Things that SC2 needs to improve tactical play rather than unit composition

SC2 is slowly devolving to who ever has the best combination unit ball wins.

There are less and less of tactical gameplay in terms of big fights, just 2 balls going up against each other. If your ball contains a ghost, Protoss balls better contain high templars to feedback.

The game feels that rather than increasing tactical battles, it aims to shut down the opposing team. For instance, force field absolutely shuts down melee units, while Psi Storm is nearly undodgeable with the autocasting, there's also no way to dodge emp blast. In SC1, psi storm was very easily dodged, and it took true skill to blanket an area with psi storm.

What I feel SC2 needs to improve reactionary tactical play is the following:

Psi Storm:
Have it hit the area a second later, have the high templar "paint" the ground with lets say a glowing emblem with a storm incoming. Good players will notice this and try to move out of the way.

EMP blast:
Introduce at least a bit of projectile lag to the EMP blast. It's currently instant and completely destroys protoss way of waging war considering it gets rid of shields AND mana. Maybe have a .5 second of laser sighting, them boom EMP blast.

Fungal growth:
Have it take longer to splash onto units, and instead of instantly stopping units, slowly slow them to a stop, ie, start from 25% slow, to 75% slow in a matter of seconds.

Force Field:
Make the force fields setup slower. That is, they have a setup time. The cast time is still the same, you can easily spam 50 force fields but it takes 1 second to set up (some sort of animation showing it?) It at least gives melee units a fighting chance to see that you're getting force fields. And with the knowledge that force fields have a 1 second setup, you'll probably be casting them earlier to block ramps and such.

Raven:
The Seeker drone needs to be faster. This is one area where they had the right thinking but it isn't effective at all. Just speed it up a lot, and remove the jump at the end. Just make it a castable floating spider mine, also make it so that there is setup time as well (ie same as spider mine)

Any other ideas? Currently, I feel there are way too many spells in the game that are just twitchy, and insta cast with insta effects. Instead of improving gameplay (ie, lets say plague vs the infestor skill. Plague removes HP slowly off your units, but doesn't kill them, forcing you to withdraw. The infestor skill sticks them into place, while often times killing the unit. That to me completely destroys the gameplay since there are absolutely no reactionary tactics to deal with you units being stuck in place.)

Then for Storm, what about changing it to the way it was in BW, adding delay you speak of?
And animation - it could be ripples in targeted place which then transform into a usual thunderstorm.

I'm guessing you read that TL article before you posted this?

i guess i agree with OT

I like this idea!

No need to nerf storm anymore. It's already useless enough that it's better to just get Colossi instead.

i agree on the general issue but im not sure about the details, mostly its hard to imagine FF or psistorm not being isntant. + i beleive these abilities are acutaly of great tactical worth even now - no matter which side you're on.. its only under extreme cirucmstances caused by terrain / unit positioning that these abilities are truely "undeniable"


fungal gradual slow would be interesting, but thats a whole otehr ability: i do think its good as is too... for this, i could see a delay though (along with buffs to damage / duration to compensate)

i totally agree about projectile speed on EMP and seeker missile, that thing is just too weak too slow and too expensive atm.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

No need to nerf storm anymore. It's already useless enough that it's better to just get Colossi instead.

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I forgot to note I'd increase radius of spell, my bad.
But yeah, I never prefer Storm over Colossi.

The pathing is too good in the game. If you had built in formations so your units become more cluttered as opposed to being fluid balls of units, ranged units will become less effective and the game will be less about unit compositions.

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Originally Posted by Wankey

In SC1, psi storm was very easily dodged, and it took true skill to blanket an area with psi storm.

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I never found it to take any real skill because i would just magic box 4 templars. I also see where you're going with this by trying to give the defensive side of things a chance to get out of the way. However, the reason people build these units is to use their sets of abilities and they aren't good for much else. The attacker needs to be able to use the set of abilities at the most crucial times, which would be hard to achieve with a lag time between each ability. For example a key psi storm can win you a fight but if you can't get that storm as easily because the people attacking you can move before it hits it can cost you the fight and you'll be left wondering why you bothered making templars instead of just massing units or something.

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

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Originally Posted by VVheat

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

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I don't think it will be any closer to street fighter 4 than it already was...

Your solution is to turn every spell into a seeker missile, then speed up the seeker missile?

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I don't think these ideas are necessary, I think Blizzard's got it close. Personnally I think some of the spells should use less energy instead of changing them, like 125 for a seeker missle! Come on!

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

I'm guessing you read that TL article before you posted this?

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Yes I did.

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Originally Posted by VVheat

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

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You missed the point completely. Scouting and vision doesn't mean it's tactical. It's playing playing chess, you're only allowed to see the enemy for a brief moment.

SC1 wasn't about building winning, it was about maneuvering on the battlefield. Sadly, of all the pro games I've seen of SC1 right now, very little battlefield tactical movement can be seen. It's all just big balls dancing with each other (excuse the pun)

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Originally Posted by Wankey

SC2 is slowly devolving to who ever has the best combination unit ball wins.

There are less and less of tactical gameplay in terms of big fights, just 2 balls going up against each other. If your ball contains a ghost, Protoss balls better contain high templars to feedback.

The game feels that rather than increasing tactical battles, it aims to shut down the opposing team. For instance, force field absolutely shuts down melee units, while Psi Storm is nearly undodgeable with the autocasting, there's also no way to dodge emp blast. In SC1, psi storm was very easily dodged, and it took true skill to blanket an area with psi storm.

What I feel SC2 needs to improve reactionary tactical play is the following:

Psi Storm:
Have it hit the area a second later, have the high templar "paint" the ground with lets say a glowing emblem with a storm incoming. Good players will notice this and try to move out of the way.

EMP blast:
Introduce at least a bit of projectile lag to the EMP blast. It's currently instant and completely destroys protoss way of waging war considering it gets rid of shields AND mana. Maybe have a .5 second of laser sighting, them boom EMP blast.

Fungal growth:
Have it take longer to splash onto units, and instead of instantly stopping units, slowly slow them to a stop, ie, start from 25% slow, to 75% slow in a matter of seconds.

Force Field:
Make the force fields setup slower. That is, they have a setup time. The cast time is still the same, you can easily spam 50 force fields but it takes 1 second to set up (some sort of animation showing it?) It at least gives melee units a fighting chance to see that you're getting force fields. And with the knowledge that force fields have a 1 second setup, you'll probably be casting them earlier to block ramps and such.

Raven:
The Seeker drone needs to be faster. This is one area where they had the right thinking but it isn't effective at all. Just speed it up a lot, and remove the jump at the end. Just make it a castable floating spider mine, also make it so that there is setup time as well (ie same as spider mine)

Any other ideas? Currently, I feel there are way too many spells in the game that are just twitchy, and insta cast with insta effects. Instead of improving gameplay (ie, lets say plague vs the infestor skill. Plague removes HP slowly off your units, but doesn't kill them, forcing you to withdraw. The infestor skill sticks them into place, while often times killing the unit. That to me completely destroys the gameplay since there are absolutely no reactionary tactics to deal with you units being stuck in place.)

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I disagree with pretty much everything in this post.

BW storm wasnt easy to dodge, its just that units didnt clump as much. Also, at this point in time for SC2, the battles are much larger than in BW because people arent as aggressive so they wait to do anything until like 180 food.

Fungal growth change: Why? This is again entirely different from what is even SC-like. Maelstrom in BW for example was instant.

Force Field: Again, why? If you have melee units, and you see sentries you should be assuming a FF anyway. Abuse this fact. Use your eyes and your brain.

Raven: I am unsure about this one, since it can be a disturbingly powerful ability if it is too quick.

EMP: This one I am torn on. Yes, it is strong but I dont know if it is overpowering or not. I am leaning towards it being fine though. If I see ghosts, I know that an EMP is coming so I need to either kill the ghosts before it goes off or run away after it goes off to regen shields.

I also think that you are underestimating how much effect unit composition had in BW, or are being nostalgic to downplay its significance. You are also forgetting how much time it has had to get to where it is today. As more people get SC2 and more time is spent on it, the bar will rise and you will see less unit ball clustering.

Storm impossible to dodge? Are you sure you didn't accidentialy click on your Brood War icon instead of StarCraft 2 when you played that game? I couldn't agree more with Gradius. Psi storm is not the Zerg (or bioball) killer it was in StarCraft. Since that was it's main use for that game, it's almost useless in StarCraft 2. Very, very, very, very, very rarely do I get psi storms even against Zerg. It's usually get to get a Collosus since they last longer and don't have annoying cooldowns.

Dont agree with the Storm one because Storm is so incredibly weak in comparison to SC1.. Takes what, 2 and a half storms to kill a Marauder if he stands still?

The biggest issue in the game I find so far, is tanks smart firing.. You cant draw 2-3 units away to draw the tanks to fire at only them, making no splash damage... because the tanks will smart first only 1 on those units, then the rest of your tanks are still loaded to fire on the other units. Tanks need to be like SC1, where they fire to the first thing in range and potentially wasting tank fire, that is the risk you take for not microing your tanks..

Its just insane how terran already has the best attack-move unit in the game with marauders, AND have a huge range unit that smart fires and does insane damage.. AND turrets that can outrange void rays and vikings that could take out carriers in even numbers. Really needs a fix in this matchup.

Make forcefield slower and you basically kill PvZ and PvT also.. Protoss needs fast forcefields to hold off Baneling busts early.. without forcefield, ZvP would be the exact same as ZvZ is right now; who can get more banelings first to break off 1base. And PvT you need forcefield to stop the insanely overpowered marauders from kiting your zealots so easily with their slow.

Yes, i hate abilities that cannot be dodged, and deal terrible damage. It's stupid. "sorry, you can't do anything about this". It sucks.

I guess Psi Storm got like this, because of ridiculous ideas of some units moving at the speed of light, and because it got a horrible AoE nerf (among other nerfs), so it would be far too easy to dodge.

Also, the Protoss army is very slow. Trying to defend expansions that aren't really close is a nightmare. Unupgraded Zealots can be owned by any ranged unit with some micro, Sentries, Immortals, HTs and Colossi are slow, also. The Mothership is so slow it's useless, and the Carrier and Void Ray are also slow units.

Battles are too damn fast, and generally the winning army utterly defeats the losing army, even if they are of similar cost. Too much damage dealed by too many units. Some counters are so hard, that the game ends right there if the unit composition is better for one side. Protoss is usually a race to get Colossi, now that the Void Ray is so easy to counter.

To resume:
Zealot: way too slow without Charge
Immortal: slow, hard-counterable hard-counter.
Colossi: hard-counter, very position-dependant.
Void Ray: hard-counterable hard-counter.
Mothership: useless.
HT: very gas-expensive, with non-dodgeable but quite nerfed Psi Storm. Archon sucks.

Other races probably have their own share of problems, but i use Protoss, so i talk about that.

EDIT: guys, i dodged Psi Storm with my Zealots and Dragoons in BW. Zerg units would have trouble to do the same, because they die much faster. But in PvP, you could dodge quite a lot of damage by moving your units at the right moment.

Forcefield is too one sided, I agree on that sentiment. It's all dependent on the skill of 1 player. The victim being subject to the Forcefields cannot do anything to prevent being completely shut down by a good Protoss player.

Right now I feel like scraping FF to hell and replacing it with more interesting spell.
This physics show-off is pointless and quite boring.

Sentry is really should be calld Nullifier - Guardian Shield tries to disregard ranged units, Force Field negates melee-fighters. I almost NEVER use this thing. Idea of an early spellcaster for Protoss is quite appealing, but I've been expecting something more from a supposed Nerazim tech.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

Yes, i hate abilities that cannot be dodged, and deal terrible damage. It's stupid. "sorry, you can't do anything about this". It sucks.

I guess Psi Storm got like this, because of ridiculous ideas of some units moving at the speed of light, and because it got a horrible AoE nerf (among other nerfs), so it would be far too easy to dodge.

Also, the Protoss army is very slow. Trying to defend expansions that aren't really close is a nightmare. Unupgraded Zealots can be owned by any ranged unit with some micro, Sentries, Immortals, HTs and Colossi are slow, also. The Mothership is so slow it's useless, and the Carrier and Void Ray are also slow units.

Battles are too damn fast, and generally the winning army utterly defeats the losing army, even if they are of similar cost. Too much damage dealed by too many units. Some counters are so hard, that the game ends right there if the unit composition is better for one side. Protoss is usually a race to get Colossi, now that the Void Ray is so easy to counter.

To resume:
Zealot: way too slow without Charge
Immortal: slow, hard-counterable hard-counter.
Colossi: hard-counter, very position-dependant.
Void Ray: hard-counterable hard-counter.
Mothership: useless.
HT: very gas-expensive, with non-dodgeable but quite nerfed Psi Storm. Archon sucks.

Other races probably have their own share of problems, but i use Protoss, so i talk about that.

EDIT: guys, i dodged Psi Storm with my Zealots and Dragoons in BW. Zerg units would have trouble to do the same, because they die much faster. But in PvP, you could dodge quite a lot of damage by moving your units at the right moment.

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Are you sure we're playing the same game? Maybe you should stop blaming units for your shortcomings as a player. I've only heard complaints from you. Complaints I don't see anyone else complain about. You make problems out of things people don't find any problems in. Maybe it's you and not the units.

I can agree with all of these ideas in the OP, and also back the notion that there should be more tactical play in the game instead of simply hard counters.

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Originally Posted by Skyze

Dont agree with the Storm one because Storm is so incredibly weak in comparison to SC1.. Takes what, 2 and a half storms to kill a Marauder if he stands still?

The biggest issue in the game I find so far, is tanks smart firing.. You cant draw 2-3 units away to draw the tanks to fire at only them, making no splash damage... because the tanks will smart first only 1 on those units, then the rest of your tanks are still loaded to fire on the other units. Tanks need to be like SC1, where they fire to the first thing in range and potentially wasting tank fire, that is the risk you take for not microing your tanks..

Its just insane how terran already has the best attack-move unit in the game with marauders, AND have a huge range unit that smart fires and does insane damage.. AND turrets that can outrange void rays and vikings that could take out carriers in even numbers. Really needs a fix in this matchup.

Make forcefield slower and you basically kill PvZ and PvT also.. Protoss needs fast forcefields to hold off Baneling busts early.. without forcefield, ZvP would be the exact same as ZvZ is right now; who can get more banelings first to break off 1base. And PvT you need forcefield to stop the insanely overpowered marauders from kiting your zealots so easily with their slow.

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Yeah I agree that they're not as strong, but the fact that is shuts down gameplay rather than improves it doesn't really help.

What does force field actually do? It blocks ramps, ie stops you from attacking (stops gameplay) it sticks units which stops you from microing (stops gameplay), it pushes your melee units away reducing the amount of gameplay you have (halving you units). It's not a great skill, and if it was a gimmick required to stop the marauder threat, then obviously marauders are so overpowered it isn't funny.

I think what they did was create the marauder and then blow a few skills to stopping him rather than creating an overall unit that added to the game design.

Then again, Dustin Browder did say he had to relearn everything when he joined Blizzard, not a great clue to a great game designer (more like an apprentice)

The point of this post isn't to say that things are overpowered or under powered, it's to say that the devices put into the game are purely to stop gameplay or shut down the opponent.

For instance, you say that storm is ridiculously underpowered. They are only under powered because of range and AoE, they are ridiculous overpowered once you get them to hit due to the fact that they block vision from your units since it completely covers them (again dumbs down gameplay), the fact that you can't evade them and often times speed up the destruction of your ball from seconds to milliseconds. I've literally had a 150+ zerg army that disappeared without a trace within the first few seconds of combat. I didn't even get to click anything. Another problem added to the audio warning issue (the audio warning played after all my units were destroyed)

This kind of ultra fast combat coupled with debilitating insta cast AoE spells, plus the increased game speed over old faster speed (It has been increased, it's easily noticeable now since it's uniformly increased everywhere since patch 13-14 phase 1), it's hard to keep up with the game.

I've been watching commentary from HDStarcraft, you can see he's having trouble as well talking about the game. The commentary used to be pretty fluid and interesting about how the game is progressing. Now, the commentary is slowly devolving to "what he should've done" or "how he should've handled the situation" simply because the battles are over so quickly. Furthermore, if you notice he barely has anytime during battles to talk about anything other than "omg it's so exciting so amazing!"

A bit of setup time for all the insta cast spells will allow more room for error. That extra .8 second, you have time to react, and therefore move your forces at least starting to move them when psi storm hits, or EMP hits.

I think to increase tactical play, health to damage ratios on all races should be increased. Each unit should survive ~1 more worker attack.

Then, damage to health ratio should ramp up a bit slower as the game progresses.

A global +3 to +6 on health for all units maybe? (Then of course re-balance from there)

The effect?

1. Less games that end in 1 big clash, more microing those red/orange health units.
2. Less A-move wins
3. Slightly longer battles, but not exactly WC3-like
4. Less need to tweak cast times/delays while still giving reaction time to cast targets
5. More micro intensive early games
6. An incentive to split the "ball" of units
7. A dampening of hard counters, but not completely eliminating them
8. LOLz, and if this change sucks, easy to roll back from

EDIT: +5 to +10 is too much, changed to +3 to +6

I don't really get why having powerful spells makes the game less tactical.

If you can't dodge a spell once it's cast, then you need to attack from a different angle, or separate his army, or not engage directly etc.... that's MORE tactical.

If anything, having dodge-able spells would just make them easy to counter by the good players, and allow them to obliterate noobs even more.

It's funny that your changes would probably have the exact effect you don't want: turn the game into a dumb click-fest.

@Don:
1) Why wouldn't it end in one big clash? The clash would probably just last a few seconds longer but the outcome wouldn't be any different. You'd just have to click 10x more to get through the battle, instead of aiming for the benefits of perfect positioning and army composition.
2) A-move wins? Aren't we talking about spells being too powerful? If your composition sucks, then you should be losing to an a-move. Being a smart player, or a tactical player, also means you're scouting and can plan ahead.
3) Besides increasing the micro component, I don't see what this would do. It's impact on "tactics"? Dunno.
4) Yeah I don't think that's a good idea. Why make another change so that there are "fewer unnecessary changes", which are unnecessary to begin with.
5) Micro/macro balance... very subjective. I like it the way it is. You don't say why having more micro early game is good thing.
6) That's dumb. Why would having more hp encourage you to split your army more? Wouldn't fewer hp make you split more because of how badly aoe would own you?
7) You mean making them soft-counters? And you think this will make the game MORE tactical? It'll make it much LESS tactical. This sort of change is exactly what encourages A-move battles, because a larger army will always win, regardless of army composition and tactics (why would you bother dropping if you'll get owned by his army even if he splits it up?)

gah...

I see the word "tactical" thrown around a lot. Seems to me like the OP is just asking for more micro.
It also seems to me like the OP doesn't realize how important micro is... and that storms are still absolutely worth dodging.
Also, forcefields aren't easy to set up. With a 1s casting time, the spell would lose it's whole "awesome" factor. I think it's great the way it is.

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SC2 is slowly devolving to who ever has the best combination unit ball wins.

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And so you that increasing micromanagement will help solve that? And then you call it "tactics"?
What about harassment? Reducing those spell's potency would basically encourage players to get MORE combat units and confront in even more large battles.
What you want is to make the game more skirmish friendly. Encourage harassment with vikings, infestors (decent change to the IT btw), reapers, mutas, etc...

Hammy nailed it.

Also, I find it hilarious that a Protoss player wouldn't use FF when it is essential in certain situations, such as a tech build. Ever had the problem in BW where you 1 gate core only to find that your zerg opponent went 3 hatch speedlings, and you're contained, or forced to produce out of 2-3 more gates on 1 base while he double expoes?

That was dumb as hell, and frustrating until the maps changed to allow for more macro-oriented play. Now, FE into fast tech is standard in PvZ. The sort of equivalent in SC2 is having forcefield and zealots from 1 gate to protect your ramp long enough to achieve a 2nd tier unit. And, in the new PvZ, it is still going to be zerg getting a FE and spawning larva and getting zerglings with speed from 2 hatches, but BOTH players have a possibility to tech up and have a decent chance at equanimity.

My point is that the tactical usage of FF allows for tech builds in PvZ on the CURRENT map pool. If FF didn't exist, it would ALWAYS be 2 gates into templar with absolutely no way to tech or scout the opponent's base, expand, by which time zerg can just turtle spine crawlers and tech to something like mutas and you will have NO time to spawn enough anti-air defense.

You have to remember here too that this isn't BW. SC2 tactical play is much more diverse, and is STILL developing at this point. BW only started having PvZ with FE Protoss builds as of a couple or so years ago. It's been 6 months since beta has started!

The ball v ball armies we are seeing are just a result of noobs not having the necessary control to use grouped units as in BW, which took time to master in that game as well. I think we shouldn't jump the gun here and allow for SC2 to develop.

I guarantee you that this ball v ball business will evolve into more tactical play as time progresses. Warp prisms are very underused, so are tank drops, storm drops, OL drops, nydus attacks and there are new tactics that can emerge from the new Overseer and Infestor abilities.

The main reason for the FF blocking underground units from moving underneath it I think is to protect bases against burrowed roaches who are spotted, since it is already hard to stop burrow-move units.

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Originally Posted by flabortast

Are you sure we're playing the same game? Maybe you should stop blaming units for your shortcomings as a player. I've only heard complaints from you. Complaints I don't see anyone else complain about. You make problems out of things people don't find any problems in. Maybe it's you and not the units.

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So, you say that my interpretations aren't accurate. Then talk about them.