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It's still viable, it's just really unstable, repair is really important, shitloads of production, and PF's splitting hte map with BC's is the ultimate goal.
get enough BC's and your fine.
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On December 17 2012 22:38 Bodzilla wrote: It's still viable, it's just really unstable, repair is really important, shitloads of production, and PF's splitting hte map with BC's is the ultimate goal.
get enough BC's and your fine. Tempest absolutely wreck BCs, not even close. Splitting the map against BC/Viking/Raven with Tempest/High Templar/Cannon/mass Warpgate/every upgrade in the game is quite good. Send your Vikings in? I storm them with my 20+ High Templar. Try to EMP my Templar? You won't get them all, and there is Cannons everywhere.
I think Mech can be viable, I just don't think BC is a viable option unless you've severely damaged Protoss economy (re: you're way ahead) and can finish him off before he does what I've outlined in the previous paragraph.
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On December 17 2012 22:47 {ToT}ColmA wrote: bc, the answer to anything, until your pdds run out / get feedbacked and the tempest 80 dmg will destroy them, that theory of yours is pretty dandy...
in the meantime
do you remember MVP vs Squirtle on metalopolis.
It's completely viable. the only thing is that you need to dump your energy into yamoto so you dont get feedbacked.
BC's have so much hit points and the fact that nothing built from the robo (which is the primary cause of it being so hard to mech) can shoot up.
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On December 17 2012 22:54 Bodzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 22:47 {ToT}ColmA wrote: bc, the answer to anything, until your pdds run out / get feedbacked and the tempest 80 dmg will destroy them, that theory of yours is pretty dandy...
in the meantime
do you remember MVP vs Squirtle on metalopolis. It's completely viable. the only thing is that you need to dump your energy into yamoto so you dont get feedbacked. BC's have so much hit points and the fact that nothing built from the robo (which is the primary cause of it being so hard to mech) can shoot up.
Are you sure we are talking about HotS and not WoL?
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On December 17 2012 22:54 Bodzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 22:47 {ToT}ColmA wrote: bc, the answer to anything, until your pdds run out / get feedbacked and the tempest 80 dmg will destroy them, that theory of yours is pretty dandy...
in the meantime
do you remember MVP vs Squirtle on metalopolis. It's completely viable. the only thing is that you need to dump your energy into yamoto so you dont get feedbacked. BC's have so much hit points and the fact that nothing built from the robo (which is the primary cause of it being so hard to mech) can shoot up.
thats like the worst troll attempt i ve gotten since 2008 at teamliquid...seriously lol
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Personally I think buffing the siege tank is the best option to go with in order to make mech play better. 100 gas instead of 125 and 2 supply would be great.
Unless tanks do get a buff in the beta, I doubt they will see play outside of TvT. TvP would the typical answers to it plus tempest, TvZ will have vipers and blinding cloud.
TvP is my least favorite match-up to watch and I want that to change. Every time it just seems like it's MMM vs zealot / stalker / sentry, P gets colossi T gets vikings P gets HT T gets ghost into a giant a move and GG.
So boring TT.
On another note, how many changes would be needed to make true mech (not factory units, but a playstyle that relies on positioning and slow methodical units) work in SC2? Tank buff, immortal nerf, removal of BC energy?...
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United Kingdom12010 Posts
On December 17 2012 21:49 Azoryen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 21:05 Qikz wrote:On December 17 2012 20:59 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 20:31 Qwerty85 wrote:On December 17 2012 20:10 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 18:47 ledarsi wrote: All the stuff you list are literal, designer-created gimmicks that do what the designer created them to do, and that is all they can ever do.
Mech is an actual gameplay mechanic that involves static vs mobile, harass vs economy, and board or territory control. There is an entire realm of play styles and player actions and skills that are involved. Whereas a MULE is called with a click and it mines some minerals, and that's it. Same for the other bonehead "mechanics" as you call them. If MULEs, etc, are "core" mechanics, then go play Plants vs Zombies as it has more depth.
If MULE conflicts with mech, then guess which one should go? Why are you upset? I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying that's the way it is and that nothing in SC2 can be balanced without considering those mechanics, and that's what makes them core. Just consider, for example, how ZvT is affected by such mechanics in WoL: - In a very lategame scenario, MULEs theoretically allow terran to match 80 drones economy with a few SCVs for gas + MULEs - this frees a lot of supply for terran army, it's almost like terran's supply cap is 250 instead of 200. - not saying this is OP in WoL, but the OPness potential is there and is a constant consideration for the balance team - so how is this balanced? - Z must be able to trade armies before T gets to his perfect lategame 170 supply army. Now consider how this would work with a mech style similar to BW. Could a maxed Z trade efficiently against T at that critical point in the game when T is threatening to go for an even bigger supply army? I believe not. People over exaggerate the ability mule gives terran in the so called "super late game". It only really happens in TvT (Thorzain vs. Ryung comes to mind) because even though the mule gives mineral boost and ability to eventually get rid of most of SCVs, that super terran army is still limited by gas and by how game doesn't naturally progress into that late game army for terranThink of it. Zerg is designed to go to hive eventually, if nothing, than because of the upgrades. From there on, only requirement is to make greater spire or ultralisk cavern. The core of the army, infestor is available much sooner and augments the zerg late game army perfectly. It is a natural transition by design itself. Terran has to commit to building tons of production and go for an army (raven, bc, viking, ghost, thor etc.) that is completely different from an army player was building during the earlier stages of the game. Since this transition comes much later for terran, terran will be forced to fight zerg late game army under time frame zerg is ready to fight, not terran. Only exceptions are super turtle friendly maps like Metropolis or Shakuras. So even though this scary 170 supply army is always a potential terran has, it was rarely achieved in WoL and it is too early to tell if it will be common (and a problem) in Hots. If anything, first year of Hots will hardly be something we could considered "figured out" and I see no point in fixing something that really isn't a problem in actual gameplay (only theoretical). I'm not exaggerating the potential of T's extra supply in WoL, like I said, in WoL it has been balanced by allowing Z to force engagements and trade armies before T gets there, so you are only reinforcinf my argument. All I'm saying is that you can't think about mech without considering that potential. T lategame MULE advantage means T must be hindered in other ways, like weaker armies, bad transitions, slower remaxes, or a combination of all of that. What people here forget is that if you give T a fully functional puristic mech style with smooth transitions, then the zero-supply economy becomes an issue. It would be like BW with 250 supply cap for T and 200 for Z. I'm sure you're deliberately forgetting that tanks were 2 supply in BW meaning that a 130 supply army for Terran now is only about 1/3rd of that. 170 supply gives terran an army which is about the same size as a 130 supply mech army from BW, infact it's still smaller due to the fact thors and tanks are so supply heavy. So not only is a 170 supply army in SC2 more expensive supply wise than it's counterpart, it's also significantly weaker. Of course it is significantly weaker, that's exactly my point. Once again, you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. The weakness in mech (or any T lategame composition) is the logical consequence of having the supply advantage provided by MULEs. Strong mech in HotS would mean 2 things: - T would be more capable of transitioning from a 120 supply army to a 170 supply army - That 170 supply army would be a lot more powerful than in WoL, so it would no longer be countered by lower supply Z and P This discussion is something like this: - You: I want strong mech in HotS - Me: If you had that kind of mech combined with MULEs, you could make a 170 supply invincible army - You: no I couldn't because mech is weak and I can't do that in WoL - Me: Wtf ???????
You're once again ignoring my initial point of a 170 supply mech army "IN THIS GAME" is still weaker than a 130 supply mech army in Broodwar.
That's where the problem lies.
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On December 17 2012 21:49 Azoryen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 21:05 Qikz wrote:On December 17 2012 20:59 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 20:31 Qwerty85 wrote:On December 17 2012 20:10 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 18:47 ledarsi wrote: All the stuff you list are literal, designer-created gimmicks that do what the designer created them to do, and that is all they can ever do.
Mech is an actual gameplay mechanic that involves static vs mobile, harass vs economy, and board or territory control. There is an entire realm of play styles and player actions and skills that are involved. Whereas a MULE is called with a click and it mines some minerals, and that's it. Same for the other bonehead "mechanics" as you call them. If MULEs, etc, are "core" mechanics, then go play Plants vs Zombies as it has more depth.
If MULE conflicts with mech, then guess which one should go? Why are you upset? I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying that's the way it is and that nothing in SC2 can be balanced without considering those mechanics, and that's what makes them core. Just consider, for example, how ZvT is affected by such mechanics in WoL: - In a very lategame scenario, MULEs theoretically allow terran to match 80 drones economy with a few SCVs for gas + MULEs - this frees a lot of supply for terran army, it's almost like terran's supply cap is 250 instead of 200. - not saying this is OP in WoL, but the OPness potential is there and is a constant consideration for the balance team - so how is this balanced? - Z must be able to trade armies before T gets to his perfect lategame 170 supply army. Now consider how this would work with a mech style similar to BW. Could a maxed Z trade efficiently against T at that critical point in the game when T is threatening to go for an even bigger supply army? I believe not. People over exaggerate the ability mule gives terran in the so called "super late game". It only really happens in TvT (Thorzain vs. Ryung comes to mind) because even though the mule gives mineral boost and ability to eventually get rid of most of SCVs, that super terran army is still limited by gas and by how game doesn't naturally progress into that late game army for terranThink of it. Zerg is designed to go to hive eventually, if nothing, than because of the upgrades. From there on, only requirement is to make greater spire or ultralisk cavern. The core of the army, infestor is available much sooner and augments the zerg late game army perfectly. It is a natural transition by design itself. Terran has to commit to building tons of production and go for an army (raven, bc, viking, ghost, thor etc.) that is completely different from an army player was building during the earlier stages of the game. Since this transition comes much later for terran, terran will be forced to fight zerg late game army under time frame zerg is ready to fight, not terran. Only exceptions are super turtle friendly maps like Metropolis or Shakuras. So even though this scary 170 supply army is always a potential terran has, it was rarely achieved in WoL and it is too early to tell if it will be common (and a problem) in Hots. If anything, first year of Hots will hardly be something we could considered "figured out" and I see no point in fixing something that really isn't a problem in actual gameplay (only theoretical). I'm not exaggerating the potential of T's extra supply in WoL, like I said, in WoL it has been balanced by allowing Z to force engagements and trade armies before T gets there, so you are only reinforcinf my argument. All I'm saying is that you can't think about mech without considering that potential. T lategame MULE advantage means T must be hindered in other ways, like weaker armies, bad transitions, slower remaxes, or a combination of all of that. What people here forget is that if you give T a fully functional puristic mech style with smooth transitions, then the zero-supply economy becomes an issue. It would be like BW with 250 supply cap for T and 200 for Z. I'm sure you're deliberately forgetting that tanks were 2 supply in BW meaning that a 130 supply army for Terran now is only about 1/3rd of that. 170 supply gives terran an army which is about the same size as a 130 supply mech army from BW, infact it's still smaller due to the fact thors and tanks are so supply heavy. So not only is a 170 supply army in SC2 more expensive supply wise than it's counterpart, it's also significantly weaker. Of course it is significantly weaker, that's exactly my point. Once again, you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. The weakness in mech (or any T lategame composition) is the logical consequence of having the supply advantage provided by MULEs. Strong mech in HotS would mean 2 things: - T would be more capable of transitioning from a 120 supply army to a 170 supply army - That 170 supply army would be a lot more powerful than in WoL, so it would no longer be countered by lower supply Z and P This discussion is something like this: - You: I want strong mech in HotS - Me: If you had that kind of mech combined with MULEs, you could make a 170 supply invincible army - You: no I couldn't because mech is weak and I can't do that in WoL - Me: Wtf ???????
please stop this nonsensical whining about MULEs, it's completely irrelevant to this case. The argument that mech is weak because MULEs are strong doesn't matter at all, you can easily tweak the supply efficiency of compositions to make each endgame army roughly equal in strength...
The issues with mech have absolutely nothing do with MULEs, the MULE seems to be pulled into any argument sort of like godwin's law...
Mech is just not viable in TvP because bio is much better. If you are using a hard to assemble, difficult to position and nearly impossible to replace composition it better be strong in combat to make up for that. Mech is just not thus no sane player would choose it over bio except for non important reasons like personal taste. Mech has 3 main issues now: - it can't open very well against protoss. Blink stalker all-ins, voidrays etc are too hard to stop without going more into bio first really. Sure you can expand late but protoss early expand is so safe they are likely to stomp you with a 2-base timing then because you expo'd so late.. Blink stalker harass remains difficult to deal throughout the game by the way.. - mech composition is too weak straight up. Zealot/archon/immortal can trade or even win the fight far too easily. You need a critical mass AND good emp's to really win these fights.. You know what? If you have great EMPs and good positioning you would dominate with bio too, except bio also does really well in small fights, harasses like a champ and defends harass easily while letting you play quite greedy! - the air switch is slightly too strong now against mech. Air being a counter to mech is sweet, afterall otherwise you would get turtle into free win games, but it's just really easy to drop a couple stargates and get carriers + 1 or 2 tempests. Tempests can force fights or chip away at units while carriers trade quite well with vikings if upgrades are roughly equal.
Since mech is already so strong in other matchups now I don't think any more buffs would be good, for example if you would buff the mech -> air transition or mech's anti-air capabilities zerg just wouldn't have a chance anymore.. The hellbat already is too strong against lings I feel just because blizzard had to try so hard to get mech work in TvP.
It's much simpler to just nerf a few anti-mech things protoss have, specifically: - blink stalker aggression, this is FAR too strong in PvP and PvMech now. This was previously balanced by the fact protoss couldn't get vision up ramps but that's practically free now. It must be harder to get vision up cliffs or blink needs to be nerfed or widow mines needs to be altered to be better against this. - immortals are far too strong against mech because of hardened shield but that hardened shield is hardly used for anything else => remove hardened shield and buff immortal shields/hp accordingly so they stay fine in other matchups..
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On December 17 2012 23:03 nomyx wrote: Personally I think buffing the siege tank is the best option to go with in order to make mech play better. 100 gas instead of 125 and 2 supply would be great.
Unless tanks do get a buff in the beta, I doubt they will see play outside of TvT. TvP would the typical answers to it plus tempest, TvZ will have vipers and blinding cloud.
TvP is my least favorite match-up to watch and I want that to change. Every time it just seems like it's MMM vs zealot / stalker / sentry, P gets colossi T gets vikings P gets HT T gets ghost into a giant a move and GG.
So boring TT.
On another note, how many changes would be needed to make true mech (not factory units, but a playstyle that relies on positioning and slow methodical units) work in SC2? Tank buff, immortal nerf, removal of BC energy?...
These kind of changes won't work.... You can't fix mech in TvP while not breaking it in other matchups with generic buffs like these... This would simply make mech broken in TvZ and be only a small step towards fixing it in TvP ( I still don't think it would be enough). Protoss has too many anti-mech tools compared to other races, the only way to fix mech without breaking it elsewhere is to either give terran mech specific anti-protoss options or to nerf protoss' anti-mech options. Personally I think specific anti protoss options which have been suggested are unelegant design, for example 'let siege tanks ignore (hardened) shields'. The easiest fix remains then to simply take away some of protoss' power against mech, ie change the immortal
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I feel that while mech can be somewhat viable; with enough positional sense and outplaying your opponent through map control and strong timing attacks with 1 1 or 2 2. However, as the game proceeds to late, the presence of air units like tempests and void rays in larger numbers WRECK any factory/starport units. This may sound really silly, but to effectively counter late capital ship transition of protoss, Terrans actually need to go back to the basics; getting bio with ghosts, with all the necessary upgrades including the caduceus reactor to combat mass air and high templar play. The current factory/starport iteration is surprisingly fragile against most of the air units of protoss, prehaps a viking hp buff is needed, since vikings are the only saving grace against late air transition. Window mine baiting can be quite useful but they find limited usage and slowly become dead supply since they are not designed to target down high hp units.
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On December 17 2012 23:33 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 23:03 nomyx wrote: Personally I think buffing the siege tank is the best option to go with in order to make mech play better. 100 gas instead of 125 and 2 supply would be great.
Unless tanks do get a buff in the beta, I doubt they will see play outside of TvT. TvP would the typical answers to it plus tempest, TvZ will have vipers and blinding cloud.
TvP is my least favorite match-up to watch and I want that to change. Every time it just seems like it's MMM vs zealot / stalker / sentry, P gets colossi T gets vikings P gets HT T gets ghost into a giant a move and GG.
So boring TT.
On another note, how many changes would be needed to make true mech (not factory units, but a playstyle that relies on positioning and slow methodical units) work in SC2? Tank buff, immortal nerf, removal of BC energy?... These kind of changes won't work.... You can't fix mech in TvP while not breaking it in other matchups with generic buffs like these... This would simply make mech broken in TvZ and be only a small step towards fixing it in TvP ( I still don't think it would be enough). Protoss has too many anti-mech tools compared to other races, the only way to fix mech without breaking it elsewhere is to either give terran mech specific anti-protoss options or to nerf protoss' anti-mech options. Personally I think specific anti protoss options which have been suggested are unelegant design, for example 'let siege tanks ignore (hardened) shields'. The easiest fix remains then to simply take away some of protoss' power against mech, ie change the immortal This game has 3 races and any balance changes must consider all match-ups. Even PvZ and PvP must be considered when people suggest changes to immortal or any of protoss. I also have a feeling that TvZ restricts immensely mech, in particular due to the synergy that mech would have with MULEs against Z, which I alerady mentioned in previous posts.
EDIT: this is why this thread's title is bad. It leads people to think only about TvP, when mech affects the entire game.
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On December 17 2012 17:15 Dvriel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 12:34 architecture wrote: Mech sucks as an opening. You have to open bio, or stuff that requires ghost to counter (Archon/immo) will roll you in the midgame. Without ghost, mech cannot fight cost effectively, and you generally can't afford ghost until way later.
Late late game, though, mech is a viable ground army. The composition is 25tanks/25hellion/6-8 ghost. The question is if you can get there, and how much you had to invest in bio. Maybe it depends on how aggressive/not aggressive the P is planning to be on that map.
Mech also requires Ghost and its not a problem for me.If in BW for EMPs they must make SVessel,make ghost in SC2 is OK.This statement change when you realise that ghosts alone dont allow you to DETECT as the SV did.The SV was a ghost and Raven together and benefists from mech upgrades so it was perfectly balanced in the mech composition.Ghost actually is BIO unit,btu you need it as hell in TvP mech. I can get your composition in late game,but thats not an issue.Its to move and deny P expand all over the map and survive 1-2 fights and remax again in 1-2 min as they would do.Nowadays is not possible.In BW as well,but they also couldnt win every engage so costeffective and remax for them was as hard as for T,because of Gateways and no Warpgates.Observer needed to detect early mines was also harder to get,much more tech and now they even dont need it: MScore...Not enough with this their PF can shoot AIR!!!!How can I harass them if they got 20000 ways to be secure if me not going for BIO??? Turrets dont shoot ground.I would pay an 300m300g/200sec upgrade if they was able to shoot both as cannons do,and make them cost 200 instead of 100.Protoss GOT ALL the tools we need.
So if mech needed 2-5 ghosts to be succesfull I wouldn't mind it. But the problem is that you need to emp the toss's entire army which means you needs at least 10+, and it also means that we can't split up our tank army to defend multiple locations at once. As a terran you just need to turtle so fucking hard with mech and get a sick deathball of 10+ ghosts, ravens and mech before you can move out, which typically requires 35 min + turtling which creates boring games.
I think the game can be fixed with a few changes: 1) Remove hardened shield. 2) Give immortal another interesting ability which makes it better for harassing and abusing immobility. 3) Slight buff to tanks. 4) Less mineral patches/geyser's on each base which make it nessecary for the terarn to take bases quicker, which makes it easier for the toss to abuse mobility. 5) Remove voidrayds (an unnessacary unit and toss air is probably too good late game right now).
If the above 5 changes are make correctly we could have an extremely interesting TVP matchup. It's possible though that this may interfer with the other matchups, which means more changes could nessecary.
EDIT: Also wouldn't mine mines to be more supply efficient which makes it a bit easier for terran to attack with the majority of his army, and defend another location with a couple of mines + tanks. Mines AA should be removed, however.
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On December 17 2012 21:49 Azoryen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 21:05 Qikz wrote:On December 17 2012 20:59 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 20:31 Qwerty85 wrote:On December 17 2012 20:10 Azoryen wrote:On December 17 2012 18:47 ledarsi wrote: All the stuff you list are literal, designer-created gimmicks that do what the designer created them to do, and that is all they can ever do.
Mech is an actual gameplay mechanic that involves static vs mobile, harass vs economy, and board or territory control. There is an entire realm of play styles and player actions and skills that are involved. Whereas a MULE is called with a click and it mines some minerals, and that's it. Same for the other bonehead "mechanics" as you call them. If MULEs, etc, are "core" mechanics, then go play Plants vs Zombies as it has more depth.
If MULE conflicts with mech, then guess which one should go? Why are you upset? I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying that's the way it is and that nothing in SC2 can be balanced without considering those mechanics, and that's what makes them core. Just consider, for example, how ZvT is affected by such mechanics in WoL: - In a very lategame scenario, MULEs theoretically allow terran to match 80 drones economy with a few SCVs for gas + MULEs - this frees a lot of supply for terran army, it's almost like terran's supply cap is 250 instead of 200. - not saying this is OP in WoL, but the OPness potential is there and is a constant consideration for the balance team - so how is this balanced? - Z must be able to trade armies before T gets to his perfect lategame 170 supply army. Now consider how this would work with a mech style similar to BW. Could a maxed Z trade efficiently against T at that critical point in the game when T is threatening to go for an even bigger supply army? I believe not. People over exaggerate the ability mule gives terran in the so called "super late game". It only really happens in TvT (Thorzain vs. Ryung comes to mind) because even though the mule gives mineral boost and ability to eventually get rid of most of SCVs, that super terran army is still limited by gas and by how game doesn't naturally progress into that late game army for terranThink of it. Zerg is designed to go to hive eventually, if nothing, than because of the upgrades. From there on, only requirement is to make greater spire or ultralisk cavern. The core of the army, infestor is available much sooner and augments the zerg late game army perfectly. It is a natural transition by design itself. Terran has to commit to building tons of production and go for an army (raven, bc, viking, ghost, thor etc.) that is completely different from an army player was building during the earlier stages of the game. Since this transition comes much later for terran, terran will be forced to fight zerg late game army under time frame zerg is ready to fight, not terran. Only exceptions are super turtle friendly maps like Metropolis or Shakuras. So even though this scary 170 supply army is always a potential terran has, it was rarely achieved in WoL and it is too early to tell if it will be common (and a problem) in Hots. If anything, first year of Hots will hardly be something we could considered "figured out" and I see no point in fixing something that really isn't a problem in actual gameplay (only theoretical). I'm not exaggerating the potential of T's extra supply in WoL, like I said, in WoL it has been balanced by allowing Z to force engagements and trade armies before T gets there, so you are only reinforcinf my argument. All I'm saying is that you can't think about mech without considering that potential. T lategame MULE advantage means T must be hindered in other ways, like weaker armies, bad transitions, slower remaxes, or a combination of all of that. What people here forget is that if you give T a fully functional puristic mech style with smooth transitions, then the zero-supply economy becomes an issue. It would be like BW with 250 supply cap for T and 200 for Z. I'm sure you're deliberately forgetting that tanks were 2 supply in BW meaning that a 130 supply army for Terran now is only about 1/3rd of that. 170 supply gives terran an army which is about the same size as a 130 supply mech army from BW, infact it's still smaller due to the fact thors and tanks are so supply heavy. So not only is a 170 supply army in SC2 more expensive supply wise than it's counterpart, it's also significantly weaker. Of course it is significantly weaker, that's exactly my point. Once again, you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. The weakness in mech (or any T lategame composition) is the logical consequence of having the supply advantage provided by MULEs. Strong mech in HotS would mean 2 things: - T would be more capable of transitioning from a 120 supply army to a 170 supply army - That 170 supply army would be a lot more powerful than in WoL, so it would no longer be countered by lower supply Z and P This discussion is something like this: - You: I want strong mech in HotS - Me: If you had that kind of mech combined with MULEs, you could make a 170 supply invincible army - You: no I couldn't because mech is weak and I can't do that in WoL - Me: Wtf ???????
This discussion is centered around protoss only. If you haven't played the TvP matchup yet in hots, mech is incredibly fragile. The proposed changes largely by alot of people affect PROTOSS units, not zerg. Also, each races believe of not, have their own equivalent of OPness. Protoss can build mass gateways and immediately reinforce as he slowly loses supply in middle of combat in a late game scenario. This would be, protoss would perpetually have a near constant 200/200 army in combat. At the same time, Zerg has the capacity to bank larvae with no actual cap and can instantly remax from 0 supply in a late game scenario with adequate creep spread, the units reach combat in less than a minute. Different races are different and therefore, these factors should not be considered in balancing TvP mech.
Also it does not matter if terran is 20-30 supply ahead, the nature of mech units with the (armoured and massive tag) is such that protoss can actively hard-counter the composition through gateway, robo and stargate (i.e. everything) and many of us have experienced total annihilation despite being equal, ahead in upgrades/army supply and only doing a limited amount of damage against the right balance of protoss units. The problem lies in the cost effectiveness of protoss units against every iteration of Factory and Sport units, and as such, a change in PROTOSS or Terran AGAINST protoss is needed or else Terrans will be pigeon-holed to using bio again. You are deviating from the intended balance discussion here, since simple solutions can be realistically added with no effect on ZvP or ZvT. For instance, think of EMP. This is highly situational in ZvT but it is almost essential in TvP when facing against archo/ht/zealot compositions. This is not a balance whine, this is just to help mech achieve itself as a viable alternative to bio.
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Can someone make a nice comprehensive writeup (in it's own thread) on why the Siege Tank is bad and neglected, and doesn't serve it's role as well as it could? And why improving the Siege Tank would also improve the matchups of the game? At this point during the beta we really need one.
Aside from Protoss arguably needing some nerfs I believe some of the issues with TvP mech not being viable all fall back to the Siege Tank not being a threat. It can work as long as Blizzard listens, and we just need to get their attention better. In BW you could mech in TvZ or TvP, and it was wonderful. Did some players prefer bio-mech? Did some prefer SK Terran style? Did some players just flat-out prefer bio? Yes, but the options were there, and this was part of the reason you had so many unique players, diversity, and strategy.
The health (most aspects of it) of the Terran race literally all rests on the tank being a threat.
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On December 18 2012 01:12 DemigodcelpH wrote: Can someone make a nice comprehensive writeup on why the Siege Tank is bad and neglected, and doesn't serve it's role as well as it could? And why improving the Siege Tank would also improve the matchups of the game? At this point during the beta we really need one.
Aside from Protoss arguably needing some nerfs I believe some of the issues with TvP mech not being viable all fall back to the Siege Tank not being a threat.
This is probably going to be a very long list of reasons as to why siege tanks are not as good as it should be. BUt i'd also like to see a comprehensive list of why tanks are weak, maybe that way, Blizzard will realise the plethora of weaknesses of tanks has against what protoss offers and come up with a fix.
Edit: that statement about diversity and style just gave me goose bumps. I vividly remember Flash's brilliance in TvZ where he would transition from SK style to mech as the game progressed, putting his opponents off so easily and winning the game in pure dominance. I'd love to see that again.
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Protoss need a unit good in defensive against early mech rush like 111 and slow to become offensive unless with a drop ship. The unit is call reaver. Remove collsus and immortal, give stalker dmg upgrade. With this you can increase tank damage. Zerg need some kind of buffed swarm host to hold the new tanks.
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On December 18 2012 01:16 Novacute wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 01:12 DemigodcelpH wrote: Can someone make a nice comprehensive writeup on why the Siege Tank is bad and neglected, and doesn't serve it's role as well as it could? And why improving the Siege Tank would also improve the matchups of the game? At this point during the beta we really need one.
Aside from Protoss arguably needing some nerfs I believe some of the issues with TvP mech not being viable all fall back to the Siege Tank not being a threat. This is probably going to be a very long list of reasons as to why siege tanks are not as good as it should be. BUt i'd also like to see a comprehensive list of why tanks are weak, maybe that way, Blizzard will realise the plethora of weaknesses of tanks has against what protoss offers and come up with a fix. Edit: that statement about diversity and style just gave me goose bumps. I vividly remember Flash's brilliance in TvZ where he would transition from SK style to mech as the game progressed, putting his opponents off so easily and winning the game in pure dominance. I'd love to see that again.
So the main reason is obviously hardened shield on immortals. Why the hell is that necessary? Why not just remove it and give something else to the immortal which makes it more interesting ?
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On December 18 2012 01:26 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 01:16 Novacute wrote:On December 18 2012 01:12 DemigodcelpH wrote: Can someone make a nice comprehensive writeup on why the Siege Tank is bad and neglected, and doesn't serve it's role as well as it could? And why improving the Siege Tank would also improve the matchups of the game? At this point during the beta we really need one.
Aside from Protoss arguably needing some nerfs I believe some of the issues with TvP mech not being viable all fall back to the Siege Tank not being a threat. This is probably going to be a very long list of reasons as to why siege tanks are not as good as it should be. BUt i'd also like to see a comprehensive list of why tanks are weak, maybe that way, Blizzard will realise the plethora of weaknesses of tanks has against what protoss offers and come up with a fix. Edit: that statement about diversity and style just gave me goose bumps. I vividly remember Flash's brilliance in TvZ where he would transition from SK style to mech as the game progressed, putting his opponents off so easily and winning the game in pure dominance. I'd love to see that again. So the main reason is obviously hardened shield on immortals. Why the hell is that necessary? Why not just remove it and give something else to the immortal which makes it more interesting ?
That's not the main reason the tank is bad. The tank is bad because the numbers are terrible because of Blizzard maps in 2010, however the number changes on the tank were never reverted. There is a lot of counter-play to nullify hardened shields.
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On December 17 2012 20:24 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 16:58 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 17 2012 15:56 Rabiator wrote:On December 17 2012 07:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 17 2012 04:03 Rabiator wrote:On December 17 2012 03:23 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 16 2012 20:04 Thezzy wrote: I don't consider Thor/Hellion to be truly Mech. For me, Mech is not specifically Mechanical units, but a playstyle.
A playstyle that builds up slowly, creeps across the map, taking expansions and being brutally cost-efficient but immobile. In BW a Siege Tank line basically meant: 'You can't go here'. Running into a Siege Tank line with nearly any army was a death sentence. Supported by Spider Mines, Science Vessels and Goliaths, Mech was all-round solid, the only true weakness being slow and immobile but having enormous damage projection to make up for it. Spider Mines could cover for flank attacks and some Starport units with Vultures could deal decently with harassment.
Tanks were also 150/100/2 and did a whopping 70 damage to many units and Immortals, Void Rays, Phoenixes, Blink and Warp Gate and so on did not exist.
Protoss had a much harder time harassing and bypassing the Mech army and even more difficulty engaging it. But, because Mech was so slow and immobile to get up and running, this was a fair tradeoff.
In SC2, there is far too much mobility and harassment available to make that tradeoff as fair as it was in BW. On top of that, the core unit of a Mech play (Tanks) got a painful nerf in comparison to BW. Their damage was cut in half against a lot of units, their gas cost increased by 25% and their supply increased by 50%.
Whereas 40 supply tanks could do 70*20 = 1400 damage at best, in WoL this dropped to 50*13 = 650 damage, but only against Armored. It drops even further against non-Armored units. BW Tanks did do 75% damage against some units and 50% damage against units like Zerglings, but even then you could get more Tanks for the same supply.
With unit AI much better and far more harassment options available (Blink, Warp-ins, Void Ray/Phoenix) the immobility of Mech hurts more and the tanks can't make up for it anymore.
Even a fully maxed 200/200 3/3 Tank heavy army cannot as easily destroy a Protoss army. Furthermore, due to the Warp-in mechanic, Mech has to win a landslide victory in order to survive the next wave. Whereas warping in 15 Chargelots is nearly instant, Mech is painfully slow to rebuild.
There is no single thing that makes Mech harder in TvP, it's everything put together. Mechanical units can still work decently against Protoss (Thor/Hellion/Ghost with some Viking/Tank support), but you will need excellent scouting and army awareness to prevent Protoss from doing a tech-switch that kills you.
The simple fact that no pros are using true Mech in any of the tournaments is already evidence enough that Bio is simply better, otherwise the pros would have used Mech. We see it on streams here and there and we see some pros use it occiasionally on the ladder but until we start seeing it frequently on tournaments the vast majority will likely stay with Bio. In short, SC2 is a different game than BW. But that doesn't mean you can't use similar playstyles as in BW. At the same time though, there are new styles, that may or may not be present in BW. Also, I feel the majority don't consider mech to be just mechanical units, though there are some that like to include air units as mech. You are right though, for all the new options that Protoss has, mech should be much much stronger. Right now it can barely win straight up fights (and this is if you engage very well) in the early-mid game, with you being unable to pressure unless you do some sort of thor based mech, because if you try to punish him for lets say, expanding too much, you won't have your walls at home to make your engagement that much stronger. In the lategame, yes you can win fights more easily, but even so you have to keep your army together. Like you mention, I would really like the tank to hold ground better. In BW you could have a few somewhere and feel pretty safe about holding it. In SC2 you can see this in TvT. But in TvP, everything is so much faster, so much tankier, that a few tanks barely does anything without a full wall defending them. I think the siege tank can definitely be redesigned and balanced regarding its stats. Right now, simply making it stronger won't be the best idea, because of Terran's good scaling lategame thanks to MULEs (once you reach like 50 tanks you can kill almost everything even with little to no support units). It could also make early all-ins too strong from the Terran. I think the only thing that can really fix this though is removing siege tank smart fire. After all, widow mines don't have it do they? ( They overkill). If they buff tanks so that they're better early and midgame individually, but make them overkill (so that all-ins aren't too strong because the tanks need to spread out to be used as efficiently as possible), that would help mech from not having to be so fricken scared until the lategame. At the same time, you can hold more ground in the lategame without having to deathball your army in one place, and grouping up 50 tanks in one area won't be too strong due to overkill, forcing them to spread out. While I despise the stupid "its a different game argument" at the start you are coming to the right conclusions that the game doesnt really "feel right" atm and that the balance is kinda off for mech (and especially the Siege Tank). This has to do with the stupidly high mobility of Zerg and Protoss plus the ability to charge in as a super tight clump of units. To stop Siege Tanks from being too good they had to be nerfed and this changed them from "scary in a group of 5-6" to "mildly annoying in a small group". Its simple math and game design concepts which clash here, but sadly too many people dont see it. If you want to fix the Siege Tank to its proper "threatening" state you have to increase the damage, BUT you also have to make sure that people cant fill the battlefield as quickly with them ... which means taking out economic boosts like the MULE. Since you take out the economic boost for one race the others need to lose theirs as well ... in short: Inject Larvae and Chronoboost ... and since Zerg lost their production speed boosts the ones for Terran and Protoss - Reactor and Warp Gate - have to go as well. Once this is done the devs have to make sure that "Joe Bronzeleague" wont lose all his army by a-moving it into a bunch of tanks and just force-spread the units on movement AND restricting the number of units in a control group to 12 ... while making it possible for pros to tighten their clumps of units through the use of micro. After all this you would gain a higher importance for expensive (=exciting) units due to fewer production cycles being available; you could have more outrageous attacks or spells (usually AoE) since you can allow them to be 1-shotting and NOT kill half the army of your opponent AND you even add more micro for pros instead of simply limiting yourself to "Marine splitting" which is a) Terran only and b) putting the defender at a disadvantage over the attacker when it should be the other way round with the attacker having to work harder for a victory. That and Siege Tanks "working as intended again" would be quite good consequences of a few changes to the "general mechanics". Sadly Blizzard isnt yet at a point to admit that "more more more units" and "faster faster faster speed" are not going to work to make the game easy enough to play for casuals AND easy enough for viewers to follow and understand in an eSport. Sticking spells and abilities on everything wont make them exciting and only destabilize the game. I don't understand why you despise that "argument", it's simply the truth, this is a different game and so SC2 "mech" is not the same as BW "mech". Even if mech in SC2 were to be stronger and/or more positional than even BW mech, it is still different. I'm merely pointing out that we're just going to have to accept that some things from BW didn't and won't translate to SC2. I'm not saying that it's a different game and thus Blizzard can't allow mech to be as good/positional as it was in BW. SC2 is "technically" a new game, BUT it has its roots deeply anchored in the success and fan favor of its predecessor, so they should be feeling similar. Sadly Blizzard decided to put in the major changes of "perfect"ly tight unit movement (which looks totally unnatural and quite illogical to me) and other "movement boni" like Blink, Cliffwalking, the Reaper jump or even warp ins under power which screw up the balance between Siege Weapons and opposing armies. So SC2 is actually a new game while leeching on the success of the old one ... which it doesnt deserve ... and consequently it should be tuned down a bit to be more of a descendant of BW instead of a genetically manipulated "Superkid" which only has some parts which look like they are from BW. There is another reason why I dont like this arrogant "its a new game" phrase and that is my belief that you cant make everything work and as much as people say "we want new original units" there can be only X numbers of concepts which are "original" and everything else is copied/inspired by them. Thus it should not be considered so terrible to use the old game and only make adjustments/improvements in small steps to it. There are countless FIFA / CoD games to kinda prove that small steps does work for marketing such a game, but it is the ego of the lead developer who wants HIS STAMP put on the game and who thinks he knows it better than the guys of old who designed the predecessor. Even in RTS games only a limited number of concepts work and with asymmetric races you cant increase the differences in speed or weird spells for instance before making the game perform totally random simply because the [casual / non-pro] players cant react fast enough. I think the number of patches for SC2 have shown that it is very very hard to balance while the "toned down" BW didnt require as many. If we humans dont learn from our history then we deserve to die out and its the same in game design where the SC2 development team started with a white sheet of paper and just dumped a few things from BW on it but fails to make the comparisons to it now, to see why things worked in BW which dont work in SC2 ... Thats why I hate the "its a new game" phrase with a passion ... the arrogance of the next generation thinking they can do it better without learning from the past and lack of respect for the past in general. Blizzard has a unique chance for game development in that they have a new game which is closely based upon a rather successful (=well tested), interesting and working game from a long time ago (for game design) and yet they fail to make comparisons. P.S.: This "arrogance of youth" is as old as humankind and witnessed in almost every "misunderstood child" and yet parents - if they arent total blockheads - will understand them exactly, because they had the same problems in their own time. Kids need to be enlightened and sometimes "forced" into their happiness by parents who see more than them. This Real Time ACTION game of Starcraft 2 isnt the best way it could have turned out ... On December 17 2012 07:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 17 2012 04:08 Azoryen wrote: Instead of over analysing why mech doesn't work and coming up with solutions, people should realize that Blizzard apparently has no intention of making mech work anymore and try to analyse that instead.
I mean, Blizzard has the knowledge and power to make mech viable, they don't need any more suggestions from anyone. If they haven't done it this far into the BETA, is simply because they prefer not to.
If I had to guess, I'd say they tested it internally and realized that T can't ever have very strong lategame compositions because of MULEs, which make possible for T armies to exceed in size the opposing army by 50 supply. And since they have huge resistance to changing basic mechanics like MULEs, that's the end of any hope of T ever being allowed to reach lategame compositions that can match Z and P. Blizzard has consistently been mentioning how they're trying to make mech in TvP work. Might you want to elaborate why you think they gave up? We just got a huge patch recently and then another buff to widow mines, so maybe they want to do things slowly. After all we still have about 2 months left of beta, so we can still see a few more patches. Just do a bit of comparison with BW ... - Why was the Siege Tank viable in that game and it isnt really in SC2? - Why would the Lurker not work in SC2? - Why does the Carrier suck in SC2? One game of TvP can be found HERE. Just ignore the commentary and focus on what you see and then think about how many units there would be in SC2 at the same time ... you will hopefully find the culprits eventually which are responsible for mech being terrible in SC2 ... no matter what units are added or changed. On the topic of "Blizzard says they want to make mech work" I just have to say the following to you: It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. Let them be judged by their actions and not their words! Mech has certain requirements on the gameplay, but in SC2 those arent met, because the opponents simply move too fast for the rate of fire of the Siege Tank (which is one of the characteristics) AND they move in too tight packs so the damage from the tanks had to be nerfed to "balance" them. Without these "improvements" being tuned down the mech feeling we know and love from BW cant be recreated in SC2. Blizzard seems TOTALLY unwilling to do that, even though a tuned down game would be much easier to balance and far more receptive for "locally imbalanced" (=fun) abilities. Not sure if I would judge Blizzard as you described. But again, if you are referring specifically to me, i wasn't arguing any of the things you described you don't like. As in, I wasn't saying "it's a different game" to justify SC2 TvP mech not working [well]. They're different games, and mech has both new pros and new cons. Whether it has more pros or more cons isn't relevant to what i'm saying though. What I was saying is that (and again if you weren't referring specifically to me, i would still like to elaborate on my previous post), although thor/hellion styles can't really be found in BW (because those units didn't exist), mech in BW was known to mean "factory units", and thus that should translate to SC2 as also meaning "factory units" since we are talking about SC2 and not BW. If we were to refer to a BW mech style in a SC2 forum for comparison, we should specify that. So, although he may not feel thor/hellion is in the spirit of BW mech styles, it is part of SC2 mech. And my counter argument to those who think saying "mech" in a SC2 forum should refer to BW mech because BW mech came first is this: do we then have to call styles and/or compositions based on mainly factory units to be "SC2 mech" or even something else like "heavy factory style" or "heavy factory comp"? And same would go for bio and air. I wasnt "accusing" you of being one of those "SC2 is a new game so screw you BW fans"-guys ... quite the contrary. I just think that phrase is pretty stupid to use in any concept just as the "new original units" phrase. The thing is that mech in BW also refers (and is referred to in SC2 as well) to a playstyle of immobile units centered around the Siege Tank. The stuff they added for HotS doesnt really synergize well with that core unit of mech playing style, Blizzard has yet to show any interest in changing it and the general gameplay options which boost the potential and mobility of many of the other units too much, so the slow and methodical mech is basically dead anyways, no matter what Blizzard does (short of making factory units OP). Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 17:50 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: I used to agree with that position, Dustin being an egomaniac, but I've seen sanity prevail. Coming from a historical perspective from WWI and WWII:
Huge leaps of innovation took place during these two world wars. They barely were recognizable next to each other. And they took place less than ten years apart!
Consider that between SC:BW and SC2 WoL and SC2 HOTS are 10 and 3 RL years apart. Between Zeratul disappearance, Kerrigan's subjugation of the various broods and Mengsk's consolidation and preparation for his next confrontation with the aliens, things SHOULD change significantly. So its ok for Siege Tanks to deal LESS damage after 10 years of development? Your argument is hollow and irrelevant, because the only thing that matters is that it works in the game. "Logic" like yours doesnt apply to games, because otherwise we would have to make BCs immune to Marine fire and adjust their sizes to the "correct" ratio anyways. Sadly Blizzard "improved" too much and in a future environment technology will NOT make such huge leaps as you said it would. P.S.: WWI and WWII are 21 years apart AND airplanes and tanks only started to become useful after WWI. In Starcraft context they have the evolution of the Baneling and maybe some other changes, but for all intents and purposes why did Protoss "forget" how to build Arbiters or Terrans with their Goliaths and Wraiths and whatnot? Goliaths and Wraiths are MUCH better than their current counterpart and Arbiters are totally awesome as well. Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 17:53 ledarsi wrote: Lore is not a good reason for removing core gameplay mechanics that were present, well-tested, and well-loved by players of Brood War.
Blizzard doesn't understand positional play. More specifically, Dustin Browder does not understand it. His entire career has been rock-paper-scissors deathball gameplay, and it is no surprise that the units he introduced create that exact type of gameplay.
Even when they claimed they wanted to make "mech" viable, the unit they proposed was the Warhound. Or that to strengthen mech, they were considering making Battle Hellions into Biological units so they can be healed by medivacs. These people don't even know that they don't know. I fully agree with you on this point and the unwillingness of the dev team to "compare" with BW to find out what gives them problems in SC2 clearly shows their "colors" ...
Ah, ok I agree. It's just hard to know if someone is talking to you or using "you" to refer to a third party (everyone else) :D
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