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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
On April 16 2011 12:46 pit__ wrote: This seems like a really cool idea. You could also slow the game speed down to faster/normal. This would have an analogous effect. i'm gonna stop this right here. no game design please. | ||
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Gimix
United States67 Posts
On April 16 2011 12:48 mahnini wrote: i'm gonna stop this right here. no game design please. not to be a dick, but your original post was entirely game design. | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
Very simple things like preventing repair of a bunker with FF the commentators go crazy over, but it's easy to do... The core flaw with sc2 is that if you'd graph the skill you have vs how well you play, even if a pro is 3 times better than you, it looks like he's only 10% better than you. While in scbw a pro 50% better than you will look 300% more skilled when he plays. Saying something like "Oh people like Flash/Jaedong needs to switch" is so wrong. We have the best foreignors from bw playing sc2 and they aren't that much better than the regular gamer in though in scbw they were godly. When JD plays even if he makes wrong decisions nobody even noticed because he plays so good, but in sc2 very often you can tell yourself that this person is approaching the game wrong. And I di agree with the way sc2 battles are fought. It mostly all revolves around one big battle with just strange deathball attacks. | ||
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Shana
Indonesia1814 Posts
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emesen
United States256 Posts
the other match ups really don't hold that level of entertainment. no I take that back... back when Fungal Growth was 8 seconds long it helped ling surrounds and baneling splash (Fruitdealer's GSL open season 1 run.).. but now it just causes damage and wears off too fast. now that i think about it Z is still interesting to watch because of how fragile the units are and how effective they can be before being destroyed hmmm.. yeah I'd have to admit that P has no dynamic luster to them... | ||
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ChaseR
Norway1004 Posts
The differences in battles is something that was criticized from the beta I think, BW players shrugging SC2 off for being a noob-friendly dumbed down "1a" fest just relying on the superior AI, but it kinda blew over as I guess people have just accepted SC2 for what it is. TvT feels like the most exciting matchup to watch, there's just so many units on the battlefield playing their roles in the game, siege tank lines, marine drops, banshee harras, vikings, marauders rushing into tanks even MVP BC's :D PvP bores me silly, because of the 4 gate warp tech, yes there's more micro involved but every game becomes the same repetitive process. There's no defenders advantage and being aggressive in SC2 is more critical to the flow of the game I guess. Someone mentioned earlier how battles are over in matter of seconds in SC2 and that's something that bothers me also, as there's very little opportunity as a player at a disadvantage to actually micro when the one with the superior DPS army will quickly wipe the other one out. | ||
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GwSC
United States1997 Posts
On April 16 2011 13:00 emesen wrote: I am in agreement about your assessment of units that require set up leading to built up tension of the oncoming battle.. TvT is a prime example of this MVP v Ryung, MVP v MMA, NaDa v dde, those were some epic games about setting up tanks to decimate marines and marines catching tanks out of siege and rolling them... the other match ups really don't hold that level of entertainment. no I take that back... back when Fungal Growth was 8 seconds long it helped ling surrounds and baneling splash (Fruitdealer's GSL open season 1 run.).. but now it just causes damage and wears off too fast. now that i think about it Z is still interesting to watch because of how fragile the units are and how effective they can be before being destroyed hmmm.. yeah I'd have to admit that P has no dynamic luster to them... Totally agree with that first part there. TvT seems to easily have the most epic games. Other match ups are lacking that level of importance in positioning and careful planning. This comes from someone that plays Zerg. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 16 2011 11:49 mahnini wrote: What about pre-fight EMPs, fungals and feedbacks? Players could easily make structure walls in SC2, they just haven't yet. It's not like the Mind vs. Bisu layout happened over night.i mean let's take tvp as an example. before a fight you are laying mines everywhere, in front of your tanks, possible flanking points, basically exerting as much map control as possible so the protoss can't freely move into your tank line. you put up turrets to take care of shuttles, tier off tanks to make sure shots aren't wasted and try to get pot shots on units as they attack into your minefield. tvp in sc2 is a matter of spreading units and making sure all of your units are firing. it's true you can still control pacing in sc2, but not to the extent with which you could in BW. again tvp as an example, if a terran tries to death push you from his nat to your nat you use your mobility and exert map control. give inch by inch. force extra seiges force mines to be laid AWAY from your nat. this aspect of controlling the pace by exerting map control doesn't exist in sc2 because unit dynamics don't allow it to. forcing a colossus to fire a laser at my kiting units is completely different from forcing a tank to seige. backstabs are interesting in their own right but that doesn't replace the ability to definitively control area as well as tanks and lurkers did. if i push a protoss back into his nat and he warps in a round of units putting him at an advantage over me there's no way to solidify my position, no way to punish him for losing map control. i feel like i am repeating myself a lot here but, pvz corruptor roach hydra vs colossus sentry stalker zealot. these are huge moving balls of death that dont require setup. there is still some excitement with forcefields and the outcome of casting those but what else? what is honestly happening when these two armies clash, they are just dishing out as much dps as possible. it doesn't matter if the zerg has half the map covered in creep the outcome of the fight will be entirely unchanged. in bw pvz, you are able to risk units for damage. you can get shots off before a lurker is burrowed. pick off overeager lurkers, storm chasing zerglings. in sc2 pvz, the setup time doesn't exist. you fight ball vs ball with everything you have and more likely than not the outcome of that fight will determine the game. i'm saying sc2 units do not have the range necessary to provide a significant defender's advantage. when it's ball vs ball with no sieging or burrows needed, there's no reason to hold ground unless it puts you at a surface area advantage. in SC2 zvp, if i trade half my army for 25% of yours you can march forward uncontested because i won't have units to hold any ground. any fight i pick before i have a solid unit advantage results in a loss. in bw i can delay with lurkers because they exert definitive map control. if you want to attack into 2 control groups of well spread lurkers you are taking significant damage no matter what. you pick out irradiate here but you can't honestly say the player interaction when someone casts a forcefield was vs a dark swarm is anywhere near the same. you can move 100% freely under a dark swarm and unit compositions allowed you to fight units in a dark swarm. it forced a tremendous amount of control on both sides. what does a protoss have to do to maximize his forcefield wall? what can a terran do to minimize damage from a forcefield wall? more importantly, perhaps, what happens when you lose 10% of your army to a ff wall when you were otherwise on equal ground with the protoss? you run. you can't slowly move back. can't cost effectively pick units. you just run. it would be impressive but the effect of the spell is diminished. so instead of a mutual exchange of crazy micro you have a one-sided exchange. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used. goliaths required player involvement to be effective. goliath vs mutas or lings would be a massacre if goliahts weren't micro'd. on the other hand, thors effectively can't be micro'd because they are so slow. what does a thor do against zergligns? it can't do anything. the interesting part of bw units was the player involvement needed not necessarily the role it had in composition. phoenixes are much more diverse that corsairs but think of the micro that is required to keep corsairs alive vs scourge. think of the micro that's required to kill corsairs. this is the kind of invovlement that is missing from sc2 units.[/quote]Fair enough on those fronts, but marine control gets a lot more attention in SC2 than BW. There's other units in SC2 that still require baby sitting. there's much less potential for micro in sc2. what do you do with a roach? or corruptor how do you micro those well? think about the differnce between lategame zvp in sc2 and lategame zvp in bw. there is always tons to do in bw. burrow lurkers, surround with lings, cast dark swarm, consume, rinse and repeat as the protoss pulls back. this doesnt exist in sc2, hydra corruptor roach just deals dps and if your attack runs out of steam you cant pull back to the ground you've earned and occupied with lurkers. you just run back home or keep attacking. true. exaggeration on my part but still holds some truth to it. that's true. however, let's think about lurker ling vs roach ling zvp. there's no tension in an attack because there's nothing to anticipate other than perhaps forcefields. in bw it depended on how you burrowed how well were you pushing with lurkers and surrounding with lings. this doesnt exist with roach ling because it's just an exchange of flat damage. you can't pick a roach before it does damage. more importantly when a zerg is defending what can they do besides attack into the protoss? | ||
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mordk
Chile8385 Posts
Right: -Blink stalkers: Blink is an incredibly versatile ability, which is very mediocre in noobish hands, and incredibly powerful in great player's hands. The things you can do with blink are, well, hard to account for since they are so many. Just a win by blizz. -Forcefields: This is controversial, but I think it has 3 good points about it. It makes positional warfare incredibly important, it makes the enemy go active against the protoss army in order to counter them (You absolutely must make sentries spend their energy, or they will kill you, particularly as zerg or bio terran), and in the future, when people's micro is more developed, it will make sniping sentries a very important tactical aspect. It's a skill that can be overpowered if used right, and very costly if not. Good ability. -Warp prisms: Even more powerful than shuttles, I think they are only marginally used because it takes some micro to use them beautifully, White-Ra showed a nice example vs MC on GSL WC, it can also be used to break siege lines with immortals, elevator tactics, evading contains (See MC vs Rain, GSL open season 3 finals), and more. A really cool concept. -Phoenix: Phoenixes are just fun to use. Moving shot is a great thing, and it can make micro supremely important, graviton beam is also an interesting skill. All in all, phoenixes are a very well made unit. -Immortals: Immortals are interesting because they are a unit that fills a very specific role. A specialist. Also, given their range and their odd way of moving, they are a little idiotic as goons were (not quite as much though), which makes their position and micro important. They are also able to quickly destroy important units, which raises their value high above other units. They are important positionally, and value-wise. Good addition to the game. -Warpgates: Powerful mechanic that makes protoss a more versatile race, and helps it differentiate itself from the others. It's an ability that has character, and creates a unique way of playing. Very good, I like it a lot. Things that went wrong: -Zealot charge instead of speed: It's supposed to make zealots be different from BW speedlots, and it is a very powerful ability, but it makes zealots way too one dimensional, because, unlike speedlots, chargelots can't be microed effectively. They just set a target and go. Zealot micro was an important part of their use in BW, and, while powerful, chargelots are just not as interesting as speedlots. -SC2 High templars: When amulet was there, they were too powerful in defense, now that they're gone, they're vastly outdone by collossi in the AoE department. They're useable and not completely wrong, but storms aren't nearly as flashy and awesome as they were in BW. They're too short, their sound effect too unspectacular, and too easy to pull off perfectly. I'm sure they'll regain importance though, when people find more effective counters to collossi. -Collossus: This is probably the worst of all. A fail of a concept. A unit that is way too powerful for it's own good. It creates a power vortex around them and makes the whole game circle around their use, not a good thing for SC2, which needs to diversify more to become more interesting. Their AoE damage is too high, their range is way too long, and they give high ground sight, which is incredibly powerful given SC2's high ground mechanics. It's just a boring unit, particularly if compared to the reaver, which was so interesting and exciting to watch. -Mothership: Second worst fail. The mothership is too slow to have any relevance in nearly any game. Stasis was a better concept than vortex, and mass recall makes few to no sense in a stationary unit. The arbiter was a great unit, which created an awesome shift in tactical possibilities when it showed up. They screwed up, the mothership is TOO SLOW. -Archons: The problem with archons lies not in the unit itself, but rather on how it interacts with the SC2 world. It's like they just took the BW archon an transported it directly into SC2. The thing is, units in SC2 are so clumped up together, and deal such high DPS in groups, that archons can no longer tank. Similar to what happens to the ultralisk, archons just die instantly. "Tank" units are not viable in SC2, because they die to fast. Archons need a lot more shield points to be effective. Also, their AoE is minimal, and their graphic is unspectacular. BW archons looked way more impressive and fearsome. Also, they really have to make archons Massive. Being slowed by marauders makes them truly terrible. Void rays, DTs, probe and base building mechanics, and chronoboosts are fine, nothing special, nothing too wrong about them either. (Don't bring up corruptor vs VR, I think it's corruptors that need a buff, not VRs that need nerfs) | ||
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EscPlan9
United States2777 Posts
On April 16 2011 13:00 emesen wrote: I am in agreement about your assessment of units that require set up leading to built up tension of the oncoming battle.. TvT is a prime example of this MVP v Ryung, MVP v MMA, NaDa v dde, those were some epic games about setting up tanks to decimate marines and marines catching tanks out of siege and rolling them... the other match ups really don't hold that level of entertainment. no I take that back... back when Fungal Growth was 8 seconds long it helped ling surrounds and baneling splash (Fruitdealer's GSL open season 1 run.).. but now it just causes damage and wears off too fast. now that i think about it Z is still interesting to watch because of how fragile the units are and how effective they can be before being destroyed hmmm.. yeah I'd have to admit that P has no dynamic luster to them... I was just thinking along the same lines. The way Protoss is designed in SC2 makes the matchups involving them rather bland. The biggest difference to me between the SC2 Protoss "deathball" and SCBW Terran "deathball" is similar to what the OP mentioned - there is no setup required for the SC2 Protoss deathball. It is simply grouping up everything and attacking. Not having them all grouped together is really bad for the Protoss deathball, so it naturally lends itself to the one-control-group 1a attack. With the BW Terran "deathball", if you just run a bunch of vultures, goliaths, tanks, and scvs into your opponent, Zergs and Protoss will eat you alive. You have to gradually push out with positioning, turret placement, mines, sieging, etc. And likewise, there was a distinct disadvantage to the Terran deathball in SCBW. Since it required so much setup to be a strong force, you were very immobile. People sometimes say the SC2 Protoss deathball is immobile - but it's not the case. It's not a matter of the Protoss units have to take time to setup, it's just a matter of all their units are out in the field and not at home. Of course if they aren't maxed, they can just warp in units wherever they want for defending small counter attacks. And if the counter attack is any larger, the deathball can just 1a (since it requires no setup) and destroy all your bases. After reading the OP I have been having so many fond memories of the better parts of BW. I remember watching ZvP where Protoss had the lead, but Zerg was able to delay them with lurker fields and sniping obs to prevent the kill. Protoss had to wait until they had another observer before they could engage. I feel like SC2 Terrans have the most micro possibilities (stutter step micro, reapers, hellions, etc). They also have a (limited) ability to exert map control with tanks. I don't think there's many who disagree that SC2 TvT is the most exciting matchup. That is a HUGE change from SCBW TvT days, where people would watch TvT vods to help them sleep lol | ||
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Bwenjarin Raffrack
United States322 Posts
1) Drama. For example, I miss the miss chance (as well as the defender's advantage it imparts), and I made a post about this back in beta. On March 05 2010 01:42 Bwenjarin Raffrack wrote: The only recent game I could think of where the miss chance made all the difference: Flash's vulture barely slips by on the ramp and gives him the intel he needs to decide to do a timing push to punish Stork's greedy build. Some of you will look at this and say, "See? Pure randomness and luck let Flash win that crucial ace match. It doesn't belong in Starcraft." Others will say, "See? The crowd and commentators held their breath in utter suspense when that vulture was about to be taken out. This is what watching Starcraft is all about." And then others will say, "See? Stork ignored a fundamental strategical element of the game, didn't react fast enough or guard his front better, and paid the price. Things like this are why Starcraft is such a strategically deep game." Of course, the people in the live thread just said, "2400!! FLASH BONJWA!!!" The drama of randomness can be good for spectatorship, and that can best be seen in the suspense of a reaver scarab or a spider mine. Any time a reaver fires into a mineral line, you'll hear the audience gasp. Compare the drama of observing BW to the surety of SC2. No miss chance, no dud scarabs, full production tabs and player sight. Omniscience takes away much of the romance for the spectator. Defender's advantage is a whole other thread entirely. 2) Difficulty. Difficulty can make things exciting, even something intrinsically dull. The macro in BW with single building selection, for example. Most of the time macro is out of sight, out of mind of the viewer, but some times it can give a certain sense of excitement. When  BeSt has nearly broken through a siege line, the observer will snap to his natural expansion to see a stream of a dozen fresh speed zealots stampeding towards the action. The feeling is that of an overwhelming, relentless onslaught. Or take  Flash's macro:Even the commentators many times call his rows of barracks the "city that never sleeps." When his marines cover the whole screen, they can only say "Waaahhh!!" and be amazed that he can not just produce but also command such a large army. Whether it be something as mundane as macro, or all the way up to fangirls screaming at JangBi's panties-melting psi storms, the difficulty can many times make it exciting. Some people in the thread already have commented on feeling nothing from SC2 except... dilution. That the control they see is not hopelessly out of reach but easily attainable. I think improvements in these areas would really help fill a few gaps. | ||
BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
While I do agree with some points in your post, I disagree with others. I agree with the map control, but I do think you missed a point there. You forgot bane mines, so, it's tanks for Terran and mines for Zerg. Given the banes can be eliminated using some scans/raven, etc... but so can the mines for the vulture in BW. Also, what about protoss in BW? What's their map control unit? The Reaver? I'm asking because you only mentioned T/Z and not P so was wondering if they are missing one. Do I think it would be nice to have lurkers back? Of course, I loved teching to them as fast as possible and getting 1-2 right before an attack occurred, but, Blizz makes the final decision and I trust them to make the game as epic as possible, so, I'm not too worried. The same goes for Positioning and setup time. You must be familiar with a PF+4 turrets setup for terran exps. It's pretty hard to take down and make some harasses almost impossible with a large enough force(muta harass, etc...). You also still have siege tanks in SCII so you still have to defend them while they prepare like in BW, only difference is lurkers are missing. The same thing goes for spellcasters. Maybe its due to my lack of BW knowledge, since, I played the game with friends and never laddered so I didn't play competitively, but, last I checked, a storm in BW was similar to SCII. Only difference is that in SCII you aren't limited to 12 units and you can shift between casters or different units using tab. This also doesn't take into account control groups which makes it faster to cast storm. I don't think that Blizz actually intended for storm to be hard to cast, as in only selecting max 12 units and having to choose what to select, etc.... due to this limitation. I doubt they would have predicted BW's success as an e-sport. You are right about one thing though, BW had a lot more abilities to play with that do provide an advantage rather than hinder other units' movements(FF, FG), etc.... I think this part of your post was opinionated: "Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest." Yes I agree with the reaver one and bane one but disagree with the rest. Vikings have a larger range and can land making for quick assaults on mineral lines. Compare that to just cloaking a wraith which I don't personally feel is as interactive. The cloak ability also isn't gone, it's just passed over to the banshee to prevent units other than spellcasters from having multiple abilities. The thor's cannons make them more interactive than a goliath ever was IMO. For the phoenix, you have the graviton beam so you can always go around and shift map control in your favour by removing it from your opponent by lifting tanks, etc.... I think immortals are more interactive because, as long as you keep in mind that their specialty goes into effect if they have their shields on, you can always watch the shield and micro back to regenerate which you can't for the dragoon. As for muta and hydras, they are pretty similar to BW aside from the speed(hydra) which was explained by Dustin. When SCII came out, I thought the game was rather bad for lack of a better word because everything became easier to do. You can rally workers, select 12+ units, etc.... and I recalled liking the tedious aspect of BW. After going back and playing it after giving SCII a chance, I realized that the new implementations in SCII were worth it. They are trying to reduce the need for higher APM so that everyone can get a chance at playing the game and those who have better mechanics/understanding of the game will be able to rise through the ranks. I have to agree with Krehlmar on this one. When I started reading your post, I was hoping for a more neutral position on the issue and while some points are valid, I think others aren't. It's fine though, everyone has their own reasons for liking/disliking a game. I do think that there are parts where you were nitpicking(such as that unit change I quoted) a bit too much just to come up with a point  | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
You just explained why I miss Defilers and Lurkers so much. x-x Well thought out. I hope HotS addresses some of these. Big Fan, Protoss: Zealot bombing storm dropship 3 visible control groups Terran: EMP Vultures targeting templars and zealots to cover tanks 4 visible control groups | ||
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Faze.
Canada285 Posts
On April 16 2011 10:02 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: I am going to perhaps disagree with your post about mechanics. The mechanical requirements of Starcraft: Brood War were indeed partly due to design, but mainly because a minimal standard of expectation was set for pro players I think. There are a set number of strategies and micro related skills that every player of a certain race needed to be able to do almost intuitively in order to remain competitive at the highest level. And these expectations developed over time such as unit/building timing various, certain micro skills, etc. Once this baseline was established in the competitive community, the best players needed to find ways to go beyond the expectations of the community and perform at higher levels. They needed to poke holes in strategies that didn't seem to have holes before. A easy way to see that is the increase in APM to increase the effectiveness of units (like vultures). The increase came because there was a need to play faster and more accurately against an increasing baseline of what you could expect your opponent to be capable of. In starcraft2, pros are still having trouble managing fundamental aspects of the game like consistent and effective use of nexus energy, queen energy, orbital energy, as well as things like unit positioning (i.e. Zealots in front) and timing. With these and other variables in play, the baseline has not really been formed yet and thus no need to go beyond improving ones own fundamentals. When the time comes that in order to play for example Protoss competitively you need to have absolute intuitive mastery over nexus energy in as familiar a way as we expect them to have control over supply management and worker production, we would then see a formation of that needed baseline and the need to find new ways to improve ones self beyond the basic strategy or mechanics of the game. Using old units in new ways will likely require a lot of creativity and probably a bit more APM. It might not end up looking like a good ole Brood War game, but the skill and strategic requirements of the game will be high enough to be comparable. What is and isn't "effective" (death balls) will in all likelihood change over time to suit the standard of play. I agree with this, and I also agree with the OP. I think what the OP is saying is right considering what the game looks and feels like at the moment. But it could be explained with what I quoted. I'm sure things will change a lot with the expansions, and I think it's something kind of "planned" by blizzard. If we take a look at any SC2 pro games right now, we can see several flaws in general management of stuff. Like it has been mentioned already, mules/chrono/injects etc are a bunch of things that aren't fully mastered yet. Along with a lot of unit control and whatnot, I mean we can still see a lot of pro gamers putting everything in only 1 or 2 control groups, resulting in ravens flying over the enemy's army, zealots stuck in the back, zerglings blocking banelings etc. Now imagine what it would be like if people had to do all that AND micro dark swarms, vultures and position lurkers and etc etc. To me it looks like the release of expansion is a learning curve for SC2 progaming. Players have to learn and master what we have now, and then more will be added to the game, new playstyles will appear, and SC2 will slowly look more and more like BW. Maybe in a couple years we will look at the game and say "damn that's crazy, and we could actually do that when SC2 came out but we never knew"... Because honestly, no one knows everything about the game yet, even if it looks like someone does, who could be so sure? No one. That also relates to the fact that it's kind of weird to compare a very well understood and old games, against a young and barely explored game that is still evolving. We could all be wrong (maybe not, but it's not impossible) about which game is the best, all we can do is judge, based on what we see. And what we currently see is extremely limited. | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
The wow factor will have to come in different ways as the interface evolves. | ||
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Parabol732
United States21 Posts
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Ryuu314
United States12679 Posts
I fully agree with Mahnini's OP but Jibba makes some really solid counter-arguments, too. In all honesty, I feel the only big thing missing from SC2 that BW had was the defender's advantage. With no more significant high ground advantage, it's much too easy for games to end after 1 big battle. However, at the same time, it could also be as Jibba pointed out. Pros just aren't that good yet. I'm sure that in the future, there will be more room and more occurances of small skirmishes that culminate into one big battle, similar to how BW plays out currently. We're just not there yet. | ||
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GagnarTheUnruly
United States655 Posts
I also don't agree that there is a problem with player-unit-interaction. I know you don't use the phrase "micro-nullifying ability" but you reference the common complaint people have with units like sentries and infestors -- specifically, that micro doesn't help them to deal with the effects of the spells these units cast. I disagree with this notion entirely. These units encourage micro by requiring players to anticipate the spells. They have to try to snipe the spellcasters, have to keep their armies split and moving, have to feint and dodge to try to cause their opponents to miss... all these things are great for the game and are exciting to watch. And in this way SC2 is actually no different from BW. How does the response of a player to plague differ from the response to fungal, or stasis, or devastating abilities like EMP? That the micro occurs before-the-fact doesn't make it less important or less interesting. I do think that the ability to concentrate DPS in a small area changes the game somewhat. It's not really possible to sprawl units all over the map because sprawled units will get swept away by deathballs unless they are well positioned and actively controlled. But I also think that people are honestly still using their units lazily in SC2. For example it's ridiculous to see how often pros 1a entire protoss armies, letting zealots get stuck behind the stalker line, pulling zealots off attack when they are repositioning their stalkers or bringing colossi along to attack mutalisks... What I'm trying to say is that many of the problems with how units and armies are used in SC2 are still extrinsic and not as intrinsic as I believe you're suggesting. | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On April 16 2011 13:44 Parabol732 wrote: I think everyone seems to forget the fact that there are two more expansions on the way. SCBW had 11 years of balance changes and exposure. SC2 has been out for what, a year if you count the beta? The point is that is too early to compare BW and SC2 because one is ten years older than the other. Give SC2 11 years and I am positive that it will be as great, if not greater, than BW. Swan Song? Over 100 people have said the exact same thing and I just addressed this. Comparing them is stupid. With that said, SC2 is evolving much faster than you might expect. The size of the community has grown at a ridiculous pace. The new play styles you see are a result of the ever-expanding community and map pools more than anything else. HotS will breath fresh air into the game just like LotV will. ._. | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
On April 16 2011 13:32 BigFan wrote: I think this part of your post was opinionated: "Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest." Yes I agree with the reaver one and bane one but disagree with the rest. Vikings have a larger range and can land making for quick assaults on mineral lines. Compare that to just cloaking a wraith which I don't personally feel is as interactive. The cloak ability also isn't gone, it's just passed over to the banshee to prevent units other than spellcasters from having multiple abilities. The thor's cannons make them more interactive than a goliath ever was IMO. For the phoenix, you have the graviton beam so you can always go around and shift map control in your favour by removing it from your opponent by lifting tanks, etc.... I think immortals are more interactive because, as long as you keep in mind that their specialty goes into effect if they have their shields on, you can always watch the shield and micro back to regenerate which you can't for the dragoon. As for muta and hydras, they are pretty similar to BW aside from the speed(hydra) which was explained by Dustin. Yes, you're really missing a lot of things from BW if you don't follow competitive play. The larger range of vikings means that it is less interactive than a wraith. The wraith is fast and fragile but can stack like mutas can. That allows top players like Leta to penetrate even tiny cracks in opponents defenses and pick off units like marines and hydras while they're moving. They barely have more range than mutas so the back and forth hit and run wars are exciting as well. You won't appreciate it until you've seen it in action. It's like muta micro in BW. The immortals are also another symptom of the problem. There wasn't any ground units in BW like immortals and marauders that can cost effectively break a tank line by just a-moving them into it. Breaking tank lines involved drops, dark swarm and good timing. | ||
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