|
On January 18 2012 20:28 Nourek wrote:
I think positioning in general is underappreciated in threads like this, watching Genius vs sC in GSL dance their armies trying to get an advantageous position was beautiful to watch.
This little bit is hitting the nail on its head and I'm afraid it might get overlooked. Destiny went to Korea for a few weeks, came back way better than he was before and the thing he keeps on mentioning is that he basically only learned how to position his units properly and how to engage an army properly.
Yes, things do go faster than in brood war. Maybe the technical concept of micro has gotten less (controlling individual units in engagements), but positioning has taken a HUUUGE role and requires just as much skill as "microing"
|
On January 18 2012 18:44 Tobberoth wrote:
It's true. I went back and played some brood war for the first time in a long time, and it amazed me how SLOW it is compared to SC2. Not in the sense that you want to speed it up, but in the sense that you have time to react and micro. Doing a 10/15 gate dragoon pressure vs a terran, it's amazing how the micro feels. You have ample time to react to what dragoon is being damaged and move it back, focus on getting a good concave etc. This isn't really possible in SC2 since units die so ridiculously fast, and units close distances so quickly. In SC2, you're often discouraged from microing at all since it's all about critical firepower for a second or two. Losing just one second firing can leave your army decimated, and then you'll do no damage.
UPDATE:
What we really need, is a custom map for SC2 which explores this. Similar to SC2BW, but pure SC2 with more BW like balance, trying to implement what you mention in your post: stronger static defenses, more equalized counters, maybe the classic complaint about ball pathing. Just to see how it would actually work out in practice.
haha yeah bw is slower, but the reason why sc2 is so fast is that the mechanics are faster to control, leaving you more time for micro, thats why they increased the gamespeed to a level where its tough again to micro.
Try sc2 one speed setting lower, you will be impressed on what you can do in a battle.
And the static defenses are strong especially the terran ones, turrets have problems against mutas ? thats new to me. If people go for 24 mutas you only have to leave a thor at home and maybe a medivac to protect 3 bases from 48 supply of the opponent and turrets even do fine against upgraded mutas till hive tech.
Canons are like always, they protect your units perfectly. In bw mass canons did well for some time but at later stages they didn't do anything alone. In sc2 people use less canons to hold more lings and wonder why it doesn't work heh.
And spines are imo a bit to strong even since they can easily move around and is the strongest static defense ingame against ground.
But yeah tanks after the nerf are really bad at defending anything alone. Also some units will win 1 on 1 pretty easy, vor example immortal will poke tanks pretty easily, and a thor will poke an immortal with bit under 50 damage taken. But thats not bad design, that forces more then one unit to be produced.
Hellions that would do fine against roaches and lings ? you wouldn't see marauder hellion, you would only see mass hellions and the first thing zerg had to beat it would be mutas. Hellions fill many roles because they are the highest hp terran light armor unit on ground.
So for me the game is well designed, people often call some things flawed, because they aren't able to play like they could in bw, but thats easy to explain, the difficult of the game switched. So you have to transfer what you used in mechanics to the army micro. Everything does so much damage, at the same time people deny the anti damage mechanics. And wonder why a t1 + t3 army composition kills itself so fast. But i don't worry alot, blizzard brings in fixes to what people have committed with the upcoming mod (tank nerf for example because it is soooo hard to attack magic boxed).
But i guess the hotblooded youth loves to do things with their own hands, because they want to do it better. To bad it is only focused on typing and hoping blizzard gets annoyed enough so they change something to a point it still works, but will satisfy some of the complaining people.
I will enjoy bw and sc2 in the meantime heh. Both games have their problems which makes them fun to play.
|
The micro in this game is heavily favored in pre fight maintenance and caster control. I feel like these should be minor things pros use more than anyone else and not the dominant micro source. Positional tactics and map control sounds better to me as a main source of micro. Its intuitive even for lowbies yet impossible to master. Yet in SC 2 i think Terrans really only have positional tactics and even then it means more than a little only in a few fights,.
Edit: and by map control I mean not only what you can see but also what you can "own". There are few situations I feel I can say as a Protoss that this part of the map is mine.
|
On January 18 2012 20:39 gh0un wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 20:37 Corrosive wrote:On January 18 2012 20:34 gh0un wrote:On January 18 2012 20:32 Corrosive wrote:On January 18 2012 20:19 gh0un wrote:
At this point in time i dont believe that blizzard is capable of fixing their utterly flawed game design, since it would require a complete overhaul of the game, which would mean they would have to admit that they made a mistake, and obviously its blizzard they will never admit that they made a mistake.
- unmicroable units (most of them are extremely limited)
- spells that take away the ability to micro units (forcefield, neural parasite and fungal) instead of spells that encourage micro (dark swarm and radiate)
- lack of units that can hold a position on the map (especially for zerg and protoss) -> no real map control aspect to the game
- stuff clumps together in a tight ball leading to 1 big clash scenarios that are utterly boring
Especially point 2 and 3, the fact that blizzard managed to completely miss the dart board on these two issues is /facepalm inducing.
How can you go from darkswarm, radiate, defensive matrix, lurker, reaver, spidermines, carriers and plenty more stuff, to something that completely takes away whole aspects of the game, WHILE not replacing them with other aspects.
Starcraft 2, from a gamedesign point of view is so terrible, its actually a miracle it managed to take off so well in esports.
Guess the hype from waiting for a sequel to one of the best games in the industry was enough to get the rock rolling down the cliff. Unfortunately the rock is a fucking ugly bitch no one wants to touch, but its rolling already and the cliff is deep.
Behold of the unstoppable ugly bitch rock that is starcraft 2 rolling down the cliff called money bay. There's a custom called SC2BW. go play that since obviously all you wanted was SC:BW HD. No i dont want to play either of them. I want to watch others play them. If you can persuade pro players to play sc2bw in tournaments, THEN and only then makes your statement any kind of sense. So you're telling me you're complaining about a game you don't even play and comparing it to another game you don't even play? You sound ridiculous. No, you sound ridiculous. At this point in time, esports is just like regular sports, its something people watch. Do you play football or basketball and whatnot on a professional level? You watch them on tv. So comparing them to each other is perfectly reasonable and your attempt to troll me is absolutely retarded. If they suddenly changed soccer to something that requires you to use a bat in order to move the ball and renamed the sport to soccer2, viewers would be in an outrage and rightfully compare the two games to each other and make a valid point that soccer 2 sucks. Would you then go on and tell them to PLAY soccer 1 instead? See what i did there? You are so bad.
I'd also add that games are a lot more fun to play the more layers of complexity there are. Sounds painfully trite but to take away from brood war, as you said, instead of changing or adding is cringeworthy, and the growls of the community have receded only because blizzard isn't going to throw their hands up and admit they dropped the ball on a lot of stuff. Starcraft 2 was always going to be successful, as long as it wasn't completely balls.
|
Drops are fin-ish I was commenting on dividing up your main army. In PvT sending equal supply gateway units to fend off a counterattack somewhere is a headache. Also losing a main battle to T is very bad because the ensuing reinforcements vs reinforcement is heavily favored towards T. Protoss functions better all together in a massive blob because gateway units are inherently weak against their counterparts of the other races. Sure late game we are good, when we have Templar and numerous cannons. Late game Protoss is a force to be reckoned with.
I agree with losing to T in battle heavily favours terran, but I would argue toss can deal with drops fine. Take Sase vs Bomber at MLG on Antiga. 3 Observers around Bomber's base to see dropships, gives Sase plenty of time to react.
MC is another player that seems to deal with drops extremely well. Often opening with a quick expand into heavy gateways with blink first. He almost always is prepared for drops, with about 6-8 stalkers on 1 hotkey, and mass zealots and a few sentries on another sitting at the expansion. Every now and then players do get caught off guard once in a while, but I feel its going to change in the future.
|
make stalkers do ground damages only
and it;s fine
|
On January 18 2012 20:46 MrTng wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 20:28 Nourek wrote:
I think positioning in general is underappreciated in threads like this, watching Genius vs sC in GSL dance their armies trying to get an advantageous position was beautiful to watch. This little bit is hitting the nail on its head and I'm afraid it might get overlooked. Destiny went to Korea for a few weeks, came back way better than he was before and the thing he keeps on mentioning is that he basically only learned how to position his units properly and how to engage an army properly. Yes, things do go faster than in brood war. Maybe the technical concept of micro has gotten less (controlling individual units in engagements), but positioning has taken a HUUUGE role and requires just as much skill as "microing"
That's not a good defense though.
1. Position was extremely important in BW too, and in BW it wasn't enough to box half your army and move it a bit, since boxing didn't work as well as it does now because of the 12 unit constraint, and because units didn't clump up.
2. A player moving in a clump and being surprised by an enemy being set up in a decent position can make the moving player lose the game immediately because of the speed and firepower. You go in, see that it's a bad engagement and move back... and lose half your army doing 0 damage. Add in FF and fungal, and you have a situation where the opponent having a better position, maybe by pure luck, wins him the game in seconds.
Position being important is great, there's skill in it and it makes maps more relevant. The problem is that because of how fast the game is and how fast unit dies and how you can deny micro with some abilities, once again, minor mistakes makes too much of a difference. People should be punished for making mistakes, but they shouldn't lose the game because of tiny ones.
|
Yes and no... Stalkers are great since they come at reasonable tech-timing (with option of blink later), easilly micrable but still suffers against those ultra high dps units (and the natural counters when the numbers aren't off).
Tanks, colos, immortals and marauders (actually even marines and ghost with medivac assistance demolish stalkers if played correctly). What I dislike about stalker is just how bad is it against what it SHOULD be good against. People say stalkers are a good counter to roaches and this is just not true.
I think you're missing 3 points:
Costeffectiveness: Stalkers are not costeffective - UNLESS you use them for harrassing/sniping off units and then blinking out. Stalkers can be costeffective - but in a straight up battle they rarely are (when 200/200 they're good since they are relatively expensive/supply) - but if I said 20stalkers vs 35roaches either with no upgrade or blink/speed I think we all know how that would turn out. It works when you're maxed, 'cuz there's a limit to roaches.
All ins: It is too easy to win/lose a game by making an all in. Doesn't matter if it's on 1/2/3 bases. You go all in once and hope for the best.
Defenders advantage: It's extremely different how much defenders advantage the races has. Terran cannot increase their dmg like P(cannons) and Z(spines/queens) can in a defensive position - but they don't need to. Marines/marauders/tanks have incredible dmg outputs - they just need to survive (hence bunkers). Zerg CAN be really vulnerable once you get in between their hatcheries. Usually if you start picking off important hatcheries it can kill the zerg really fast. His reinforcements will be too scattered and spawning at different times/different places. Where the protoss is balanced around warp gate tech - which can be used on the offense. So protoss will only have cannons(lol?) and robo/stargate.
Once a battle is decided it can be really hard for a Z or a P to sit back, play defensively and get back into the game.
And just to bring it up - once you get inside a T's production he is even more dead than Z/P. But still I think there is not enough defenders advantage - especially when turning into late game, where the only real defenders advantage would be creep/transfuse (for Z) and... well rally distance for stargate/robo for P...
|
On January 18 2012 19:27 tokicheese wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 19:11 Tobberoth wrote:On January 18 2012 19:06 GeOnoSis wrote:
very interesting, but I don't agree with your static defense... cannons would be just to strong! Just imagine A cannon going up behind the zerg expansion or behind a wall, making it impossible to attack. Also all this changes would make Mutas pretty useless. If Turrets would do even more damage, Mutas would be stupid to play. You already need like 18+ Mutas to kill 1 Turret, when the terran repairs it and often time you still lose one. And if there is any Zerg unit, which can't get really hardcountered, it's the Mutalisk. With proper micro you can dodge storms, magic box against thors and so on...
But that leads to a problem, you already mentioned: Too much firepower, or at least to hard counters.
Like you said it's just a joke to fight with Stalkers or Roaches against Marauders or sth like that. But also, did you ever fight with an army of just stalkers and sentries against a Roach Ling army and completely got crushed? Probably yes, but did you fight against one with the same size and completely crushes him just because of forcefields? Probably YES! I think something like forcefields is sooo hard to balance. In the early game, they can just prevent any aggression in many situations and in other, nearly completely useless. I know I might wrote some weird things :D but well in the end I just think that there are too many hardcounters and the DPS against certain Unit types is obviously a huge factor. Thors vs Muta overall is just dumb as crap. One minor mistake, such as flying 1 milimeter too close to a thor you haven't seen, and he gets one shot off. Boom, 20 mutas brought to orange HP. The idea that you have to micro mutas against Thors is a good thing, it's a counter which can be overcome by skill. Problem again being firepower and speed, there's NO margin for error. A ½ second is enough to go from a good position to a bad position just because of the insane firepower of a single thor. Like OP said, this fight would also benefit from a 50% balance. Lower the damage by 50%, but increase the splash range, or something like that. Encourange micro, while not making minor mistakes cost too much. Thors being killed by 2/3 mutas when magic boxed isnt silly?
coming right from the unit tester.
no muta ever took a single point of splashdamage in these tests.
for reference, thor max hp is 400, muta max hp is 120
edit:fixed thor max hp
1 thor vs 2 mutas : thor wins and has 296 hp left
1 thor vs 3 mutas : thor wins and has 176 hp left
1 thor vs 4 mutas : thor wins and has 8 hp left (this scenario can probably go either way, as its a matter of which side gets their last volley of first)
1 thor vs 5 mutas : mutas win and 2 have full health, 1 have 72 hp left
|
I think I read somewhere in there that you think 4 tanks should be able to seige out an expansion the same way 4 tanks and a bunch of marines do.
That seems a little ridiculous.
|
On January 18 2012 20:57 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 19:27 tokicheese wrote:On January 18 2012 19:11 Tobberoth wrote:On January 18 2012 19:06 GeOnoSis wrote:
very interesting, but I don't agree with your static defense... cannons would be just to strong! Just imagine A cannon going up behind the zerg expansion or behind a wall, making it impossible to attack. Also all this changes would make Mutas pretty useless. If Turrets would do even more damage, Mutas would be stupid to play. You already need like 18+ Mutas to kill 1 Turret, when the terran repairs it and often time you still lose one. And if there is any Zerg unit, which can't get really hardcountered, it's the Mutalisk. With proper micro you can dodge storms, magic box against thors and so on...
But that leads to a problem, you already mentioned: Too much firepower, or at least to hard counters.
Like you said it's just a joke to fight with Stalkers or Roaches against Marauders or sth like that. But also, did you ever fight with an army of just stalkers and sentries against a Roach Ling army and completely got crushed? Probably yes, but did you fight against one with the same size and completely crushes him just because of forcefields? Probably YES! I think something like forcefields is sooo hard to balance. In the early game, they can just prevent any aggression in many situations and in other, nearly completely useless. I know I might wrote some weird things :D but well in the end I just think that there are too many hardcounters and the DPS against certain Unit types is obviously a huge factor. Thors vs Muta overall is just dumb as crap. One minor mistake, such as flying 1 milimeter too close to a thor you haven't seen, and he gets one shot off. Boom, 20 mutas brought to orange HP. The idea that you have to micro mutas against Thors is a good thing, it's a counter which can be overcome by skill. Problem again being firepower and speed, there's NO margin for error. A ½ second is enough to go from a good position to a bad position just because of the insane firepower of a single thor. Like OP said, this fight would also benefit from a 50% balance. Lower the damage by 50%, but increase the splash range, or something like that. Encourange micro, while not making minor mistakes cost too much. Thors being killed by 2/3 mutas when magic boxed isnt silly? coming right from the unit tester. no muta ever took a single point of splashdamage in these tests. for reference, thor max hp is 400, muta max hp is 120 edit:fixed thor max hp 1 thor vs 2 mutas : thor wins and has 296 hp left 1 thor vs 3 mutas : thor wins and has 176 hp left 1 thor vs 4 mutas : thor wins and has 8 hp left (this scenario can probably go either way, as its a matter of which side gets their last volley of first) 1 thor vs 5 mutas : mutas win and 2 have full health, 1 have 72 hp left
Yeah thats how i remember it to be.
If you have enough mutas to kill of the thors with magic box, then you will have left over plenty of mutas afterwards (just like in your example, going from 4 to 5 mutas suddenly makes mutas win by a large margin).
But when you dont have enough mutas, you get utterly destroyed, while the thors seem untouched.
That balance between thor and muta actually stays true even in large numbers, until there are so many mutas that you cant magic box anymore without leaving mutas idle on the edge.
Then thors not only destroy mutas, they utterly destroy mutas.
|
Seige tanks are never meant to be alone or epse they would be (way too) OP. They always need support.
|
these guys who are "baww bawww i want broodwar remake" need to wake up and accept the reality.
i wanted UT2004 to be a remake of ut99, boo freaking hoo.
the fact of the matter is that it's a different game, and all you need to know is that blizzard are working their ass off to make the game as enjoyable, exciting and balanced as possible without making it a nostalgia-driven, fantasy ripoff of a 12-year-old game.
to put it crudely, if you don't like sc2, then f*** off and play broodwar.
(not aiming this at the OP, but more towards the snide 'bw was much better' contributors)
|
On January 18 2012 20:56 winthrop wrote:
make stalkers do ground damages only
and it;s fine
Maybe you should read the OP and not just the title before posting.
|
The hard counter system went haywire, and it makes for really boring games as a spectator, and buffing statics defense's I doubt could fix this, it would only make for longer boring "macro" games. To start with they should make every AoE splash to do friendly fire, that would make it really hard and more rewarding. Imagine the micro to even use a Colossus. It would render it useless but for a select few Korean pro's.
But Stalker's well designed? I feel it is one of the worst designed units in the game. But I am purely looking from a spectator perspective though.
tldr: Bowder's hard counter system combined with bad design is an esport killer, and Stalker is not an exception. Is there any good Protoss unit in Star2 except HT?
|
On January 18 2012 20:57 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 19:27 tokicheese wrote:On January 18 2012 19:11 Tobberoth wrote:On January 18 2012 19:06 GeOnoSis wrote:
very interesting, but I don't agree with your static defense... cannons would be just to strong! Just imagine A cannon going up behind the zerg expansion or behind a wall, making it impossible to attack. Also all this changes would make Mutas pretty useless. If Turrets would do even more damage, Mutas would be stupid to play. You already need like 18+ Mutas to kill 1 Turret, when the terran repairs it and often time you still lose one. And if there is any Zerg unit, which can't get really hardcountered, it's the Mutalisk. With proper micro you can dodge storms, magic box against thors and so on...
But that leads to a problem, you already mentioned: Too much firepower, or at least to hard counters.
Like you said it's just a joke to fight with Stalkers or Roaches against Marauders or sth like that. But also, did you ever fight with an army of just stalkers and sentries against a Roach Ling army and completely got crushed? Probably yes, but did you fight against one with the same size and completely crushes him just because of forcefields? Probably YES! I think something like forcefields is sooo hard to balance. In the early game, they can just prevent any aggression in many situations and in other, nearly completely useless. I know I might wrote some weird things :D but well in the end I just think that there are too many hardcounters and the DPS against certain Unit types is obviously a huge factor. Thors vs Muta overall is just dumb as crap. One minor mistake, such as flying 1 milimeter too close to a thor you haven't seen, and he gets one shot off. Boom, 20 mutas brought to orange HP. The idea that you have to micro mutas against Thors is a good thing, it's a counter which can be overcome by skill. Problem again being firepower and speed, there's NO margin for error. A ½ second is enough to go from a good position to a bad position just because of the insane firepower of a single thor. Like OP said, this fight would also benefit from a 50% balance. Lower the damage by 50%, but increase the splash range, or something like that. Encourange micro, while not making minor mistakes cost too much. Thors being killed by 2/3 mutas when magic boxed isnt silly? coming right from the unit tester. no muta ever took a single point of splashdamage in these tests. for reference, thor max hp is 400, muta max hp is 120 edit:fixed thor max hp 1 thor vs 2 mutas : thor wins and has 296 hp left 1 thor vs 3 mutas : thor wins and has 176 hp left 1 thor vs 4 mutas : thor wins and has 8 hp left (this scenario can probably go either way, as its a matter of which side gets their last volley of first) 1 thor vs 5 mutas : mutas win and 2 have full health, 1 have 72 hp left
I tried 6 mutas v 2 thors. Prespread mutas. Slightly spread thors (no glaive dmg). Only 2 mutas died. *BALANCE*
|
I like this post!
However I dont think(or rather I'd pretty much say I know) that blizzard can or will do any of these changes. Not because theyre not great, but because they are so gamebreakingly harsch to the design. Calling sc2 out to be a huge design flaw is very harsch aswell, it is what it is. The game is pretty much built around the points you described.
I agree with alot of what you have to say, I really do. But I think this discussion should be for SC3, not even for HotS, because it WILL make blizzard "remake" pretty much their entire game. And I think we both know how much people like sc2 for what it is now. Therefore I'd say that this would be a step for sc3.
|
On January 18 2012 21:14 Mentalizor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2012 20:57 Roblin wrote:On January 18 2012 19:27 tokicheese wrote:On January 18 2012 19:11 Tobberoth wrote:On January 18 2012 19:06 GeOnoSis wrote:
very interesting, but I don't agree with your static defense... cannons would be just to strong! Just imagine A cannon going up behind the zerg expansion or behind a wall, making it impossible to attack. Also all this changes would make Mutas pretty useless. If Turrets would do even more damage, Mutas would be stupid to play. You already need like 18+ Mutas to kill 1 Turret, when the terran repairs it and often time you still lose one. And if there is any Zerg unit, which can't get really hardcountered, it's the Mutalisk. With proper micro you can dodge storms, magic box against thors and so on...
But that leads to a problem, you already mentioned: Too much firepower, or at least to hard counters.
Like you said it's just a joke to fight with Stalkers or Roaches against Marauders or sth like that. But also, did you ever fight with an army of just stalkers and sentries against a Roach Ling army and completely got crushed? Probably yes, but did you fight against one with the same size and completely crushes him just because of forcefields? Probably YES! I think something like forcefields is sooo hard to balance. In the early game, they can just prevent any aggression in many situations and in other, nearly completely useless. I know I might wrote some weird things :D but well in the end I just think that there are too many hardcounters and the DPS against certain Unit types is obviously a huge factor. Thors vs Muta overall is just dumb as crap. One minor mistake, such as flying 1 milimeter too close to a thor you haven't seen, and he gets one shot off. Boom, 20 mutas brought to orange HP. The idea that you have to micro mutas against Thors is a good thing, it's a counter which can be overcome by skill. Problem again being firepower and speed, there's NO margin for error. A ½ second is enough to go from a good position to a bad position just because of the insane firepower of a single thor. Like OP said, this fight would also benefit from a 50% balance. Lower the damage by 50%, but increase the splash range, or something like that. Encourange micro, while not making minor mistakes cost too much. Thors being killed by 2/3 mutas when magic boxed isnt silly? coming right from the unit tester. no muta ever took a single point of splashdamage in these tests. for reference, thor max hp is 400, muta max hp is 120 edit:fixed thor max hp 1 thor vs 2 mutas : thor wins and has 296 hp left 1 thor vs 3 mutas : thor wins and has 176 hp left 1 thor vs 4 mutas : thor wins and has 8 hp left (this scenario can probably go either way, as its a matter of which side gets their last volley of first) 1 thor vs 5 mutas : mutas win and 2 have full health, 1 have 72 hp left I tried 6 mutas v 2 thors. Prespread mutas. Slightly spread thors (no glaive dmg). Only 2 mutas died. *BALANCE*
are you serious?
you might as well argue that stalker is overpowered because 99999 stalkers kill 1 marine and take 0 losses... OMG stalkers never die to marines!!! ever!!!
|
Static defence are so bad zerg lategame strategy in ZvP and ZvT is mass spine with army support and it's hard as hell to deal with it.
Did you ever play a TvZ and ned up seing the expand have 5 spine ? Yeah, good luck killing anything but a spine or two before the lings come.
|
This is one of the reasons (the OP) that i totally stoped playing sc2.
I dont like that units are such hard counters to each other.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
