when micro is involved. Splitting, target firing, target switching, Stalker Blink micro, Mutalisk micro, all those are fun to execute as a player or watch as a viewer. I would even say the randomness tied to Widow Mines is good for spectating. "4M vs Muta-Ling-Bling" is one of the best parts of StarCraft II.
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. Nobody wants a potentially game deciding thing to be a random Widow Mine that one player didn't see and the other forgot about. This is likely even more frustrating for casual players that will not micro and forget detection.
Another thing is that the most execution burden falls on the defending player. That's not inherently a bad thing, and it's good that there are counterplay options. But if the execution is mostly on the defending player, the mechanic will feel more punishing and kills by Widow Mines will seem more undeserved. Note that I'm not saying they are undeserved, only that it will seem more that way.
If the execution is more on the player using a unit, the result will feel more deserved. However, there still should be some counterplay through skill on the defending side. It's all about the right balance. In this case execution a bit too focused on the defending player, and randomness a bit too high.
NUKES
From today's perspective and general recognition of the importance of accessibility in games, adding a game mechanic that is based around looking for a red dot somewhere on the map would sound a bit crazy. But seeing it as a legacy mechanic from Brood War makes it at least understandable. If you aimed to make nukes more mainstream, you would have to make changes this mechanic.
It's even worse if we consider color blindness, which affects roughly 8% of men. As you can see the red dot is significantly less visible, and that's placed against a dark background. Putting the dot directly on the Nexus would make it close to invisible. StarCraft II has built-in color-blind mode, but its effect is very limited.
Cloak and burrow mechanic are in a similar situation. Units should be either visible or not. Whether you will spot a cloaked or burrowed unit is too reliant on your vision and game settings. Neither of them should be a deciding factor in a competitive setting.
SWARM HOST
People often complain about "free units", but difficulties with Swarm Hosts will apply to any unit that can deal almost guaranteed damage while being safe. If you as player are taking damage and can't do anything about it, it will always feel frustrating even if the game is balanced.
Moreover, the balancing itself will be more difficult with units like these as a situation can snowball very quickly. With Swarm Hosts often the first two waves are the most important.
From the historical perspective the Swarm Host redesign patch was quite interesting. It came very late to Hearth of the Swarm when Legacy of the Void beta has already started. Previously Swarm Hosts served as a core unit that enabled Zerg to fight Terran and Protoss lategame armies. And while many players didn't enjoy games with Swarm Hosts, game balance was decided by individual maps.
The patch changed this core unit into a harass unit with a high supply cost. They do fit into Legacy of the Void now, but at that time this change left a gaping hole in the design of Zerg race. However, one could argue that given the already running beta of Legacy of the Void, and how close the release was, making such change was reasonable, and the meta didn't have a time to reach a degenerate state.
BATTLECRUISER
Battlecruiser might be the most interesting unit to look at. There are design issues with the unit and its abilities. However, it's also arguably the most interesting capital ship in StarCraft II and closest to its Brood War counterpart. Let's first look at the abilities.
TACTICAL JUMP – 71s cooldown / 4s casting time
The main issue with Tactical Jump was the lack of counterplay. Fortunately, this was significantly improved after Battlecruisers had become more used, and the casting time was increased. Before that a professional player should have never lost a Battlecruiser on the opponents side of the map with Tactical Jump off cooldown.
Other than this delay only Infestors with Neural Parasite or Fungal Growth can help to stop Battlecruisers from escaping. I wouldn't consider this ability a big issue anymore, but it's tied with high front-loaded damage of Yamato Cannon, which puts this closer to the Swarm Host issue where the damage is guaranteed and comes with a minimal risk.
YAMATO CANNON – 71s cooldown / 240 damage / 2s casting time / 10 initial casting range
This ability has again very limited counterplay and doesn't have high skill ceiling. In MOBAs we see a lot of skill shots as they provide much better opportunity on both sides to show off skill. Guaranteed damage and minimal risk doesn't help in this case. However, this is again understandable as design baggage carrier over from Brood War, and as an intention to preserve this iconic ability.
~ ~ ~
So why do Battlecruisers still work well in StarCraft II? There are few reasons for it. Even if there are issues with those abilities, they still provide higher skill ceiling and options for making decisions than for example Carriers have. Those abilities also enable Battlecruisers to be effective early and in few numbers, and not just as a part of death-balls.
This is closer to Brood War, where for example in TvZ few Battlecruisers are used to put the Zerg off balance. The Zerg player has to balance anti-air and anti-ground more, and is likely to take worse fights because of that. This is similar to early game Battlecruisers in StarCraft II's TvZ which again test the Zerg player in balancing proper response against both air and ground threats.
QUEEN
I'm including the Queen here mainly to show the contrast between local design issues and global ones. With Battlecruisers the local design of its abilities has issues, but the unit fits well into the global game design.
Here we have a Queen, a unit which many players will argue is too well-rounded for defense. However, it's not due to any design of the Queen, instead the unit was slowly forced into this role over the years by the lack of other Zerg units that could come early enough and defend against enemy threats. So the problem is not directly with Queens, and solutions would have to come from looking at other Zerg units and tech progression.
CARRIER
There is nothing inherently bad about Carrier's design but nothing great either. The unit had difficult time finding its place in the grand scheme of things despite it being such iconic Protoss unit.
This is partly because of lacking micro potential compared to Brood War's Carrier, partly because of Protoss tendency to death-ball in StarCraft II, and partly because of lacking interactions it had with Brood War's Goliath.
As with Battlecruisers, Carriers in Brood War forced the opponent in PvT to carefully balance its anti-air and anti-ground. Plus their main counter being a ground unit added more depth to the game as they had to take advantage of terrain. StarCraft II moved a lot of anti-air to air units (Vikings, Corruptors, Void Rays, Tempest, Battlecruisers, Liberators) and this dance between air and ground units is less common. And so Carriers in StarCraft II were left in a position with fewer interesting interactions, and a place that's more difficult to balance.
CONCLUSION
StarCraft II isn't perfect, and we should learn from it.
● Widow Mines show the effect of execution on how the result is perceived. ● Nukes remind us that accessibility shouldn't be overlooked. ● Swarm Hosts present the difficulties of units with close to guaranteed damage and minimal risk. ● Battlecruisers highlight the importance of counterplay, and that despite local design issues the unit can still work well. ● Queen is an example of how global design can affect one unit. ● Carrier is a unit seeking its place after having lost its interesting interaction.
How are nukes a problem and not disruptors? Unnecessary AOE which much more impact than the Window Mine? The design of that unit feels so wrong due to the lack of counterplay, especially for P and T.
Get ready for PvP and TvP becoming even more of a dance of blowup-balls
It was a nice read, you made a lot of good points that I can relate to after playing the game for many years.
I always feel like most of my frustration caused by plying SC2 comes from unit interactions which are not balanced in regards to mechanical skill needed to use them vs their counters. Almost all of the units that you mentioned feel relatively easy to use for one side while requiring heavy micro gymnastics from the opponent.
On October 28 2020 02:06 Slydie wrote: How are nukes a problem and not disruptors? Unnecessary AOE which much more impact than the Window Mine? The design of that unit feels so wrong due to the lack of counterplay, especially for P and T.
Get ready for PvP and TvP becoming even more of a dance of blowup-balls
I would definitely add Disruptors to the list as well.
Nukes are not a problem in themselves I think, but how they are announced. I agree with the OP that it should be either clearly visible where the nuke will land or not at all. Same with invisible units being partly visible which depends on your graphic settings - that should not be the case.
As a colorblind person, I agree with the difficulty of vision issues. However, I am not trying to earn a living of this game and just assume that while I have this weakness my opponents have other physical or mental weakness that they also have to deal with when playing this game. That is why I've never outright called for changes regarding vision. 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.
So, the Broodlord... Isn't that just a shittier swarmhost in many ways? It does effectively the same thing as SH, can't go into a nydus, requires a corruptor as a first step, and is in many ways easier to counter than SH. Why do we even need broods in the game? They are IMO the worst hive tech unit, and possibly the worst T3 in the whole game.
I was thinking the other day about the best designed unit in Starcraft 2, and I settled on the phoenix. It's a harass unit, counters mass light air, and it can lift ground units which can make a major impact in a fight. Phoenix are definitely not overpowered and lose to other air units.
Does anyone else have a different idea what the best designed unit is?
On October 28 2020 02:32 dUTtrOACh wrote: So, the Broodlord... Isn't that just a shittier swarmhost in many ways? It does effectively the same thing as SH, can't go into a nydus, requires a corruptor as a first step, and is in many ways easier to counter than SH. Why do we even need broods in the game? They are IMO the worst hive tech unit, and possibly the worst T3 in the whole game.
They're pretty bad right now, because their counters have been buffed and their primary synergies from the past are basically dead (infestors). I agree that they're somewhat useless, because they're slow as fuck. They also lead to those drawn out games, because it's impossible to anything interesting with them. You either go for a slow push or you turtle behind a forest of spores. Boring.
Personally, I'm quite happy that lurkers have seen a resurgence in the past months. They're cool units and provide interesting scenarios in all matchups.
On October 28 2020 02:32 dUTtrOACh wrote: So, the Broodlord... Isn't that just a shittier swarmhost in many ways? It does effectively the same thing as SH, can't go into a nydus, requires a corruptor as a first step, and is in many ways easier to counter than SH. Why do we even need broods in the game? They are IMO the worst hive tech unit, and possibly the worst T3 in the whole game.
They're pretty bad right now, because their counters have been buffed and their primary synergies from the past are basically dead (infestors). I agree that they're somewhat useless, because they're slow as fuck. They also lead to those drawn out games, because it's impossible to anything interesting with them. You either go for a slow push or you turtle behind a forest of spores. Boring.
Personally, I'm quite happy that lurkers have seen a resurgence in the past months. They're cool units and provide interesting scenarios in all matchups.
Personally, I was shocked that it took Blizzard until LotV to put lurkers into the game. When the swarmhost was first put into the game, my thoughts were "Oh, so this is Blizzard's redesign of the lurker? Pretty terrible... Why does it hit air? Why does it do the same thing as a broodlord? How was the broodlord not simultaneously redesigned?". Then they removed the air attack of the locust, and called it a day.
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
To the point of widow-mines and the perceived fairness they bring to or remove from the table, there's a reason why land-mines are banned in warfare. They are known to be unfair, and in the realistic sense, they will kill allies, enemies, and civilians equally. Luckily, it's humans vs aliens 2/3 of the time, so the Geneva convention goes out the window with the nuclear disarmament.
EDIT: Humanity's greatest weapons against advanced ETs would most likely be the weapons we deem immoral or inhumane to use against one another. This is why I want a unit that uses irradiate again.
On October 28 2020 03:23 dUTtrOACh wrote: I think phoenixes are too easy to use. Units that shoot as they move shouldn't also be able to move faster than everything else.
EDIT: Thankfully their range upgrade isn't completely broken, because if they outranged everything, they would be the most OP PoS unit.
Phoenixes are a pretty bad unit imo. They have niche uses here and there, but overall they are the most useless AA unit.
In PvP they are kind of annoying, but once you get archons they just inmediately stop working. The range upgrade was suppoused to help vs mutalisk, but by the time you get that you already died to mass mutas, and if you havent the zerg just insta tech-switches to literally anything else and stomps you. I actually wish they buffed phoenix indirectly by making the viper a light unit. Then alongside the range it would help against the BS abducts.
On October 28 2020 03:23 dUTtrOACh wrote: I think phoenixes are too easy to use. Units that shoot as they move shouldn't also be able to move faster than everything else.
EDIT: Thankfully their range upgrade isn't completely broken, because if they outranged everything, they would be the most OP PoS unit.
Phoenixes are a pretty bad unit imo. They have niche uses here and there, but overall they are the most useless AA unit.
In PvP they are kind of annoying, but once you get archons they just inmediately stop working. The range upgrade was suppoused to help vs mutalisk, but by the time you get that you already died to mass mutas, and if you havent the zerg just insta tech-switches to literally anything else and stomps you. I actually wish they buffed phoenix indirectly by making the viper a light unit. Then alongside the range it would help against the BS abducts.
It's sort of what I mean. The phoenix is so dynamically good, that it's intentionally weakened in too many ways, making it a worthless core unit, but a great tool. It is almost irrelevant against armored air (with exceptions), due to range and damage-type restrictions. It can't lift massive (which is why archons can zone them out, but not kill them, if they are pulled back). It's limited to its maximum energy worth of lifts, or lacks lifts when it has no energy, and can't attack buildings, making it a paperweight or pure scout at times.
Therefore, I too disagree that it is the best designed.
EDIT: Can we really objectively say something is the best designed anything? I like the idea of smh making something in the air arsenal counter vipers, other than warp prism templars, or some madness.
The queen part sounds like what might as well be reverse causality (especially given zerg dominance for a long time). If there is a defensive unit that is cheap and so well-rounded that it can defend against anything, it leaves all larvae to turn into drones. There are many units that could defend early aggression, like zerglings and roaches, instead we usually see queens fighting off the aggression alone (ie threataning creep) while droning continues.
Can I nominate the Hellbat for another reason. It's not really that it's egregious in any particular way, but it's just such a dumb unit.
It comes from the Hellion, but requires an Armory to morph into. You can then both chose to make the Hellbat out of the Factory or the Hellion. If you lose the Armory this technology is lost on the unit. Hellbat is also biological and mechanical, where Hellion is only mechanical. So suddenly the guy in the vehicle can get healed and repaired at the same time. The Medivac can pick up 4 Hellions, while only picking up 2 Hellbats, even though it's the same guy in the same car, in both cases. Oh yea and the Hellbat cannot fit into a Bunker even though it's biological.
On October 28 2020 06:23 ejozl wrote: Can I nominate Hellbat for another reason. It's not really egregious in any particular way, but it's just such a dumb unit . It comes from the Hellion, but requires an Armory to morph into. You can then both chose to make the Hellbat out of the Factory or the Hellion. If you lose the armory this technology is lost on the unit. Hellion and Hellbat life is different, so it should be cheaper to repair a Hellion and then morph it to Hellbat, rather than the other way round. Hellbat is also biological and mechanical, where Hellion is only mechanical. So suddenly the guy in the vehicle can get healed and repaired at the same time. The Medivac can pick up 4 Hellions, while only picking up 2 Hellbats, even though it's the same guy in the same car, in both cases. Ohyea and Hellbat cannot fit into a Bunker even though it's biological.
lol, but when it folds out to expose the man, it is as wide as a siege tank, and slower. Hellbats were an afterthought in medivac design.
On October 28 2020 06:23 ejozl wrote: Can I nominate Hellbat for another reason. It's not really egregious in any particular way, but it's just such a dumb unit . It comes from the Hellion, but requires an Armory to morph into. You can then both chose to make the Hellbat out of the Factory or the Hellion. If you lose the armory this technology is lost on the unit. Hellion and Hellbat life is different, so it should be cheaper to repair a Hellion and then morph it to Hellbat, rather than the other way round. Hellbat is also biological and mechanical, where Hellion is only mechanical. So suddenly the guy in the vehicle can get healed and repaired at the same time. The Medivac can pick up 4 Hellions, while only picking up 2 Hellbats, even though it's the same guy in the same car, in both cases. Ohyea and Hellbat cannot fit into a Bunker even though it's biological.
I second your statement for all the reasons you just mentioned. But tbh, i think we could go back to medivac being able to transport 4 hellbats.
On October 28 2020 03:23 dUTtrOACh wrote: I think phoenixes are too easy to use. Units that shoot as they move shouldn't also be able to move faster than everything else.
EDIT: Thankfully their range upgrade isn't completely broken, because if they outranged everything, they would be the most OP PoS unit.
Phoenixes are a pretty bad unit imo. They have niche uses here and there, but overall they are the most useless AA unit.
In PvP they are kind of annoying, but once you get archons they just inmediately stop working. The range upgrade was suppoused to help vs mutalisk, but by the time you get that you already died to mass mutas, and if you havent the zerg just insta tech-switches to literally anything else and stomps you. I actually wish they buffed phoenix indirectly by making the viper a light unit. Then alongside the range it would help against the BS abducts.
It's sort of what I mean. The phoenix is so dynamically good, that it's intentionally weakened in too many ways, making it a worthless core unit, but a great tool. It is almost irrelevant against armored air (with exceptions), due to range and damage-type restrictions. It can't lift massive (which is why archons can zone them out, but not kill them, if they are pulled back). It's limited to its maximum energy worth of lifts, or lacks lifts when it has no energy, and can't attack buildings, making it a paperweight or pure scout at times.
Therefore, I too disagree that it is the best designed.
EDIT: Can we really objectively say something is the best designed anything? I like the idea of smh making something in the air arsenal counter vipers, other than warp prism templars, or some madness.
Phoenixes are great outside of metas where you can mass them. Require a lot of babysitting, precise micro as skirmishers, they kind of almost exactly fit the role they’re meant to which I guess means they’re well-designed.
I don’t really like how lift energy works especially though, not sure how I’d retool. It’s clear they want it to be a decision but I’m not sure how I like how it works. You end up with situations where the Toss catches a mineral line completely naked and is low on energy and can’t punish it.
I’d like them to have some graviton charge ability which temporarily boosts their energy, but cuts their regen rate for a period afterwards.
That way you could choose to boost it to get a few extra drones, but your phoenixes are wiped and dead weight for a while after so it would be a risk/reward thing to use
On October 28 2020 06:23 ejozl wrote: Can I nominate the Hellbat for another reason. It's not really that it's egregious in any particular way, but it's just such a dumb unit.
It comes from the Hellion, but requires an Armory to morph into. You can then both chose to make the Hellbat out of the Factory or the Hellion. If you lose the Armory this technology is lost on the unit. Hellbat is also biological and mechanical, where Hellion is only mechanical. So suddenly the guy in the vehicle can get healed and repaired at the same time. The Medivac can pick up 4 Hellions, while only picking up 2 Hellbats, even though it's the same guy in the same car, in both cases. Oh yea and the Hellbat cannot fit into a Bunker even though it's biological.
I’ve actually never tried killing an armory to see what happens to hellbats. Do they stay morphed? If they stay morphed when you morph back to hellions does the hellbat option go away?
How about mines and fusion core? Do they become visible again?
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.
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!
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.
Worst unit design has to be the queen by far. A unit that´s just that good at attacking/defending, costs no gas and buffs production is just bad enough. Mix in creep and healing for just mana and you got the great cake of the do-it-all shit-fest. . 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
On October 28 2020 02:06 Slydie wrote: How are nukes a problem and not disruptors?
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.
On October 28 2020 03:54 _fool wrote: 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
Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.
On October 28 2020 02:28 BisuDagger wrote: ... 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.
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.
So, how do you make invisibility more accessible without it being worthless?
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.
On the nukes, what if the red dot slowly got larger as the detonation time decreased? The max size could be played with as I'm not sure what progression / end-state would make sense, but I think doing it this way could somewhat make up for the difficulty of seeing it by having quick reactions once it gets big enough that you do see it.
Though I wouldn't really need convincing if someone genuinely thought it was too big of a nerf or something.
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.
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.
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.
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 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A huge problem with the nuke - much larger, IMO! - is that the game engine cannot handle many sounds being played at once. It deals with this by halting the playback of the oldest currently-playing sounds whenever a new sound is started which otherwise wouldn't fit in the sound buffer.
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.
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Being able to hide the red dot in ways that make it impractical to see, even when looking for it, is another major issue.
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.
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.
The problem isn't really the mechanic per-se, but the natural consequence that gateway units need to be very weak to compensate for the added mobility and potential positional advantages. Even with creep, nydus, proxies and turbovacs, gateway DPS still has to be abyssal for Z and T to have a chance.
The offensive potential has already nerfed heavily with the slow pylon warp-ins.
I really like Colossus from a lore and concept point of view, and there is some cool micro potential with warp prisms and enemy focus fire. The a-move/deathball nature of the unit is annoying, of course, but it has just become such an integral part of the game for now I don't even mind...
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.
I agree with that, I like the idea of it just not how it was implemented.
If it was limited to a defensive thing and tethered to nexuses, or if it was slower producing vs gateways (so mobility vs output), or it was gated to a lategame/prism thing, you could have trade offs etc.
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.
I agree with that, I like the idea of it just not how it was implemented.
If it was limited to a defensive thing and tethered to nexuses, or if it was slower producing vs gateways (so mobility vs output), or it was gated to a lategame/prism thing, you could have trade offs etc.
People have been complaining about warpgate since the game was released. I never agreed with this until I came back to the game several months ago after a few years off. I think the mechanic is really cool but gateway units just do not scale well as the game progresses. It seems like Protoss has to quickly get higher tech units to survive. So even defensive warp-ins often just do not cut it. I would be happy if gateway units were buffed and warpgate because an upgrade for later in the game.
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.
I agree with that, I like the idea of it just not how it was implemented.
If it was limited to a defensive thing and tethered to nexuses, or if it was slower producing vs gateways (so mobility vs output), or it was gated to a lategame/prism thing, you could have trade offs etc.
People have been complaining about warpgate since the game was released. I never agreed with this until I came back to the game several months ago after a few years off. I think the mechanic is really cool but gateway units just do not scale well as the game progresses. It seems like Protoss has to quickly get higher tech units to survive. So even defensive warp-ins often just do not cut it. I would be happy if gateway units were buffed and warpgate because an upgrade for later in the game.
I’ve been saying variants of this for 10 years. You can’t have beefy, potent gateway options early doors because you can warp them in at someone’s front door.
Although gateway units aren’t that bad stats wise, they just don’t scale at all against bio, which as I said early in the thread is as much with bio being too good as anything else.
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.
There could be interesting mechanics like warp-in time increasing nonlinearly with distance from the main nexus spawn position, then divided by a factor based on the amount of nexii that you have.
Example:
1 nexus: warping at nexus instant 20% of the way across the map takes 3 seconds --- still similar/faster than we have now 40% takes 12 seconds --- slow warps 80% takes 48 seconds --- warpgate all-in impossible, past a certain point it could even be slower to warp-in the unit directly than it would be to warp mid-map and run there yourself.
The shape of the distance-vs-warptime curve should be tweaked to make this work well, it's also possible to do things like add a floor and ceiling to the warp-in time.
6 nexus: warping at main instant 20% across the map takes 1.5 seconds 40% takes 6 seconds --- defending expansions later in the game is still practical 80% takes 24 seconds --- warping directly into enemy main even in the lategame is not reasonable
This kind of scaling is pretty much perfect for favoring defenders advantage rather than all-in's and the nexus scaling factor would compensate for the difficulty in warping out to expansion locations as the area of space that you must defend grows larger and larger over the game.
It can't be gamed like building a proxy warpgate in the current system to empower proxy warp-in's as spending 400 minerals for 1 nexus, anywhere on the map, will have only an incremental improvement - and spending money for multiple nexii is too expensive to do simply to expand the range in which you can effectively warp-in units. Even a full compliment of nexii would struggle to project power to the enemy half of the map and especially onto their bases. With this kind of scale factor it only makes sense to build a nexus if you want to use the nexus to mine minerals/gas or use the nexus abilities which are already in the game.
There could be a cap in place like after you have 5 nexii on the map, the warp speed multiplier based on the nexus count no longer improves any more and that would prevent ultra-late-game abuse.
There are many ways to tweak or change such a formula to create the desired behaviors and it could be done while the system still behaves quite highly intuitively, understandable without requiring excessive study just to play the game at a high level.
I find that continual scaling over factors like distance - even nonlinearly - can work better than splitting into binary yes or no capabilities. There's room for people to use these capabilities a little suboptimally without slapping them down too hard for slightly violating the laws. The terrible use-cases (like building a pylon in the enemy main and warping to it) quickly become apparent to even novice users and watchers.
On October 30 2020 07:34 Slydie wrote: The problem isn't really the mechanic per-se, but the natural consequence that gateway units need to be very weak to compensate for the added mobility and potential positional advantages. Even with creep, nydus, proxies and turbovacs, gateway DPS still has to be abyssal for Z and T to have a chance.
The offensive potential has already nerfed heavily with the slow pylon warp-ins.
You don't change playstyles if you create easy work arounds to play the same style. The offensive potential was not nerfed, because they made a really easy work around through the Warp Prism fast-warp in.
@Cryo, I find your example to be an overly complicated method and also, ridiculously map restricting (particular for less competitive maps or non 1v1 settings). There are far more practical & more understandable options.
You don't change playstyles if you create easy work arounds to play the same style. The offensive potential was not nerfed, because they made a really easy work around through the Warp Prism fast-warp in.
No, it was nerfed, and very heavily so. Most old warpgate all-in attacks do not exist anymore, most notably standard 4gate and the soul train. Being forced to get a robo and WP makes a huge difference, and the timings were very sharp. The old builds which did include robos would much rather have an extra immortal.
Now, Protoss offense relies very heavily on not losing the WP.
Some of those units and mainly their abilities can be redesigned quite easy.
Nukes: Cheaper, smaller, faster and more visible Yamato: Skillshot, like Storm but in a line and maybe with some sort of directional marker to counterplay Stealth: More visible, but not autoattackable
Suggestion. What about Zergling 2.0 and Muta 2.0? If you don't get it: + Show Spoiler +
Zealot, Voidray, both got extreme speed buffs i LotV
I don't think the super speed is appropriate. I like that there is a Race who has super fast but weak units: Zerg with stuff like Zerglings and Mutalisks, and maybe very few exceptions so called special units for T and P: Banshee and Phoenix and the Hellions. Other than that it, No. It feel less like a good strategy game anymore when Everything moves at lightning speed. By the way, quite funny what I found - here is a pro gamer vs a speedy diamond player: (edited timer for exact game, at 1:15:19)
There are unlimited other ways to balance than speed. Many streams confirm this - I looked at some recently...
Honestly I think sc2 has a lot of good unit designs a lot of the units feel fun and rewarding to use. I love the way that it feels to micro stimed marines or control blink stalkers or get perfect engagements with lings. The fast responsive units in explosive fights is one of the things sc2 does really well.
I also generally like the “micro enabling units. That create a situation where the other player can skillfully respond to reduce their effectiveness, for instance banelings in ZVT have a really fun design because they encourage splitting micro out of Terran players. Widow mines on the Terran side force Zerg to control their army skillfully as well.
Generally units that don’t work well imo are ones where either the interactions tend to be so binary that they are anti micro units that prevent or punish players who want to use a high skill army, or units where the micro requirement to mitigate the effect is just beyond what’s possible.
Brood lord investor fell into the first category. The broodlings prevented many units from controlling properly, combine this with the ensnaring effect of fungal, the mind control effect of neural parasite and the ability to outrage everything in the game(pre nerf) and... to neutralize counters like air units with infested Terran+fungal and you get what I see as an anti fun unit comp. The answer to infestor bl is not to out control it but to build your own uninteresting death ball of air and casters and then turtle and try not to engage it on the Zerg players terms. A unit composition that denies any type of interaction with it should not exist.
Compare this to the pre nerf ultra meta. 8 armor ultras were surely strong but they had way better interactions with Terran. Instead of never engaging Terran could kite this army, they could split off drops and micro in multiple places, they could use snipes to pick offf ultras. This was a lot healthier since ther is counterpkay and opportunity to interact with the other player and show skill from both sides.
A lot of the worst offenders in terms of balance have all had this anti micro feel to them, that you can’t really do much to engage with or combat the composition directly. Swarm hosts had this problem, Soul train had this problem, Raven turtle mech had this problem, skytoss when it’s been strong has had this problem. When the answer to a unit composition is, under no circumstances engage them or let them get to that point it tends to make the game less fun Because the game can’t evolve into a dynamic late game.
Currently I think most matches are actual in a prity good state when it comes to these anti micro comps, lurker hydra viper has a lot more interactions than infestor bl did. TVZ is in a terrific state in terms of how the game flows. PVz although not perfect is significantly better now that feedback can combat abduct. I do think TvP is a little off still as it appears the late game is a bit degenerate with most Terran strategies revolving around not playing a long macro game vs Protoss. But it’s not terrible. My one complaint would be that large numbers of disrupters feel to strong but at least reasonable counter play and tactics exist for facing them, kind of like tvz mech.
SC2 has been at its best when interesting unit interactions lead to complex army movements and tactics and at its worst when armies Cannot be engaged or interacted with by the other player so the solution is for both sides to turtle with no other aim but to eventually force a favorable engagement.
On October 28 2020 03:23 dUTtrOACh wrote: I think phoenixes are too easy to use. Units that shoot as they move shouldn't also be able to move faster than everything else.
EDIT: Thankfully their range upgrade isn't completely broken, because if they outranged everything, they would be the most OP PoS unit.
Phoenixes are a pretty bad unit imo. They have niche uses here and there, but overall they are the most useless AA unit.
In PvP they are kind of annoying, but once you get archons they just inmediately stop working. The range upgrade was suppoused to help vs mutalisk, but by the time you get that you already died to mass mutas, and if you havent the zerg just insta tech-switches to literally anything else and stomps you. I actually wish they buffed phoenix indirectly by making the viper a light unit. Then alongside the range it would help against the BS abducts.
It's sort of what I mean. The phoenix is so dynamically good, that it's intentionally weakened in too many ways, making it a worthless core unit, but a great tool. It is almost irrelevant against armored air (with exceptions), due to range and damage-type restrictions. It can't lift massive (which is why archons can zone them out, but not kill them, if they are pulled back). It's limited to its maximum energy worth of lifts, or lacks lifts when it has no energy, and can't attack buildings, making it a paperweight or pure scout at times.
Therefore, I too disagree that it is the best designed.
EDIT: Can we really objectively say something is the best designed anything? I like the idea of smh making something in the air arsenal counter vipers, other than warp prism templars, or some madness.
Something that just came to mind. How come Terran Splash damage is the only splash damage that effects their own units without targeting? Yeah psi storms hurt zealots but thats because the player chooses to run into it. Seige tanks and widow mines crush marines with friendly fire, while banelings, lurks, colossi splash damage magically does not effect their friendly units.
On November 01 2020 02:56 MinesMakeWidows wrote: Interesting thread.
Something that just came to mind. How come Terran Splash damage is the only splash damage that effects their own units without targeting? Yeah psi storms hurt zealots but thats because the player chooses to run into it. Seige tanks and widow mines crush marines with friendly fire, while banelings, lurks, colossi splash damage magically does not effect their friendly units.
Is there any 'logical' reasoning behind this?
Terran don’t really have melee units, so I guess it’s because of that aspect of their historic design that Blizz put in friendly fire.
BW tanks are absolute monsters too, even more so than their SC2 counterparts.
I’m unsure why the decision was made outside of guesses. By comparison with real warfare you wouldn’t have your infantry sitting in artillery fire, so perhaps it’s to reflect that.
Other races actually rely on melee and closing the gaps. If they can do this the Terran should be getting punished in some way. Keep them at a distance and let the artillery or the minefields for the work, if they’re in your face you’re in trouble. That feels about right to me.
I like the mechanic, it introduces lots of counter-play like dropping on tanks to trigger a volley that kills one, dragging mines in BW or SC2 etc.
Collosus fire too quickly and in a line spread to make trying to control an army that includes Zealots that automatically charge into the front an absolute, absolute nightmare to control.
I suppose the logical reason is as simple as 2/3 race’s stock basic combat unit is a melee one and having friendly fire AoE would be a complete pain.
I’m not against more friendly fire, I think storm doing it makes tons of sense, arguably fungal growth in all its previous guises could have had friendly fire added too.
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/pNyd8Gp.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/sJHXJyq.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/YFixlUd.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/w12g68a.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/mJE8cAH.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/OHBathl.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/W31PoZp.png)
TACTICAL JUMP – 71s cooldown / 4s casting time![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/18zp2HG.png)
YAMATO CANNON – 71s cooldown / 240 damage / 2s casting time / 10 initial casting range![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/fcIm2Sz.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/oi2JhBh.jpg)
