Interesting but I think the colossus is not a good example since it is made susceptible to air (and thus can be picked off by air to air fighters or turrets etc.

CowGoMoo

United States428 Posts

February 24 2010 20:54 GMT

#42

On February 24 2010 17:39 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
Also, while one alphaling would defeat 2 zerglings as described, it's different when its 20 alphalings vs 40 zerglings. The zerglings do better. It's strange.

It is strange, but the reason is in the 2v1 small scale scenario, at no point will the Alphaling lose any damage output. in the large scale scenario, the Alphaling side will lose damage output at some point assuming at least one of them dies (would be crazy weird if none actually died...)

SpiritoftheTunA

United States20903 Posts

February 24 2010 20:57 GMT

#43

has it been considered that teching is just too fast so theres less "phases" and "timings" of the game?

ComradeDover

Bulgaria758 Posts

February 24 2010 21:09 GMT

#44

Colossi aren't THAT tanky from what I've seen, and are very much vulnerable to sniping, even if they aren't as easy to snipe as, say, the HTs in SC1. In the short time beta has been out, I've seen quite a few clutch colossi-sniping plays involving burrow.

Klockan3

Sweden2866 Posts

February 24 2010 21:09 GMT

#45

On February 24 2010 17:53 Centric wrote:

Show nested quote +

Most people who know how to use ultraling will tell you that its the zerglings that actually deal the damage, reason being (as someone already mentioned) the cost-effective DPS.

Zerglings have a DPS of 13.3 (+3 and adrenals) in the late game (which is when you would be using ultraling), and effectively cost only 25 minerals each. Compare that to an ultralisk, that deals less than double, 19.3 (+3) and costs 200 minerals and 200 gas, eight times the total resources. Assuming all resources are the same, that's 154.4 cost-effective DPS opposed to the ultralisks' 19.3.

And if you consider the fact that in the late game gas is a more precious resource, then ultralisks are even less cost-effective if you use them for damage.

Zerglings have more than twice the dps per cost compared to any other unit, even stimmed marines which again have ~twice the dps per cost compared to the next unit. You could do the same comparison of zerglings vs other units in sc2 and you will find similar results there, it isn't fair to use zerglings in the comparisons.

Also if you look at zerglings vs ultras in SC2 it is the same comparison but ultras now have 600 hp instead of 400.

The only thing that really got changed is that big units are able to have high damage outputs, unlike what they had in starcraft where a battlecruiser deals roughly the same dps as a zergling. This adds to diversity, not just the larger you are the less dps you do per price.

micronesia

United States24510 Posts

February 24 2010 21:09 GMT

#46

On February 25 2010 05:57 SpiritoftheTunA wrote:
has it been considered that teching is just too fast so theres less "phases" and "timings" of the game?

This is a misconception which allows my hidden proxy second rax to be very effective :3

FarbrorAbavna

Sweden4856 Posts

February 24 2010 23:47 GMT

#47

I can say that the cyclic nature of of this rule and how it is applied in sc1 still exists very much so in sc2. If something Blizzard has done it is to actually make it even more important in sc2 since you have hard counters but you also have alot more of the soft counters. E.g. marines/lings/zealots get raped by colossi, that have reached critical mass, but make enough of these and give them some decent support(marauders or tanks in the case youre playing as terran, perhaps two or three medivacs) and you now have something that is very capable of killing them and the rest of what support the colossi has(all due to numbers of course, but I'm not talking about making marines that take up 100 supply altogether. 30 will do very nicely together with some focus fire). One unit that stands out as a perfect example of this is the immortal whose hardened shield isnt activated by attacks from light units, hence they go down very quickly to marines or a ling surround(much faster than to a sieged tank). If anything sc2 is quite dependent on how much you have of a certain unit and how you've decided to back these up when taking into consideration your enemys army composition. Now you might say that this is true for any game but here's the kicker: with chrono boost & reactors(the addon to barracks/factories/starports that enables you to make two units at a time) & inject larvae it is easier and most importantly faster than ever to actually mass a certain unit in enough time to counter what your enemy has(scouting is important of course :D). If something the demos and streams I've seen(and I've been dedicating perhaps 6-8h a day this week to watching anything I could get my hands on) people lose because they either try something out and it fails or they had bad army composition and got steamrolled by the opponent. Of course there were the odd ones out where someone would simply lose to bad macro or micro in some cases or he/she was just oblivious to what his opponent had and proceeded to get steamrolled. So rest assured that the game is very dynamic and how it plays out we'll just have to wait and see but I sure as hell am pumped. Oh and for watching demos without an actual key there is this thread e.g. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=113597 among others. Hopefully this has answered your questions(and that I'm not completely off and just dont get sc at all)

FarbrorAbavna

Sweden4856 Posts

February 24 2010 23:48 GMT

#48

oh yeah sorry for the wall of text, tried to keep i short but was sort of hard :D

EmeraldSparks

United States1451 Posts

February 25 2010 01:49 GMT

#49

If you have a wall of text turn it into a wall of paragraphs and suddenly it becomes 10x more readable.

Monokeros

United States2493 Posts

February 25 2010 01:52 GMT

#50

You dont seem to understand just HOW MUCH YOU NEED EMP vs Protoss now adays, oh and if they go colossues it doesnt matter how much shit you got its all LOLOLOL MELTED. The fact that the units that 'counter' colossus are weak against everything else the protoss has in its army is just comical really. The best chance a terran has to win is an early game rush vs leg speed/collosus are finished. Then you run the risk of running into a stlaker immortal army which tears apart anything and everything when you dont have emp.

pzea469

United States1520 Posts

February 25 2010 02:59 GMT

#51

I find the collosus to be pretty fragile, and i like it that way: high damage, low health.

Furthermore, I miss the reaver

feel ya bro

bring them back!

Madam Nomad

5 Posts

February 25 2010 04:31 GMT

#52

(1) In agreement with the OP I'd like to extend his point to another issue that plagued RTS games since their inception - the blob. The blob that steamrolls everything in its path.

Starcraft dealt with massive unit gatherings, aka blobs, with various types of AOE: splash damage and special abilities like psi storm, mines, irradiate, plague, static, dark swarm.

These spells don't seem nearly as satisfying or useful if they don't actually kill units due to their high hp.About half of these skills are missing or they have been replaced with stuff that yet needs to be figured out.

(2)Regardless it helps my imagination to think of HP or life not as an equivalent of damage(DMG) or the number of attacks, but as average time in battle. Even when a unit is instantly focus fired upon, the statistical average remains the same.

This allows to combine a units qualities in one mathematical function.
DPS[dmg/second] * life[seconds] = dmg

Now I just could say that imbalance can be measured in dmg. The desired outcome is
dmg(Protoss) = dmg(Zerg)
or
Imbalance = 0 = dmg(Protoss) - dmg(Zerg)
Yields a perfectly balanced game... even if I install some kind of rock, paper, scissors system or tier progression or other variables, in fact:

The only problem is that average time in battle of a unit depends on many other variables like, speed, armor type etc. For the sake of balance it could be(and probably is) simply measured in simulated benchmarks, it could even be measured on b.net.

Honestly balancing is only claimed to be difficult because it's done using gut feeling and lots of play.

Mora

Canada5235 Posts

February 25 2010 23:00 GMT

#53

On February 25 2010 13:31 Madam Nomad wrote:
(1) In agreement with the OP I'd like to extend his point to another issue that plagued RTS games since their inception - the blob. The blob that steamrolls everything in its path.

Starcraft dealt with massive unit gatherings, aka blobs, with various types of AOE: splash damage and special abilities like psi storm, mines, irradiate, plague, static, dark swarm.

These spells don't seem nearly as satisfying or useful if they don't actually kill units due to their high hp.About half of these skills are missing or they have been replaced with stuff that yet needs to be figured out.

(2)Regardless it helps my imagination to think of HP or life not as an equivalent of damage(DMG) or the number of attacks, but as average time in battle. Even when a unit is instantly focus fired upon, the statistical average remains the same.

This allows to combine a units qualities in one mathematical function.
DPS[dmg/second] * life[seconds] = dmg

Now I just could say that imbalance can be measured in dmg. The desired outcome is
dmg(Protoss) = dmg(Zerg)
or
Imbalance = 0 = dmg(Protoss) - dmg(Zerg)
Yields a perfectly balanced game... even if I install some kind of rock, paper, scissors system or tier progression or other variables, in fact:

The only problem is that average time in battle of a unit depends on many other variables like, speed, armor type etc. For the sake of balance it could be(and probably is) simply measured in simulated benchmarks, it could even be measured on b.net.

Honestly balancing is only claimed to be difficult because it's done using gut feeling and lots of play.

what is your iccup rank?