|
On July 20 2015 02:20 BlackLilium wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2015 00:02 Big J wrote:
You keep on using the phrase "most greedy way possible", as if "greed" wasn't a relative thing and as if "most greed possible" wasn't the best way to play right now. Pretty much regardless of the exact defensive feature, what is possible is a thing that would change and greed then has to be seen in the context of this. Opening 4hatch with tech might probably still lose against opening 2base bruteforce. "most greedy way possible" is not a relative thing. I define it as an economy/tech strategy played as if there was no opponent. If you introduce a defensive mechanism that allows you to defend against all attacks in - say - first 5 minutes, then people will follow the single line of "most greedy way" for the first 5 minutes and branch off afterwards. Currently, the most greedy play often incurs a high risk and people opt to use a bit less greedy, but safer builds. To give a concrete example: I can go most greedy way Nexus-first in PvZ. It incurs a risk, but often I am able to defend sufficiently well. However, doing the same thing in PvT is often too risky to be viable. Even if I go for greed, I don't pick the most extreme version of it.
This goes back to what I said before: Of course if you interprete it as universal defense that is always in place against everything than you go most theoretical greed possible. If however said tool of defenders advantage can be circumvented in some ways and only protects you from straight up dying to frontal attacks, than you have to still prevent/minimize taking damage from such harassment. You are playing far from "optimal".
By the way you are pretending as if Nexus first was the optimal build. Well, it may be up to that point, but beyond that? 3Nexus before gate? 4Nexus? 5Nexus+Templar/Carrier? We are so far away from optimal play that you wouldn't lose anything strategical around the greed-defensive-offensive dynamic. They would only look different. And the game would be stupidly accelerated, which is again why I keep on saying leave early punishment mechanics in, but don't make them deadly.
Show nested quote +Now the +15supply defense is such a vague theoretical concept that if we only use that phrase either of us can be right if either of us just interpretes it in his own favor. You are obviously right if we go to a concept in which you always have +15supply that is always exactly where it is needed defensively and that 15supply doesn't have some strong unit counterrelation, then yes, of course everyone will just sit there and build up 4bases and tech up in 10mins.
However, my point goes rather along the lines that you have some protection feature around your starting and natural location that can deal with frontal threats. Something that doesn't work when your opponent goes around it or uses special harassment techniques like air units. Something that you may be able to wear down over time with dedicated siege tools like tanks. Something that can only be at one location at a time. But nothing that you can run into and just take down.
Such a tool would still allow you to punish your opponent for claiming areas outside of its protection bonus, or outgreeding your opponent. It wouldn't shut down harassment efficiently, so you could still punish your opponent that way. But he couldn't just build more units and kill you early. How that would exactly look like and how strong it should exactly be (hence Hiders original range of +5 to +20supply) is of course a different question If I understand you correctly - you are now thinking about some defensive mechanism that has to be activated and somehow incorporated into a build order. From your description it sounds very close to Mothership Core's Photon Overcharge. It has limited, purely defensive utility with ways to avoid it (e.g. snipe MSC or force MSC to use up its energy). Protoss is hard to threaten in early game and people actually hate it!
No I'm not thinking of something like photon overcharge and I find it pretty cheap of you that you try to invalidate my example in that way. Last time I checked Photon Overcharge is an amazing tool to defend early air harassment, last time I checked you couldn't go around Photon Overcharge to harass a mineral line, last time I checked Photon Overcharge had siege range and thus countered siege weapons, last times I checked one could have two photon overcharges at the same time.
And you don't even need to question me how exactly the tool I'm trying to attribute would look like, because we both know that this is a theoretical discussion and we have both based our arguments on the vague concept of something 15supplish in power without giving specifics so far. I could try to give you an example, but it would probably be poor and only lead to a here-useless discussion about whether or not it could work and whether or not it would even fullfill what I wanted.
Show nested quote +The problem with punishing greed through (early) allins is that they kill one player most of the time. Basically every player has 3ways to play:
(1) you play greedy which might get you ahead (2) or kill you (3)
(2) you play defensive which might let you fall behind(1) or kill the opponent(3)
(3) you play offensive which might win(1) or lose(2) you the game
Now the game design challenge* should be to turn option (3) into:
(3) you play offensive and you might get ahead (1) or fall behind (2) (3) leading to getting ahead or falling behind, without outright win or loss - this is already happening at higher level of play. In lower leagues this would be really hard to balance anyway, because of player-induced inefficiencies.
I plainly disagree here. You just need to watch the top Korean level and see how few games go on when it is some real offense vs defense stuff. A game in which a zerg goes 10pool/baneling or a protoss commits to 5canons or a terran going for proxy raxes is going to end then and there with few exceptions. The thing is that these games are rare because players hardly ever play greedy at that level. They make a worker or two more, but they still play a build that is rather defensive by nature and often even the offensive player rather goes for a build order that can win, but that he also can transition of. Actually playing very offensive early is rare in this defensive meta. Hence, stale early game complaints.
|
On July 20 2015 03:01 phantomfive wrote:Because ideally, the best player should win, and Starcraft should be a test of skill. RNG means the lucky person has an advantage. Imagine you are microing two marines up a ramp to kill a stalker. Currently in SC2, if you know the hitpoints of each unit, you can know whether the marines will beat the stalker or not. With RNG, maybe a couple shots will go wrong, and suddenly you lost. You can't know. Generally, in skill based games, you don't want luck to determine the winner.
they should remove the fog of war then :D
|
On July 20 2015 03:10 ROOTFayth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2015 03:01 phantomfive wrote:On July 20 2015 02:39 ROOTFayth wrote:
what's up with people not liking RNG? Because ideally, the best player should win, and Starcraft should be a test of skill. RNG means the lucky person has an advantage. Imagine you are microing two marines up a ramp to kill a stalker. Currently in SC2, if you know the hitpoints of each unit, you can know whether the marines will beat the stalker or not. With RNG, maybe a couple shots will go wrong, and suddenly you lost. You can't know. Generally, in skill based games, you don't want luck to determine the winner. they should remove the fog of war then :D
Some people advocate for that
There is no part of Starcraft that is not controversial. I'm still bitter about LAN play.
|
Big J, the reason I brought Photon Overcharge in this discussion is because it is the closest think that SC2 currently have to what I think you describe. It is early-game, purely-defensive and non-scalable +X army supply equivalent ability.
Yes, it shoots air. Yes in mid-game you can have 2 of them. But you can get around it (e.g. bait it earlier and attack later). It's just not convenient to do so.
For the sake of theorycrafting we could tune Photon Overcharge it up to better fit your requirements - for example:
- Must be cast on any defender's building
- Cannot be cast in proximity of minerals
- Reduce range to, say, 9
- Cannot shoot air.
Maybe not the most streamlined tool to use, but that's not the point. The question is - how would it affect the opponent who wants to punish our Protoss defender?
In my opinion punishing Protoss early game - because that's the scenario we are discussing (5-supply vs 20-supply army) - with a low-tech low-supply army would still be as inconvenient as before. You don't have access to air yet. Only approach for non-frontal harassment are reapers and zergling runbys.
And you don't even need to question me how exactly the tool I'm trying to attribute would look like, because we both know that this is a theoretical discussion and we have both based our arguments on the vague concept of something 15supplish in power without giving specifics so far. I could try to give you an example, but it would probably be poor and only lead to a here-useless discussion about whether or not it could work and whether or not it would even fullfill what I wanted.
Here is a thing. I fear there is simply no such posiblity for a thing that would fulfill all your requirements. But I cannot really prove it entirely. Relying to some a little bit more concrete mechanic would help analyze its strong and weak points. It does not have to be precise.
For example - you want it completely non-scalable. This is a domain of hero units. It could be tied to a specific building, since there are few of them early game. But I guess you want something different than static defense - since we already have that.
|
Big J, the reason I brought Photon Overcharge in this discussion is because it is the closest think that SC2 currently have to what I think you describe. It is early-game, purely-defensive and non-scalable +X army supply equivalent ability.
Bunker?
|
Any advantage related to terrain should have community-enforced map making implications, if there was some code regarding this so we continue to see interesting maps I have no major gripes with trying a bigger terrain advantage.
|
On July 20 2015 06:25 Caihead wrote:
Any advantage related to terrain should have community-enforced map making implications, if there was some code regarding this so we continue to see interesting maps I have no major gripes with trying a bigger terrain advantage.
At the very, very least, it would be nice to see a consistent high-ground advantage coded into the game as an option for mapmakers, so that this avenue of balance and design could be explored by the community, even if Blizzard remains obstinate.
|
On July 20 2015 06:17 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Big J, the reason I brought Photon Overcharge in this discussion is because it is the closest think that SC2 currently have to what I think you describe. It is early-game, purely-defensive and non-scalable +X army supply equivalent ability. Bunker?
I do mention static defense as well, but you can have multiple bunkers, yielding +n*X supply boost.
Photon Overcharge is usually singular, you can have 2 tops if you saved enough energy (i.e. opponent didn't attack you for long)
|
On July 20 2015 05:48 BlackLilium wrote:Big J, the reason I brought Photon Overcharge in this discussion is because it is the closest think that SC2 currently have to what I think you describe. It is early-game, purely-defensive and non-scalable +X army supply equivalent ability. Yes, it shoots air. Yes in mid-game you can have 2 of them. But you can get around it (e.g. bait it earlier and attack later). It's just not convenient to do so. For the sake of theorycrafting we could tune Photon Overcharge it up to better fit your requirements - for example: - Must be cast on any defender's building
- Cannot be cast in proximity of minerals
- Reduce range to, say, 9
- Cannot shoot air.
Maybe not the most streamlined tool to use, but that's not the point. The question is - how would it affect the opponent who wants to punish our Protoss defender? In my opinion punishing Protoss early game - because that's the scenario we are discussing (5-supply vs 20-supply army) - with a low-tech low-supply army would still be as inconvenient as before. You don't have access to air yet. Only approach for non-frontal harassment are reapers and zergling runbys.
You can have oracles at 3:05 in your opponents base in LotV. Similar timings apply to zerg drops. Zergling runbies and reapers as you say. Banshee and medivac play can come quite early, (though not quite that fast) too. Adepts can tunnel through. And since both players have access to such a defensive tool you can much easier hold a counter against an opponent. I'm not sure that this sort of tool is fit for starcraft as we have it designed and balanced, that's for sure. But since this applies to the whole discussion about more defensive tools (whether highground or other) I think we should always consider at least moderate rebalancings and redesigns with this. With such a tool and its counterplays in mind I think it would be quite possible to create scenarios in which the offensive player can punish or draw even with the greedy or defensive player, without too much risk of ending the game right there. Then, the longer the game goes the non-scaling defenders advantage will wear off and rather normal dynamics will occur.
Show nested quote +And you don't even need to question me how exactly the tool I'm trying to attribute would look like, because we both know that this is a theoretical discussion and we have both based our arguments on the vague concept of something 15supplish in power without giving specifics so far. I could try to give you an example, but it would probably be poor and only lead to a here-useless discussion about whether or not it could work and whether or not it would even fullfill what I wanted. Here is a thing. I fear there is simply no such posiblity for a thing that would fulfill all your requirements. But I cannot really prove it entirely. Relying to some a little bit more concrete mechanic would help analyze its strong and weak points. It does not have to be precise. For example - you want it completely non-scalable. This is a domain of hero units. It could be tied to a specific building, since there are few of them early game. But I guess you want something different than static defense - since we already have that.
I think having certain buffs around your bases for a limited amount of units could work. A useful shield battery mechanic for Nexi for example (doesn't scale because of limited energy/limited nexi, doesn't shut down harass, makes your unit stronger).
Or say for zerg their hatcheries could absorb up to a certain amount of damage/second for the combat units nearby.
I think this wouldn't really be good against harass if implemented properly. But in frontal engagements your 1-2stalkers just wouldn't die to an overwhelming mass of roaches because they'd regenerate up to 1000health during the battle.
I guess it would also help with your third base, but again, since both those examples are of limited use they'd reach their support cap relatively quickly later on and they only help you where your army is being attacked. If the aggressor targets workers, or you plainly have no combat units around the mechanic does nothing.
|
On July 19 2015 06:04 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +You keep bringing up League towers are stronger than Dota towers as some form of argument everytime I bring this up. This is the first time I have ever written it (your welcome to check my post history). Anyway, I do have to apologize as I think I made it sound like I was arguing that Dota defenders advantage was lower than the defenders advantage in LOL, which resulted in you writing a long posts (where I don't really disagree with a lot of what your saying). So let me be clear here: That wasn't my intention. I was talking more about how the defenders advantage of LOL is very high and imo higher than that of both BW and Sc2. The latter comparision is ofc kinda comparing apples to oranges, but at least in one way it makes a ton of sense: - If you make a significant early game error --> You are not gonna instadie in LOL, but you frequently will in Sc2 or BW. Late game ofc you could perhaps argue that the defenders advantage in LOL is lower than in BW, but it's still such a weird comparison. Becuase in a MOBA the game - at that point - tends to drag on for so long and you actually want to encourage 5v5 teamfights rather than splitpushing (that's at least my opinion and most people will agree with me). So in LOL it does make sense that the defenders adantage (which the towers provide) is being reduced over time. If your point is that the defenders advantage shouldn't be reduced over time in Sc2 (and I guess be more like DOTA?), then - too an extent - I can agree with you. However, even then I am not a fan of the high ground approach. @ High ground
Relative to the "tower" approach, a high grond advantage doesn't provide an "absolute boost" but a percentage based advantage. This has two consequences that I don't find desireable (but not neccesarily bad either): (1) Early/mid game timing attacks/all-ins aren't nerfed as a consquence of the defenders advantage. I find it important that it's easy to survive the early game as it will allow a greater amount of build order options (and also make the game easier to play for players that do not have super refined builds - Neither Sc2 or BW does a good job of this). (2) It doesn't really allow a low army count to beat a larger army count. Instead, the counter to a small army count is a higher army value. Thus, a high ground advantage is unlikely to have a significant positive effect on more spread-out armies. Instead, I would like to see abilities like DS in Sc2 as they allow you to split your army into multiple positions. Strong positional AOE units like Siege Tanks and Reavers can also do that. This is incredibly vague. Air units vs ground units? Is that something which doesn't exist in BW? The intention of these examples were to demonstrate that there were multiple hardcounters in Sc2 which would never be there in LOL. I didn't write that they didn't exist in BW either, instead I just wrote that BW was a bit more softcounter-focussed than Sc2. Immortal, Maurauder obv a harder counter vs armored than the Dragoon is. Then you have the Colossus < Vikings. And you have our newly beloved Cyclone that can kill a lot of stuff without taking any damage in the proces. Those types of units are very contrary to the design philosophy of Riot. I don't disagree with your claim that Riot is designing champs in relation to each other (they obviously are), but I fail to see how this is the case in Sc2. Or at least the way it is being executed in Sc2 is opposite of how the champion design proces would work in LOL. Think about the Tempest? How does that unit interact with anything? This would be comparable to Riot implementing an ADC with 3 times the standard attack range and then make it slower to compensate.... They would never do such a thing because they are interested in making it possible for all types of champions to deal damage, cast abilities/dodge abilities against each other. Isn't a big orange cloud into which ranged units deal 0 damage a pretty strong counter to a race based on ranged units? A red goo disease which brings everything down to 1hp? What do you call those? Soft counters? Yeah... in your opinion. What do you do when the enemy casts that cloud on your units and lings come near you??? Answer: You move away = Countermicro. The only case where countermicro cannot be done is when you have Siege Tanks (where they cannot move) or perhaps when the cloud is being cast inside your base/natural (so you cannot retreat further).
Blah blah blah. Again a domain of subjective opinion. You can argue this to death. What is counterplay really? The fact that you can dodge most if not all shots and that you're CC'd short durations? In that case League wins. League has in-combat counterplay that puts an emphasis on movement and aim. Is this form of counterplay somehow inherently purer than other forms of designing a game?
Counterplay is related to engagements/small skirmishes. If one player does a specific action with his units/hero/champion (during the engagement) and the enemy can do an action that minimizes the effect of that action --> Counterplay. Amongst others, counterplay includes: - Splitting vs banelings - Moving out of clouds/Psy storms - Pulling back a unit that is being focus f ired - Drop micro - Dodging skillshots. It assumes a certain type of counterplay is purer than another,
No it's really just a definition based on how people generally use the terms. Whether counterplay is good or bad is a different discussion. With regards to itemization, that's related to decisions outside combat. In Sc2 that would be "which units should I buy or what upgrades to get?" If this proces is non obvious and depends upon a lot of factors, I would argue that there is lots of strategic depth. In my opinion both BW, Sc2 and LOL doesn't have good strategic depth. Dota definitely has the best system in place here. And I am also very fond of how Dota items changes how you can play each hero. I think that's something Starcraft definitely could learn from.
We temporarily agree with Riot that positioning is a lesser form of counterplay.
Positioning prior to combat isn't counterplay. Positioning during combat is however in a different category as you often will position your self relative to what the opponent is doing. How do I "know" this? Because i am basing this on the general community perception. Remember WOL Infestor. Noone would ever say that there is counterplay(micro) to Fungal Growth even though you could position yourself better (prior to combat) to minimize the impact of the ability.
Your view is presented clearer here. Becomes easier to respond.
1) I think in SC2 the overall strength of armies have to be kept closer in relation to each other, and this I compare with League having to keep overall scaling or power curves more equal. In other words: 20000 team networth for one team will be made to roughly correspond to the same amount of scaling and strength that 20000 networth will for the other team. If that's not the case, then the balance designers in these games will actively strive to make it the case. That's the context I think of when I compare SC2 to League.
You cannot in these games easily introduce a team/army composition which requires a 15k networth lead against the opposing team/player for that "inferior" composition to be on equal footing with the better scaling one. Whenever that happens, the communities of both games tend to complain. "It's unfair: One team/army has to work much harder to be equally strong". This perception that audiences develop in my opinion stems from these games having, comparatively speaking, more limited potential to compensate scaling differences by the way of adjusting your economical approach and strategy.
I'm not saying there's absolutely NO differences between armies or team compositions. There are plenty of AD carrys considered to be midgame centered while plenty others are lategame centered. But what I'm saying is: if you compare league to its closest neighbour dota, then the latter has much more unequal scaling. The latter will have much more extreme networth differences whenever you tune in to watch games. The latter will have more heroes specifically designed to require much more "gold per amount of scaling added". You will not be surprised in the latter game if one hero is supposed to be able to farm at a rate where they should be at 30k networth by the time other heroes will be at 20k. You will tend not to see this same phenomenon in League. Wherever it exists it's much less pronounced, and Riot are more likely to step in and "equalize" the power curve wherever they identify this.
This is the sense in which I feel dota and BW are more similar. A 70 supply zerg can hold off a 150 supply M&M terran in BW. As you mention: really strong defensive spells like dark swarm allow for these major differences in army values while overall balance still remains solid. In my opinion, out of all the mobas, dota is the one most designed in a similar spirit of lesser value holding off greater value. Where in order for compositions to become balanced, one party has to aggressively outfarm or outexpand the other. That's what the balance of these games is based on.
Whereas in League and SC2, if there's a champion or unit causing a problem to overall strength, that unit will eventually get hammered down to ensure that the overall exchange between compositions remains roughly fair and equal.
It's an oversimplification, but that's my assessment of how these games in general are being balanced.
2) Counterplay. Yes you're probably right the community perception will be as you say. Most of the SC2 community would have that opinion of fungal growth.
Part of what makes that opinion so strong I think is how armies and battles aren't split, but very concentrated. There's always a lot riding on getting a good outcome in that big battle in SC2. That makes the spell doubly as frustrating to play against.
I'm just speculating here though. But I think fungal would be perceived as less of an issue if SC2 had a different type of gameplay. Just like crits and "anti-counterplay" spells, on the whole, aren't perceived as much of a problem by regular dota players. The game, and the kind of skills it puts emphasis on, determines a lot of what the perception will be imo.
|
just like bw, vision and nrg and all.
its about risk and reward for both players, adds to decision making. it becomes less predictable and can cause cool moments. i remember some game where a unit behind a doodad killed more than it should and it caused an uproar from everyone. this wouldnt happen without nrg.
simply taking high ground advantage as this or that much damage more or less is so boring.
|
i think sc2 high ground is fine but i think it shouldn't be possible to spot for low ground fire on the high ground just by having vision
i think you should only be able to shoot units that are on the very edge of a cliff unless it's with a unit like tanks or colossus. this lets tanks make more sense than "i sieged up in the right spot faster than you so i win!!1" and actually have a unique role as an aggressive siege unit, and also gives colossus some utility back since they suck now. being able to blink up cliffs with vision should still be fine
i dont really care what this would do to balance overall because its a beta and its a time to experiment, and i also realize that high ground isnt going to change anyway, so this is just how i would like to see it work. dont really care if anyone protests that it would mess up x y or z strategy, just my opinion
|
There's nothing wrong with the status quo. Below the highground you can't see or retaliate your enemy up there when you're being attacked unless you have air units to give you a vision. That just makes air units more important, as the vision from above makes the huge difference between retaliation with no miss and inability to retaliate at all.
|
On July 21 2015 13:22 TedCruz2016 wrote:
There's nothing wrong with the status quo. Below the highground you can't see or retaliate your enemy up there when you're being attacked unless you have air units to give you a vision. That just makes air units more important, as the vision from above makes the huge difference between retaliation with no miss and inability to retaliate at all.
I think the main time high-ground advantage (of any kind) comes into play is when charging up a ramp. That is the scenario where it is most critical.
With vision only, then once a few units are up, you have vision, and any advantage is gone. You might as well be attacking into a concave on flat ground.
With RNG miss, attacking up a ramp is always hard, if half your army is down on the low ground, they will be punished hard.
|
On July 21 2015 13:38 phantomfive wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2015 13:22 TedCruz2016 wrote:
There's nothing wrong with the status quo. Below the highground you can't see or retaliate your enemy up there when you're being attacked unless you have air units to give you a vision. That just makes air units more important, as the vision from above makes the huge difference between retaliation with no miss and inability to retaliate at all. I think the main time high-ground advantage (of any kind) comes into play is when charging up a ramp. That is the scenario where it is most critical. With vision only, then once a few units are up, you have vision, and any advantage is gone. You might as well be attacking into a concave on flat ground. With RNG miss, attacking up a ramp is always hard, if half your army is down on the low ground, they will be punished hard.
Then I guess the solution should be a range buff that enables the defending forces on the high ground shoot farther.
|
I think in SC2 the overall strength of armies have to be kept closer in relation to each other, and this I compare with League having to keep overall scaling or power curves more equal. In other words: 20000 team networth for one team will be made to roughly correspond to the same amount of scaling and strength that 20000 networth will for the other team. If that's not the case, then the balance designers in these games will actively strive to make it the case. That's the context I think of when I compare SC2 to League.
Okay my bad, I see I somewhat misinterpreted you.
This is the sense in which I feel dota and BW are more similar. A 70 supply zerg can hold off a 150 supply M&M terran in BW.
I 100% agree that I would like to see more of these abilities. That said, isn't it what they are trying to do with a lot of the units in LOTV? I look at the Disruptor as a complete anti-deathball unit that - unlike most other protoss units - performs better against a large group of enemy units than a small group.
But what I think Sc2 is lacking currently are defensive/positional anti-deathball units/abilities. Like DS that doesn't automatically make you kill anything, but simply allows you to hold a specific position against an infinitive numbers of enemy units.
I think you can't actually emphasize the importance Dark Swarm had on the dynamic in BW enough. Regardless of what economy or high ground you have, you can't hold multiple positions all over the map if the unit design doesn't allow you to be very cost efficient in low numbers.
I'm just speculating here though. But I think fungal would be perceived as less of an issue if SC2 had a different type of gameplay.
I think the forgivingness of a single misplay depends alot on what happens afterwards in the game. In sc2 a protoss/terran could simply not afford to get hit by a bad fungle growth. The game would bascially be GG afterwards.
In MOBA's the defenders/fallback-mechanic is significantly stronger meaning the overall effect of a splitsecond error feels more acceptable. That's also why I believe that the future of the RTS genre involves some type of modified tower approach and objective focus (reason to be out on the map).
The issue with relying only Dark Swarm'ish abilities to create a proper fallback-mechanic (and no "towers") is that the unit design can not be as diverse while maintaining a "proper dyanmic". E.g. if a unit composition doesn't have such a powerful positional ability, then it will be very unforgiveable to play.
|
On July 21 2015 16:55 Hider wrote:
I think the forgivingness of a single misplay depends alot on what happens afterwards in the game. In sc2 a protoss/terran could simply not afford to get hit by a bad fungle growth. The game would bascially be GG afterwards.
I think this single statement is a very important observation! Mistakes will happen, bad things will be the result. The question is the amount of "result contrast". Is it black-and-white (you win, you loose) or in shades of gray (you are behind, but still in the game).
|
Hider. I'm just interested in hearing what you think would happen if you introduced these strong fallback-mechanics in for example the current version of SC2.
Like do you think they could simply implement a dark swarm and there would suddenly be interesting interactions all over the place? Could the game be fixed just like that if they just changed the unit designs to introduce the things you're talking about?
You know my view because I tend to repeat it so often. I don't think you can put in strong defender's advantages, or turtling units/spells with successful results in games where it's easy or inevitable that both player or both teams reach max economic output.
Do you have any reason or arguments to believe that simply changing unit designs will be enough to make players approach the game differently? In other words: If I have 3 bases and if my opponent has 3 bases, and if it's fairly easy and inevitable for both of us to reach this point, then why would any of us freely attack into dark swarm'ish abilities instead of just camping and maintaining 3 active bases while waiting for favourable engagement positions?
What would trigger the action in this situation? Why would one player knowingly and consciously attack into the other's superior fallback-mechanic?
|
Like do you think they could simply implement a dark swarm and there would suddenly be interesting interactions all over the place?
Not at the caliber of Dark Swarm. Dark Swarm would be an extremely overpowered ability in Starcraft and could obviously only work if 3 conditions were met:
(1) The race has a lower army value/economy when Dark Swarm is researched --> This makes sure that the "powerspike" when Dark Swarm is researched is justified
(2) The race is spread out over multiple bases --> If not, turtling will be too easy
(3) The other races have later game counters --> If not, then the race with Dark Swarm would always win in the late game.
I think all of these conditions are very unrealistic in Sc2 (you would need a different economy/macromechanics).
However, that's not to say that replicating some of the dynamic (hold position) is impossible. In a previous page, I made the following suggestion. I designed it for protoss becasue I think protoss - out of all races - would benefit the most by a hold position ability.
The ability, unlike Dark Swarm, however have more disadvantages that I find neccesary in order to make it balanced, but the position-strenght of Dark Swarm is still there.
Here is a specific suggestion (inspired by Dark Swarm).
(1) Remove feedback and give High Templar a "Freeze"-ability.
(2) Freeze can be used on friendly and enemy units and is a target ground AOE "skillshot" (that means its projectile based).
(3) Freeze has a duration of 15-20 seconds.
(4) Freeze makes units take no damage against ranged and (most) abilities.
(5) Units that are freezed are however immobile over the duration of the ability, but can still attack.
(6) Freezed units take 50% extra damage from melee attacks.
Slightly complicated ability indeed, but I think it can have huge strategic implications and make the game much more multitaskbased. With Freeze you can split your Colossus into multiple areas over the map and when the enemy attacks one of the locations you can freeze the Colossus. This means that 1 or 2 Colossus can hold position against a big bio or roach/hydra ball.
However, the enemy can take advantage if you overuse/misuse Freeze by abusing the immobility of the Freezed units and attacking somewhere else. In terms of unit compositions, terran can "counter" it by getting more Hellbats (defined as melee), zerg can get Ultras and Speedlings and protoss can get Chargelots.
On top of being a "defend a specific location"-ability, it also has uses during teamfights where you can freeze your frontline (so the enemy wastes their attack). Or you can use it on enemy units to lock them/isolate them from the rest of the army.
For terran, I think you can justifiy much stronger Siege Tanks when you force players to take bases so much quicker/spread out more in the new LOTV economy. Even if the max-saturation cap is unchanged, it will be unlikely that an immobile race will be able to maintain the same income as the mobile race + just the fact that you need to defend more bases at the same time, will force a siege tank player to spread his tanks tank line thinner.
So theoretically it makes sense to me that you could buff Tanks (especially in the late game) to such a degree that a couple of tanks by them selves would be very cost efficient in a larger army. On top of that, I also believe that the Viking has a problematic impact on mech. It kinda prevents a lot of the counters you would see in BW. E.g. dropplay or air spellcasters gets shut down by the Viking. I think it's much "healthier" if the anti-air armored unit is on the ground (see this thread for my specific suggestions to mech: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/490611-liberator-in-tvz-is-it-imba?page=5)
If the latter was the case, it would also give more options for the opponent to abuse the immobility of the mech army.
At last, it's also clear that maps probably have to change in order to make it realistic that a mech player would opt to split up his army. On too many LOTV maps it seems to me that you can takes bases in order to get closer to your opponent, and I find that map design to be inconsistent with very strong Siege Tanks.
Personally, I would love to see games played on a map like Tal Darim that contains this immobile vs mobile dynamic.
If I have 3 bases and if my opponent has 3 bases, and if it's fairly easy and inevitable for both of us to reach this point, then why would any of us freely attack into dark swarm'ish abilities instead of just camping and maintaining 3 active bases while waiting for favourable engagement positions?
At least 3 reasons:
1. Units scale differently
2. You have strong harass tools that can cirvument the defenders advantage and allow you do something cost-effectively.
3. You can deal damage that reduces the future income of the opponent relative to your future expected income.
But it's really neccasary to analyze this dynamic by looking at mobile vs immobile and, mobile vs mobile and immobile vs immobile. For simplicity, let's assume that bio represents mobile and immobile = mech.
Bio vs mech
In order to determine whether there are reasons to expect army trading/action/harass in this matchup, we need to asses two factors:
1. The incentive
2. The tools
In bio vs mech, it's unlikely that the mech player will have the same income as the bio player throughout the majority of the game. In order to take an extra base he needs to have a critical tank count + must also be able to defend vs dropplay/runbys.
Since (a) the mech player scales better in higher numbers and (b) it's likely that there will be an income assymetry --> There is an incentive to army trade for the bio player.
It's also clear that the Medivac provides the bio player with the tools to be aggressive. Even if he is trading somewhat cost inefficiently, it can be worth it becasue the mech player benefits from scale and he will be able to take bases slower in the future.
It's also important to understand that when you have a mobile composition that have constant opportunities to attack everywhere on the map and - somewhat easily - can escape if things go wrong, that there will be lot of army trading.
The reason is that the bio player easily can move around and threatens attack everywhere. If he finds a weak spot he can attack it, and even if he fails the cost isn't very high. That's partly due to the mech player not being able of counterattacking very easily (even if the army size is larger).
This means that the disadvantage of a failed army trade --> Lower --> Increases the risk/reward for the bio player to trade.
Relative to the BW econ, it's definitely a concern that there won't actually be a reason for the mech player to attack. In BW you could make 2-4 base timing attacks. However, with the LOTV economy the mech player will almost always prefer to take an additional base instead (and you can't attack and defend at the same time as immobile race).
That said, I don't think this is so problematic as long as (a) the mech player can still harass and (b) the defensive style is an option not a must. If all you could do with the race was to turtle for 30+ minutes, that would be lame, but when its your choice to play this style it feels more acceptable.
Mech vs mech
The level of aggression depends on 2*2 factors:
1A. The strenght of harass-options
1B. How harass threats are countered. If you counter the threat of enemy harass by reacting after it's in your base --> More action will happen. If instead you try to set up your base defense to completely shut down harass --> You create an equilibrium where harassing isn't efficient.
2A: How efficient it is to be aggressive with Siege Tanks. This depends on two elements. (1) How probable it is that your efficient with your siege tank aggression and (2) how much damage you will do.
2B: The cost of the aggression gone wrong. E.g. if your opponent can catch all of your siege tanks and kill them easily after you have failed --> The risk/reward of being aggressive is reduced.
Assessing all of these factors can be quite comprehensive, but in general it should be obvious that it's definitely not impossible through unit design to reward aggression in mech vs mech. You should be able to harass with Hellions, hellbats and Banshee's (esp if that Viking is changed to anti-light instead of anti-armored).
And often time you are actually heavily rewarded for moving out with siege tanks and gaining positioning with them.
Mobile vs Mobile
I don't think mobile vs mobile is actually a healthy dynamic unless there is a very obvious defenders advatnage in place. In TvZ the defenders advantage is creep spread and wall-offs. The effect is that just because you have the strongest army, doesn't imply that you can go kill your opponent.
However this defenders advantage only works when its bio vs melee. In ranged vs ranged, the defenders advantage is efficiently removed and the dynamic therefore quite lame.
This is why I am not a fan of watching compositions like Warpgate vs zerg. Bio vs bio or bio vs Roach/Hydra.
|
On July 21 2015 21:19 BlackLilium wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2015 16:55 Hider wrote:
I think the forgivingness of a single misplay depends alot on what happens afterwards in the game. In sc2 a protoss/terran could simply not afford to get hit by a bad fungle growth. The game would bascially be GG afterwards.
I think this single statement is a very important observation! Mistakes will happen, bad things will be the result. The question is the amount of "result contrast". Is it black-and-white (you win, you loose) or in shades of gray (you are behind, but still in the game).
Definitely. In LotV there's an extreme focus on being able to make sick plays. This is a great thing, it adds excitement, the possibility of amazing comebacks, but it is sadly more often than not a game ender. It wouldn't have to be that way with much stronger defenders advantage on strong positions of the map.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
