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On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote: Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit.
The problem is that splash time works better against zergs/bio than toss. So if we want to make it usefull in all matchups we need single target damage.
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On December 20 2012 10:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match. Looking back, maybe you got confused when I said "as they do in TvT and TvZ", i didn't mean for them to work in the same ways, I just meant if they work or not.
Yeah, my main point is that the focus should not be how do we get our positioning units that are good versus T/Z to be as good versus Toss, but to more specifically ask "what is a better way we can maintain the current terran playstyle while incorporating positional play.
for example, the BW lurker was a 6 range unit that dealt 20 concussive damage. Translated into SC2 terms, the BW lurker did 10 + 10 to light damage and hence is most similar to a blueflame Hellion in damage. And yet it was considered a good siege unit--why? Because it was a cloaked unit with splash. Sure it had the damage of two broodwar ghosts, but when something is invisible and deals splash damage the damage stacks quickly enough.
But what really made positional play happen for Zerg in BW was the defiler. Specifically, it's ability to consume for more energy allowing it to maintain control of an area using a combination of lurker splash, zergling energy batteries and neverending dark swarms and plagues.
If we are not allowed to have the tank be able to kill protoss units as easily as it kills terran/zerg units--then maybe we should shift our focus of positional play away from tanks and into other unit options.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 21 2012 02:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match. Looking back, maybe you got confused when I said "as they do in TvT and TvZ", i didn't mean for them to work in the same ways, I just meant if they work or not. Yeah, my main point is that the focus should not be how do we get our positioning units that are good versus T/Z to be as good versus Toss, but to more specifically ask "what is a better way we can maintain the current terran playstyle while incorporating positional play. for example, the BW lurker was a 6 range unit that dealt 20 concussive damage. Translated into SC2 terms, the BW lurker did 10 + 10 to light damage and hence is most similar to a blueflame Hellion in damage. And yet it was considered a good siege unit--why? Because it was a cloaked unit with splash. Sure it had the damage of two broodwar ghosts, but when something is invisible and deals splash damage the damage stacks quickly enough. But what really made positional play happen for Zerg in BW was the defiler. Specifically, it's ability to consume for more energy allowing it to maintain control of an area using a combination of lurker splash, zergling energy batteries and neverending dark swarms and plagues. If we are not allowed to have the tank be able to kill protoss units as easily as it kills terran/zerg units--then maybe we should shift our focus of positional play away from tanks and into other unit options.
But why would any other unit not suffer the same dilemma the Siege Tank does? Either the unit is going to control space effectively vs Protoss and be drastically stronger against Z and T, or it's going to control space well against Z and T and be underwhelming vs Protoss. This is where the Widow Mine now sits, just like the Siege Tank (especially after nerfing the hitting cloaked ability and the single target damage).
Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all?
The only way I have heard that has any potential, but would still need extensive testing, is introducing Overkill to tanks and consequently buffing their damage (so that they are stronger against higher health units like Protoss has, but overkill makes it pointless to have more then enough Tanks to 1 shot a single group of units in an area, no matter if their health is low or high. This way, large groups of weaker units are more effective - Bio or Zerg armies, and small groups of stronger units are less effective - Protoss armies.)
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On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 02:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 10:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match. Looking back, maybe you got confused when I said "as they do in TvT and TvZ", i didn't mean for them to work in the same ways, I just meant if they work or not. Yeah, my main point is that the focus should not be how do we get our positioning units that are good versus T/Z to be as good versus Toss, but to more specifically ask "what is a better way we can maintain the current terran playstyle while incorporating positional play. for example, the BW lurker was a 6 range unit that dealt 20 concussive damage. Translated into SC2 terms, the BW lurker did 10 + 10 to light damage and hence is most similar to a blueflame Hellion in damage. And yet it was considered a good siege unit--why? Because it was a cloaked unit with splash. Sure it had the damage of two broodwar ghosts, but when something is invisible and deals splash damage the damage stacks quickly enough. But what really made positional play happen for Zerg in BW was the defiler. Specifically, it's ability to consume for more energy allowing it to maintain control of an area using a combination of lurker splash, zergling energy batteries and neverending dark swarms and plagues. If we are not allowed to have the tank be able to kill protoss units as easily as it kills terran/zerg units--then maybe we should shift our focus of positional play away from tanks and into other unit options. But why would any other unit not suffer the same dilemma the Siege Tank does? Either the unit is going to control space effectively vs Protoss and be drastically stronger against Z and T, or it's going to control space well against Z and T and be underwhelming vs Protoss. This is where the Widow Mine now sits, just like the Siege Tank (especially after nerfing the hitting cloaked ability and the single target damage). Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? The only way I have heard that has any potential, but would still need extensive testing, is introducing Overkill to tanks and consequently buffing their damage (so that they are stronger against higher health units like Protoss has, but overkill makes it pointless to have more then enough Tanks to 1 shot a single group of units in an area, no matter if their health is low or high. This way, large groups of weaker units are more effective - Bio or Zerg armies, and small groups of stronger units are less effective - Protoss armies.)
As someone who isn't even diamond I am not qualified to make any comments that are too specific--I am mostly saying that positional play was present in races outside of Terran in BW and so if it isn't working copying BW terran play, maybe we can copy Zerg/Toss positional play from BW.
Defilers Reavers Lurkers DTs etc...
Spellcasters (like the Raven) could be buffed. Cloaked units (like Ravens) could be retooled. Everything from lockdown, better Planetaries, improved bunkers, etc...
There are lots of ways to encourage positional play other than tanks in siege mode. Is there a way to buff/change other units to be a better fit for the playstyle we are looking for? Should PDD be buffed? Should autoturrets be buffed? Etc...
Should immortals be given a projectile attack while terran be given consume? (Maybe starports regen the energy of air units or something) Allowing PDD to be spammed.
Should there be an armory upgrade to remove gas costs of planetaries?
Should tanks cost 2 supply?
Should thors need a fusion core while getting a MASSIVE hp/damage buff? (and possibly reduced movement speed)
And so on and so forth.
All I'm saying is that we should try exploring more ways to gain positional play than simply copying BW TvP. I don't know what those are--that's why I'm trying to discuss it here.
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On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote: Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? I think Thieving Magpie described the "characteristic" of Protoss best:
On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote: Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. So there is only one way to deal with this and keep the threat level for the other races at the same level: OVERKILL damage which clearly kills low hp units (no real change for T and Z) and reduces the number of hits Protoss units can take. Sadly there are two downsides to this: 1. The SC2 splash damage system is rubbish compared to the one in BW, because it deals full damage in the whole area and that is too much, but reducing the radius will just make it abuseable by sending a few units ahead to soak up the damage and then rush the Siege Tanks while they are not firing. 2. The density of units in SC2 is just sooo high that you lose 10% of your army with every shot from a Siege Tank and that is just a silly concept.
Soooo ... better adopt the BW splash damage system (and the rest of the bonus damage system as well) and add in forced unit spreading as well as limited unit selection. Then you can crank up Siege Tank damage to threatening levels (for Protoss) and finally make mech work as it should be.
EDIT: As ZjiublingZ pointed out below they do have the "decreasing damage splash" system for Siege Tanks in SC2, but then I have to say that the radius of full damage seems to be less than 1 square (Liquipedia lists the primary radius at " .4687 matrices " and the outermost radius at a max of " 1.25 matrices ", which would be a total diameter of 2.5 and that looks about right for "matrices = squares").
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On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 02:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 10:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match. Looking back, maybe you got confused when I said "as they do in TvT and TvZ", i didn't mean for them to work in the same ways, I just meant if they work or not. Yeah, my main point is that the focus should not be how do we get our positioning units that are good versus T/Z to be as good versus Toss, but to more specifically ask "what is a better way we can maintain the current terran playstyle while incorporating positional play. for example, the BW lurker was a 6 range unit that dealt 20 concussive damage. Translated into SC2 terms, the BW lurker did 10 + 10 to light damage and hence is most similar to a blueflame Hellion in damage. And yet it was considered a good siege unit--why? Because it was a cloaked unit with splash. Sure it had the damage of two broodwar ghosts, but when something is invisible and deals splash damage the damage stacks quickly enough. But what really made positional play happen for Zerg in BW was the defiler. Specifically, it's ability to consume for more energy allowing it to maintain control of an area using a combination of lurker splash, zergling energy batteries and neverending dark swarms and plagues. If we are not allowed to have the tank be able to kill protoss units as easily as it kills terran/zerg units--then maybe we should shift our focus of positional play away from tanks and into other unit options. But why would any other unit not suffer the same dilemma the Siege Tank does? Either the unit is going to control space effectively vs Protoss and be drastically stronger against Z and T, or it's going to control space well against Z and T and be underwhelming vs Protoss. This is where the Widow Mine now sits, just like the Siege Tank (especially after nerfing the hitting cloaked ability and the single target damage). Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? The only way I have heard that has any potential, but would still need extensive testing, is introducing Overkill to tanks and consequently buffing their damage (so that they are stronger against higher health units like Protoss has, but overkill makes it pointless to have more then enough Tanks to 1 shot a single group of units in an area, no matter if their health is low or high. This way, large groups of weaker units are more effective - Bio or Zerg armies, and small groups of stronger units are less effective - Protoss armies.)
The solution is really much simpler than all of that.
If the Immortal wasn't such a hard counter to the Siege Tank the Siege Tank could be an effective controller of space vs Protoss now that the Helbat is in the game.
Think about it. Hardened Shields is really only really effective vs 3 units in this game. Ultralisks, Siege tanks and Thors. Aside from being useful vs Mech the other unit type that the Immortal really shines against are the Stalker and Roach. Hardened Shields mitigates 2 damage vs both of those units vs the 40 damage it mitigates vs Siege Tanks.
You could EASILY justify nerfing Hardened Shields and buffing Immortals base shielding and armor to make it a better all around unit and the only thing you'd be nerfing would be its hard countering of 3 units that you NEVER see vs Protoss because of how incredibly powerful a single ground unit is against them.
The beauty of it too is that now especially with both stronger air units and the Mothership core, Protoss no longer NEEDS to have a counter to the Siege Tank on the ground because they have legitimate options they can use in the air as well as the option to exploit the mobility of siege tanks the way the other two races do now that Oracles are effective harassment options as well as having Blink Stalkers and Warp Prism strategies available.
The Immortal is single handedly the only reason t hat Protoss are able to walk into Siege Lines and win, the other races can't do that unless the tanks are badly positioned or caught in tank mode and it's this ability to just waltz into tank lines that makes the Siege Tank unable to control space in TvP.
Long story short. Hardened Shields needs a nerf. It's designed in such a way that makes it an INCREDIBLY hard counter to Siege Tanks and Thors yet doesn't serve much of a real purpose outside of that. You could do any number of things to it, raise the maximum damage to 20, put a cooldown on it so it can only mitigate one shot every 10-15 seconds etc. and you'd be effectively only nerfing the Immortal vs the Ultralisk, Siege Tank, Thor and against itself.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 21 2012 03:57 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote: Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? I think Thieving Magpie described the "characteristic" of Protoss best: Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote: Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. So there is only one way to deal with this and keep the threat level for the other races at the same level: OVERKILL damage which clearly kills low hp units (no real change for T and Z) and reduces the number of hits Protoss units can take. Sadly there are two downsides to this: 1. The SC2 splash damage system is rubbish compared to the one in BW, because it deals full damage in the whole area and that is too much, but reducing the radius will just make it abuseable by sending a few units ahead to soak up the damage and then rush the Siege Tanks while they are not firing. 2. The density of units in SC2 is just sooo high that you lose 10% of your army with every shot from a Siege Tank and that is just a silly concept. Soooo ... better adopt the BW splash damage system (and the rest of the bonus damage system as well) and add in forced unit spreading as well as limited unit selection. Then you can crank up Siege Tank damage to threatening levels (for Protoss) and finally make mech work as it should be.
lol you know that in the post the quote from me you used comes from, I specifically said Overkill was the one option I have heard that would be good, right? You basically just repeated my post, after quoting it ^^
Oh, and your point #1 is incorrect. Siege Tanks, Ravens HSM (WoL ofc), Archons, PF's, Nukes, all do splash that decreases as it get's farther away from the target.
Anyways... I don't see them implementing Overkill either. It would be cool if we could come up with a better idea :D
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On December 21 2012 07:42 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 03:57 Rabiator wrote:On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote: Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? I think Thieving Magpie described the "characteristic" of Protoss best: On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote: Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. So there is only one way to deal with this and keep the threat level for the other races at the same level: OVERKILL damage which clearly kills low hp units (no real change for T and Z) and reduces the number of hits Protoss units can take. Sadly there are two downsides to this: 1. The SC2 splash damage system is rubbish compared to the one in BW, because it deals full damage in the whole area and that is too much, but reducing the radius will just make it abuseable by sending a few units ahead to soak up the damage and then rush the Siege Tanks while they are not firing. 2. The density of units in SC2 is just sooo high that you lose 10% of your army with every shot from a Siege Tank and that is just a silly concept. Soooo ... better adopt the BW splash damage system (and the rest of the bonus damage system as well) and add in forced unit spreading as well as limited unit selection. Then you can crank up Siege Tank damage to threatening levels (for Protoss) and finally make mech work as it should be. lol you know that in the post the quote from me you used comes from, I specifically said Overkill was the one option I have heard that would be good, right? You basically just repeated my post, after quoting it ^^ Oh, and your point #1 is incorrect. Siege Tanks, Ravens HSM (WoL ofc), Archons, PF's, Nukes, all do splash that decreases as it get's farther away from the target. Anyways... I don't see them implementing Overkill either. It would be cool if we could come up with a better idea :D
I really miss Lockdown personally....
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On December 21 2012 07:42 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 03:57 Rabiator wrote:On December 21 2012 03:07 ZjiublingZ wrote: Short of giving units a specifically anti-Protoss ability (like EMP), how can this problem be avoided, at all? I think Thieving Magpie described the "characteristic" of Protoss best: On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote: Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. So there is only one way to deal with this and keep the threat level for the other races at the same level: OVERKILL damage which clearly kills low hp units (no real change for T and Z) and reduces the number of hits Protoss units can take. Sadly there are two downsides to this: 1. The SC2 splash damage system is rubbish compared to the one in BW, because it deals full damage in the whole area and that is too much, but reducing the radius will just make it abuseable by sending a few units ahead to soak up the damage and then rush the Siege Tanks while they are not firing. 2. The density of units in SC2 is just sooo high that you lose 10% of your army with every shot from a Siege Tank and that is just a silly concept. Soooo ... better adopt the BW splash damage system (and the rest of the bonus damage system as well) and add in forced unit spreading as well as limited unit selection. Then you can crank up Siege Tank damage to threatening levels (for Protoss) and finally make mech work as it should be. lol you know that in the post the quote from me you used comes from, I specifically said Overkill was the one option I have heard that would be good, right? You basically just repeated my post, after quoting it ^^ Oh, and your point #1 is incorrect. Siege Tanks, Ravens HSM (WoL ofc), Archons, PF's, Nukes, all do splash that decreases as it get's farther away from the target. Anyways... I don't see them implementing Overkill either. It would be cool if we could come up with a better idea :D Thanks for correcting me and then the Siege Tank is even worse than I thought it was ... the radius given by the Liquipedia seems rather small for the full damage effect though, but I dont know what a "matric" is in length. If that is a "side of a building square" then the area for full damage is less than 1 square and that is TINY and needs to be increased urgently. Maybe thats why siege tanks dont kill anything.
Personally I think overkill is only possible after the unit density problem has been solved, because with the current system you might get extremely lucky and get a full on hit on a really critical bunch of units OR you could just hit a few less dangerous units and a reduced unit density would make it less important what you hit, because the tanks wouldnt die so fast and could maybe get a second shot off.
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On December 20 2012 04:22 Thieving Magpie wrote:
We shouldn't balance the game based on winning one battle but on giving a race the ability to fight throughout a game slowly gaining advantages along the way.
Mech should aim for something similar. Not necessarily "beat their deathball with my deathball" but find a way to grind out advantages to turn into wins.
My problem with this is that Protoss is handed the default win. It's the Terrans burden to cripple them enough to be able to fight them effectively mid/late game.
I don't like strategies that hinge on Terran being pigeon holed into specific play. This essentially boils down to "the terran needs to inflict severe economic damage to stand a chance of winning and if they don't protoss wins". Every single TvP boils down to this. Actually almost all macro games TvP and TvZ boil down to this.
Terran don't get the option of turtling up and winning unless P or Z inflict damage. The only time T winning from turtling happens is when P and Z don't expand while letting T expand all over the map and waiting 30+ minutes to fight. Even then, one single mistake with your positioning or a quick tech switch that's scouted 30 seconds late will lose you the game. Terran can't tech switch like P and Z. We are stuck with what we have until we play the very difficult see-saw game of suicide units without leaving yourself vulnerable while remaxing on a different comp. After you've managed that monolithic feat that Z and P don't have to worry about, they can just switch back and you're screwed.
T should have a late game option to fight toe to toe with Z and P. We should have the option to play late game matches without the need for intense and successful early/mid game harass. P and Z have those options so why don't T?
When playing that strategy, and you're harassing and dropping in mineral lines and doing damage there will come a point where Z or P can decide you haven't done enough damage and the game is theirs in 10 minutes. T can't do this. Ever.
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On December 20 2012 23:01 Hider wrote: The problem is that splash time works better against zergs/bio than toss. So if we want to make it usefull in all matchups we need single target damage.
Which means we would need a lot of them which means AoE would own them. Helloooo Bio!
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Give siege tanks some kind of Emp shell upgrade. With hellbats they will be strong enough. I really wish to see some light anti air mech units that are not as powerful as marines, but meaty enough.
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On December 21 2012 19:41 Zaurus wrote: Give siege tanks some kind of Emp shell upgrade. With hellbats they will be strong enough. I really wish to see some light anti air mech units that are not as powerful as marines, but meaty enough. Why would you overcomplicate the game by introducing a new mechanic (EMP shell)? The game can be fixed without that and the only problem is that they arent doing it.
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I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 21 2012 19:14 Rife wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 04:22 Thieving Magpie wrote:
We shouldn't balance the game based on winning one battle but on giving a race the ability to fight throughout a game slowly gaining advantages along the way.
Mech should aim for something similar. Not necessarily "beat their deathball with my deathball" but find a way to grind out advantages to turn into wins. My problem with this is that Protoss is handed the default win. It's the Terrans burden to cripple them enough to be able to fight them effectively mid/late game. I don't like strategies that hinge on Terran being pigeon holed into specific play. This essentially boils down to "the terran needs to inflict severe economic damage to stand a chance of winning and if they don't protoss wins". Every single TvP boils down to this. Actually almost all macro games TvP and TvZ boil down to this. Terran don't get the option of turtling up and winning unless P or Z inflict damage. The only time T winning from turtling happens is when P and Z don't expand while letting T expand all over the map and waiting 30+ minutes to fight. Even then, one single mistake with your positioning or a quick tech switch that's scouted 30 seconds late will lose you the game. Terran can't tech switch like P and Z. We are stuck with what we have until we play the very difficult see-saw game of suicide units without leaving yourself vulnerable while remaxing on a different comp. After you've managed that monolithic feat that Z and P don't have to worry about, they can just switch back and you're screwed. T should have a late game option to fight toe to toe with Z and P. We should have the option to play late game matches without the need for intense and successful early/mid game harass. P and Z have those options so why don't T? When playing that strategy, and you're harassing and dropping in mineral lines and doing damage there will come a point where Z or P can decide you haven't done enough damage and the game is theirs in 10 minutes. T can't do this. Ever.
This is just not true, even with Bio. And Bio should have to take advantage of it's mid-game advantage to compensate for it's later game weakness (although ultimately it is the strongest in the late, late game). Mech should be the one the opponent tries to slow down, because it's the weakest composition in the mid-game. Anyways, Thorzain proves what you are saying wrong 100%. He has played, against KR protoss' and high level foreigners, a very turtle style of Bio where he maybe drops once or twice in the entire game, at most. He doesn't do damage in the mid-game. He turtles to Ghost/Viking and turtles almost the entire game, sometimes harassing with Nukes in the very late game.
Though I agree this is a problem in the vs Zerg match-ups, it's one thing for Bio to need to do damage to Infestor/Ling, but even Mech absolutely relies on doing some damage or holding some aggression very cost effectively to not die in the "early late game".
Anyways, what the dude you are responding to is saying doesn't necessarily mean the same as "you have to do damage or you auto-lose". Gaining an advantage could be something as simple as building up your Tank count, or gaining ground on the opponent. If these are the small advantages the Mech player is grinding out, then we can see the Protoss player has an equal or even greater pressure to prevent them from gaining those advantages. Both players are actively doing something to better their chances, not just "harass and try to defend harass". Maybe they need to make small trades to prevent the Tank count from getting to high, or they need to slow down the Mech player from taking up too much of the map. Or better yet, a little of both. The mech player can't just sit there and build Tanks and win if Protoss doesn't do damage, they have to build Tanks AND slowly gain ground, and the Protoss has to whittle away at Tanks and/or slow the Mech players push forward.
And all along the way there are tools like tech switches and harassment to also gain an advantage, for both players.
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On December 22 2012 02:01 Sissors wrote: I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step.
Even if they just changed harden shield to cancel out all damage bonuses, it would be a huge change for tanks. It’s not like siege tanks trade poorly with immortals when the shield is down, since they both do similar damage.
I like the immortal as a unit and wish it could be used more and was not the anti armor death machine that costs almost as much as a colossi. If they nerfed it a bit, but also brought down cost, I wouldn’t cry.
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I talked with my friend toss GM in Hots.
He thinks mech is not viable because he has a anti-mech build.
When he knows the t go mech, he takes 4 fast base and chrono his upgrade. At 18min he has 3-3-3 and 200food robotic army, when the meching terran is around 2-2.
So mech upgrade is a problem.
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Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers Thors are (just now) good support Hellbats are good buffers Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor.
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Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess.
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On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote: Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers Thors are (just now) good support Hellbats are good buffers Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor.
Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring.
Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design.
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