Can we talk about bunker build time? Why are Blizzard nerfing it?
I was quite surprised when I read in the PTR about bunker build time being increased by 5 seconds. Clearly Blizzard think that bunker rushes are OP if they are making this change (and Dustin Browder mentioned in a recent interview I can't find that a nerf like this was coming), but I don't think it's a good idea. I feel like the bunker build time is not at all the problem; bunker rushing only seems OP because of a combination of deeper issues. I'm going to outline what I think these issues are here.
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The new worker AI causes a discontinuity at 16 miners, as seen in this thorough macro analysis. The 17th miner mines less than half as effectively as the 16th, meaning cutting at 16 workers to do anything at all is extremely effective. (This is why we see such incredibly strong 1-base timing pushes from all races, such as the 19/22 worker 4gates, the 19 worker 7RR, as well as other common strategies such as an in-base CC after orbital in all Terran matchups. 16 miners is a wonderful, magic number.)*
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Mules cause a mineral surplus in the early game because they are not subject to the above mining limitations. The only way for Zerg to secure an equivalent income is to expand to their natural. This in my opinion de-stabilizes the matchup, and is the nature of its early game fragility. There is no way for a Zerg to "play it safe". It's universally understood that, as Zerg, if you have not expanded by 20 supply you are officially all-in. This means there is very little meta-game to speak of in early game ZvT. Terrans can just blind 2rax bunker rush almost every game (except on the huge new GSL maps) because they know exactly how limited your options are. Even if you know it's coming you have to struggle to stop it.
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Marine DPS is too high. According to this chart, a bunker full of unstimmed marines has over three times the DPS of a spine crawler, despite costing only twice as much (nor any larvae). There are players who have made careers out of almost making pure marines. There was a RO16 player in GSL3 who was only able to Marine SCV all-in; that's literally all he could do, and he still did very well because it's just that effective. Their low HP is supposed to make up for their damage; protect these guys in bunkers and yeah, this makes the bunker seem OP.
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Zerglings without metabolic boost are terrible. In order to defend in any reasonable way, a Zerg is absolutely forced to get an early gas to counter a gasless bunker rush (as well as gasless Protoss cheese such as proxy gates, gate/forge cannon zealot rushes, etc.) The mineral surplus means the attacker can safely expand all the while delaying gas, so it's very difficult to hold off a bunker push without falling quite far behind.**
All the above make the bunker the perfect vehicle to apply early aggression. It does not seem to me like there's much wrong with bunkers themselves. In fact the only change I would recommend is that dealing damage to a salvaging bunker should cancel the salvage or restart the salvage timer, so a Terran can't get their money back when you legitimately defeat a bunker rush. This would add a bit of much needed risk to a bunker push, but as with the build time nerf, it wouldn't really fix much.
I feel like the above points are the deeper issues. Solve even one or two of the above and the 2rax rush would no longer be a problem. Solve a), and a Zerg could actually benefit from droning past 16 miners before their expo pops (and it might well allow inject to compensate for mules, as I expect Blizzard intended). Solve b), and a Zerg might have some meta-game options to punish a 2rax with 1-base tech. Solve c), and a bunker of marines could actually be stopped with a reasonable number of lings and a queen. Solve d), and a Zerg might be able to engage marines off creep without being forced to get an early gas. The problem is that each one of these issues would require a major, game-changing fix.
After considering all of the above over the past few weeks, seeing the bunker nerf on the PTR made me feel a bit like Blizzard doesn't know what they are doing.*** Hence the question in the title. The superficial reason for the nerf is of course to stop bunker rushes... but what is the real reason? The most likely explanation I can see is that they already know all of the above, and they are just making minor changes to delay the QQ while they work on Heart of the Swarm. I can definitely understand if that's what they are doing but… bummer, I guess. I do hope they plan to smooth out the economy a bit in HotS; it would make their balancing job way easier.
So what do you guys think? Is this a good change? Am I grossly misunderstanding early game ZvT mechanics or the SC2 economy? Should we all just not bother talking about balance anymore until they open the HotS beta?
I am a diamond random player with over 400 solo league games, all as random, and I probably spend more time watching pro games and studying strategy than actually playing. And yes, before you say it, I do think playing random is holding me back, so I will switch into a race with the ladder reset (mostly likely Terran or Protoss.) I know this doesn't approach the level of skill and experience of some other players here, but I still like to think that playing random for a full season has given me a reasonable understanding of the economic system and the various matchups of this game.
I was hoping we could have a serious discussion without disregarding my opinions due to rank or race. If you're not interested in discussing this, just downvote and move on; there are plenty of memegenerator images to enjoy. But if you are interested, upvoting does not mean you agree, just that you want to discuss it, and I don't get karma from a self post anyway. Thanks.
I've edited in a few footnotes:
* I've gone into this in more detail here with additional evidence and an explanation of my understanding of the worker AI. As far as I can tell it really is the worker AI that is a problem. The graph is discontinuous; it needs to be a curve, not a disjoint line, so that getting more workers (as any race) has proper risks and rewards.
** Just to elaborate on this: GSL Zerg have completely stopped hatching first. The opening now in every single game is 14gas 14pool 18hatch: you have to have 100 gas ready when the pool pops to have metabolic boost as early as possible, and the drones are immediately pulled off of gas and back to minerals. This automatically puts the Zerg behind, losing mining time and a worker to an extractor so early when Terran has a plethora of openings with delayed gas (and Protoss cheese and f/e needs no gas). Some have suggested changing metabolic boost; it's not the upgrade that's the issue here. The issue is gas.
*** Please don't read this as me bashing Blizzard. I'm just saying it felt that way, not that they actually are clueless; most likely they are already aware of all of this. They just can't fix these without an expansion, so a patchwork masking of the symptoms may be the best solution until HotS.
Posted Mar 1, 2011, 1:20 AM UTC · edited
Fantastic and very insightful post that highlights a lot of the issues plaguing this specific matchup.
I also agree that lengthening the bunker build time is only getting rid of the symptoms and not curing the disease.
It is quite a good post, for sure.
Though I wanted to just play Devil's Advocate for a minute; one facet of game design is experimentation. You can crunch numbers and connect all possible systems or mechanics that effect or tie into one another... but at the end of the day you need to evaluate the feel of something.
And that's what the PTR is doing for Blizzard, they are able to come up with some potential changes, then introduce it into a test environment where they can gain actual data. That data can then be examined and judged for effectiveness.
At this point, it's all speculation because there is nothing stopping them from undoing the construction time increase and going a different route. The PTR is a test environment to test things.
Now the reason they're leaving Salvage alone (for now) is because it fits wonderfully with the Mech play style for Terran. Mech is much slower and encroaching than Bio, which is mobile. But Mech has a dependency on some Bio to be effective, much like how even a power composition like Colossus/Void Ray needs a Gateway army.
Bunkers are there to prop up the Bio leg of the Mech gameplay - since there are fewer Marines and Marauders, they need to survive a little bit better. (Waaay better than giving more HP to Marines/Marauders in exchange for no Bunkers) If Bunkers could not Salvage, Terran wouldn't use them to help them secure a position, they would only use it to maintain a strongly secured position; one that doesn't feel like they're risking hundreds of minerals on a gamble.
Salvage lets Terran advance the front-lines forward in a way that lets them protect their infantry accompaniment. It reduces the gamble on maintaining the buildings, so it promotes their use.
Thing is, though, Bunker rushing protects Terran's earliest units so well that it creates a situation where dealing with the rush costs the opponent an amazing amount.
That's why I think they are changing the construction time. They don't want to make the Bunker ineffective for what it was designed for just because players can use the Bunker in a different way that is really hard to deal with and causes substantial damage to the other player if executed.
OP wasn't arguing that salvage should be removed. OP was saying that salvage should be interrupted by taking damage, so this wouldn't affect salvaging bunkers not on the front line. It would only keep players from salvaging bunkers that their opponents are attacking.
It wasn't so much that I was suggesting that Salvage be removed, per se, but that the Salvage ability is of the utmost importance to Blizzard as a major defining trait of Bunkers.
Creating an instance where Terran could lose their ability to Salvage (when the Bunker takes damage) would put Terran in a position where Bunkers would become used less due to players feeling uncomfortable erecting them at the front lines. The reason their build times were lowered to begin with was that Terran just plain weren't using Bunkers enough.
Because of Salvage's intended role, I don't think Blizzard is going to go that far and let them be destroyed without the ability to be salvaged. If anything, I personally feel that Bunkers should return 50% instead of 100% when Salvaged. However I don't think Blizzard would even go that far; if anything, they would probably do 75% so that it would return the same amount of minerals as canceling construction.
The problem is, Bunker rushing is so amazingly effective early game versus Zerg. It's like Pylon blocking an expansion except way, way, way better. I think Terran would gladly exchange a Bunker for the economic damage they would do with the rush. Terran gains such a huge lead that they would have to almost throw the game away. Changing how Salvage works doesn't really strike at how Bunkers are used for Bunker rushes; the failure of a Bunker rush comes when it cannot be constructed. And the faster it builds, the more likely it is to finish.
If I was in charge, I would have added 10 seconds to the Bunker construction time because they shield infantry, are mobile (in that you can Salvage and rebuild new ones using the salvaged minerals), don't have any restriction on where you can build them and can end up doing a whole lot more damage than the other defense buildings. (28DPS with 4 marines in it, 42 while stimmed with a range of 6 versus a Photon Cannon's 16DPS or Spinecrawler's 13.5DPS and 7 range)
But that's just my opinion.
um, yeah, that's what I said, I was agreeing with the OP.
The first thing I would like changed is to give back minerals proportional to the health of the Bunker. If you have a bunker at half health and you hit salvage it only makes sense to only give the Terran 50 minerals back. That way you introduce at least some sort of penalty for a failed rush.
Another thing I would like to see would be bunkered units having a miss chance on units within X amount of distance. You could easily explain this by saying that the units are under the vision of the Marines/Marauders and thus they are shooting blind or something to that effect. It would allow Drones and Zerglings to have a fighting chance or at the very least force the Terran to jump out of the bunker to clean it up before getting back in, it would introduce more strategy and risk for a Bunker rush. If you want them to be more powerful in the end game you can just add that onto the Bunker upgrade no one ever gets. Maybe something like "Miss chance is eliminated and capacity is increased." You'd never see that used in the beginning so that wouldn't be an issue and it would allow a bunker to hold the line in end game mech play.
For the record I am a high plat/low diamond Terran, this to me seems like the best way to account for the beginning without throwing the entire balance of Terran to hell by gutting Marines.
Unfortunately, the way the game works and replays work, adding a miss chance can't be done. There is no randomness in SC2. This is to allow a game to be played in the replay exactly as it went down in real-time. This also allows the saved replay to be much smaller in size as all you need to record in the action taken.
There is such a thing as pseudo-random generators, i.e. when started with the same seed they produce the exact same sequence of outputs. There are games with random hits (e.g. Company of Heroes) where the replays play out exactly as the game. Randomness in hits shouldn't be a problem. Hell, Starcraft 1 has it.
That is unfortunate, I had no idea. However, you could apply the same logic with a base damage nerf when within a specific distance. It's less elegant but still the same principle, melee units should stand more of a chance in order to help Zerglings not get instantly slaughtered.
The fact that the zerg sees a bunker at his ramp alone causes economic damage. The zerg can be forced to overproduce lings while the Terran was just off 1rax into expand. As soon as he sees the lings coming down the ramp he can then salvage and run. He then has nearly all his minerals back and an earlier expand than the Z along with a stronger economy.
There should be some penalty for building a defensive building as a baseline. Zerg costs a drone and 100minerals, Protoss costs 150 minerals and terran costs effectively the mobility of the units inside it. That seems a bit off to me.
I'd like to see maybe losing something like 50% of the minerals invested in a bunker no matter what.
Well the current structure encourages Terran to commit, you lose minerals if you cancel, you at least have a chance at a salvage if you finish. I see nothing wrong with that, if you make a Bunker and it never gets touched then fine you get your investment back but if someone beats it down to half health it doesn't make much sense to me for someone to recover all 100 minerals.
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Yes, then why not try something slightly radical for a change, instead of thinking about the bunker like that's the big issue?
As for Salvage, OP didn't suggest removing it, I dunno why you brought that into the argument.
I would say it comes closer to masking the symptoms than removing them. Agree to the excellence of the OP.
This is why i believe that the main problem doesn't lie with Terran imbalance, but with Zergs lack of viable in the metagame.
I don't understand why Blizzard hasn't even slightly nerfed Marines. Sure they need to be careful what they do to them, but instead of changing build time everywhere they could reduce rate of fire by a few percent and see what happens?
Marines hang in an awkward position. Currently, if you look at their stats they're probably too strong in a vacuum (but certainly not uncounterable), but every other Terran unit is either so much weaker or so much less versatile that without them being that strong Terran basically falls apart. I suspect if we see Marines getting nerfed we'll see a slew of buffs to other Terran units, notably the Viking (maybe a ground mode damage increase to make them more viable there), the Hellion (in a way which wouldn't make them an autowin harass-wise) or the Thor (mostly against air, against ground they're really good).
Eh, I kind of looked at that as the Terran's strength -- lots of extremely hard counters (hello, blue flame) but few generalists. Contrast this with Protoss' all-around strength and Zerg's individual weakness but penchant for swarming. To help the Terran out they get scans, which are really quite helpful for knowing what to build and when. Having such a strong all-'rounder like the Marine, especially for its low cost and easy mass-ability, seems somewhat contrary to this philosophy, in my opinion.
For that to be practical you need to be able to tech switch fast, and Terran can't do that past the very early game. In fact, mid to late game they tech switch slower than both other races, so being the race without generalist units is impractical/impossible.
In SC1 and currently in SC2, Terran is actually the generalist race since they have to make their armies blindly. Notice that their "extremely hard counter" units aren't used very much since it's easier for your opponent to hard counter you again in turn than it is for you to hard counter them.
This just occurred to me:
Terran has way too much good anti air - the cheapest and highest dps unit that can shoot up (marine), the best air to air unit (viking), the cheapest and highest dps static defense against air, and the Thor, which negates light air units at a ridiculously long range.
Define "best air to air unit". Best in what scenario?
They're the best against some capital ships and such (Colossi, Battlecruisers, Brood Lords), worse than Corruptors against Carriers, and pretty much unarguably the worst AtA fighter unit (hard to say for sure since range is important depending on army compositions, but in a direct engagement Vikings tend to lose to all of Corrupters/Mutalisks/Phoenix).
Terran anti air is kind of weird. Marines are really good if you can actually shoot at the thing you are trying to deal with, but in many cases (Phoenix harass, Mutalisk harass, Brood Lords) that is quite tough and your long range air is a lot more situational (Vikings are great against mutas if they can hide over Marines, but if they are on their own they will get crushed).
Realizing they have to make a change marines is tantamount to admitting the game is fundamentally flawed, and hubris prevents them from doing so. Pathos, thy name is Blizzard.