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I agree Wax, but War3 doesn't have hard counters :/ Yes I realize that magic casting units cannot even touch magic immune units, but there isn't any other thing like that in the game, it's almost like two air units, one is air-to-ground only, one is air-to-air only.
Other examples, like a footman should counter a rifleman, because his 'normal' attack type gets 50% increased damage vs. the rifleman's 'light' armour. But this isn't always the case... just like in BW
Considering a NE player can mass bears/dryads vs. (mostly) every unit shows that the game definitely doesn't have hard counters 
The units have much more HP, but their damage doesn't compensate, so where a unit can actually damage another, micro usually plays a large part in what wins.
Obviously, though
Good post
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SC's beauty is that everything is a 'hard counter' if you don't micro well. Everything dies very quickly, sometimes instantly, so you must always be on your toes. Sairs can be slaughtered by mass muta if you're not paying attention. WC3 is kind of a 'let's chill and order units to slowly waltz with eachother but with swords' sort of game.
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Well said -
I recall watching an interview once with a SCBW developer and he talked about how starcraft IHO (in his opinion) introduced the genre (intentionally) to 'soft' counters as oppose to 'hard' counters found in other games in the genre, like CnC.. not really new information just thought i'd share ;p...Soo yeah... Nice post 
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I hope the SC2 devs are reading this thread. It is nearly a design doc covering why SC1 is amazing.
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thank you for that post, i was wondering what makes cnc so shitty and sc so fucking awesome
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
StarCraft is built out of hard counters between different units. Keep in mind that a "hard counter" is one unit countering another, whereas a "soft counter" is a group of units countering another group of units.
I really like Wax's point that many of SCBW's hard counters aren't total dominance. For one thing, if unit A counters unit B (say, without any micro) then you can often defeat A using B (without micro) with a resource ratio around, say, 3:2 or 2:1. But more importantly, even though B is at a disadvantage, if all you have are Bs against your opponent's As then you can still fare relatively-well or even come out on top by microing your units sufficiently-well.
An ideal example is goons > vultures: despite the hard counter, the vultures (armed with mines) can still win with good micro even if the dragoons are also microed. Even in the extreme case of firebats > lings, if your opponent screws up or doesn't pay enough attention and 1-2 bats become separated from the rest, then you can surround and pick them off relatively-easily with lings.
I have never thought about this aspect of SC before, but now that it's mentioned I think it is a crucially important aspect of the game: in many cases, hard counters aren't hopeless. With a small resource advantage and a considerable micro advantage, they can be overcome.
Ultimately, all this potential for micro and all these hard counters give rise to unplanned, emergent soft counters, like how the elementary laws of physics give rise to everything in our universe, or like Conway's Game of Life. Going a little off-topic here, I think I agree, in a way, with people who say SC1 had a magical luck factor that helped make it so beautiful. By nature, complex emergent behaviour is unpredictable. Maybe all a designer can do is to design the hard counters and some of the micro potential, then observe the results, make changes, observe again, make more changes, observe again, etc. etc., and hope that in the end, the game will have that spark of magic in it.
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I've said this before and I'm not sure if anyone feels the same as me. I really don't think the way we play BWs today was how Blizzard intended BW to play. I think the community really did alot of the leg work on balance. If you read Blizzards strategy guild for BWs and SC they clearly wanted it to be a RPS game. I think the players are the ones who showed blizzard that "no Scouts can't counter Tanks. Because by the time I get Scouts he will have a shit load of MT and Goliaths besides Tanks!". That "Hey these Lurkers can attack too. Not just stay in one spot and keep M&Ms away from my base." I honestly think Blizzard kinda Forrest Gumped there way into the great game and balance that is BWs with our help basicly. There just no way they invisioned BW playing the way we play it.
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MURICA15980 Posts
Also, in terms of balance, we as a community will be doing much of that ourselves when we create our custom maps to play on. So Blizzard just needs to throw together a solid game and patch it like crazy.
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United States33347 Posts
I agree that war3 doesn't have very hard counters, but magic vs magic immunes was one of the examples that came to the top of my head. War3 micro is VERY rewarding, but it's very slow to become apparent compared to Starcraft, which is why SC gamers hate war3 so much 
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I posted this in the closed thread. I still think there's truth to it.
I dunno. I think both have to be present.
Vultures microed properly will always beat Zealots, no questions asked.
Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.
Tanks microed properly will always beat Dragoons, no questions asked.
Zealots microed properly will always beat Tanks, no questions asked.
Because these hard counters exist, making and microing armies of mixed units becomes important.
Too much rock paper scissors, and what units are being built becomes more important than what you do with them.
Too little rock paper scissors, and the game becomes a matter of building the only viable units for the situation and microing them well.
It's interesting to have certain match ups that emphasize each kind of game play. ZvZ in StarCraft is about how well you use your Mutaling. Whereas in TvP a well-executed tech to Carriers can put away your Terran opponent even if his micro is superior. Ultimately, great care has to be taken in order to make sure both are in the game.
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What Blizzard is really doing is screwing over their balance team ^-^
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United States33347 Posts
On August 09 2007 17:51 DTDominion wrote:I posted this in the closed thread. I still think there's truth to it. Show nested quote +I dunno. I think both have to be present.
Vultures microed properly will always beat Zealots, no questions asked.
Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.
Tanks microed properly will always beat Dragoons, no questions asked.
Zealots microed properly will always beat Tanks, no questions asked.
Because these hard counters exist, making and microing armies of mixed units becomes important.
Too much rock paper scissors, and what units are being built becomes more important than what you do with them.
Too little rock paper scissors, and the game becomes a matter of building the only viable units for the situation and microing them well.
It's interesting to have certain match ups that emphasize each kind of game play. ZvZ in StarCraft is about how well you use your Mutaling. Whereas in TvP a well-executed tech to Carriers can put away your Terran opponent even if his micro is superior. Ultimately, great care has to be taken in order to make sure both are in the game.
yeah and you're still horribly wrong
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On August 08 2007 12:03 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2007 11:56 XG3 wrote:
Have you heard of firebats vs zerglings? I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. RPS exists in Starcraft in varying degrees, but it's definitely there and an important part of the game. this is a bad way to respond, but bats get picked off by lings all the time I'm just tired of people claiming SC is a hard counter game anyway, I suppose it is mostly about how you want to define things
I'm still convinced that starcraft has harder counters than wc3.
There are a couple of things in wc3 that don't work but more units are viable. For example, ghoul and fiend builds are common. But in sc, in TvZ you're using mostly units that you hardly use in TvP. Isn't that because they counter better?
And watching extreme cases, units that counter well can make many more kills than in wc3. It's not uncommon to see units with 15+ kills in sc, in wc3 it mainly heroes that get to do that. But i agree that the micro plays a much bigger role than the counters.
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Having less kills on units in WC3 is cause the dmg is significantly lower compared to the average hp of everything, and you use WAY LESS UNITS, damnit. Go count them! Are you totally out of your mind?
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Unless I misunderstand the term, it seems to me that there are some hard counters in BW, and that weren't mentioned here. They are so hard that the countered unit is never produced if your opponent can make the countering unit. High temps seem to be a hard counter for m&m and bats, so although you may OCCASIONALLY see them early in a non-pro tvp, once toss techs the terran really can't produce any more infantry. Pretty much the same for reavers. Anything surface to air is a hard counter to scouts, so a scout is only made very early pvz or pvt (terran can produce a counter at any time - marines - but has to send its barracks home and produce 4, so the delay occasionally makes a scout viable for harass). Vultures are a pretty hard counter to marines and bats in tvt. Technically, I guess DAs are a hard counter to any low hp caster, but neither casters nor DAs are ever produced in high enough quantities for it to matter. Scouts are a hard counter for BCs and carriers as well if you include cost at all (at this point I'm rambling so I'll stop...).
These still aren't as many or as "hard" as some WC3 examples, but I think saying there are absolutely none in BW is exaggerating. You also never produce just a single unit type in SC, so you don't see hard counters in action, because the countered unit will have support from other units that counter the counter (or at least render it ineffective). I'm not familiar with the terminology, but perhaps this is where the term "soft counters" comes in.
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United States33347 Posts
ah well like I said, it's mostly an argument about definition
what is a "counter" anyway? By definition, it isn't somethign that situational. It should be called a situational counter then. Call it a situational counter in that case. Lurker is a situational counter to marines, if your micro is better. A "Hard counter" should mean a relationship where one unit will almost always win, regardless of other circumstances.
SC doesn't have hard counters by that definition, units matchups sway hugely depending on the situation and micro.
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On August 09 2007 18:16 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2007 17:51 DTDominion wrote:I posted this in the closed thread. I still think there's truth to it. I dunno. I think both have to be present.
Vultures microed properly will always beat Zealots, no questions asked.
Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.
Tanks microed properly will always beat Dragoons, no questions asked.
Zealots microed properly will always beat Tanks, no questions asked.
Because these hard counters exist, making and microing armies of mixed units becomes important.
Too much rock paper scissors, and what units are being built becomes more important than what you do with them.
Too little rock paper scissors, and the game becomes a matter of building the only viable units for the situation and microing them well.
It's interesting to have certain match ups that emphasize each kind of game play. ZvZ in StarCraft is about how well you use your Mutaling. Whereas in TvP a well-executed tech to Carriers can put away your Terran opponent even if his micro is superior. Ultimately, great care has to be taken in order to make sure both are in the game. yeah and you're still horribly wrong
how is he wrong? I agree with pretty much everything he said except for "Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.", i think perfectly executed vulture micro is superior to goon dance
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On August 09 2007 21:48 Mandalor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2007 18:16 Waxangel wrote:On August 09 2007 17:51 DTDominion wrote:I posted this in the closed thread. I still think there's truth to it. I dunno. I think both have to be present.
Vultures microed properly will always beat Zealots, no questions asked.
Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.
Tanks microed properly will always beat Dragoons, no questions asked.
Zealots microed properly will always beat Tanks, no questions asked.
Because these hard counters exist, making and microing armies of mixed units becomes important.
Too much rock paper scissors, and what units are being built becomes more important than what you do with them.
Too little rock paper scissors, and the game becomes a matter of building the only viable units for the situation and microing them well.
It's interesting to have certain match ups that emphasize each kind of game play. ZvZ in StarCraft is about how well you use your Mutaling. Whereas in TvP a well-executed tech to Carriers can put away your Terran opponent even if his micro is superior. Ultimately, great care has to be taken in order to make sure both are in the game. yeah and you're still horribly wrong how is he wrong? I agree with pretty much everything he said except for "Dragoons microed properly will always beat Vultures, no questions asked.", i think perfectly executed vulture micro is superior to goon dance
All of the match ups are numbers dependent of course, but I think my overall point still stands.
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a hard counter in starcraft imo is probably when a unit will always seek support from some other unit or defence building when fighting a certain other type of unit if none of them are greatly outnumbered, you will very rarely see 0-0 lings fight 1-0 zealots unless its absolutely necessary, altho a micro mistake in firebats vs lings can tip the favour of the zerg again, zerglings will most likely always avoid the firebats, hence why mutta/ling will always try to pick off the firebats first with the muttas before entering with the lings.
But its not viable to say that a unit is not a "hard counter" towards another unit because a mistake from the stronger one is needed to make it possible for the countered type of unit to beat em , its the active micro that should be rewarding not the absence of it :p
but i agree with waxangel on most other things.
Obviously most units are extra strong vs certain other units...but its the mixed fights that makes sc so cool, almost everyone unit needs support in some way.
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MURICA15980 Posts
Exactly. Numbers, positioning, and purpose of your units. How you play them. If you just use your tanks and can't bust out fast enough due to the number of my dragoons, it'll allow me to gain valuable time to mine more from my many expansions you have yet to destroy. Etc, etc. There are so many more factors in this game than mere rock paper scissors. Think mutas vs marines and medics. Sure a fight will end with terran advantage ('cause of cost of mutas, etc) and mutas generally melt in the presence of many stimmed marines, but use strategic hit and run techniques, you nullify this relatively strong counter because you have a different objective.
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EPT
