Force Field, a bit ridiculous, and harmful to game design

[JackhammerIV]

gonna look at taht later twilice.

Wankey: i feel, all thats left to do is to quote day[9] in a hillariously embaracing context: it is what it is

No todie what's wrong with you. The zerg's hero is IdrA. If you lose ZvP it's cos "Protoss if f***ing overpowered". If you lose ZvT it's cos "Terran is less imba than Protoss but they're still f***ing overpowered compared to zerg." If you lose ZvZ it's cos "It's a coinflip." The ultimate zerg mindset.

[Twilice]

Heh, terran is much harder then protoss :P It's because it can look like they got for tanks and then they got this blue flame of death hellions you will see rolling and hating. Protoss is more like "ok, stargate I get extra queens". or "ok, double robobay I get neural parasite for my infestors".

[Peanutbutter]

No todie what's wrong with you. The zerg's hero is IdrA. If you lose ZvP it's cos "Protoss if f***ing overpowered". If you lose ZvT it's cos "Terran is less imba than Protoss but they're still f***ing overpowered compared to zerg." If you lose ZvZ it's cos "It's a coinflip." The ultimate zerg mindset.

Quoted for truth!

I've seen a lot of threads on the Bnet forums regarding forcefield, and usually the arguments weren't constructive or good. People just called it imba, cause some high level zerg does the same thing.

And from what I've seen, Idra is the only high level zerg that complains ( Heavily ) about balance in ZvP. Please correct me if I'm wrong ( I think i might be )

As for FF's being harmful to game design, i disagree. Forcefields are what got me into Starcraft ( watch the Blizzard Battlereport vid on Scrap Station ). It is such an interesting and usable ability in tons of scenarios.

Wankey: i feel, all thats left to do is to quote day[9] in a hillariously embaracing context: it is what it is

That sentence rings a bell. Where's it from?

[Todie]

That sentence rings a bell. Where's it from?

some old RL story he posted on TL before his grand sc2-fame...

what its about? let me put it this way, dayJ's forcefield expired, witch exposed him to a devastating timing-attack at the choke that was the air-plane toilet door, from the concerned stewardess. Having been ferociously chornoboosting his probe by his lonesome, Sean mustered a brilliant defensive move by burrowing his nydusworm (/pylon) in a heap of TP and at the moment of truth delivering the line it is what it is ...

now THAT is some quality crisis managment.

[Peanutbutter]

some old RL story he posted on TL before his grand sc2-fame...

what its about? let me put it this way, dayJ's forcefield expired, witch exposed him to a devastating timing-attack at the choke that was the air-plane toilet door, from the concerned stewardess. Having been ferociously chornoboosting his probe by his lonesome, Sean mustered a brilliant defensive move by burrowing his nydusworm (/pylon) in a heap of TP and at the moment of truth delivering the line it is what it is ...

now THAT is some quality crisis managment.

Oh right. I remember now.

[silencbank]

it is what it is

I always say to remember to bring an extra wicker basket on flights for emergencies such as these. Oh and on topic forcefields are fine. And shaped like upside down wicker baskets.......coincidence!?!???!?!?

[Wankey]

Again why is this good gameplay:

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a) Force fields aren't that hard to set up
b) in both games, he wipes out an attacking force without losing a single unit with little to no micro (other than pressing F and SHIFT clicking)
c) in the second game, Zerg simply dies because all his forces get wiped out in 5 seconds

Explain to me why this promotes eSports and great gameplay because I don't see it. All I see if a cheap tactic that doesn't require much skill while giving Toss easy wins.

With force fields it seems to be a game design problem. Force fields against Terran work fine because terran is still range powered. However, since zerg aoe is in the form of a melee based unit that is incredibly easy to kill, it's obvious that something is messed. Imagine if the Zerg teched to lurker. Even with force field the lurker will still be able to do damage, whereas the baneling is easily and completely obliterated with little to micro required.

[Skyze]

you guys ever get the feeling that if IdrA played protoss, we'd have every forum on the internet calling zerg imbalanced instead of P??

[JackhammerIV]

Again why is this good gameplay:

Image Removed- Please use videos and not 2MB picture files



a) Force fields aren't that hard to set up
b) in both games, he wipes out an attacking force without losing a single unit with little to no micro (other than pressing F and SHIFT clicking)
c) in the second game, Zerg simply dies because all his forces get wiped out in 5 seconds

Explain to me why this promotes eSports and great gameplay because I don't see it. All I see if a cheap tactic that doesn't require much skill while giving Toss easy wins.

With force fields it seems to be a game design problem. Force fields against Terran work fine because terran is still range powered. However, since zerg aoe is in the form of a melee based unit that is incredibly easy to kill, it's obvious that something is messed. Imagine if the Zerg teched to lurker. Even with force field the lurker will still be able to do damage, whereas the baneling is easily and completely obliterated with little to micro required.

Shift clicking forcefields is suboptimal. F click F click is better. And there are circumstances of accidentally clicking on a baneling. So 1 F click 1 F click etc is the safest way to do that. Forcefields force the opponent to adjust their positioning. No more big blob running in.

Imagine that same scenario but now the sentries have no energy. I would say it looks a lot worse from the Protoss end. If the zerg chooses to move all his banelings in a big blob that's easy to forcefield then it's his own fault.

If the zerg instead chooses to move his banelings to approach the protoss army as a perpendicular line doing this forcefield donut is harder. More likely it'd be a line of forcefields. Unit control is important. In terms of zerg stupidity what the zerg did is the same as sending in a group of mutas all clumped up to attack a thor.

So it promotes zergs to not be all "herp derp here's my big ball of units". It's significantly easier to defend banelings coming in as one big ball instead of spread out in a line where things like storm aren't as effective. So overall.....zergs just want things easier and just be able to A-move into things. If they want that then they should switch races.

Forcefields when you have them and can use them well makes you look untouchable but when they're not there you look like a total scrub. Simply because you're relying on a spellcaster. I imagine a few months from now zergs will be complaining about ghost snipe once they realise how it can kill every single zerg unit. Ghosts can completely negate the broodlord to ultra switch or vice versa.

So summary.....you basically don't like the gameplay mechanics of a spellcaster. A unit that rewards efficient use of energy and spells in order to make your army stronger than it would be without the spellcaster. So....petition blizzard to remove all spellcasters then even queen's transfuse.

[Todie]

i largely agree with Jackhammer. but also, the initiative is immensly important in ZvP, sepcifically where the battle takes place. Zergs advantage is generally teh ability to replace an army quickly and flixibly. This sometimes makes even quite large armies expendable, so long as they are keeping the pressure on the oponent and the battles are taking place far enough away from critical zerg hiveclusters.

... for exaample, Image Removed- Please use videos and not 2MB picture files
the protoss player Minigun lost this game by a rather broad margin despite that epic electric-donut feat.

attack moving banelings into an FF-capable P army is a very risky feat thats how the game works and if you want to be able to enjoy the game you will have to come to terms with actually liking the fundamental workings of it.