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I see a lot of people calling for the warhound to be nerfed, and blizzard seems to have the same mentality, as they nerfed its attack speed in the last patch. I disagree with this notion on the grounds that no amount of balancing will fix the inherent problem with the addition of the warhound. It is a unit that simply does not belong in its current form in Starcraft 2.
The warhound is an attack move unit. What I mean by this is that you do not need any fancy micro (nor is any possible) to make the warhound effective. You attack move into your opponent and you're set. Target firing and pulling back hurt warhounds is literally the ONLY form of micro you can possibly do to increase their effectiveness, and this can be said to be true for literally any possible ranged unit design (even marines). Why is this bad? Well to understand it in the first place let's look at why this is good, and the design philosophy Blizzard seems to be approaching the game with.
There are two main conflicting philosophies for game design in this context that apply to starcraft. The first is that you design a game that will be fun to watch and will inspire people to play. This philosophy relies on esports viewership enjoying watching the game and wanting to emulate what they see in pro matches on their own. For example, in Brood War you might watch a TSL match with JF, see him absolutely demolishing people with reavers, and get inspired to go try out some shuttle/reaver micro yourself. Since reaver/shuttle micro is difficult, you may fail at first. With a little practice, however, you too can enjoy the fun. The second design philosophy (which seems to be what Blizzard is employing) is to create a game that everyone can easily grasp and understand, and thus you attract new players because they are not discouraged by the game being difficult. With this approach, viewers can watch pros demolishing everything with colossi, and then even if they are in bronze league, they too can enjoy the fun of seeing giant laser beams obliterate everything. (Here's the secret: no one thinks colossi are fun to play with after the first couple times)
The inherent problem here is the idea of replayability. When a game is too easy, it is fun the first couple times and then completely loses its charm and gets boring. I love Portal to death, but once you understand the puzzles and what you are supposed to do, it is so easy upon playing a second time through that it is just not fun or worth the time anymore. In order for video games to continue being played for years instead of taking the route of pretty much every single EA title, they need to have some inherent difficulty that is not knowledge based (because anything that's only difficult because you don't know what to do will no longer be difficult once you understand the solution). This is where execution and tactics in Starcraft come in. If the game was only strategy and no tactics, it would get boring extremely quickly and there is no way it would be an esport. It's the simple difficulty of executing a tricky task that makes playing starcraft so fun no matter how many times you have already played it. The problem with Blizzard's design philosophy is that it overestimates the pros of low-difficulty, and underestimates the pros of high-difficulty.
Low difficulty mechanics
Pros: Newbies get less frustrated because there are less things to mess up.
Cons: These same newbies get bored quickly because there is nothing exciting to do (as all the excitement died after the first couple times executing something so easy). Esports is delegitimized and experiences more variance due to a lower skill cap and less opportunities for pros to excel. Pro matches are not fun to watch because any bronze newbie could execute what they see just as well as the pros (obviously this is an extreme example taken to hyperbole). The game does not last nearly as long in popularity because there are no inherently rewarding things to do.
High difficulty mechanics
Pros: Newbies get inspired to actually spend time playing the game because they see professional players doing amazing moves that they didn't even know/think were possible. It encourages them to continue playing the game because they still have many things they haven't mastered. Players actually enjoy the game because there is an inherent enjoyment in having practiced something difficult and executing it correctly. Pro matches are more fun to watch and esports flourishes because people LOVE watching other people do things they can't do (don't believe me? Just look at the olympics... pro sports... BROOD WAR). The game's shelf life is extended tremendously due to the increased enjoyment in replayability.
Cons: Newbies get more frustrated because they cannot perform tactics they see professionals use upon first try and must actually spend some modicum of time practicing.
So now that I've explained why having difficult mechanics is important, let's look at the warhound. There is absolutely nothing difficult about this unit. It is fast (meaning you don't have to already 'be in the right place at the right time,' instead you can react quickly to your opponent when you are caught off guard), and you do not need to babysit it in the slightest. You attack move and then either go back to macro or sit there staring and watching, bored out of your mind because there is so little micro to do as mech in midgame (until you get ravens or are using siege tanks, and why would anyone build a tank while the warhound exists). Pro matches will never be inspiring to anyone, because they know they could execute exactly what the pro is doing just as well (not hard to attack move).
This is why I do not believe the warhound should be balanced. No amount of tweaking values to make it statistically balanced will make it a good unit for the health of starcraft both as a casual, fun game, and as an esport. The Warhound needs to be overhauled, or completely redesigned. When creating new units, I would emplore Blizzard to look at the design philosophies that made Brood War so unbelievably popular and long-lasting. Many units were considered extremely overpowered in certain ways (dark swarm, anyone?), but in order to make this work, they would sacrifice strength in another way.
Let's look at the Reaver. I use the Reaver as my example because I believe it to be the most exciting (for both players and spectators) and best designed unit in the history of Starcraft. Nothing got spectators more riled up than the nervous anticipation of seeing scarabs running towards their target, not knowing if they would hit or not or how much damage would be done. At the same time, they took an immense amount of skill to use properly. Since their AoE attack was clearly ridiculously overpowered, it was balanced out not by reducing the damage or some other boring stat change to make every unit equally powerful (which almost seems to be Blizzard's intention with SC2), but instead by making it hopelessly immobile and by making the ammunition cost resources and take time to build. Thus the difficulty of the reaver is as follows: You need to get a reaver(s), get a shuttle for mobility, and constantly rebuild ammo. Then when you engage you have to babysit your shuttle (because it's a huge investment to lose in the blink of an eye to 2 scourge for example), drop the reavers, target fire (probably more important than target firing for any other unit in the game due to the pathing, splash damage, and possibility of duds), and then pick them back up in the shuttle to mitigate damage while they wait to be able to shoot again. On paper this sounds incredibly complicated, and you can be assured a newbie would not pick up starcraft and go for a 2 reaver shuttle drop in his first day, but in actuality it looks beautiful in pro matches and is not so difficult to emulate at a low level. You might not have the game sense of JF to go exactly where you need to, and you might not have the perfect shuttle control to constantly move it around and pick up the reavers without decelerating, and you might not have the perfect target firing to pick off the most optimal targets. But hey, you are still going to be able to execute a reaver drop with a reasonable level of enjoyment no matter what level of player you are.
This is the example and ideal I feel Blizzard should be using with every unit they design. Make a unit that is difficult to use perfectly, so that it's fun to use every time and will inspire viewers. If you make an easy-to-use unit like the Warhound, you might not discourage newbies at first but you certainly won't encourage them to continue playing, as the unit isn't actually fun to use.
You may enjoy color-by-numbers as a 3-year-old because it's not overwhelming and you get some guidance. Once you reach any reasonable age, however, these types of "easy-mode" activities hold no enjoyment. Adults generally prefer activities with some reasonable level of inherent masterable difficulty.
So why is this game being designed for children when it is rated T for Teen?
Even if you do not agree with me about high skill mechanics being necessary and even vital to the success of Starcraft 2 as an esport, what is the justification for putting in a unit that fills exactly the same role as the marauder? Terran already has an attack move, hyper mobile, tanky, high dps unit that can only attack ground. Why do they need a second one?
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I agree with everything you just said, but I'm like 99% sure we're all just fucked and blizzard is going to leave it in the game because they don't give a shit about anything you just said.
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Agree completely. I didn't really like the "easy to learn, hard to master" way of designing. Sports, piano, guitar, are all hard to learn and hard to master. And they have a lot of depth. And I never understood that "casual" is associated as "easy" in the developer mind. One can play 1 hour a day and still want challenge, difficults things to overcome in a video game.
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holy fuck you wrote that perfectly. And im the guy basically writing the 2 threads in here detailing ways that the warhound could be balanced with its missiles (just brainstorming ways to actually balance the fucking unit)
but i agree. I hate the unit but sadly I dont think blizzard is **smart** enough to remove it at this point. Hopefully blizzard keeps balancing WoL or maybe there can be teamliquid released WoL patches (essentially custom maps) that slowly patch WoL with a balance team of 15 pros (5 from each race) that promise to try to be as unbiased as possible and that balance WoL as best as they can into an even more exciting skill required Esport. Then possibly some korean tournaments might try to use these teamliquid WoL patchmaps if HOTS turns out to be too boring with all the dustin browder no-skill boring units.
agree i would love to see warhound REMOVED (or redesigned to something more mech like that requires skill. maybe give it thor movement speed so at least its slow like mech should be so bio will be faster than mech as it should be. but even if warhounds are fixed they still are just a 1a unit.)
sadly the tempest and warhound are completely dustin browder units that are just... frankly... shit units. They should be removed.
for example how to fix WoL with teamliquid patches? well lets just take the carrier for example
Honestly I think carriers could use a buildtime reduction AND make interceptors immune to spells (fungal/hsm/storm/emp) but even just the spell part I would be happy with (even though a 120 second buildtime is retarded. but seeing all of your interceptors as the last hope of beating lategame zerg get killed in 6 seconds by 2 fungals is even more retarded)
And reapers? the days of 3range queens and roaches are over. Would it really break the reapers to give them a buildtime more in line with the marauders 30 SECONDS for 2FOOD? the reaper is fucking 45 seconds for ONE FOOD? and both require a techlab. wtf?
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Agreed but honestly at this point, I don't even care anymore. For the warhound to EVEN make it into beta AND survived a balance patch has made me completely lost faith in blizzard. The more I watch HotS stream, the more I question why this unit is even in the game. So many people has already expressed their hate toward this unit. If this unit is completely reworked during the next patch, I don't know what to say.
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Almost feels like a standard post we could have seen 2 years ago when WoL was in its beta.
My question is why did you limit your post to the warhound?
Neither the Oracle or the warhound will offer something interesting to watch in a match. The oracle while low in hp, does its deed in a second and that's that. I can't say I give a damn to watch "oracle harass" in the same way I lived to watch sair/reaver. I know you think the oracle has a chance, but as a commentator do you believe that the war hound is the only unit that has limited viewability?
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A warhound with bonus dmg. to light and a powerful ground to air single target attack would be awesome... And yeah, I know Im basicly asking for the Goliath, but Blizzard seems to do everything they can to discourage me from building tanks with this current build  (Viper Abduct, Warhounds bonus vs. amoured)
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well, the warhound is what you said, but it is not like this is the first unit in sc2 that behaves this way, merely the first terran unit, how often do you see zerg slacking off with their dropdefense because they have the fastest units in the game, and aren't 3 attackmove units worse than one? (warhound vs chargelot/archon/colossus)
at this point, the whining about the warhound seems a bit excessive considering terrans are the only race that does not feature these easy to use units at the moment, and even if i personally would like interesting and hard to use units for every race, if blizzard decides otherwise, it is at least logically sound to add the warhound to the terran arsenal, as a bonus i expect terrans to equalize on ladder, and maybe we even see some more foreign terrans in tournaments in place of zerg only.
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i wonder what blizzard will do .. basically all the community is asking the same thing about this unit ..
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On September 10 2012 16:04 ELA wrote:A warhound with bonus dmg. to light and a powerful ground to air single target attack would be awesome... And yeah, I know Im basicly asking for the Goliath, but Blizzard seems to do everything they can to discourage me from building tanks with this current build (Viper Abduct, Warhounds bonus vs. amoured)
Warhound doesn't need bonus to light, that's basically the role of the hellion.
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i agree 50% with OP, but an easy game is as boring as an hard game, if it is too easy you lose interest, if it is too hard you lose interest, what keep you playing is not its difficulties, but the game itself, the challenge of facing different players, also the other races have more then one a-move unit
Wh is op and it will be nerfed more, what blizzard is trying to accomplish, imo, is to give to all races the chance to play active/passive and progamers will always benefit from their micro even with an a-move unit
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I'd like to add in response that I do not mean this to be only addressing the warhound. The primary focus of this thread (even though the emphasis is in relation to the warhound as it is the most extreme example) is to try to convince people (hopefully blizzard employees though that's unlikely) that a design philosophy that promotes easy-mode units is not the right one to use for starcraft.
If I can just convince people that units need to be difficult to use for this game to be good, then you can extrapolate that to affect any and all offending units, rather than just the warhound.
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On September 10 2012 16:18 -orb- wrote:
I'd like to add in response that I do not mean this to be only addressing the warhound. The primary focus of this thread (even though the emphasis is in relation to the warhound as it is the most extreme example) is to try to convince people (hopefully blizzard employees though that's unlikely) that a design philosophy that promotes easy-mode units is not the right one to use for starcraft.
If I can just convince people that units need to be difficult to use for this game to be good, then you can extrapolate that to affect any and all offending units, rather than just the warhound.
agreed. even if the warhound is balanced, its just a stupid to watch unit compared to BW or even recent TvZ matches like fantasy vs jaedong in sc2 recently
anything with protoss in it seems to be boring because of sentrys/warpgates ruining the game design. But recent TvZ's have been more and more epic
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The warhound really needs to be cut if it remains in its current design. Amove deathballs/ boring units will just hurt sc2 as an esport. Whats really entertaining is really increadible micro and macro, where the micro is much more required aspect for an esport(thats why MOBA games have been so successful as an esport). Yeah you can have increade macro and get the warhound deathball really fast, but it will just be a bore to watch in battle and while that build up period is happening.
It will always be impossible to have a game thats completely newbie friendly and esports compatible, since esports compatibility requires a generally high difficulty and micro/macro requirement while newbie friendly requires the game to only be moderately challenging.
Since sc2 is the pinnacle of RTS esport, imo at least, it should favour esports compatibility over newbie compatibility. That means less 1a, Amove, Thor like units.
It seems like blizzard's been on a slow, downhill spiral ever since their merge with activision. How come their major releases diablo 3 and sc2 have much less depth than what they released 10 years ago?
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Are you seriously advocating removing or redesigning the warhound because you think it has 'wrong type' of micro?
If I understand your standards right then you would like to remove half of the units from SC2.
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On September 10 2012 16:27 pmp10 wrote:
Are you seriously advocating removing or redesigning the warhound because you think it has 'wrong type' of micro?
If I understand your standards right then you would like to remove half of the units from SC2.
each race can serve to have a couple units like this
each race already does
terran already has the marauder. already has the thor.
basically... id much rather tanks just get buffed (even making their attacks go through hardened shields id be fine with, keeping the immortal as a counter to marauders/thors but not tanks and zealots/carriers counter tanks) to have position mech play be "mech" instead of a new ultra marauder being "mech"
and im a master protoss, advocating an extreme tank buff here
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Agree, ppl have been saying redesign the warhound and tempest since the start. But I dont think theyll just throw away 2 unit designs, how uninteresting they might be.
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Hey orb did you post this on the SC2 forums? DB and David Kim are on there and you might have a good chance for them to read it and consider it if you do. Just post it in their feedback thread they are reading.
Wonderful and I agree. Would be nice if they considered this philosophy.
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On September 10 2012 16:31 []Phase[] wrote:
Agree, ppl have been saying redesign the warhound and tempest since the start. But I dont think theyll just throw away 2 unit designs, how uninteresting they might be.
I don't mind the Tempest in it's current form tbh - I think its quite interesting for Toss once they get to play with it some more, once players realize that it's not really an option for your deathball, but rather a tool to force players into engaging you, like "Come fight me or I will just continue to siege you"
I also think the Oracle is quite nice really.. It has some really cool utility that players will figure out how to use efficiently - In other words, the new P units are more 'finesse' while the Terran units are just bruteforce 1a units that even makes traditional mechplay even more redundant
On September 10 2012 16:10 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 16:04 ELA wrote:A warhound with bonus dmg. to light and a powerful ground to air single target attack would be awesome... And yeah, I know Im basicly asking for the Goliath, but Blizzard seems to do everything they can to discourage me from building tanks with this current build (Viper Abduct, Warhounds bonus vs. amoured) Warhound doesn't need bonus to light, that's basically the role of the hellion.
Tanks and Thors do bonus vs. armored, now along with the Warhound - Yet only one of the mech units have an anti-air attack
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On September 10 2012 16:38 ELA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 16:31 []Phase[] wrote:
Agree, ppl have been saying redesign the warhound and tempest since the start. But I dont think theyll just throw away 2 unit designs, how uninteresting they might be. I don't mind the Tempest in it's current form tbh - I think its quite interesting for Toss once they get to play with it some more, once players realize that it's not really an option for your deathball, but rather a tool to force players into engaging you, like "Come fight me or I will just continue to siege you" I also think the Oracle is quite nice really.. It has some really cool utility that players will figure out how to use efficiently - In other words, the new P units are more 'finesse' while the Terran units are just bruteforce 1a units that even makes traditional mechplay even more redundant Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 16:10 -NegativeZero- wrote:On September 10 2012 16:04 ELA wrote:A warhound with bonus dmg. to light and a powerful ground to air single target attack would be awesome... And yeah, I know Im basicly asking for the Goliath, but Blizzard seems to do everything they can to discourage me from building tanks with this current build (Viper Abduct, Warhounds bonus vs. amoured) Warhound doesn't need bonus to light, that's basically the role of the hellion. Tanks and Thors do bonus vs. armored, now along with the Warhound - Yet only one of the mech units have an anti-air attack
hehehe. thors dont do bonus vs armored x.x
thors are kinda created to be a zealot wrecking machine. sadly their energy bar serves as nothing more than a gimmick for templars to help counter them
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EPT
