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I originally posted this in another thread, but now I feel that it is better suited to it's own discussion. Sorry if it's a little hastily written, it's late (early?).
Thanks to H0i for the original topic.
GSL Spoilers!!! Sorry I forgot this before, it's actually what woke me up this morning. I never care about spoilers, but of course many people do so again, I do apologize.
I believe it was Louder who said during the beta that forcefields were the most broken thing in the game. I definitely think that in many situations he's right.
Some observations to consider;
The better the user, the greater the advantage
Stopping an opponents ability to micro
Blocking ramps; Strategical advantage (rush survival/cutting off reinforcements)
Bunching up units; Tactical advantage (melee disadvantage/range advantage)
The better the user... Skill ceilings are essential to the success of a competitive game. If there were a very low skill ceiling, SC2 would get stale very quickly (some say it has- I disagree that the ceiling is too low, though). If a player cannot physically outplay an opponent, then all that's left is strategy, something that develops slowly, but is disseminated quickly. Basically everyone would be at just about the same level. It is not the fact that one player possesses higher skill than another, it is the ability to activate that skill that is a problem. If one race has built in mechanics that allow them to outplay their opponent through physical skill and the other does not, then one race is at a disadvantage. Likewise, if one race must actively activate more skill to gain an advantage or stay on par with another race, there is a problem there as well, unless the other races are able to similarly take advantage of physical skill (think Terran in SC:BW).
They stop the opponents ability to micro. I don't think this is a problem in itself, as long as it is something that can be avoided. Basically, it takes good micro to successfully use and successfully avoid forcefields. The impetus is on Protoss to gain an advantage. However, the opposing race does not gain an advantage from successfully avoiding being forcefielded. However, if sentries are seen as an investment (which they are) and a compromise between more powerful units (which they are), their failure to be utilized properly does put the Protoss at a disadvantage. the important question here is "does failure to utilize the investment of sentries put me at as much of a disadvantage as my opponent failing to properly avoid my forcefields." I think the answer to this question might very well be "no" in many circumstances.
Blocking Ramps. The ability to instantly create impassable terrain is, on the surface, really really cool. That's probably why Blizzard likes it so much. It's a really novel idea and I think it deserves recognition. That being said, forcefields being used to strategically block a ramp (as opposed to being used tactically to gain an advantage on the battlefield) greatly change the strategical make-up of SC2. It messes with some of the fundamental concepts of an RTS game (as do a few other SC2 innovations). I'll start with the obvious. Not being able to reinforce your units (or utilize a large chunk of your army) during a key fight completely changes the advantage disadvantage balance of the game. One of the fundamental choices in SC2 is whether to build units or build economy. Each of those decisions has benefits and consequences for all of the races. When you are denied the benefits of the decision to build an army at a specific point, you are forced to cope with both the inherent disadvantages (not building an economy) and the lack of immediate advantages (which can turn into a permanent lack of advantage. This can be incredibly bad, as we've seen. Players should never be punished for making good decisions (as July was when he decided to build roaches to defend MC's push- as obvious of a decision as that was).
The decision to invest in military, economy, or technology is also fundamental to any rts game (as far as I know there are no games with only a single type of un-upgradeable attacking unit). The decision to rush is basically a decision to focus on military might as quickly and as aggressively as possible. It comes with advantages (I kill my opponent, I survive a rush) and disadvantages (putting off economy and tech). Forcefielding a ramp to survive a rush eliminates this inherent and necessary compromise in many situations; My opponent decides to rush, I decide to tech to gain an advantage. For a small price (the significance of which needs to be questioned), I am able to completely negate my opponents decision and immediately and completely punish him for making another good (in the sense that it should have to be reconciled appropriately by the opponent) decision. This is a bad thing. However, if forcefields are absolutely necessary for the survival of a race against certain strategies (meaning there are no other options that don't put the defender at a disadvantage), then it is perfectly fine as long as the benefit of making the proper decision is appropriately rewarded (meaning that you don't immediately win the game by defending the rush or whatever). I think in this respect forcefields, while annoying, are mostly okay (defensively). Now lets go back to the offensive aspect of forcefields being used to block an opponents reinforcements. The interesting thing here is that Protoss has another HUGE strategic advantage. The warp-in mechanic (which deserves it's own thread), fundamentally changes another basic aspect of RTS play, the rush distance, or better, the unit reinforcement period. Since time is the most valuable of all resources in any rts game (more on that some other time), eliminating the reinforcement period through warp-in should be considered a major modification to the usual mechanic of the game. The odd thing here is that Protoss has both of these advantages. Putting these two things together seems incredibly risky from a balance perspective. Of course, if these things are counter-balanced by advantages in the other race, it is fine. Zerg certainly has many advantages, but the question is does Zerg have a reasonable advantage at the right stages of the game to make it balance. An interesting thought; since Protoss clearly has the offensive advantage with warp-in, wouldn't it make more sense for the Zerg to have a defensive advantage (they do have one key one- flexibility)? From a strategic perspective it almost seems like Zerg should have the forcefield ability (or course this makes no sense from a narrative perspective).
Finally, the tactical use of forcefields; Forcefields have two tactical uses on the battlefield. First, it has the ability to artificially lower the number of enemy units in an engagement (by cutting them in half and the like). There are other abilities that do this (Vortex) and certain tactical maneuvers can accomplish it (good concaves, engaging at chokes). The other is that it can situationally remove the opponent's ability to deal damage, while still allowing them to take damage. Again, fungal growth can do the same thing (while also dealing damage) and the high ground advantage also simulates this. These are both very powerful advantages that can determine the outcome of games and of course, should be very carefully considered. The first one is not of as much interest because it is fairly straight forward and doesn't depend much of unit composition or other tactical advantages/disadvantages. A smaller army is a smaller army. It's the second situation that I think is really notable because it has the potential of greatly amplifying other advantages. One of the basic disadvantages of a melee unit is that it cannot deal damage if it cannot get in range of a target. Forcefields coupled with units of higher range essentially turn any unit into a temporary melee unit. A roach has range 4, a stalker has range 6. A forcefielded roach essentially has range 0 versus a stalker and can obviously do no damage while being itself killed. There is nothing complicated about it. What is interesting, however, is the fact that a hydralisk has only base range 5, but can be upgraded to range six to equal a stalker. Hydralisks are also higher tier units than stalker and are extremely slow moving whereas stalkers are extremely fast. While they do good dps to stalkers and stalkers do slightly limited damage to hydras, stalkers are naturally more strategically advantaged to hydralisks, a fact that I'm sure is no accident on blizzards part. This strategically advantage is normally balanced by the fact that hydralisks have a statistical advantage on stalkers: they are cheaper and they do more damage. But with forcefields and the fact that stalkers outrange hydras and roaches (pre-upgrade), stalkers can literally kill an infinite number of hydralisks. Add to that the fact that hydras are much too slow to micro against forcefields and you have the recipe for the kind of carnage that July experienced at the hands of MC. If hydras are the natural response to mass stalker, yet sentries with forcefields can completely nullify them, one must carefully consider the timings and situational options that a Zerg has to deal with such a scenario to see if it is too situationally slanted in one races favor or another.
Do I think that forcefields are broken? Yes. Do I think that that is necessarily bad? No. Forcefields add a really interesting element to the game. However, they seem to change some of the fundamental aspects of the game, and that is something that definitely needs to be considered. If forcefields are necessary to defend a rush, then they need to be available for that, but if they give too much advantage to one player without the other player having an appropriate response or a similarly powerful advantage, they need to be dealt with.
One possible solution- increase the energy requirement for using forcefields while at the same time raising the starting energy of the sentry. This would mean that a single sentry would still be enough to defend a rush while not having so much energy as to become overly useful later in the game. Only a thought.
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the horse has been beaten to death on this topic in so many threads. why make a new one?
User was warned for this post
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If Gateway units were as good as stimmed marines and marauders then sure take FF away. But the fact of the matter is that without it, kite and stim would spell every TvP game.
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So I guess since theres about 50 threads complaining about FF today, MC won huh?
Thanks for spoiling the finals for me with your aspergers TL.net
User was temp banned for this post.
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There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient.
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I think FFs have a very high skill cap; pretty much illustrated by the difference between huk and mc who go for a similar strategy.
On the other hand, i think its too easy for terrans to emp the whole clump (patched to -100 energy, yay) and too hard for the zerg to do anything for lack of ranged units to snipe them.
zerg needs something in that regard, i think it will be more entertaining if they do get something to use against it rather than just nerfing the sentry more (it once was a pretty powerful unit in itself)
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On March 19 2011 20:23 NormandyBoy wrote:
There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient.
Very interesting idea, I would love to see that.
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I as Protoss agree that FFs are very very strong, maybe too much. They however require some skill. Problem is, that if you remove them, Protoss doesnt stand a chance against Terrans. Protoss win and die with forcefields, if you know what I mean 
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On March 19 2011 20:23 NormandyBoy wrote:
There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient.
Whats the point of stacking energy??? 1 FF per sentry is kinda ridiculous, 100 gas is a lot of investment and the unit it self don't deal much damage.
There are a lot of ways to counter forcefields, Morrow/idra use tunneling claws to counter this
And if you know a sentry heavy 4 gate is coming you can have lings intercept these slow sentries or bait forcefields. Also you need skills to execute this and without them gateway units are pretty useless. Roach/MM play is basically soo good against gateway units and will delay your expandsion.
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On March 19 2011 20:23 NormandyBoy wrote:
There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient.
So sentrys should basicly be ramp blocker with a guardian shield?
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On March 19 2011 20:55 ZeGzoR wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 20:23 NormandyBoy wrote:
There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient. So sentrys should basicly be ramp blocker with a guardian shield?
8 sentries can still make 8 ffs, which is easily enough for most ways on the maps... but it would be much harder b/c they all need to be in the right position. probably too hard on P :E
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On March 19 2011 20:19 STALLONEZONE wrote:
So I guess since theres about 50 threads complaining about FF today, MC won huh?
Thanks for spoiling the finals for me with your aspergers TL.net
because clearly one way of avoiding spoilers is by surfing TL. I think you asked for it.
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On March 19 2011 20:19 STALLONEZONE wrote:
So I guess since theres about 50 threads complaining about FF today, MC won huh?
Thanks for spoiling the finals for me with your aspergers TL.net
+ Show Spoiler +There's no way you honestly thought July was going to win. There wasn't a soul on the planet that did.
On topic, forcefield should be given at the very least a cooldown when used per sentry. So if you had 3 sentries you couldn't theoretically throw down 4 forcefields per sentry if you had the energy for it, you could throw down exactly 3. Forcefields are 100% necessary for gateway units and with this change you can still block chokes, you can still punish someone for engaging badly, but you can't entirely save yourself from making stupid mistakes or cut a late game army in half with your deathball + 8 sentries that you got 6 minutes into the game.
A huge problem for zerg in particular is that when they lost lurkers, they lost choke/position control. This is what tanks give terran and what sentries give protoss. Protoss gets to engage safely because you control a point of the map and then just forcefield them away and retreat if you can't beat their army. Or you can completely defend a small choke with a significantly smaller force than your opponents.
I feel like Terran can deal with forcefields just fine(baiting w/ stim, ghosts w/ emp, drops to abuse mobility) but Zerg literally don't have an answer to them unless Protoss makes A LOT of mistakes.
Give Zerg something to defend against forcefields or at least a reliable way to apply pressure to a sentry heavy build and forcefields are perfectly fine.
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One thing that can be used to apply pressure to a sentry-heavy build is banelings. Against banelings, the protoss player needs to completely wall off with forcefields, or risk letting the banelings hit his precious sentries.
With a bunch of banelings in play, you can actually successfully bait forcefields, which is one of the reasons the ling/bling style of play seems to have so much potential in ZvP.
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Roaches and MM are both more cost effective then gateway units straight up. Forcefields can level the playing field.
Perhaps the duration of the FF is a tiny bit too high but it really isn't too bad.
There are already enough ways as it is to combat sentries like EMP or tunneling claws, I really don't see a problem with the spell as it is. MC just used them godly.
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I like forcefields, they're fun to watch. I don't think they need to be changed just because someone of MC's skill level used them masterfully in one series.
On March 19 2011 20:19 STALLONEZONE wrote:
So I guess since theres about 50 threads complaining about FF today, MC won huh?
Thanks for spoiling the finals for me with your aspergers TL.net
Why were you surfing the biggest Starcraft 2 site on the net a couple hours after the GSL finals if you didn't want to get spoiled? :lol :lol
Some people just don't have any common sense.
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On March 19 2011 20:07 theBOOCH wrote:
They stop the opponents ability to micro. I don't think this is a problem in itself, as long as it is something that can be avoided. Basically, it takes good micro to successfully use and successfully avoid forcefields. The impetus is on Protoss to gain an advantage. However, the opposing race does not gain an advantage from successfully avoiding being forcefielded. However, if sentries are seen as an investment (which they are) and a compromise between more powerful units (which they are), their failure to be utilized properly does put the Protoss at a disadvantage. the important question here is "does failure to utilize the investment of sentries put me at as much of a disadvantage as my opponent failing to properly avoid my forcefields." I think the answer to this question might very well be "no" in many circumstances.
Now lets go back to the offensive aspect of forcefields being used to block an opponents reinforcements. The interesting thing here is that Protoss has another HUGE strategic advantage. The warp-in mechanic (which deserves it's own thread), fundamentally changes another basic aspect of RTS play, the rush distance, or better, the unit reinforcement period. Since time is the most valuable of all resources in any rts game (more on that some other time), eliminating the reinforcement period through warp-in should be considered a major modification to the usual mechanic of the game. The odd thing here is that Protoss has both of these advantages. Putting these two things together seems incredibly risky from a balance perspective. Of course, if these things are counter-balanced by advantages in the other race, it is fine. Zerg certainly has many advantages, but the question is does Zerg have a reasonable advantage at the right stages of the game to make it balance. An interesting thought; since Protoss clearly has the offensive advantage with warp-in, wouldn't it make more sense for the Zerg to have a defensive advantage (they do have one key one- flexibility)? From a strategic perspective it almost seems like Zerg should have the forcefield ability (or course this makes no sense from a narrative perspective).
Finally, the tactical use of forcefields; Forcefields have two tactical uses on the battlefield. First, it has the ability to artificially lower the number of enemy units in an engagement (by cutting them in half and the like). There are other abilities that do this (Vortex) and certain tactical maneuvers can accomplish it (good concaves, engaging at chokes). The other is that it can situationally remove the opponent's ability to deal damage, while still allowing them to take damage. Again, fungal growth can do the same thing (while also dealing damage) and the high ground advantage also simulates this. These are both very powerful advantages that can determine the outcome of games and of course, should be very carefully considered. The first one is not of as much interest because it is fairly straight forward and doesn't depend much of unit composition or other tactical advantages/disadvantages. A smaller army is a smaller army. It's the second situation that I think is really notable because it has the potential of greatly amplifying other advantages. One of the basic disadvantages of a melee unit is that it cannot deal damage if it cannot get in range of a target. Forcefields coupled with units of higher range essentially turn any unit into a temporary melee unit. A roach has range 4, a stalker has range 6. A forcefielded roach essentially has range 0 versus a stalker and can obviously do no damage while being itself killed. There is nothing complicated about it. What is interesting, however, is the fact that a hydralisk has only base range 5, but can be upgraded to range six to equal a stalker. Hydralisks are also higher tier units than stalker and are extremely slow moving whereas stalkers are extremely fast. While they do good dps to stalkers and stalkers do slightly limited damage to hydras, stalkers are naturally more strategically advantaged to hydralisks, a fact that I'm sure is no accident on blizzards part. This strategically advantage is normally balanced by the fact that hydralisks have a statistical advantage on stalkers: they are cheaper and they do more damage. But with forcefields and the fact that stalkers outrange hydras and roaches (pre-upgrade), stalkers can literally kill an infinite number of hydralisks. Add to that the fact that hydras are much too slow to micro against forcefields and you have the recipe for the kind of carnage that July experienced at the hands of MC. If hydras are the natural response to mass stalker, yet sentries with forcefields can completely nullify them, one must carefully consider the timings and situational options that a Zerg has to deal with such a scenario to see if it is too situationally slanted in one races favor or another.
Do I think that forcefields are broken? Yes. Do I think that that is necessarily bad? No. Forcefields add a really interesting element to the game. However, they seem to change some of the fundamental aspects of the game, and that is something that definitely needs to be considered. If forcefields are necessary to defend a rush, then they need to be available for that, but if they give too much advantage to one player without the other player having an appropriate response or a similarly powerful advantage, they need to be dealt with.
One possible solution- increase the energy requirement for using forcefields while at the same time raising the starting energy of the sentry. This would mean that a single sentry would still be enough to defend a rush while not having so much energy as to become overly useful later in the game. Only a thought.
With a lot of sentrys made in the early game and good micro you can indeed stop your opponents ability to micro, but so does conc shell and FG with a far less investment.
"Usual mechanic of the game" your talking about sc2 like you know what sc2 should have looked like, gave a disc to bliz and they messed your perfect game up with adding warpgates and FF, however the game is as it is. Dont use "it should have been this and it isnt" as an argument, would make the whole thing easier to read 
Also with toss having the "offensive advantage" you should consider that unless you dont leave your base till the protoss attacks this advantage isnt all that good. Going with your army to your opponents base, starting to warp in a pylon, waiting until its finished and then attacking isnt as glorious as it seems.
And yes, in some theoretical timing attack with infinite FF and stalkers, retreating not being an option ofc, a protoss wins from a zerg. What are you trying to proof?
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this is one of those subjects i wish the community could get a panel of expert opinion on. i think FF is totally broken, thought so in the beta, thought so now. i am also not a pro player, and i think my opinion is totally irrelevant. i might even be wrong. i am just not qualified to say whether at an expert level FF is broken because i am not an expert player.
it would be awesome to have a discussion among experts on this subject. if there already has been such a discussion, i wish i could find it.
barring that, i would love to hear viable counters to FF. i think julyzerg would probably also love to hear some viable counters to FF.
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EPT
