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No this isn't a conversation about stratagy. I recently watched one of Day[9]'s "musings" video's and thought that the topic could be further discussed. In the video http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-s-musings-game-design-baseballs-vs-frisbees-5837982#disqus_thread Sean talks about game design, and more specificaly the skill ceiling and the optimization of units that existed in Broodwar, and have been toned down alot in Starcraft 2.
I disagreed, somewhat, with what Sean said.
To start, and this was brought up in the video already, the game is young. In Broodwar, the pro's had years to develop little tricks that would increase the value of their units. Starcraft 2 hasn't had nearly this amount of time, so it's silly to assume that everything has been discovered and used.
But this argument doesn't lead to any discussion, nor does it alleviate the issue that Sean brought up, which is that skilled players cant seem to get much more out of their units than mediocre players.
But I thought otherwise, skilled players can still get alot more out of their units than your average gamer, but it doesn't work the same as it did in Broodwar.
Take for example, in Broodwar, clustering your muta's. Doing so well, and then microing them to 1 shot units 1 by 1, and take minimal damage, increased the value of all your muta's. A good macroing player kept track of his workers, which didn't auto mine back then. Reavers in shuttles could be game changing, and flanking manuvers were used more often, and with greater success, partly due to the 12 unit selection cap.
But in Starcraft 2, those tricks don't exist, many are now gone because they were made automatic (mining and mass selection). But I would still argue that units can be made far more valuble in the hands of certain players.
Now take an example from Starcraft 2. A protoss player has his "deathball" AOE army and his terran opponent has his medivac bioball army. Ignore the battle, focus on the units. I'll go from the protoss point of view: Zealots tank, blink stalkers snipe medivacs, sentry's FF his army, Psi storms go off, colossus... just a-move most of the time. Each unit has a role in that battle, and if they complete that role then they have made up for their cost and have been used effectively.
But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
As for the discussion, try to come up with ways to get more out of a unit. Preferably not along the lines of "well, I will stutter step my marines". Think about compositions that would get more out of certain units that support eachother, think about positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor of a hidden tech path. Get more out of your units.
Apologies if poorly written and or too long.
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Oh, so there are no tricks in sc2?
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On January 01 2012 06:05 VPCursed wrote:
Oh, so there are no tricks in sc2?
Why, my argument is exactly the opposite. 
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i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
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On January 01 2012 06:07 Gl!tch wrote:Why, my argument is exactly the opposite.
I think he is referring to your comment that literally is, "But in SC2, these tricks don't exist anymore."
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On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote:
i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
I'm pretty sure most do. Especially pure mech. It's rare to see a mech push without scvs.
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On January 01 2012 06:13 pulpSC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2012 06:07 Gl!tch wrote:On January 01 2012 06:05 VPCursed wrote:
Oh, so there are no tricks in sc2? Why, my argument is exactly the opposite. I think he is referring to your comment that literally is, "But in SC2, these tricks don't exist anymore."
Yes, i meant that Reaver drops and making your workers mine well and muta clustering don't exist anymore, but that there are new tricks to be discovered. Sorry, will edit.
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Canada1197 Posts
Credits to LiquidHerO for this one:
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
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It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options.
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Canada1197 Posts
On January 01 2012 06:21 Durn wrote:
It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options.
Actually, the new expansion's just ruin this even more. If we have WoL for 5 more years, it will be figured out for the most part in the sense that micro tricks will be explored. If we keep resetting the AI with HotS and that Protoss one, you're just cleaning the slate again.
Also, Reaper/Medivac isn't what Day9 was talking about. He's talking about how an amateur player would lose a battle with more units than his progamer opponent whereas in Starcraft 2, if you have 7 maraduers vs 5 maraduers, the 7 will always win.
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Ares[Effort]
DEMACIA6550 Posts
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After watching Day9 discuss this I got to thinking about using Colossus with Warp Prisms with the Warp Prism speed since you can outrun basically anything [except Fungal Growth I presume]. Of course, today I see someone else has already taken the initiative to exploring this tactic which excites me, I think it'll be something huge once it catches on.
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On January 01 2012 06:14 Odal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote:
i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired. I'm pretty sure most do. Especially pure mech. It's rare to see a mech push without scvs.
well yea but i mean like even taking like 1-3 scvs on your early game tank marine push can help a lot. i don't think i see repair used much in tank marine pushes. it can help heal the medivacs up too which usually end up taking some damage.
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On January 01 2012 06:26 Kluey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2012 06:21 Durn wrote:
It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options. Actually, the new expansion's just ruin this even more. If we have WoL for 5 more years, it will be figured out for the most part in the sense that micro tricks will be explored. If we keep resetting the AI with HotS and that Protoss one, you're just cleaning the slate again. Also, Reaper/Medivac isn't what Day9 was talking about. He's talking about how an amateur player would lose a battle with more units than his progamer opponent whereas in Starcraft 2, if you have 7 maraduers vs 5 maraduers, the 7 will always win.
Yeah, I got that. I was just using that as an example of the game still growing. Sorry for the confusion.
But to your point, I do agree. Looking forward to an expansion gives pros very little incentive to spend 8 hour training sessions on how to maximize Roaches against Thors when there's really no certainty it will be the same in 1 year.
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On January 01 2012 06:17 Kluey wrote:
Credits to LiquidHerO for this one:
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
The immortal trick is good but if their is hydras/mutas then its basically useless.
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The issue, at least currently, is that most end game battles tend to be quite one sided depending on how effective a few skills wind up being. Whoever takes the big maxed battle usually has a good clump of units left over and can proceed to gather up some reinforcements and just win. In this scenario, the 6 zealots in the main battle are much more important than any harassment.
To put it another way, nuking 3 bases with all the probes is awesome and effectively brings your opponents economy to 0. However, if those nukes come at the expense of not having enough emps in the main fight, you will lose your entire army while doing minimal damage to theirs, and they will proceed to walk all over you.
edit: to address your proposed discussion, stalker micro and focus firing is perhaps the clearest example. You can focus fire the anti air or the enemy casters and thus allow your own casters or collosi to be extremely effective. This messes with the enemies composition. If they overinvest in antiair, then you focus casters and your ground army with casters wins. Otherwise, you focus fire the anti air and you air army/collosi win.
Still, I think this is a poor example when compared to bw. A little thing like mine placement patterns before battles, which certainly isn't considered micro, would be game changing and could effectively move you up from d/d+ to c-.
I think you are correct that the ease of sc2 unit control means we will need to see players show their superior skill by doing more tasks at once rather than doing a particular task very well. (in day9's analogy this would be equivalent to throwing several baseballs at once to make up for the comparative simplicity of the baseball as compared to the frisbee.) Still, I don't think you example is correct, and I dislike this aspect as multitask and control were almost 2 separate skills to develop in bw.
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On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote:
100% agreed with Day[9]
my thoughts exactly lol.
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I'm not sure if anyone has seen vileIllusion vs Liquid'Sheth from MLG, now it's casted by HD
But he did a really sweet move to abuse the spine crawler. When the crawler would attack, he would pull his marines out of the bunker and attack the crawler.
You can go check out the game for yourself, some really cool stuff :D
+ Show Spoiler +
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I'm not really sure what is the point you are trying to make but I think what Day[9] was trying to say is that units in sc2 do not feel as interactive and interesting as in Brood War.
It's more about what's fun and what's not for the average gamer then about skill cap and pro players.
There are way to maximize the usefulness of units in Sc2 too, but it is not such an integral and vast part of the game as it was in Brood War.
Bronze level Colossi are pretty much as good as Platinum level Colossi.
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I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player 
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
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EPT
