EPTThe dynamics of lategame TvP is actually really good, as the armies become substantially weaker when they move outside their static defenses and on the offensive. Zerg operates a bit different because 1) they can bring spines, 2) they can spawn 'static' defenses via. broodlords\swarm hosts\infested terrans basically. I really don't like the amount of free units that zerg gets, it makes their army too cost-efficient, especially in a base-race situation. Colossus should be nerfed in terms of speed, HT is alright, BL\Infestor should maybe have higher dps, but nerfed in terms of units they spawn. Terrans should also lose some of their mobility, but balancing terran is difficult as their composition is so fragile.
[D] What changes could help with death balls? - Page 12
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
The dynamics of lategame TvP is actually really good, as the armies become substantially weaker when they move outside their static defenses and on the offensive. Zerg operates a bit different because 1) they can bring spines, 2) they can spawn 'static' defenses via. broodlords\swarm hosts\infested terrans basically. I really don't like the amount of free units that zerg gets, it makes their army too cost-efficient, especially in a base-race situation. Colossus should be nerfed in terms of speed, HT is alright, BL\Infestor should maybe have higher dps, but nerfed in terms of units they spawn. Terrans should also lose some of their mobility, but balancing terran is difficult as their composition is so fragile. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On November 29 2012 21:27 TokO wrote: I think the solution to breaking up deathball is more overpowered AoE with slow units, at higher techs. Basically, my theory is that if you give the player a choice between mobility\harass and deathball, the player with mobility should have the edge when it comes to denying expands\economy. Protosses who enters the lategame with even economy against a quick broodlord army will know how efficient it is to harass zerg on multiple prongs. Even Terran's midgame bio-aggro against zerg is highly efficient because you force the zerg to engage in smaller numbers where the advantages are leveraged in your favour. The dynamics of lategame TvP is actually really good, as the armies become substantially weaker when they move outside their static defenses and on the offensive. Zerg operates a bit different because 1) they can bring spines, 2) they can spawn 'static' defenses via. broodlords\swarm hosts\infested terrans basically. I really don't like the amount of free units that zerg gets, it makes their army too cost-efficient, especially in a base-race situation. Colossus should be nerfed in terms of speed, HT is alright, BL\Infestor should maybe have higher dps, but nerfed in terms of units they spawn. Terrans should also lose some of their mobility, but balancing terran is difficult as their composition is so fragile. "Overpowered AoE" sounds like a simple enough solution, but does it really solve the problem or does it create another one in the process? Lets say the damage for the Siege Tank gets upped to 85 damage against everything. That is pretty strong and you can two-shot Stalkers and Zealots. What would happen if you rush out two Tanks and then start to siege a Protoss base? The Protoss dies because he cant honestly fight this. Sure you dont have to buff the tank that high, but all that does is increase the numbers needed slightly to get a working Tank-rush-tactic from it. Right now you need FOUR hits from a Siege Tank to kill a Stalker, but reducing that to three or even two hits will make the Tank overpowered ... especially in any pre-Blink situation and without a lot of Forcefields. So the solution has to be found elsewhere and NOT with unit stats. The Siege Tank could use a little more damage, but too much will make it OP. One way to give tanks a more late-game buff would be to change the attack upgrades from "linear" to "exponential", i.e. first upgrade is +2, second is +4 and third is +8 damage (instead of +3 for each upgrade) for a total of +2/+6/+14 damage. This would keep the rushing in check while making them really dangerous to deathballs with full upgrades. Obviously this is a rather complex solution and it might be better to keep it simple, but then you have to change the general mechanics which allow the deathball to be easy to use and automatically formed. | ||
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phodacbiet
United States1738 Posts
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Qikz
United Kingdom12021 Posts
On November 30 2012 01:27 phodacbiet wrote: The solution would be blizzard actually doing something other than DB saying "herp derp we arent gonna try to do anything but take food outside the deathball" which would just mean that people wont be making those units since they will be making a deathball. Surely that's the fault of the players? What if map makers made maps that had so many chokes that deathballing would be a terrible thing to do as half of your army would always be rendered unusable at the back? Could that work? | ||
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The_Darkness
United States910 Posts
I think people seem to object to the fact that WOL has been designed to give players incentives never to turtle and to never break up their main armies. That criticism makes a little more sense although in most MUs at the highest levels there is usually action all over the place -- any terran MU will usually feature lots of drops, unless the player goes mech, in which case hellion and banshee harass will go on all game long. Protoss because of warp prisms has the ability to cause small skirmishes all over the map. Players like Rain and Squirtle are extremely effective at this. Perhaps PvP is a problem though (although I really know nothing about the match up -- so I won't say anything). Zergs like Life and Leenock are starting to show how small infestor and ling-based attacks are extremely effective while a player builds up to blord infestor. ZvP and ZvZ are probably the most death bally. However, ZvZ early game and mid game can feature a lot of multiprong attacks. Watch how Soulkey or Life plays the match up and I think you can see non-deathbally zvz (prior to the late game) at its best. In any event, I'm not saying things can't be improved, but I don't think it's the huge issue most make it out to be. If you want to encourage less death ball play, then I agree empowering positional play (a la with siege tanks and in HoTS widow mines and SHs) is important. Another way to deal with the death ball is to lessen the risks associated with harassing. You can do this by giving units speed (e.g., mutas and lings), cloak (burrowed infestors and dts) or the ability to fly and leave (marines and medivacs). HoTS has addressed this issue with the MSC, giving Protoss the abilityi to wage extremely annoying low risk attacks because of the ability to recall. | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
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ledarsi
United States475 Posts
Having a single massive "uber psi-storm" would counteract deathballs. However, the unit that uses the ability itself tends to create deathballs because it is a single unit with a great deal of power. You can't split that unit into multiple places. Rather than having an uber psi storm, it would be better to have more psi storms which can be cast multiple times. If there are fewer enemy units, you only cast it once or twice. If there are a lot, you cast it a lot of times. However the units that cast it can be split into multiple areas, limiting its use by how many of that unit you have constructed, and by where you have positioned them on the map. This is quite analogous to many other units and mechanics in SC2, such as recall, forcefield, EMP, fungal, etc. Having a Mothership that can cast a single "mass recall" is inferior to having a smaller Arbiter that casts a smaller Recall. If you wanted the same effect as a "mass" recall, you spend more on arbiters and click more to make it happen. Furthermore, a Mothership can only ever be in one place, where multiple arbiters allows for splitting them across a map. Bigger, fewer units and bigger abilities are stupid design that plagues SC2 right now, and is the main cause of deathballs. Followed in close second by the addition of boorish combat units like Marauders, Roaches, Immortals, and Colossi, and the removal of finesse units like lurkers and reavers. And by the nonexistence or pitiful weakness of force multiplers like Defilers (PDD, guardian shield, etc. are really not nearly strong enough to create local advantage to significantly smaller armies), that have been replaced by direct damage dealers. It is not necessarily true that your units are stronger together than apart. While it is true that their absolute strength will always increase as a single large group, the game can easily be designed to encourage splitting your army so that in multiple separate engagements your total utility is greater if those units are used apart. Lurkers under dark swarm are a prime example- the absolute strength of having 24 lurkers in one place is greater than having only 4. However if you have dark swarm, 24 in one place is very heavy play, and massive overkill for one ramp in almost all situations. You would be much better served splitting them up to cover multiple locations, where just a few is enough to hold each position. | ||
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Alex1Sun
494 Posts
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BerthaG
France74 Posts
Death ball is a response to several things: In PvZ: speedlings make your gate way unit very expo if not used has a ball for ff and gardian shield. speed ling can rip off so much stalker when you think of army cost you just cry. The issue here in early and mid game is speedling and sentries. If you remouve sentries : PvT will be a pain in the ass and if you remouve speedling Z have no chance to pass the 12 min. Solving the death ball is not a simple thing to deal with, the game is design such that there is not other way to play P as a death ball. I though recall in hots will have change that i little but not really. I think it is just a way P is played and that it. If people think it is borring to play it is because player make it boring you always can go for arrassment or something else. | ||
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thepuppyassassin
900 Posts
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Piousflea
United States259 Posts
The BW economy was highly inefficient. The difference in income between 30 and 40 workers is much smaller than the difference between 10 and 20 workers. For this reason, at some point it becomes more cost-effective to build units and harass, instead of building exponentially more workers. In addition, 40 drones on 4 bases was DRAMATICALLY more income than 40 drones on 3 bases or 40 drones on 2 bases. This encouraged expanding before full saturation (actually, there was no such thing as full saturation in BW) and therefore made much more positional play - BW players were encouraged to spread themselves thin, so controlling and occupying space was a big part of the game. ========= SC2's economy is too efficient. The difference in income from 50 to 60 workers is just as big as 30 to 40 workers or 10 to 20 workers. Every mineral you spend in combat units greatly weakens the exponential ramp-up of your economy to 200/200. As a result, it is much more difficult to use small harassing attacks. Even if you spend 500 minerals on Hellions and kill 600 minerals of units, your opponent is probably still ahead because he climbed on to the exponential economy curve. Attacks have to do TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE or your economy falls far behind. As a result there are way too many all-ins or semi-all-ins and much fewer BW style harasses. Worse yet, there is no benefit to building multiple under-saturated bases. Therefore there is less incentive to make wide-spread, poorly-defended bases and therefore less importance on space control and positional play. A simple change to SCV mining mechanics would greatly decrease Deathball Syndrome, even if nothing is changed with regards to pathing, AoE, etc. | ||
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SirKibbleX
United States479 Posts
On January 30 2013 08:57 Piousflea wrote: Honestly I think the biggest change to break up deathballs would be revamping mineral income. The 1st SCV on a mineral patch should harvest more, the 2nd and 3rd SCV should harvest less. The BW economy was highly inefficient. The difference in income between 30 and 40 workers is much smaller than the difference between 10 and 20 workers. For this reason, at some point it becomes more cost-effective to build units and harass, instead of building exponentially more workers. In addition, 40 drones on 4 bases was DRAMATICALLY more income than 40 drones on 3 bases or 40 drones on 2 bases. This encouraged expanding before full saturation (actually, there was no such thing as full saturation in BW) and therefore made much more positional play - BW players were encouraged to spread themselves thin, so controlling and occupying space was a big part of the game. ========= SC2's economy is too efficient. The difference in income from 50 to 60 workers is just as big as 30 to 40 workers or 10 to 20 workers. Every mineral you spend in combat units greatly weakens the exponential ramp-up of your economy to 200/200. As a result, it is much more difficult to use small harassing attacks. Even if you spend 500 minerals on Hellions and kill 600 minerals of units, your opponent is probably still ahead because he climbed on to the exponential economy curve. Attacks have to do TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE or your economy falls far behind. As a result there are way too many all-ins or semi-all-ins and much fewer BW style harasses. Worse yet, there is no benefit to building multiple under-saturated bases. Therefore there is less incentive to make wide-spread, poorly-defended bases and therefore less importance on space control and positional play. A simple change to SCV mining mechanics would greatly decrease Deathball Syndrome, even if nothing is changed with regards to pathing, AoE, etc. This is a very, very good start to fixing the deathball problems. However it still doesn't change the fact that army strength scales too linearly with increasing size. Army efficiency/strength PER UNIT should drop off as more and more units are added. This does not happen for way too long. ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/pPJsClN) | ||
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pzea469
United States1520 Posts
So basically the first problem is that when you have units selected and you right click, units ball up immediately. Units will not stay in formation at all. There is an easy way to modify this in the map editor so that this does not happen, it's a simple number change. What it does is it keeps units in formation when you move them. You can still ball them up when you want them to, but it's a choice. You can even put your marines in a heart formation and they'll stay that way while avoiding obstacles. You want to have your units close a lot of the times to get the most dps, but you don't want to be balled up all the time due to splash. So it's still a choice, banelings and such are still relevant, and if splash needs to be buffed because of it, then that's fine. Decision and control is good. Being forced to ball up when trying to move isn't good. I think Blizz tried this out and said that it didn't change the game much because players wanted to ball up in many situations anyways, but that's fine, the idea here is that they aren't forced to ball up but that it's a conscious decision. BW pathing was pretty bad but there were decisions. Spreading units out was good to deal After that there's another problem which is the tendency to wait till maxed and then have a maxed battle. This is due to more complex things such as income rates/mining efficiency. Things like extra bases not being necessary due to many factors so at one point there's no real need to expand. This is something I don't know the details of really, but there is a problem there and many threads that try to explain what's up. Another small factor that I think might be related is the lack of a real high ground advantage. Sure a high ground advantage may make it easier to turtle, but it also makes it easier to take risks. You could focus on a sneaky build to try and drop on your opponent, but then your enemy comes with a superior army at your ramp. Without a real high ground advantage, you're probably screwed because the fight is more or less even and your enemy has superior numbers. You invested in harassment but your enemy just went with some more units and won. But if there is a real high ground advantage, then you have a much better chance of surviving the attack despite having less forces, plus you are harassing the enemy base. Without that safety, I would argue that players are more scared to try anything early on and would rather just focus on having more units to survive, which ends up leading to just maxing out. This is why the whole "taking food out of the deathball" idea wont work. It's too big of a risk. So, IMO, the game forcing you to ball up whenever you move + the game encouraging maxed out play is what gets you these problems. Also no high ground advantage might cause players to not try anything early besides all-ins which might further push the game towards a max vs max battle. Sure, more position control units is cool but that wont solve anything. Of course, if you think the game is fine this way then that's your opinion and it's one that Blizzard currently shares. | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
Just throwing this out there as my recent observation...I've been playing BW the past couple of weeks, taking a break from SC2, and I noticed something really interesting. In BW, it really doesn't help to stack your air units, especially in large engagements (aside from obviously mutas, wraiths, and corsairs, I'll get to that). The main reason is 1) no smartcast, so mass spellcasting is pretty much impossible, 2) AoE (STORM, valkyrie) is way powerful, and, most importantly, 3) having overkill makes units way less efficient clumped up. With the design of SC2 giving all units a smart-target AI that avoids overkill as well as giving a lot of air units fairly fast attacks, there's just not a downside to stacking your air units for maximum efficiency damage except perhaps getting stormed or seeker missile'd. Even then, you don't need to spread units TOO far, and the air ball can work at a fairly high efficiency rate. Overkill doesn't affect small groups of air units in BW because you would generally get only enough of those units to snipe things (5-6 mutas will always one-shot a marine, about 5 wraiths will snipe a dropship, etc). In large air battles, it's much stronger to set up as large of a wall as possible rather than clump. | ||
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rift
1819 Posts
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