Some issues with turtle playstyles in Starcraft 2 - Page 12

On February 11 2014 16:50 lost_artz wrote:
If the economy is solely the issue holding back SC2 couldn't this be fixed via Gold Minerals and Rich Vespene Gas?

Both of these collect considerably more resources per minute than their normal counterparts which in turn makes expanding more rewarding. Even if you cut back on the amount of patches/gases per expansion you'd require less workers which would then feed into the army supplies raising the effective cap.

We used to see Gold Patches a fair amount in WOL prior to Antiga. My understanding is the reason they were never used was because of Mules collecting 42 (7 x 6 trips) minerals instead of the 30 (5 x 6 trips) on regular minerals. However, this was fixed way back in Patch 1.4.3.


So, if the economy is the issue why aren't we using Gold and Rich Vespense bases? It seems like half the people in this thread are talking about re-working the economy which would fuck-up the entirety of the games balance. Something like this would at least be map specific.

On February 11 2014 17:09 ETisME wrote:

snute you should be on blizzard team

On February 11 2014 11:34 mikumegurine wrote:
how about a tax on minerals above a certain supply to discourage Max 200 Supply then attack games

such as the tax in warcraft 3, which helped the unit count stay low and constantly doing "something" and not just turtling

On February 11 2014 10:46 avilo wrote:
Just thought i'd add my two cents here considering i've played hundreds of mech vs swarmhost games since the HOTS beta:

Swarmhosts are the main issue that creates boring long 1 hr turtle games. Mech cannot ever attack into free units and expect to win - much like Protoss cannot do the same in PvZ, and Protoss and Terran mech operate in a very similar fashion.

Protoss has no way to beat swarmhost + static defense until turtling into a 200/200 deathball with a LOT of tempests.

Terran has no way to beat swarmhosts other than accumulating ravens for the point defense drone because this allows your mech units to not take damage and actually allow you to advance into swarmhost locust waves + static defense.

This is not the fault of Protoss design or Terran design, or ravens, or tempests, or deathballing. It is the terrible design of the swarmhost which forces the opponent to do sit there and amass cost efficient units or otherwise lose the game.

Swarmhosts provide free units that are not even energy dependent. It's simply on a cool down and will infinitely spawn free units that trade for the opponent's minerals and vespene gas.

Swarmhost is the issue. Do not put Terran players at fault or start an anti-raven bandwagon because when a Zerg goes swarmhosts the only response is to start accumulating ravens from Terran's side, or a deathball of air units from Protoss's side.

A question we all have to ask right now is: is Zerg capable of beating Terran mech and Protoss without the swarmhost in the game in it's current form? The answer would be most definitely yes they can, through tech switches and use of vipers.

The swarmhost needs a massive re-design or balance tweaks.

As for the other issues Morrow has pointed out and many others like Lalaush in the past - the economy of SC2 promotes getting to 3 bases and maxing out and then the game is about whoever's army is more efficient than their opponent's.

A good example of a mod that changes the economy to matter is Starbow, or just look at good ol' Brood War (SC1). You had to mass expand all over the place in Brood War because you would run out of money otherwise.

TvP in Brood War...was literally the Terran turtling to a cost efficient mech army with tanks that killed things, and the Protoss sometimes being 1 or even 2 expansions ahead wittling away at the Terran mech army through recalls, carrier switches, etc.

But i don't think blizzard will honestly change the economy of SC2 at this point and i would actually recommend they never do because it would kill the game. I have seen another RTS, Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath go through a massive economy overhaul in a patch...and the game entirely changed but too much to keep the player base stable.

At this point it is better if blizzard simply fixes obvious imbalances like blink/MSC and promotes more viable strategies in each match-up (cough mech TvP...)

On February 11 2014 10:46 avilo wrote:
Just thought i'd add my two cents here considering i've played hundreds of mech vs swarmhost games since the HOTS beta:

Swarmhosts are the main issue that creates boring long 1 hr turtle games. Mech cannot ever attack into free units and expect to win - much like Protoss cannot do the same in PvZ, and Protoss and Terran mech operate in a very similar fashion.

On February 10 2014 23:03 Destructicon wrote:
I think the economy really is the way to fix this. In BW you needed lots of bases just to be able to sustain a 200 supply army, you could turtle on 3 bases, but it took way, way longer to max then in SC2, I think a whole 10 minutes more. However, if you wanted to take more bases you had to spread out more then, inevitably, you will be spread thin in some points, and there are more places where you can be attacked and broken.

Lastly, because there where more places where you could be vulnerable and broken, there was a lot more action as all players where constantly adapting to the state of the map, repositioning units to defend breaches, rallying back defenses, maneuvering to cut off armies, flanking etc

Also because you want more bases to sustain your army and remax quickly you had more incentives to take more bases and defend them, and the enemy had more incentives to be out and attack you and prevent you from getting more bases.

A lot of that dynamic doesn't exist in SC2 yet.

However, that doesn't take away from the fact that units like SH shouldn't exist. Its fundamentally wrong in several ways, its a non committal unit, it just sends waves of free units at the enemy, this isn't at all exciting because you don't care for them, they are free but it creates an ugly dynamic where the other guy has to invest so much into being cost efficient just because of the locust. There is never a huge risk of losing your SH when you attack, but there is a real danger of losing your tanks or lurkers if you ever left them vulnerable or out of position.

With tanks or lurkers, even with their range, they where still vulnerable to lots of things tank lines could still be zealot bombed, mine dragged into or broken if it was thin enough, or killed from the air.

Another huge problem with SH, is that, its a self contained unit. Because of locust, SH is its own DPS and its own tank. The locust are both the hellbats in front of the tank line, and the tank line rolled into one. And that is just plain wrong, so much strength and versatility shouldn't exist in one unit.
Hell, its even worst then BL was, at least the BL had only a range of 9 and couldn't spawn broodlings from half the map away.

On February 11 2014 17:32 Big J wrote:


Stop right there. I have seen you and Goody and others play 1hr long turtle styles in Wings, long before SHs existed.
I have played those styles and played against them. I have seen those styles being played by other people like Lyyna. Again, long before SHs existed, in TvZ and TvP.

Meanwhile all of those games/styles featured massive siege tank counts...

On February 11 2014 18:15 Sapphire.lux wrote:

It was because of the BL/Infestor. In HOTS Terran got much better anti air though the combined ups and cheaper SM so the BL is not a sleep and stale mate inducing unit any more. Its place is taken now by the SH. Free units are stupid basically.

On February 11 2014 18:24 ETisME wrote:

watch Mvp play mech in WoL, he is one of the most successful and aggressive mech player out there
it certainly isn't a problem of free unit.
the idea of free unit is to allow zerg to have ways to break down turtling players without needing to throw away units over units onto PFs, with tanks and missile turrets and starve to death even with pretty much the whole map's resources

On February 11 2014 18:24 ETisME wrote:

if it wasn't for viper corruptor abducts onto the colossus, do you think toss will have any problem at all pushing out against a swarmhost player?

On February 11 2014 18:15 Sapphire.lux wrote:

It was because of the BL/Infestor. In HOTS Terran got much better anti air though the combined ups and cheaper SM so the BL is not a sleep and stale mate inducing unit any more. Its place is taken now by the SH. Free units are stupid basically.

On February 11 2014 18:37 Sapphire.lux wrote:

Well if it wasn't for drones Zerg would not have an army.

The Viper is a skill unit that can create tension, micro vs micro battles, force armies to split (think Tanks), requires positioning from both players. It's IMO the only good unit from the expansion.

On February 11 2014 17:43 Liquid`Jinro wrote:

While I agree that the economy could be improved by making it more bw like, ya'll forgetting some things about broodwar.

First of all, maxing out at 13 min pvt was fairly commonplace, certainly not 10 min later than sc2.

Second, if anyone here was around for when arbiters started becoming mainstream in pvt, you'll remember the initial terran response to this shift in metagame. Traditionally terran had been able to apply pressure pretty freely and not worry much about counters or being caught toooo off guard, and generally the protoss would try to get ahead in bases and transition safely into carriers (and this was the window the terran would try to deal enough damage in).

Then arbiters became popular and suddenly terrans found their pushes not only doing worse just in terms of army vs army efficiency, but also had to contend with a much more mobile protoss with tonnes of new tricks (personal favorite was the recall into main and stasis their ramp for the free win).

The terran reaction? Turtle and never attack. Seriously, there was a 6ish month period where every terrans gameplan was early timing or split the map with 30 turrets and mines in their main. Gradually as people improved in their vs arbiter play the matchup got less and less turtly again.

Another example: destination mech tvz. Split map games into no minerals left was not rare at all.

What im saying isnt that this will for sure happen to sh zvp zvt but lets give it a little more time and focus on some smaller changes before axing a unit that actually has done a ton of good in terms of creating more positional play...

Oh and I enjoyed reality vs sk. Yeah it shows some problems but people are overreacting.

On February 11 2014 18:55 ETisME wrote:

I don't think you understand what I mean.

Swarmhost corruptor viper is only a problem in ZvP not because of swarmhost, but because of vipers killing off colossus.
without these adbucts, free units (if you still think it's a problem) won't mean much because ~6 colossus can shut them down fine.

On February 11 2014 10:46 avilo wrote:
Just thought i'd add my two cents here considering i've played hundreds of mech vs swarmhost games since the HOTS beta:

Swarmhosts are the main issue that creates boring long 1 hr turtle games. Mech cannot ever attack into free units and expect to win - much like Protoss cannot do the same in PvZ, and Protoss and Terran mech operate in a very similar fashion.

Protoss has no way to beat swarmhost + static defense until turtling into a 200/200 deathball with a LOT of tempests.

Terran has no way to beat swarmhosts other than accumulating ravens for the point defense drone because this allows your mech units to not take damage and actually allow you to advance into swarmhost locust waves + static defense.

This is not the fault of Protoss design or Terran design, or ravens, or tempests, or deathballing. It is the terrible design of the swarmhost which forces the opponent to do sit there and amass cost efficient units or otherwise lose the game.

Swarmhosts provide free units that are not even energy dependent. It's simply on a cool down and will infinitely spawn free units that trade for the opponent's minerals and vespene gas.

Swarmhost is the issue. Do not put Terran players at fault or start an anti-raven bandwagon because when a Zerg goes swarmhosts the only response is to start accumulating ravens from Terran's side, or a deathball of air units from Protoss's side.

A question we all have to ask right now is: is Zerg capable of beating Terran mech and Protoss without the swarmhost in the game in it's current form? The answer would be most definitely yes they can, through tech switches and use of vipers.

The swarmhost needs a massive re-design or balance tweaks.

As for the other issues Morrow has pointed out and many others like Lalaush in the past - the economy of SC2 promotes getting to 3 bases and maxing out and then the game is about whoever's army is more efficient than their opponent's.

A good example of a mod that changes the economy to matter is Starbow, or just look at good ol' Brood War (SC1). You had to mass expand all over the place in Brood War because you would run out of money otherwise.

TvP in Brood War...was literally the Terran turtling to a cost efficient mech army with tanks that killed things, and the Protoss sometimes being 1 or even 2 expansions ahead wittling away at the Terran mech army through recalls, carrier switches, etc.

But i don't think blizzard will honestly change the economy of SC2 at this point and i would actually recommend they never do because it would kill the game. I have seen another RTS, Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath go through a massive economy overhaul in a patch...and the game entirely changed but too much to keep the player base stable.

At this point it is better if blizzard simply fixes obvious imbalances like blink/MSC and promotes more viable strategies in each match-up (cough mech TvP...)

On February 10 2014 22:03 Qikz wrote:
Swarmhosts just shouldn't exist. Reality should have won the first game with his slow push but he could barely move because soulkey had an endless supply of free units. They're just simply badly designed, nothing should be free in an RTS.

On February 11 2014 18:51 Big J wrote:


Lucifron, Mvp where very timingbased Mech players in WoL. Most people would argue that your best chance of beating Zerg was to push before BL/Infestor, regardless of Mech- or Bioplay.

INnoVation vs Soulkey from the IEM qualifiers, DRG vs Flash... all of those games feature lots of aggression from the Mechplayer. Before the upgrade/tank patch Mech vs Zerg was mainly being played off the back of doing damage with hellions or hellion/banshee and very often transitioning into timingattacks.

There is a bunch of stuff you can do with Mech aggressively. But sitting back and doing nothing is an option for Mech as well in TvZ and some players are going to use that option. Same goes for the Zerg of course, for as long as those games don't become the rule (and proof to be boring!) I don't see the problem. If they become the rule, then Mech is to blame just as much as SHs.

On February 11 2014 19:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:

That's true and it's because BL/Infestor was broken. That's beside the point though.

I disagree about the Inovation soulkey games but agree with the DRG Flash ones. Before the patch, mech was basically very bad and could only get wins if some huge and lucky yearly game dmg was done.


I'm not saying it's set in stone yet, but when Zerg goes mass SH the games are 99% going to be turtle vs turtle because there is very little Terran can do about it. On the other hand, when Terran goes mech, Zerg has the option to do a number of things, from the very fun IMO Roach Hydra Viper, Mutas, Nidus etc. So it's not fair to say that mech is just as much to blame.