Make Certain Unit interactions more realistic

General Discussion
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Also I noticed some balance changes to Terran and Protoss since the last time I payed competitively. I think they are all good changes, except I disagree with reverting the Marauder back to 20+2 damage; I think it’s bad for the game that a Tier 1 Unit beats Tier 3 units, such as Thors and Ultralisks. For example, real life mech units, such as Tanks, have “reactive armor” which counters rocket-propelled Grenades, even shaped blast RPGs can’t penetrate it. Anyway.

Banshee
Why does It take 3 hits for a Banshee to kill a combat shields marine? You give no similar upgrade to Banshees, even though their total resource cost is 5 times greater than marines. Actually, their “Worker-time” cost is even more than that, because Gas mines slower than minerals. Why not give banshees an upgrade that makes them do more damage vs Light?

I mean, realistically a helicopter should 1-shot marines, but that might not be good for gameplay, but give them an upgrade to make them 2-shot combat shielded marines. Like maybe they’d do 3 packets of 12+1 when upgraded, instead of 2 packets, or give them like +2x3 vs light, or a total of 2x15+2 vs light and 2x12+1 vs non-light, that way they’d 2-shot combat shield marines again, and they’d 3-shot hydralisks.

Siege Tank
Give Siege Tanks the primary target bonus damage upgrade from the Campaign. Why does it take so many hits for a tank to kill a marine? Make tank mode do 25 damage to everything, and Siege Mode have an upgrade of bonus damage to the primary target. Also add the shaped blast upgrade that halves friendly fire from siege tanks. In real life, friendly fire from artillery is a LOT less common than this video game makes it seem.

Battlecruiser

No suggestions here. I noticed some further balance changes have happened wo make battlecruisers even better vs light units, so that was a good change. Their regular weapon is even weaker, but has an even higher fire rate, which makes them very good vs light units now. So that’s great.

Real world relative costs of Units.

It takes about 40,000 dollars to train a Marine through Basic Training. The net economic value of the average human in the United States is about 7 million dollars for their lifetime. So the total cost of training a marine or a pilot is 7 million dollars.

A real world Siege Tank (Paladin) is a few dozen million dollars. (but they have a maximum effective range of about 5 miles)

A 5th Generation Fighter (comparable to a Wraith) costs about 40 million dollars, or 6 times the net value of a human being.

This means the cost-ratio of a Banshee in-game is about right compared to Marines, and this means a Banshee SHOULD one-shot marines in-game. And it means Siege Tanks should also one-shot their primary ground target in-game, because they have about the same cost-ratio as real life military units have vs marines. So the “worker time” cost of a marine in-game is 10 cycles, for a banshee it’s 30 cycles for minerals and 25 cycles for gas, for a total of 55 worker cycles; about what it should be fore a “6th generation cloaked aircraft”.

And look, I’d even be willing to pay 25 more gas (each)for a more realistic Banshee that kills (combat shield) marines in one or two shots; in the real world, you can’t “micro” and destroy a stealth helicopter with small arms fire, that’s ridiculous. In the real world, if you don’t have real AA such as a 50 caliber machine gun or a missile battery, you’re pretty much screwed…

Anyway, the cost-ratio for tanks and banshees, etc, vs marines is about right in-game compared to real life, but the damage ratio of “tech” units is actually MUCH WEAKER than it should be compared to the cost ratio.

Ultralisk
Using the same cost ratio argument for an Ultrlaisk, this suggests the cost of raising an ultralisk would be 80 million dollars if they existed in real life. So by comparison, since it’s a Melee Unit, It should be twice as cost-effective vs ground as “archer units” of a similar price, so Ultralisks should ROFLMAO CURB STOMP tier 1 and tier 2 ground units.

So for example Avillo complaining that he couldn’t micro tier 1 marines and marauders to beat the 8 armor ultralisks… can I have some cheese with that whine? Well, if you’re still training marines and marauders by the time your opponent has 4 to 6 fully upgraded Ultralisks, you SHOULD flat out lose the game.

Semi-realistically, a unit that expensive could have Kerrigan’s “Psionic Shift” or “Charge” or something and just run right over marines and squash them en masse, and that would still be FAIR because their cost ratio in worker-time is 11 times greater than marines AND they are an anti-ground specialist, so they should be twice as cost-effective as their cost-ratio implies. So again, they actually aren’t good enough against marines and marauders yet.

A similar argument could be made for Colossi, which are ground-only ranged, and cost the same as an Ultraisk. They probably are not as effective as they should be, given their cost ratio vs tier 1 units.

So that’s the point I’m making.

You shouldn’t be able to “micro” the totally wrong units and win a battle.

It would seem to be that a game called “StarCraft” should be more about the Star Ships than the marines and Stalker/Zealots.

I don’t think you should get a “free win” with a solo banshee rush, BUT an unscouted double proxy banshee SHOULD pretty much be a Free Win.

by the way, I haven’t checked that. Are 8 armor ultralisks still a thing, or did they revert that change?

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There is no logical link between those propositions.

Your more realistic Banshee will be 25 millions gaz more, payable in advance, and will be delivered one year after the command has been issued. Fuel not included.

You forgot the taxes and the shipping cost.

Jokes aside, this disregard for the lore and gameplay seems to hint a troll post.

Realistically an helicopter polyvalent or anti-personnel missile should kill marines by packs of 30.

Anyway, realistically :
— Battlecruisers would be about a quarter of the size of the map
— Tanks and vikings would be 3x larger, and Ultralisks 4x bigger than tanks
— Banshees but also vikings would not only one shot marines but also splash them, and that would apply for 80% of rax, gates, hatch and lair units
— Units wouldn’t cost only minerals/gaz
— Aerial units wouldn’t be able to stand still
— Archons wouldn’t lose to cracklings
— Any worker or tier 1 zerg unit would be OS by marines assault riffle salvos
— Sieged Tanks or Tempests would have full map range
— Ultralisks and other zerg unit wouldn’t hatch under their adult form
— Terran mechanical units would take weeks to months to produce
— Ranged units wouldn’t have infinite ammo
— Mechanical units wouldn’t have infinite fuel
— Etc. etc. etc.

Conclusion : realistic would be bad for gameplay.
And that thread should’ve stopped there :

There is a misunderstanding : StarCraft is a Real Time Strategy game. In other words units’ speed, firing point, acceleration, range, all what makes microability is part of the balancing of the game.
And thus if a unit can beat another via micro, that makes it designed to counter that other unit ; and thus a fully relevant strategical choice.

The cyclones or phoenixes are an obvious example of that, as none of those two unit would have value without micro ; but the micro potential (or inability) or each and every one game unit is a fully thought-on balance and design choice. :balance_scale:

It proved disastrous in terms of balance, as combined to the equally bad marauder nerf it basically made ultralisks near invincible against MMM. Most TvZ pro games revolved about reapers cheeses (that were also broken at that point), or 2 to three bases allins designed to kill the zerg before he could produce ultralisks.

So it was among the first balance mistakes they corrected after LotV’s launch.

As you just realized, this is why the game is called StarCraft and not StarShips ; as it deals with the crafting and strategical use of every kind of military infrastructure and units. Not just ships.

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If you think tier 1 MMM is supposed to beat late tier 3 Ultralisks, then just what in the hell is it you think Ultralisks are supposed to beat? They don’t beat Tanks and they don’t beat Thors and they don’t beat Planetary Fortresses and they don’t even beat bunkers with marines in them.

Ultralisks are HORRIBLE in Sc2, and they are even worse in Broodwar.

Same goes for mech, what’s the point in Mech if bio is allegedly “designed” to beat mech? Only an idiot designes a strategy game so tier 1 beats tier 2 and tier 3.

In AoE 3, Field cannons cost 400 gold and 100 wood, and they 1-shot almost anything anything on the ground, except other cannons, and they splash and one shot anything they splash…and the game is INTENDED to be like that, and yet human vs human games don’t turn into 20 cannons vs 20 cannons games, although handicap matches against the most difficult A.I. DO turn into 20 cannons vs the A.I. Cannons beat everything, and they are supposed to beat everything, because 400 gold, 100 wood justifies them beating everything.

I didn’t need 400 APM micro to maintain a 99% win percentage in 2001 in Broodwar, and a 90% win percentage in 2007 when most players were better, and I did that with all three races.

What’s bad for gameplay is a “pro gamer” wins almost 100% of his games by massing marines for 30 minutes every game.

No, no, noob, you don’t get off that easy.

Tell me what 6 armor Ultralisks are “designed to beat” in ZvT, besides SCVS anyway.

By the way, 20+2 Marauders beat EVERYTHING that doesn’t fly, either because of damage penetration or because of the slowing effect of the Concussive shells. So what is supposedly deisgned to beat them?

Oikay, actually, in the real world, cloning a human being to adulthood would take at least 18 years, so by that reasoning Marine should have a much longer training time than Wraiths or Tanks.

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Ultralisks are supposed to beat Marines, Hellions, and Hellbats; not Marauders, at least assuming the Marauders have enough numbers and firepower.

That strictly depends on the size of the engagement and the spread of the Tanks. Ultralisks win in small fights. Tanks win in larger fights; which is to be expected considering how Tanks have ALWAYS operated.

That is to be expected:

  • The Ultralisk’s splash damage is nearly irrelevant to units as large and tough as Thors.
  • The Ultralisk’s armor is nearly irrelevant to units like Thors that deal damage in large burst.
  • The Thor’s attack is most efficient against durable targets (where it doesn’t lose damage to overkill and doesn’t have to wait for the attack delay to acquire a new target after every shot), and least effective against smaller, squishier units like Zerglings.

Large attack, lots of health, repairs (if you are not attacking the SCVs, no splash. Same deal with the Thor. I get the feeling you just don’t understand how units work.

Siege Tanks destroy Bio; and mech can certainly out-trade Bio in direct engagements.

Bio competes by using its higher mobility to harass, expand, and by taking advantage of gaps in the mech player’s defenses or preparation.

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Lots of allegations for someone who just discovered SC2’s current version. Have you double checked them ?

Your insults towards SC2 designers and balance team only highlight your lack of self control. But who said mech was supposed to beat bio without anything to be done ? If you were a bio player in an admirably designed Wade SC2 versions, would you be supposed to tap out right away upon discovering you opponent goes mech ? What kind of game would that make of SC2, a 3D version of rock papers scissors ? :roll_eyes:

Where are we to ask that kind of question, in an antique shop ? Current version is 7 armor, and it beats marines, hellbats, tanks in low numbers, marauders in low numbers, PFs, mines (specially to tank shots for banes), let’s not even talk about reapers or hellions which would be completely useless against them.

When you where at your antique shop spilling your self sufficiency, you might have missed the anabolic synthesis, which allow them to catch up with stimmed bio. So you’d knew they are mostly used as a transition to LBM (which increases the marines ratio), which means that a terran who overdoes marines will die to ultras and banes, and one who overcommits to marauders will die to lings and ultras.
In other words you’d knew that MMM loses to ultralisks, which is why bio modern play revolves around its support units (tanks, mines, libs, ghosts in particular). :mag:

Speedlings. Tier 1, first zerg units. Under what rock have you been living ? :roll_eyes:

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No, I do understand the units, I was just summarizing what they don’t beat.

It takes FOUR fully upgraded Ultras to beat one planetary fortress with repair, and you’ll lose 2 of the Ultras before the Planetary fortress dies…and that’s assuming there are no other units attacking with the PF. PF is tier 1, Ultra is tier 3, how does that make sense?

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This sums up the whole post. Strategy Games aren’t about realism, they’re about a balanced skirmish between two players. It’s not realistic in chess that a knight can only move in L shapes, horses can ride in a straight line. Doesn’t mean it should be that way in the game.

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Actually they would if they were designed to do so.
Banshees, Vipers and Mutalisks would have no problems at hoovering.

We already possess technology that allows us to change angle of thrust in the aircraft (adore this beautiful art uwu!) :

it would be not a problem to implement it on mass scale for planet-based vehicles like Vikings and Ravens. For obvious reasons, it would be even easier for Phoenixes, Void Rays, Oracles, Observers, Warp Prisms.

The problem could be with Battlecruisers, Carriers, Motherships and Tempests. For such big machines designed for star travel, implementing solutions for dealing with gravitation different planets would be a very expensive (mainly in terms of whole quality of design) and such vehicles probably could only get on a far orbit of the planet and provide artillery support from this location. Therefore units would be available as calldowns only. (I guess pressing “fire” on Mothership is insta Protoss win, for Protoss units and vehicles can be instantly teleported out of the area, while other races are left to death. But it would mean loss of strategic meaning of the battlefield [destruction of the whole area, and Protoss do not fight here for fun, they have some actual business here], so probably Mothership would be deleted from the game.)

From all units present in the game, only Brood Lords could not hoover above the ground and would need to be in constant motion.

Corruptors, Overlords and Overseers would be fine.

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Why are you attacking the planetary and ignoring the SCVs with a splash damage unit?

If you cannot reach the SCVs, then why are you charging your Ultralisks into a wall? Ultralisks are notoriously bad at breaking walls thanks to their large collision size and the resulting pathing.
[/quote=“Wade-11275, post:6, topic:18803”]
PF is tier 1, Ultra is tier 3, how does that make sense?
[/quote]
Well first, your assumption that “tiers” (and those are an arbitrary, inconsistent concept) mean anything in this is flawed. Unit interactions (counters, etc) are determined by units’ roles and functions, not by their placement in the tech-tree.

Second, Planetary Fortresses, despite their placement in the tech-tree, are mostly a mid to late-game turret. They typically aren’t feasible to use in the early-game because they are very expensive to build and conflict with Terrans’ macro mechanic.

Planetary Fortresses also don’t stack up well for decent DPS like other turrets can; so they depend heavily on that splash or on extra durability (from armor, repairs, etc) to be effective.
You break Planetaries by:

  • Bursting them down with high burst or high DPS units (Banelings, DTs in decent numbers, etc)
  • Wearing them down from outside their range (Lurkers, Biles, Brood Lords, Tanks, air units, Swarm Hosts since the Swarm Hosts can launch and run from a safe distance, etc); depending on the case you may force repair time, kill SCVs and defending units, or (if the opponent cannot stop you in time) take down the structure.
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Not really, not in realistic compositions, speedlings don’t beat Marauders. in realistic compositions the Teran goes like 3/4 rax, 1 factory, 1 starport and all-ins at this point, so he has about half marines half marauders and some Helion/Hellbat and 2 or 3 medivacs and all-ins like that.

Pretty much the Zerg gets face-planted, because Banes don’t really trade well with concussive shell marauders (Marine DPS plus Concussive Shell slow = dead banes*), and lings get massacred by blue flames and roaches get massacred by the marauders too.

YOu can even put your Marauders in front, and let them soak bane hits for the Marines and Hellion/Hellbats.

When I win TvZ, this is how I win.

My balance suggestion thread makes Zerg stronger vs Terran, except Siege Tanks and Banshees, definitely better Roaches (except vs tanks or banshees) and strictly better Broodlords and Ultralisks.

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You don’t have that much marauders at all stages in the game, this isn’t TvP, terrans get to 5 rax (and not 3), and the predominant place of LBM in the current meta would prevent the ratio of marauders from getting that high that early in the game.

Plus has you just said it, marauders need to be associated with hellions/bat or marines in order to beat lings based composition. That alone highlights that on their own they wouldn’t fare well against lings. And that’s why the ratio of lings/banes on one side, and of marines/marauders are part of the mindgame, and why when it is chosen LBM prepares the place for the ultralisks.

Anyway, marauders are indeed very useful against banes, and placing them in from before splitting is nearly always a good move in TvZ, I do agree on that part.

I do however wonder if it isn’t a bit early to be making balance suggestions considering you picked back the game only a handful of weeks ago ; but thinking about consequences and possibility is a stimulating exercise, and you wouldn’t the first trying yourself at it. So, HF.