Emperor Pan I
Respected Member
I tried my hardest to not sound biased in any way. I did focus more on ud since i played them more, but I am happy to say I am playing random ALOT more than i used to.
To start, I really like warcraft, one of the bette blizzard games. However I am finding alot of problems as I go around. I'm finding I am not having fun when i go random and play as the Undead race, or when I am on a tavern map as orc against a night elf.
The following is some observations about the game as I see it, and a few are points me and Aragorn agreed upon over an AIM conversation awhile back.
First off, the game is naturaly flawed, so much in a way, I no longer call it a strategy. It may have been intended to be a strategy/rpg hybrid sort of game, but that is over, it isn't either. Its something entirely differnet.
The two flawed parts of the game are Heros and Units.
Heros are naturaly flawed, because they completely take balance and piss on it. Consider this. Every night elf u come by one time or another complains about the balance of Gargs. In actuality, gargs are completely fine and even lack in thier primary function which is anti-air. The reason however that Night elf players can't counter it (besides half of them just massing hunts) is the Undead heros. The fact is, the heros throw off the balance.
Each race in some way is flawed from the start of every game, and the only way around it, is to exploit a flaw in whatever race ur playing. Orc for example, has an inability to counter heavy air. Though they have the means to do it, it is incredibly taxing, and requires an uneven field of battle. So an Undead Vs. Orc, an Undead player will go for Frostwyrms, because orc can't counter it. However Orc vary easly can go wyverns, exploing an undead weakness in the process of "balancing" out the game.
Playing Undead mirror matches. I am 100 win % simply because of Aoe nuking. Undeads weakness, is crappy units. AOE rapes undead, so chainwave, nova/panda and such aoe rapes. in the days of the AM/BM duo with mass AOE, undead got it the worst, cause of the small crappy units. Play an undead mirror, get a Lich followed by a panda and max out AOE as fast as you can. Every units will fall very, very fast, especialy once u match thier units u are automaticly put ahead simply by the hero choice.
Nightelves have no strenth hero. they have 3 agility and one intellegence, all at 320 speed. which in itself is another problem i have but ill get to that later. This makes NE even more fragile, which allows for certain exploitation. Ne have been nerfed the most, cause they are the strangest race, they are fundamentaly different than the last three. no other race has had as many abusable units/buildings(buildings refering to the "ent" style Anicent rushes way back when). One thing I notice, is that with NE, games are so much faster, cause things are so much easier achieve what i want. Probly one of the easiest races to expand with, fastest to heal, which allows for a strenght hero out of the tavern like the BM to be so effective. However, I find racial heros lack because they are so easy to kill. however the racial heros have amazing spells, and they are all viable in most games.
Humans, I have to say don't lack a real weakness, besides the dependance all seem to grow on the AM. They have a good hard counter to almost every unit. I have more fun playing them, because i know I can take anything i get thrown at me.
when a counter fails, the game is not balanced.
I'm going to stress this with the UD vs Orc match up because it goes both ways so very well. A DK and fiends, can beat a FS with grunts. A FS/TC with wyverns can beat a DK/lich with fiends. A DK/Lich/CL with frostwyrms and fiends can beat a FS/TC/SH with grunts or taurens bats, and beserkers. The enitre thing is sad, because in this matchup counters are not the real counters. I have had more success doing a necro wagon or a tower rush, against wyverns than using fiends or gargs. I still have yet to be defeated by an undead player when massing wyverns despite what Ahappychinese says. But Why isn't anything fixed? It seem sobvious enough, but the fact is not everyone exploits, and seeing as how the dreaded micro seems to play a key, blizzard doesnt seem to care as long as the matchups stay at 50% on thier all so mighty balance charts.
It is not heard alot about anymore, but the gruntapult was a good example of NE. Hunts, dryads both unarmored units. hunts are effectively the best tier 1 unit in the game, but as with footmen, they become obsolete once the game progress to tier 2 and tier 3. Which is the opposite for undead, where ghouls become better by tier 3 out doing the abombination. Grunts however, can last me a whole game if I see fit. Ne have more trouble with siege, simply because thier units are so suseptable to them. That is aweakenss. Bringin a siege unit into a battle with a NE, will produce double the effectiveness, than simply brining siege into any other race battle.
Racial weakness give the illusion of balance, cause going after a racial weakness, before the other person goes after yours the game can stay even on who is better at exploiting. I have seen it more often than I care too.
Heros throw off balance, but other factors effect it. One thing is collision size. Fiends are fat, refering to the description an undead player gave them. reason why wyverns do so good, is wyverns have no collision size, allowing them to all get to a unit to focus quickly. More often than not, i have seen replays, where games have been decided becasue a hero falls in battle. Not only is that fundamentaly wrong for this game, but alot of times its because large units where in the way. Large units don't compare to small units, cause small units can get to a battle, and have more attack. which is one reason ghouls are great, is they are small and more can get to a battle dealing more DPS than an abombination. Problem is, the game has been balanced around this, changing alot of things, to compensate for the basic fundamental game problems.
like mentioned earlier, a loss of a hero, can easily cost u the game. why should that cost u the game. when a hero gets to level 6, unless ur hero can get there fast, most likely the game is over. A Demon hunter will rape very quickly if left unchecked, especialy solo. A level 10 hero fits the "hero rapes everything scenario" luckily they are hardly seen. A Level 10 TC with an orb of lightning I have used to great effect. Then there are things like imbalanced ultimates where an infernal can literaly kill an entire base if left alone, then there are useless ultiamtes like animate dead or big bad voodoo.
Warcraft has 30x more micro than starcraft ever required. However, all u need to be successful in warcraft is a cookiecutter build order and good micro. Counters can get beaten by micro. Micro is the determining factor in many games. while one race produces a counter, the other has better micro and can still win the game. If u hook up racial weaknesses, and good micro u can easily become very successfull at warcraft.
One other thing is the randomness. Items create huge imbalances. especialy when two people who creep the same creep levels, one ends up with a book of the dead, instant 6 creeps to someone who gets a mana stone. who got the short end of that stick. Item drops are random, and htough item levels tried to help balance, at the same levels, better item drops change a game dramaticly.
Then, add in the fact that Blizzard can't balance. Starcraft was balanced fast, because they had a good balancing team, though many, many things about SC keep me away from it. Warcraft has a different balance team, that likes to take one step foreward and two steps back. They will stompy abusive exploits, then create 2 more in the process. OR they will take something that is fine, and completely make it useless (AMD/Possess) or take something and make it incredibly abuseable(Raise dead). Everyone knows that necros are the most abusive shit in the undead players hands, yet they were buffed to my surprise, during the time of my necrowagon abuse days. Reason why, undeads other racial weakness.
Basicly, when it comes to undead, I touched upon this in another thread, is they can't do shit at tier 1 and 2. Tier 3 is where undead shines. Every race is better through tier 1-2. tier 3 units and upgrades, coupled with amazing heros make them viable. Undead units are shit, there is no way around it. Undead heros are off the chart amazing. The two balance eachother out. There we get a sort of balance, but imbalances still play through, simply because of garg abuse, or fiend abuse. I am not going to lie, the DK is imbalanced, but the fact that fiends and ghouls without the DK are horrible, it balances out.
When I get to humans, some of thier units are shit too, footmen, knights. They are good units no doubt, but thier uses seem so limited without the almighty caster support. which is why the "big 3" are used so often. The Archmage carries the human race, giving unlimited mana and a summon to the army keeping up with other races. Ud has the DK with unholy aura keeping ud units on par and fast while healing with coil makes undead seem impossible to beat. Then u got the FS, which has those godamn wolves, which allow for one of the best creeping summons in the game.
Problem is, these three heros carry thier races, to create a sort of balance, with thier races failings. In the end u got some balance, but a sort of wierd balance, where nothing is truely balanced, nothing is truely fair, but in the eyes of the many, it seems balanced.
To start, I really like warcraft, one of the bette blizzard games. However I am finding alot of problems as I go around. I'm finding I am not having fun when i go random and play as the Undead race, or when I am on a tavern map as orc against a night elf.
The following is some observations about the game as I see it, and a few are points me and Aragorn agreed upon over an AIM conversation awhile back.
First off, the game is naturaly flawed, so much in a way, I no longer call it a strategy. It may have been intended to be a strategy/rpg hybrid sort of game, but that is over, it isn't either. Its something entirely differnet.
The two flawed parts of the game are Heros and Units.
Heros are naturaly flawed, because they completely take balance and piss on it. Consider this. Every night elf u come by one time or another complains about the balance of Gargs. In actuality, gargs are completely fine and even lack in thier primary function which is anti-air. The reason however that Night elf players can't counter it (besides half of them just massing hunts) is the Undead heros. The fact is, the heros throw off the balance.
Each race in some way is flawed from the start of every game, and the only way around it, is to exploit a flaw in whatever race ur playing. Orc for example, has an inability to counter heavy air. Though they have the means to do it, it is incredibly taxing, and requires an uneven field of battle. So an Undead Vs. Orc, an Undead player will go for Frostwyrms, because orc can't counter it. However Orc vary easly can go wyverns, exploing an undead weakness in the process of "balancing" out the game.
Playing Undead mirror matches. I am 100 win % simply because of Aoe nuking. Undeads weakness, is crappy units. AOE rapes undead, so chainwave, nova/panda and such aoe rapes. in the days of the AM/BM duo with mass AOE, undead got it the worst, cause of the small crappy units. Play an undead mirror, get a Lich followed by a panda and max out AOE as fast as you can. Every units will fall very, very fast, especialy once u match thier units u are automaticly put ahead simply by the hero choice.
Nightelves have no strenth hero. they have 3 agility and one intellegence, all at 320 speed. which in itself is another problem i have but ill get to that later. This makes NE even more fragile, which allows for certain exploitation. Ne have been nerfed the most, cause they are the strangest race, they are fundamentaly different than the last three. no other race has had as many abusable units/buildings(buildings refering to the "ent" style Anicent rushes way back when). One thing I notice, is that with NE, games are so much faster, cause things are so much easier achieve what i want. Probly one of the easiest races to expand with, fastest to heal, which allows for a strenght hero out of the tavern like the BM to be so effective. However, I find racial heros lack because they are so easy to kill. however the racial heros have amazing spells, and they are all viable in most games.
Humans, I have to say don't lack a real weakness, besides the dependance all seem to grow on the AM. They have a good hard counter to almost every unit. I have more fun playing them, because i know I can take anything i get thrown at me.
when a counter fails, the game is not balanced.
I'm going to stress this with the UD vs Orc match up because it goes both ways so very well. A DK and fiends, can beat a FS with grunts. A FS/TC with wyverns can beat a DK/lich with fiends. A DK/Lich/CL with frostwyrms and fiends can beat a FS/TC/SH with grunts or taurens bats, and beserkers. The enitre thing is sad, because in this matchup counters are not the real counters. I have had more success doing a necro wagon or a tower rush, against wyverns than using fiends or gargs. I still have yet to be defeated by an undead player when massing wyverns despite what Ahappychinese says. But Why isn't anything fixed? It seem sobvious enough, but the fact is not everyone exploits, and seeing as how the dreaded micro seems to play a key, blizzard doesnt seem to care as long as the matchups stay at 50% on thier all so mighty balance charts.
It is not heard alot about anymore, but the gruntapult was a good example of NE. Hunts, dryads both unarmored units. hunts are effectively the best tier 1 unit in the game, but as with footmen, they become obsolete once the game progress to tier 2 and tier 3. Which is the opposite for undead, where ghouls become better by tier 3 out doing the abombination. Grunts however, can last me a whole game if I see fit. Ne have more trouble with siege, simply because thier units are so suseptable to them. That is aweakenss. Bringin a siege unit into a battle with a NE, will produce double the effectiveness, than simply brining siege into any other race battle.
Racial weakness give the illusion of balance, cause going after a racial weakness, before the other person goes after yours the game can stay even on who is better at exploiting. I have seen it more often than I care too.
Heros throw off balance, but other factors effect it. One thing is collision size. Fiends are fat, refering to the description an undead player gave them. reason why wyverns do so good, is wyverns have no collision size, allowing them to all get to a unit to focus quickly. More often than not, i have seen replays, where games have been decided becasue a hero falls in battle. Not only is that fundamentaly wrong for this game, but alot of times its because large units where in the way. Large units don't compare to small units, cause small units can get to a battle, and have more attack. which is one reason ghouls are great, is they are small and more can get to a battle dealing more DPS than an abombination. Problem is, the game has been balanced around this, changing alot of things, to compensate for the basic fundamental game problems.
like mentioned earlier, a loss of a hero, can easily cost u the game. why should that cost u the game. when a hero gets to level 6, unless ur hero can get there fast, most likely the game is over. A Demon hunter will rape very quickly if left unchecked, especialy solo. A level 10 hero fits the "hero rapes everything scenario" luckily they are hardly seen. A Level 10 TC with an orb of lightning I have used to great effect. Then there are things like imbalanced ultimates where an infernal can literaly kill an entire base if left alone, then there are useless ultiamtes like animate dead or big bad voodoo.
Warcraft has 30x more micro than starcraft ever required. However, all u need to be successful in warcraft is a cookiecutter build order and good micro. Counters can get beaten by micro. Micro is the determining factor in many games. while one race produces a counter, the other has better micro and can still win the game. If u hook up racial weaknesses, and good micro u can easily become very successfull at warcraft.
One other thing is the randomness. Items create huge imbalances. especialy when two people who creep the same creep levels, one ends up with a book of the dead, instant 6 creeps to someone who gets a mana stone. who got the short end of that stick. Item drops are random, and htough item levels tried to help balance, at the same levels, better item drops change a game dramaticly.
Then, add in the fact that Blizzard can't balance. Starcraft was balanced fast, because they had a good balancing team, though many, many things about SC keep me away from it. Warcraft has a different balance team, that likes to take one step foreward and two steps back. They will stompy abusive exploits, then create 2 more in the process. OR they will take something that is fine, and completely make it useless (AMD/Possess) or take something and make it incredibly abuseable(Raise dead). Everyone knows that necros are the most abusive shit in the undead players hands, yet they were buffed to my surprise, during the time of my necrowagon abuse days. Reason why, undeads other racial weakness.
Basicly, when it comes to undead, I touched upon this in another thread, is they can't do shit at tier 1 and 2. Tier 3 is where undead shines. Every race is better through tier 1-2. tier 3 units and upgrades, coupled with amazing heros make them viable. Undead units are shit, there is no way around it. Undead heros are off the chart amazing. The two balance eachother out. There we get a sort of balance, but imbalances still play through, simply because of garg abuse, or fiend abuse. I am not going to lie, the DK is imbalanced, but the fact that fiends and ghouls without the DK are horrible, it balances out.
When I get to humans, some of thier units are shit too, footmen, knights. They are good units no doubt, but thier uses seem so limited without the almighty caster support. which is why the "big 3" are used so often. The Archmage carries the human race, giving unlimited mana and a summon to the army keeping up with other races. Ud has the DK with unholy aura keeping ud units on par and fast while healing with coil makes undead seem impossible to beat. Then u got the FS, which has those godamn wolves, which allow for one of the best creeping summons in the game.
Problem is, these three heros carry thier races, to create a sort of balance, with thier races failings. In the end u got some balance, but a sort of wierd balance, where nothing is truely balanced, nothing is truely fair, but in the eyes of the many, it seems balanced.