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On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote:
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game.
I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage.
It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim).
When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins).
If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
On January 21 2012 07:10 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 06:52 Treehead wrote:I found the percentages for it on the first page. On January 21 2012 00:56 Treehead wrote:On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote:
Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p From: http://www.plainsboro.com/~lemke/risk/Attacker: one die; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 15 out of 36 (41.67 %) Defender wins 21 out of 36 (58.33 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 125 out of 216 (57.87 %) Defender wins 91 out of 216 (42.13 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 855 out of 1296 (65.97 %) Defender wins 441 out of 1296 (34.03 %) Attacker: one die; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins 55 out of 216 (25.46 %) Defender wins 161 out of 216 (74.54 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 295 out of 1296 (22.76 %) Defender wins both: 581 out of 1296 (44.83 %) Both win one: 420 out of 1296 (32.41 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 2890 out of 7776 (37.17 %) Defender wins both: 2275 out of 7776 (29.26 %) Both win one: 2611 out of 7776 (33.58 %) So yeah, big army sizes favor attacking (think the number, based on how slight the advantage is above, is higher than 5, but still) - but all this means is that if you have a ton of stuff in one area, you may as well attack - which is the only reason you'd really want to have tons of stuff in one area anyway. This still leaves decisions for reasonable army sizes. Point is well-taken though, that risk was an unfortunate example. Like I said in this post - it's unfortunate that I chose Risk because the only time there's a defender's advantage is at small - reasonable army sizes (they're much more noticeably in the defender's favor when the attacker can no longer roll 3 dice). Unfortunately you're still wrong though. You then say "you might as well attack." You clearly don't know RISK if you're suggesting that. Every single time you attack an opponent, you're just making yourself and the other person weaker while making everyone else on the board stronger. Sure, what you say is true for 1v1, but no one plays RISK 1v1. It's meant to be a a game with multiple people.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was suggesting 1v1. It'd be a terrible comparison to SC2 if you had several opponents to worry about.
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On January 21 2012 07:24 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote:
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game. I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage. It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim). When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins). If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army. Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 07:10 FabledIntegral wrote:On January 21 2012 06:52 Treehead wrote:I found the percentages for it on the first page. On January 21 2012 00:56 Treehead wrote:On January 21 2012 00:51 Cereb wrote:
Just FYI, I'm pretty sure the attacker is actually at the advantage in risk as soon as the armies are above 5 units. :p From: http://www.plainsboro.com/~lemke/risk/Attacker: one die; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 15 out of 36 (41.67 %) Defender wins 21 out of 36 (58.33 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 125 out of 216 (57.87 %) Defender wins 91 out of 216 (42.13 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: one die: Attacker wins 855 out of 1296 (65.97 %) Defender wins 441 out of 1296 (34.03 %) Attacker: one die; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins 55 out of 216 (25.46 %) Defender wins 161 out of 216 (74.54 %) Attacker: two dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 295 out of 1296 (22.76 %) Defender wins both: 581 out of 1296 (44.83 %) Both win one: 420 out of 1296 (32.41 %) Attacker: three dice; Defender: two dice: Attacker wins both: 2890 out of 7776 (37.17 %) Defender wins both: 2275 out of 7776 (29.26 %) Both win one: 2611 out of 7776 (33.58 %) So yeah, big army sizes favor attacking (think the number, based on how slight the advantage is above, is higher than 5, but still) - but all this means is that if you have a ton of stuff in one area, you may as well attack - which is the only reason you'd really want to have tons of stuff in one area anyway. This still leaves decisions for reasonable army sizes. Point is well-taken though, that risk was an unfortunate example. Like I said in this post - it's unfortunate that I chose Risk because the only time there's a defender's advantage is at small - reasonable army sizes (they're much more noticeably in the defender's favor when the attacker can no longer roll 3 dice). Unfortunately you're still wrong though. You then say "you might as well attack." You clearly don't know RISK if you're suggesting that. Every single time you attack an opponent, you're just making yourself and the other person weaker while making everyone else on the board stronger. Sure, what you say is true for 1v1, but no one plays RISK 1v1. It's meant to be a a game with multiple people. Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was suggesting 1v1. It'd be a terrible comparison to SC2 if you had several opponents to worry about.
Well, I guess, but RISK wasn't ever intended to be a 1v1 game. I mean, for 1v1 you have completely different rules as well to even try to make it fair, like neutral armies, etc. But true, I probably should have realized you were referring to 1v1, where the "I should just attack on my first turn everything as long as I have the maximum amount of attackers" IS the actual strategy to use... kinda makes it boring  .
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OP doesn't take into account any kind of map awareness of mind games whatsoever.
People who always stick to big deathballs do it because they're bad and they can't finely tune their skills enough to know where the opponent's army is likely to be or what he can get away with.
There is always something you aren't doing that you could be doing that could give you an advantage, no matter how good anybody ever gets at this game, it will be true. Obviously there is a threshold below which micro won't save you, but that point is much lower than just about anybody realizes.
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I think terran and protoss have fine defenders advantage, with bunkers and forcefields. In fact, FF are a HUGE defenders advantage, almost too strong. Zergs defenders advantage relies on being able to scout coming attacks with lings and overlords and quickly produce a force to deal with it.
I do think that defensive structures need to be stronger though. Having 2 sunkens in bw is absolutely nothing like having to spines. I feel helpless behind 2 spines, even against a single dropship.
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The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument.
Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
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A big problem is that you can't defend positions and expansions really effectively with Protoss or Zerg. Terran is kinda good at it with tanks, that's why TvT and TvZ are imo the best matchups, but tanks aren't even strong enough rly.
Zerg/Protoss rly need effective units for defending, so better static defense and units like Lurker. Also maps need to make bases/areas that can be defended more effectively from ground attacks.
If this doesn't happen then it will be forever be the deathballs running around the map , attacking and defending the expansions.
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On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote:The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument. Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
Skepticism and critical analysis is never a problem. It should be mandatory. Any argument that can't be criticized is in fact invalid.
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On January 21 2012 00:39 Treehead wrote:
Next, there's Photon Cannons. Photon cannons are fine in early game defense, and yet, you see less cannons from Protoss than you see spines/spores from zerg and bunkers/turrets from Terran.
pretty much the only thing i disagree with strongly, pretty sure photon cannons get used a lot for the same reason terrans get turrets: mutalisks. Terrans don't use bunkers in the late game at all really, although maybe they should.
You see a "lot" of static defense from zerg because they have a supply efficiency problem in the late game, so base defense that costs 0 supply is really good (although you have to split between ground and air). Cannons get used a LOT, and half their health regenerates anyways, if they don't die. Weak argument.
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On January 21 2012 07:24 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote:
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game. I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage. It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim). When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins). If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army.
I don't see your point here. Are you saying that Blizzard should remove Warpgates and buff gateway units? How is that supposed to work in combination with collossi and high templars/archons? Just leave out the "warpgate mechanic" for a second and think about pure army strength, most players think that lategame favors Protoss already in a deathball vs. bioball situation due to pure army strength (thorzain said on his stream that a lategame protoss army is slightly stronger than a Terran lategame army), so the question is, how would you balance stronger gateway units in combination with collossi and/or archons/hight templars. You clearly would have to nerf collossi and other splash units to justify a gateway unit buff.
edit: Also, alot of people complain that Protoss is very immobile and has troubles in dealing with multiple drops at once (I don't agree/disagree with this statement but it's what alot of protoss players say), so if you take out warpgate, that clearly would hurt the protoss in thet regard. Protoss would be less mobile, but have an even stronger lategame army. I don't see how that wouldn't break the game. Might wanna think that through again, mate.
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You know with ZvZ, why didnt they just give hatcheries a medium structure only attack (less than a spine does to armored) with like planetary fortress range. then spines could ahve a much more reasonable build time since spine rushes wouldnt work. might hit bunker rushes as well i guess.
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One thing I'd like to point out is that no matter how big the defender's advantage is, there are always going to be rush builds. When you can defend with fewer units, people will just play greedier on average and really good players will always be pushing the boundaries of how greedy you can be. They'll still be punished for stepping over the line; the line will just be in a different place. However, with a strong defender's advantage, there will be a much wider spectrum between safe and greedy, so not only will players be able to get bigger economies faster if they choose so, but they'll also be able to play extremely safe in order to defend a rush.
The more important argument in my opinion is that the stronger defender's advantage will lead to better overall games, regardless of which strategies are chosen. The current problem I have with SC2 is there's too much brute force and not enough finesse. There's not enough impact from micro relative to macro, which makes it more important to just have a million units than to position them well. This is fine when one player clearly has better macro than the other, but between two equal players there are flaws. When the only way to defend is to just have a lot of stuff, players are forced into mass-units style plays because no matter how good they are, having less stuff is a deathwish.
I would way rather have a game where a player with godly micro like MC or MMA can dance around the map with a small army while being greedy as fuck back at home. By being able to defend with a smaller army, the game becomes more deep strategically. When you remove the constraint of 'I need 6 gateways of units or I'll just die to mass roach,' you'll see much more creative strategies start to emerge. I think this is the main reason why carriers are rarely seen: you simply need that extra 18 food of carriers and the 1800/1600 of resources tied up in stargates and producing carriers. If you could micro your way past that deficit, carrier usage would spike dramatically.
The problem is that defender's advantage is such a vague concept that it's hard to come up with an exact fix. Does it come from the overall game engine? Is it entirely dependant on unit design? Is it in the maps? That being said, I've come up with a few ideas. Please note that I'm not saying implement them 100%. These are just ideas that have popped into my head and made me say "that may work":
1) Give units shooting from high ground to low ground +1 range, and vice-versa
This is my favorite. It gives a clear advantage to players who posess high ground, which makes positioning far more important in the middle of the map. Also, it favors the defender in a rush game. However, I've never seen it used to I have no idea whether it's too strong or too weak
2) Give units shooting from high ground to low ground +1 damage, and vice-versa
This is used in Age of Empires, and it works pretty good. It's very common to see a really good player micro his units back up hills to get that little bit of extra damage and it's very possible to squeeze a win out of a disadvantageous position.
3) Buff static defense.
Pretty obvious. It makes a commitment to defense more obviously available, but it makes defensive play much more linear. Also, it likely favors protoss and zerg over terran as you can't exactly buff bunker damage without buffing marine damage. Not my favorite but it could work.
Anyways, there's my thoughts.
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This is just my commentary on your article.
First off:
the aggressor isn’t just only thinking of attacking – he’s thinking of attacking as early as he can with as much as he can.
I don't think that defininition of rushing works out. I figure rushes as gearing up to attack your opponent at a specific time, in order to win the game. "as early as he can with as much as he can" Sounds like I should six pool every game.
Now I must nitpick your example game
ok, so Huk gave up a bad position, but who is metroSG? And can anyone argue that he played particularly well? Seems to me losing 2 siege tanks in good position to an immortal and a stalker is a pretty serious blunder, doesn't it?
This comment lacks game understanding. I don't care if you can get right next to the enemy's tanks if the tanks and his army are attacking you.....You pretty much said "He lost some units, that should be bad, no?" Without saying "Huk ran through the marine and siege tank fire to kill the siege tanks." Terrible example.
Which moves on to my next point about your article section I: Rushes.
When playing the game, it is necessary to assume all rushes can be held off with some sort of standard build.
In my opinion, this has to be done by:
1. Scouting
2. Good positioning/control(each rush has it's own way to be defended)
3. adapting your build to the rush.
I think it is possible to hold off all rushes this way.
Another thing you said, In your risk section:
If you make defense equal to or harder than attacking, the game becomes merely attacking whatever you can whenever you can attack it.
This is all well and good, but I am of the opinion that defending should be possible and defending a pressure or rush WELL should put you ahead. It doesn't matter if the pressure or rush is easier to do than the defense, as long as the defense is possible, it is what should happen. I know that quote didn't really mean that, but I feel this needed to be said.
On the deathball:
There’s really no reason this absolutely makes for a *bad* game, but I think we all can agree that a better game would have many points of engagement, power struggles over certain areas of terrain, feints, and etc. Y’know – like a real army would do in a real war (isn’t that what makes these war games?).
Yeah well, if there's anything I have learned attempting to improve as a zerg in sc2, deathballs shouldn't and don't work.The game goes through stages of aggression to stabilization to aggression, all revolving around expansions.Watching GSL, I don't think deathballs are just something you can go into, and so it's fine in my mind. If you are comfortably on 4 bases, I can see going deathball as a viability. hell, these scenarios of deathball vs deathball and then someone loses doesn't even happen in any sort of well played game.
Finally, I'll address the protoss plus rest of the treatise.
Protoss does have a reduced defenders advantage in terms of raw units, and that is supposed to be and in my opinion is completely negated by good simcity and forcefields. Yep, sentries. You can argue that they are bad game design, but I think they work just fine.
And on the topic of photon cannons: Defense like this should only hold off early game pushes. Otherwise, it should delay drops and harassment until defense can get there. If you watch the earlier pvts in this GSL season, you'll see(I think it was genius?) make a lot of cannons at his bases as he makes more bases. Cannons just aren't used right, Imo.
Finally, a response to this:
I’m not arguing this because I really like sitting back and defending. Strangely, I’m arguing for greater defense because it will open up the ability to attack more freely, all over the map, instead of the current deathball format – because even if you lose smaller engagements in the attack, you know you have a strong defense to fall back on if a large direct push should come.
I would argue what you want to happen already happens in zvt, tvt, zvp if you know how to play it, zvz has a cool way of this, with tvp and pvp only being the real ones missing the ability to have enough defenders advantage,
I guess in tvp the argument could be you shouldn't be able to onesidedly lose your army. and pvp is pvp..
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On January 21 2012 07:44 ChaosTerran wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 07:24 Treehead wrote:On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote:
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game. I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage. It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim). When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins). If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army. I don't see your point here. Are you saying that Blizzard should remove Warpgates and buff gateway units? How is that supposed to work in combination with collossi and high templars/archons? Just leave out the "warpgate mechanic" for a second and think about pure army strength, most players think that lategame favors Protoss already in a deathball vs. bioball situation due to pure army strength (thorzain said on his stream that a lategame protoss army is slightly stronger than a Terran lategame army), so the question is, how would you balance stronger gateway units in combination with collossi and/or archons/hight templars. You clearly would have to nerf collossi and other splash units to justify a gateway unit buff. edit: Also, alot of people complain that Protoss is very immobile and has troubles in dealing with multiple drops at once (I don't agree/disagree with this statement but it's what alot of protoss players say), so if you take out warpgate, that clearly would hurt the protoss in thet regard. Protoss would be less mobile, but have an even stronger lategame army. I don't see how that wouldn't break the game. Might wanna think that through again, mate.
Lategame both terran and protoss armies have so much DPS that you see extremely lopsided battles. IMO it does get hard for terran because a straight up engagement is about 60-40 in favour of protoss lategame. The early game though is when defenders advantage is supposed to be the largest.
Early on, let's say player A pushes with 15 supply for a pressure. Player B is macroing equally, and when player A arrives, his army is 20 supply. Player B has 33% more supply than Player A in his army, and will win all fights.
Now, in protoss matchups(not including pvp), let's say a rush build has 20 supply, and a greedy build has 15 supply, and you can make 5 supply during rush distance
Offensively, protoss rushing a greedy build will have 20 supply against 15, but the game is balanced so the other races can hold with 15 against 20 supply.
Defensively, a rush build will attack protoss with 20 supply, and during rush distance protoss also gets up to 20 supply. But, since the game is balanced around the other races being able to hold 15vs20, maybe with static D, the other races are just stronger at this point in time.
This is a simplified example, but this coupled with the inability of protoss to get early static D without delaying production/tech is really what hurts protoss early game against rushes.
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On January 21 2012 05:07 Mjolnir wrote:Spreading out against a deathball makes it stronger. Unless you're being facetious and you're suggesting the offensive player spreads out their deathball for the sake of courtesy - then why bother playing to win. Also, SC:BW should be the model here. It's the best RTS of all time and the precursor to SC2. It is also leagues better than SC2 in terms of balance, strategy and tactics - and was so when it was the same age SC2 is now. God forbid anyone suggest that here, though.
I don't really oppose the ideas as much as the fact that these threads are constantly saying the same thing over and over. The only difference in these threads (the ones I linked to and the OP) is that they each betray different thinly veiled racial balance biases. Why is the obvious thought and effort that goes into these threads not directed at developing new strategies and tactics and maps to open up the game?
There are two possibilities: Starcraft 2 becomes a stable and closed system (or, eventually, 3 stable closed systems -- accounting for expansions). Any perceived imbalance or gameplay flaws are simply accepted and dealt with by players and map designers (as happened in SC:BW). If there truly is fundamental imbalance or gameplay issues, the pros gravitate to a certain race, or one of the other expansions becomes the competitive standard.
The other possibility is that Blizzard forever tweaks the design of the game based on the feedback of a vocal minority. Pro players are forever arguing that there race is underpowered -- because of self-interest. SC2 becomes a game not of skill, but of politics -- whatever faction can convince Blizzard to buff their race, or to change the gameplay to suit a different style of play.
I trust that given 3 opportunities, Blizzard will make a version of SC2 that will address all these concerns -- and each time, there will be a new crop of "game breaking" imbalance and design issues. Please, my friends, if you insist on making these threads, please include ideas and examples of solutions to these problems that do not come from Blizzard -- either map features or gameplay ideas and examples.
SC:BW is and should be the main model for SC2. But we do not just want a re-skin of SC1 -- there is still an active BW scene if anyone wants to play a game that is "like brood war." Hell, a few months ago, I signed up on ICCUP and started getting owned. The game is fun as fuck, but there is no reason to make SC2 exactly like brood war. My question was getting at, "What are other games that have implemented these gameplay styles that I can go play and compare?" -- it was not a sarcastic or rhetorical question -- I just want to know of an RTS (not chess or risk) other than BW (which we all know about by now) that has successfully implemented defender's advantage in an otherwise fast-paced game. The WC3 comparisons in the responses are what I was asking for.
Last point: I hate deathball on deathball fights. Like many terran players (I am new to terran and also terrible) I have trouble against late game toss deathballs. The only way for me to beat them is to make the other player spread out by pushing the front while sending as many simultaneous drops out as I can. It works -- and it usually means that there are numerous, small fights going on, and the games are usually decided by chipping away at the other player, rather than in one a-move fight.
TL;DR -- SC2 should be a game of adaptation and skill, not the politics of securing favorable patch changes. Deathballs can be punished.
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On January 21 2012 08:09 Amui wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2012 07:44 ChaosTerran wrote:On January 21 2012 07:24 Treehead wrote:On January 21 2012 06:59 SolidMoose wrote:
Although I agree with your overall philosophy, the PvT examples are not good at all. Protoss can stop most early Terran pushes if they have sentries and are not overly greedy with tech. Also, if I'm reading this correctly, you're claiming warpgate is a disadvantage to protoss?? Warpgate is the absolute destroyer of defenders advantage, but way in the favor of the protoss. Whether it's instant warp ins to defend drops or warping in across the map, warp gate is the bane of existence for any defenders advantage in this game. I'm actually claiming it's both an advantage and a disadvantage. It's an advantage because you can warp them in near the enemy's base and the rally distance is so low. It's a disadvantage because, to compensate for the strength of warpgates, gateway units (the base ones, not templar) are less effective than terran bio (admittedly, this is primarily due to stim). When you're attacking, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out or are slightly in the protosses favor. When you're defending, the advantage doesn't apply (you'd be making them in your base anyway without warpins). If you need examples of reasons why pure gateway units have trouble against pure bio, watch old videos of Adelscott, who used to play PvT purely with gateway and upgrades before terran generally prioritized upgrades for their bio army. I don't see your point here. Are you saying that Blizzard should remove Warpgates and buff gateway units? How is that supposed to work in combination with collossi and high templars/archons? Just leave out the "warpgate mechanic" for a second and think about pure army strength, most players think that lategame favors Protoss already in a deathball vs. bioball situation due to pure army strength (thorzain said on his stream that a lategame protoss army is slightly stronger than a Terran lategame army), so the question is, how would you balance stronger gateway units in combination with collossi and/or archons/hight templars. You clearly would have to nerf collossi and other splash units to justify a gateway unit buff. edit: Also, alot of people complain that Protoss is very immobile and has troubles in dealing with multiple drops at once (I don't agree/disagree with this statement but it's what alot of protoss players say), so if you take out warpgate, that clearly would hurt the protoss in thet regard. Protoss would be less mobile, but have an even stronger lategame army. I don't see how that wouldn't break the game. Might wanna think that through again, mate. Lategame both terran and protoss armies have so much DPS that you see extremely lopsided battles. IMO it does get hard for terran because a straight up engagement is about 60-40 in favour of protoss lategame. The early game though is when defenders advantage is supposed to be the largest. Early on, let's say player A pushes with 15 supply for a pressure. Player B is macroing equally, and when player A arrives, his army is 20 supply. Player B has 33% more supply than Player A in his army, and will win all fights. Now, in protoss matchups(not including pvp), let's say a rush build has 20 supply, and a greedy build has 15 supply, and you can make 5 supply during rush distance Offensively, protoss rushing a greedy build will have 20 supply against 15, but the game is balanced so the other races can hold with 15 against 20 supply. Defensively, a rush build will attack protoss with 20 supply, and during rush distance protoss also gets up to 20 supply. But, since the game is balanced around the other races being able to hold 15vs20, maybe with static D, the other races are just stronger at this point in time. This is a simplified example, but this coupled with the inability of protoss to get early static D without delaying production/tech is really what hurts protoss early game against rushes.
But you are completely ignoring the existence of forcefields. Obviously gateway units have to be a bit weaker than Terran units, because in combination with collossi and forcefields you could never lose if that wasnt the case.
All I get from what most people here say is: "herp derp gateway units weaker". 100% ignoring the advantages that protoss has. The fact that gateway units are weaker let's you have sentries, warpgates AND collossi. If gateway units were stronger you would have to give up at least two of these three things.
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On January 21 2012 07:33 TUski wrote:The problem with amazingly insightful posts such as these is that the first few pages are filled with idiots with scalpels and tweezers trying to pick out every single detail or punch holes in the OP's argument. Having said that, this was a great post and you should look into game design as a career
The OP is not insightful. It could be called expository, perhaps. The blunder with RISK shows Treehead has not thought long enough about the subject. There are always idiots who make useless responses, regardless of the quality of the OP.
Perhaps people learned something from the OP. That's great, if it raises the level of discourse.
This writeup, like the other recent "let me tell you all about it" posts, fails to attain the level of rigor and abstraction required to make solid points about the design issues.
All of these writeups have discussed play issues and basic sandbox knob-twisting, not high level design, though they purport otherwise. (Though perhaps not explicitly in this case.)
Treehead, please don't take it personally I don't mean offense and my intent is not empty criticism. I am glad you took the time to offer your thoughts. I just want to offer a view to set others straight.
Can I ask what level you play at? (Just curiosity.)
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On January 21 2012 00:54 ch4ppi wrote:You Sir deserve a medal! Very good to read, strong points, no whiniing. Just good arguments and discussion bases  <3
I agree wholeheartedly <3 :D
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I think protoss and zerg need a stronger defenders advantage, expecially in their mirror matchups in early game. (i think buffing the queens combat abilities in zvz and delaying warpgate tech even more would make these matchups more stable, however delaying wg in tvp and pvz would be nuts i think.
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I think that the defender's advantage is there in the very early stages of the game, however as the game is drawn out the defender's advantage is not there (i.e 1 spine will *usually* hold 2rax bunker rushes, however 5minutes later 1-2 spines won't do shit to dropped hellions).
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Canada11219 Posts
I think from the number of base trades we see, there is definitely merit to the OP. Even if we use SC2 is a new game argument, was there really that much base trading in 99-00? It used to be a pretty rare thing (like once or twice in an entire season of GOM Classic that I can remember- 3 relocation of floating all the barracks and factories to another corner), but in SC2 it's pretty common where pro's just say to hell with it, I can't get back in time, let's see who can kill stuff faster.
Having said that, while tough defences are necessary for more harassment, more expansions, and more tech builds, there also needs to be some pretty good siege units late game to break the fortifications. Broodlords/Guardians, Darkswarms, or Doom Drops, Carriers, Mothership/Arbiter recalls, and uh... mass dropship/medivacs and tanks? Or Nukes and Battlecruisers? Not really sure.
Point is, late game needs a way to bust down tougher defences without being overpowered where it's just a mothership rush.
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EPT
