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On January 06 2013 10:53 peanutsfan1995 wrote: OP has some great points. As a Zerg player, I got into the game wanting to swarm opponents, use a ton of lings, apply pressure constantly, and win with a fast, mobile army that weathered away at my opponent. Instead, I turtle up and slowly move out with a deathball.
Are there times when races are played as their original design intended? Of course! But I think that it's pretty clear that the trends are showing constant deviation from this design.
To be fair, nobody forces you to make a deathball. I mean, if you're a grandmasters I'm pretty sure Deathball is too darn effective. But I'm (Low Masters) still using a Ultra, Ling, Bling, Hydra, Infestor composition vs protoss. Ultra to break the forcefields, hydras to kill archons and immortals, blings to kill Zealots and lings to get the surround on the rest. It's not as effective as Broodlord - Infestor, true. But at least it's fun to do.
Anyway, regarding the OP, I agree completely. It just feels completely wrong to be maxed 200/200 supply just by having a few Roaches or Hydralisks. In Broodwar, people usually didn't even REACH the supply cap, or at least it was very rare, especially Zerg. Now, we have lings, blings and drones. For the rest, not a single unit is 1 supply. They're all big fat 2 or more supply units, where is the swarm feeling in that? I'd rather have the hydra and the roach as a weaker 1 supply version as what we have now.
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It is appaling that OP doesn`t know that BW TvP was about protos being in a way of terran deathball, right till it get`s a carrier deathball of it`s own, and rolls the siege tanks.
BW was, in the end about getting a Sky-unit deathball.
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When I played BW for the first time after playing SC2 for a while, the very first thing I noticed as a zerg was that it really felt like I was maxed at around 60-80 supply. I had workers too, by the way. Zerg really has lost their identity in that respect, although I strongly suspect that that is, at least in part, due to the pathing and limited unit selection forcing you to spread out your army. Another factor would be the fact that you really have no 1 supply units, just .5 supply units and 2 supply units.
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I honestly played Terran because the siege tank was my favorite unit in BW, and I wanted to use them in SC2. Yeah, I can use them I guess. But they just dont feel like the brick wall they used to be. More like a fragile window now.
Also I tried playing Zerg because of Savior. That just wasn't fulfilling to me.
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On January 06 2013 07:46 desarrisc wrote:+ Show Spoiler +This idea of Race design vs Game design isn't new.
I agree to some points presented here that address the current problems in WoL (Brood lords + Infestors), but I disagree that each race does not have a distinct identity except Terran.
Terran as presented does have a flexibility of strong positional play as mech and strong mobility play with MMM drops/pokes etc. HoTS further promotes both positional play with widow mines and hellbats and mobility plays with very strong medivac buffs.
tl dr Terran; They're fine in both WoL and HoTS.
Zerg I think is the point of contention for many people. People simply think it should be merely mobile/weak/swarmy. That race design would only promote boring macro, make units and a move them against the opponent until the enemy is dead. But we clearly do not want zerg to be simply Big strong units late game that is nearly impossible to beat for cost/cost either (as in BL/Infestors).
The zerg is in essence: Swarms of units, not necessarily fast or cheap, but lots of them. And either hitting with 1) lots of cheap, mobile units or 2) lots of free units from slow, expensive units.
Zerglings, banelings and Roaches are really massable, even mutalisks, ultralisks for T2/T3 have one of the cheapest/lowest build times relative to their counterparts in P/T to make them swarmable. BL, Swarm Hosts, Infestors all make more units and fit into the second category.
The best way that zerg is being changed to its original race-feel is via change in infestors and hydralisks. Infestors still remain strong enough with fungal projectile, but it becomes MUCH MUCH harder to actually land good fungal growths. Most people who play HoTS beta would affirm this. The problem with infestor was that it was a unit that it was the ultimate unit, that was capable of doing everything.
Hydralisks in WoL are the epitome of not-really-zerg-unit. Very expensive for its role and has really no synergy with the swarm mentality. It feels more like a protoss unit than a zerg unit due to its reliance on support. HoTS fixes this problem with making them faster, and allow them to move on par with roaches/lings to add their power to the mobile aspect of zerg.
tl dr for zerg; Units that swarm either: cheap-fast-swarm or slow-strong swarm. Bliz is fixing Infestors that are too individually strong; and is fixing Hydras that neither fit the role of cheap-fast-swarm and slow-strong-swarm to fit the role of the former.
Protoss, race-wise in SC2, are the race that emphasizes on synergy. I really disagree with that each units should be super-strong and super-expensive. After the fall of Aiur and death of the matriarch, the protoss have become quite fallen from their glory days of the mightiest warriors.
Protoss units still can hold one's own in a fair fight, but against the numbers of the Zerg swarm and trickeries of the Terrans, they must stand united. So I believe that current WoL Protoss represents this very well in the infamous "death ball" complex, the protoss desire to purify the enemy in one unbeatable mixture of units.
But Blizzard is adding a new dimension to the race to emphasize not only the Khalai (the strong direct combat- represented by the good old Dragoon, zealots, immortal, collosi, etc.) but the Nerazim (the stealthy strikers- represented mainly by Stalkers, Pheonix, DTs in WoL). And of these only Blink Stalkers were viable Nerazim tactics in WoL.
The early mothership core allows more Nerazim type of assault early on with basic gateway units when the enemy is still massing up the armies by permitting retreat with recall when Khalai would normally not. The addition of Oracle's sneaky assault on helpless workers, cheaper dark shrine, high range Tempest, and Void rays that are more tactical in activating its abilities, and enhanced pheonix range are all signs of emphasis on the sneaky hit/run tactics that Protoss were not as good in WoL.
And Nerazim tactics are not simply restricted to itself either. In great numbers, the Tempest/Void rays/Oracles become a Khalai styled force of direct confrontation. The saved gateway units from core recall adds to the robotics units to make a synergetic force. The protoss retains synergetic in conjunction to its stealthy roots in HoTS.
tl dr protoss; Protoss is either Khalai-deathball or Nerazim-stealth. WoL lacked Nerazim styled plays, but in HoTS both types of plays are encouraged by mobile air units + mothership core recall for early aggression that isn't all-in.
I agree with everything youve said. Good post.
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On January 07 2013 01:11 naastyOne wrote: It is appaling that OP doesn`t know that BW TvP was about protos being in a way of terran deathball, right till it get`s a carrier deathball of it`s own, and rolls the siege tanks.
BW was, in the end about getting a Sky-unit deathball.
It is appaling that, with brood war nation wars starting about two hours from now, we still get comments about "BW was [insert random bs here about what the poster wants brood war to have been]" I mean seriously ? You honestly belive Protoss players just wait till they get carriers and then proceed to roll terran ?
You do know that not all terran players just do a 200/200 +2 +1 timing right ? You do know that terrans have this unit called a dropship, and also another one called a vulture which can be pretty useful for harassment and map control ? You do know that some maps like fightning spirit actually allow you to play some kind of split map scenario in TvP and win ? You do know that there is this concept of macro in this game, which works pretty well for the protoss once he gets 4+ bases up ? You do know about this unit called the arbiter which, used in combination with large amounts of dragoon/zeal can actually fight a terran army somewhat evenly ? Oh but we can do more original stuff too. You do know that protoss also has this unit called the corsair, which has a spell called Disruption web ? And that corsair dragoon is actually a legit way to play PvT ? I could go on and on and on...
Seriously people, i usually keep things to myself but could you at least stop spreading misinformation, and actually watch some brood war instead of posting your distorted view of the game ? So we don't have "BW was [...] about getting a sky unit deathball " ?
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United Kingdom20170 Posts
Zerg was the "Fear me, I have tons of units"-race. Now it is the "Fear me, I have a high tech!"-species. Terran always meant for me "F*ck this, I'm taking my SCVs and eat you alive". Now it has changed to "F*ck you, I'll outmacro you". Protoss always made their enemies think "Omg, he is taking another expo". Now they are like "Omg, he is not taking his expo, he is allining me for sure!!!"
And also, you can call me a "casual" fool trying to ruin this game, but seriously, what do you think is more viewer-appealing? Aggressive players beating the sh*t out of each other since minute 5 of the game or passive SimCity into endgame? A good RTS is like sex, the less you are touching each other, the less fun you are having, lol.
I love both of these points so much
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yes yes yes. I have felt similarly for a very long time. The interesting game-play comes from the clash of styles and differing unit strengths and costs. Please give us back strong protoss, crafty terran, and fast cheap zerg.
Thanks
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Hello, I am a "veteran" BW player. For some reason I have never posted very much on these boards but I have come back to read it many times because this is a very high quality community we have here and I will always love it.
I recognize in what OP wrote the very reasons why I disconnected from the whole SC2 gaming scene very fast in the first month. Talking with fellow old school BW players many of us agreed with those same points in one way or the other and feel it's one of the reasons why we prefer BW to SC2.
I don't think, coming from Blizzard, we will ever see change in the right direction on these points. Day9 asked the question of race design to Dustin Browder in an interview with Blizz design team about a year after SC2 came out, the question was : "What are you trying to do in terms of playstyle for each race and how does it affect the game's development ?", something close to that. Dustin said, and it was shameful I think and I felt that Day9 too was disappointed in that answer since he didn't make any kind of comments : "We're not trying to do anything in terms of playstyle for the races, from the start we decided that the game's design would be centered on individual units that would each feel very special, unique and fun to play with, then we fix and tweak things depending on how those hero-feeling units work together" (again, smtg close to that, I haven't found the video back).
Well, that's what SC2 is, that's how they wanted to sell it to the players. SC2 is designed so that the newcomers, who typically like to look at individual units and feel their "terrible terrible damage" power in specific actions within battles, would be easily attracted to the game thanks to this design. Global scale strategy and race design, which really matters so much more to allow a strategy game to be really interesting, as fun to play and watch as possible, are more difficult to understand for someone who never played RTS online or "seriously". SC2 is of the era of game-products.
The damage done to the game because of this design, and because of the new pathing (smarter units that don't bug is good, no collision and autosurround kills a lot of micro and positionning) is tremendous. Terrible, terrible damage, so to speak : As you said and this is the most unbearable aspect of the game to me and probably most BW players, the deathball vs deathball character of the game kills most of the positionnal and movement strategy that was critical in BW and made it fun. No more little bunch of units capable of defending a choke point against twice as many units, no more dispatching your forces smartly accross important points on the map depending on what your opponent is trying to do and what you are trying to do to him. Little harrassing, and little micro. A very large part of the game now is just trying to get to that deathball composition faster than your opponent. Planning expansions depending on spatial defence possibilities and map control has become a lot simpler.
I don't think SC2 is a bad game, but it certainly never will live up to my expectations as a BW player for those reasons.
Personnally I think as RTS and Starcraft fans we should realize that Blizzard is no longer working for us, rather for maximizing their own profit, which does conflict with the interests of their consumers in many cases (just like all other big industries). For me, SC2 was only worth playing for about 2 months (1 when it came out, then 1 more a year after that which let me get to Master league easily thanks to past BW experience, I'm about rank B on ICCup). In the future, I would like it if the Starcraft/RTS community either came back to a better game like BW, developped its own or just picked it's focus ignoring advertisement and tournament run with money from the very corporation that produce the games. We could make our own tournaments with cash prizes and our own games. We could communicate to people who don't know so much about RTS why this or that game is really awesome rather than SC2. If we keep following Blizzard/big corporations/money, we will never be playing a really great game together again. In the meantime, I think those who feel like me keep playing BW.
I often say, every single game of BW I play feels more interesting and more fun than the best game of SC2 I have ever played. That's pretty much accurate for me.
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PS : On the point of the Z feeling terrible compared to BW I really agree with that, I think that is the worst race design flaw in SC2 for the very reasons you stated. I also personnally strongly dislike the Queen "inject larvae" mechanic and its consequence on the Z macro. Now you get so many larvaes Z rather play with few bases full of drones than lots of bases with a few, this really kills their "spread and defend with mobility" theme which, added with huge numbers and a lot of tension in choice you made for each larva, made them such an interesting and different race.
As for P in SC2, I also agree with many of your remarks even if I liked the idea of Warpgate originally. It's certainly true that it is not well implemented into the game since P units still suck at doing anything on their own with the way the game is designed (too weak, no micro, little defensive advantage on chokepoints, too many crippling perks to some units attacks like marauders...). I also really dislike the way robo tech relates with citadel tech in SC2, colossus have a role too similar to high templars and DTs are too expansive to get. Archons are in a really awkward position and can always be replaced with something else (eg colossus). All units need to support each other into a deathball too... basic units really suck by themselves. The zealot "charge" ability destroys a lot of micro and positionning.
It is true that T feels slightly better because at least they can do many different things with all the valid tech paths, although their global style still feels weaker than BW because of tanks being weak / not enough positional advantage, etc. The marauder slowing shot destroys a lot of micro and positionning...
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I think it is worth to watch and feel the racial identity in BW through VODs and compare how different it is from SC2. If you don't want to watch VODs and do rather watch a stream, then please take a look at this event:
http://www.teamliquid.net/calendar/2013/01/#event_14308
By watching these games you will see what are the racial identities in BW and how it is so different from P, T and especially Z in SC2. The event will probably be restreamed by snipealot2 (with player FP view) and snipealot (korean cast).
One thing that scares me is: what if they decided to change the racial identity in SC2 from BW? I think someone at some point will use that as an excuse for the lack of racial identity of some units...
As I come from BW I certainly wouldn't like a change of racial identity, but I don't see why someone that has never played BW would care about how P, Z and T were supposed to feel in BW, Blizzard has to be coeherent though...
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Totally agree, great post and very insightful! I've been thinking along these lines for a while but didn't really know how to explain it, this post does that for me so thanks :D
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I feel exactly this way. Zerg should feel fast and swarmlike, so I just play that way regardless of the effectiveness. I'm starting to love overlord drops, and I can't wait til the HotS ultra buff :D
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@game design/deathball: The general fact that everything has to do terrible terrible damage is imo hurting the game severely, because it makes harassment totally broken and as a result creates the necessity to create broken defensive mechanisms, which leads to no harassment at all. we have seen it happen hundreds of times, there was a time when terran was dropping everybody to death, until players learned to defend with few investment and afterwards it rarely happened again. Same for mutas and reaper. Blizz either needs to create a unit that is hard to stop but doesnt force the harassed player to push immediately, or rework the way their static defense vs harass mechanic works for this game to have more action and less all-ins.
@racial identity: thought about it a lot, but imho it musnt limit the gameplay. I e.g. hate toss-gameplay for being so immobile that harass is never an option (and it never made sense storywise). i really like the race in terms of design optically and storywise, but their gameplay is incredibly boring.
although you could probably create the game the way that zerg as a swarm race can have generally tons of low supply units, toss is supposed to have just high supply units and terran is supposed to make sth happen with trickery, repair and position and just force that concept throughout all tech-tiers while giving every race units for every purpose. that would probably solve both problems, it would just be pretty hard to balance while maintaining the distinctiveness of the races.
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I whole heartedly agree with your assessment. The Protoss have gone from ManToss ti GimmickyToss. I can see why, with the protoss being highly intelligent and the stereotype of Geniuses is Sheldon (From BBT), but now I'm left without a Race whose strengths covers my weaknesses. With HotS the transition to GimmickyToss is getting clearer.
The Immortal is the only "manly" unit left, but is not very versatile as the dragoon was deconstructed into two units, the stalker and the immortal. The stalker got the versatility, the immortal the strength.
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On January 07 2013 01:02 algue wrote:It's true that I'd like to see some blue post about Blizzard's racial philosophy (and see them stick to it). If DB says "Zerg is now the cost efficient race of the game and protoss is the weak but numerous race" I'm fine with it as long as they really implement it in the game. At the moment the only sign of Blizzards racial philosophy that I can remember is their Race Overview ( http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/game/guide/race-overview) where they clearly say that zerg is weak and numerous and protoss are few but powerful. And weirdly enough in HotS : - they give the swarm host and the viper to the zerg army, 2 cost effective units. - They give the oracle, a fast and weak unit, to the protoss army - But they also give a slow and strong unit, the tempest. To summarize, they try to make zerg become the cost efficient race and they try to make protoss a bit more mobile and fragile but not too much... I wish blizzard cool go back to the zerg and protoss roots (Imo the terran race personnality is good)
The way I heard it Zerg was way, way cost efficient in broodwar. So much so that they could comfortably sit below 70 supply down from their opponents and still consider that a fair fight. The problems occurring now is less about racial identities and the attributes of units, and more about the basic economy of starcraft 2.
Blow your mind spoiler. + Show Spoiler + This is the truth of starcraft 2. The economy is limited to 3 base vs 3 base, and the supply of units are severly hampering any useful attempts of splitting armies, because you only have one army of 120 supply to split with. Usually it comes down to sending cheaper units to die while trying your darnedest at keeping the more expensive ones dying at a cost effective rate regardless of race because you simply dont have the economy as any race to try anything else.
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Marauders and Roaches are the two units that destroyed the race design in Starcraft 2. It's like if they really wanted to show us that SC2 is not a BW clone (yet it should have been)
My analogy back in 1998-1999 to explain Starcraft's races were: Think Alien vs Predators vs Marines.
Now it's all upside down, a stimmed marauder can almost kill 2 stalkers.
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On January 06 2013 20:50 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 19:49 Big J wrote:On January 06 2013 19:29 Rabiator wrote: The thing is that race design is good as a concept, but there is only so far you can go with it to not make it terribly imbalanced. Too strong individual units can break the game as much as too fast or too cheap ones.
If you make the "swarmy race" too cheap and fast and easily controlled you will enable them to go everywhere in superior numbers so the "expensive and better units" of that other race will simply be overrun. We see this problem clearly when we compare SC2 to its predecessor and look at what has changed.
This isnt the only example of where Blizzard "did too much" and many of the bad apples come from the general game "improvements" of SC2 over BW and not the racial design. Unlimited unit selection, forced super clumped movement and production speed boosts coupled with a higher economy all lead to too many units on the battlefield to the point where quality of a unit doesnt matter anymore and reproduction capability becomes very very VERY important. Agreed. Though this is also a question of income/action ratio. (imagine very active units like hellions and mutas when the income would be halfed --> their value would go through the roof) Basically some racial identities (superswarmy zerg, superdefensive Terran) is what makes it so hard to get a metagame inwhich you can actually deal blows to an opponent. The problem is that with super dense massive numbers of units you cant have super high damage attacks that really one-shot many units ... stuff like the Siege Tank or Reaver in BW. The same restriction - although in reverse order - probably applies to the thing you pointed out: super mobile units in a game with few units on the battlefield. Personally I dont think the "super mobile" way of doing things look that awesome (because as a spectator you have to be able to follow the battle) AND they have a much higher requirement on the controlling skill (the APM) of the user. With a slower game with more awkward movement system and limited unit control such as in BW the gap between people at the top and the bottom of the ladder probably isnt that big and the true skill difference also comes from the right strategic decisions of when to expand and when to attack. A BW pro could get maybe an extra 10% efficiency out of his Mutalisks or Carriers through micro, but an SC2 pro can get maybe an extra 50% more efficiency out of lack of micro from the opposing player when he rolls in his Banelings and good Forcefield and Blink control are practically REQUIRED to make Stalkers work in a straight up battle against a Zerg army in SC2. This "amount of active control required" is really important in game design and putting too much of it into the game makes it useless (=bad) for people who dont spend 3-4 hours every day practicing to become perfect or at least not to lose their skill. Thus it is my firm belief that SC2 has TOO MUCH STUFF and that this is one of the reasons why the game sucks for casuals who just want to play to have a good time. The whole "activatable units" thing in SC2 is geared totally towards pros and the customers who should be critical of it are defending this in the belief that you cant have fun without activated abilities. SC2 is designed solely for 1v1 pro gaming and BW was awesome at 8 people FFA as well.
Not exactly that important to the discussion, but I couldn't just let you get away with saying in BW carriers or mutalisks effectiveness is improved by maybe 10% by proper micro. Have you never seen BW micro? When was the last time you saw 10 mutalisks kill 30 marines and end the game in SC2? Did you not see Tyler's thread on carrier micro and why SC2 doesn't allow carriers to be microed in any meaningful way? Basically the opposite of everything you said about BW vs SC2 micro is true.
Oh no...did I just get trolled?
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On January 07 2013 01:06 Grendel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 10:53 peanutsfan1995 wrote: OP has some great points. As a Zerg player, I got into the game wanting to swarm opponents, use a ton of lings, apply pressure constantly, and win with a fast, mobile army that weathered away at my opponent. Instead, I turtle up and slowly move out with a deathball.
Are there times when races are played as their original design intended? Of course! But I think that it's pretty clear that the trends are showing constant deviation from this design. To be fair, nobody forces you to make a deathball. I mean, if you're a grandmasters I'm pretty sure Deathball is too darn effective. But I'm (Low Masters) still using a Ultra, Ling, Bling, Hydra, Infestor composition vs protoss. Ultra to break the forcefields, hydras to kill archons and immortals, blings to kill Zealots and lings to get the surround on the rest. It's not as effective as Broodlord - Infestor, true. But at least it's fun to do. Anyway, regarding the OP, I agree completely. It just feels completely wrong to be maxed 200/200 supply just by having a few Roaches or Hydralisks. In Broodwar, people usually didn't even REACH the supply cap, or at least it was very rare, especially Zerg. Now, we have lings, blings and drones. For the rest, not a single unit is 1 supply. They're all big fat 2 or more supply units, where is the swarm feeling in that? I'd rather have the hydra and the roach as a weaker 1 supply version as what we have now.
Its still a deathball. Just a deathball consisting of lots of smaller deathballs.
I think its frightening that so many people can talk about deathballs and still have no idea what a deathball is.
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On January 07 2013 14:20 Patate wrote: Marauders and Roaches are the two units that destroyed the race design in Starcraft 2. It's like if they really wanted to show us that SC2 is not a BW clone (yet it should have been)
My analogy back in 1998-1999 to explain Starcraft's races were: Think Alien vs Predators vs Marines.
Now it's all upside down, a stimmed marauder can almost kill 2 stalkers.
Well stalkers could be a lot stronger if warp gates didn't exist. I don't know why they don't just make warp-in require like 150 energy with a cool down that pauses regular production. Would severely hamper all in warp gate attacks and limit death ball infinite reinforce that prevents Zerg and Terran from inefficiently wearing toss down like they should if race design was being followed. Mix that with making bases max out mining efficiency at 18 or so workers and now Zerg or Terran can afford to trade cost inefficiently as long as they are a base or two up.
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