StarCraft 2

I have been reading the DoW2 fora here for a while now and ITSSEXYTIME said that StarCraft used a Rock-Paper-Scissors counter system.



Now, I never really payed much attention to such things, but I tried to understand what the differences between a hard counter system, a RPS counter system and a soft counter system and from what I gather there does not seem to be much of a difference between a hard counter system and a RPS counter system (if there is please elucidate me), not to say that it seems silly to balance a game like that to me.

One the definitions I have found for hard counter was "a unit that will utterly obliterate a specific type of target without much chance of that target being able to defend or retaliate against it." I can see this in anti-air units and air units with only air-to-air attacks, for example, but in other cases, where the units can attack each other does army size count? Or does that variable simply not matter at all, unit X will beat unit Y no matter what?

Besides Hydralisks/Corsairs, Wraiths/Zerglings, etc I simply do not see this in StarCraft. Siege Tanks can be countered by Zealots depending on the positioning of the Tanks and how the Zealots approach them, for instance. The Zealot/Zergling relationship also comes to mind, out in the open three Zerglings kill a Zealot while in a choke the number of Zerglings can go up to six.

I googled for "rock paper scissors starcraft" and got this thread from TL.net: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessag...?topic_id=57664 that seems to agree with what I have said earlier.

Since micro and positioning seem to be so important in determining the outcome of battles rather than "haha, I have this unit and you don't have the counter to it so I win no matter what", I think it would be safe to say that Starcraft has a soft counter system. Or am I wrong?

You are entirely correct. Luckily I don't visit the DoW2 section anymore...

This post has been edited by DarkSanta: Oct 31 2009, 17:23 PM

You are correct. Good post and info gathered.

SC is as far away you can get form Rock-Paper-Scissors and I*m glad it is because it's the worst system ever. Totally neglects micro and strategic depth.

I wouldn't say that hard counters neglect micro, but they just cause the game to be terrible in general.


Overall in my opinion any counter system which heavily relies on damage modifiers (like CNC.) Is really bad. Good counter systems should rely on unit ranges, rate of attack, aoe, unit sizes, unit speed, and armor (high armor is good better vs higher rate of attack, because it's not multiplicative like it is in CnC games.)

Obviously SC still has some small/large unit thing with explosive/concussive, but overall I'd say the farther away you get from things like that the better game is, of course I doubt that it's possible to balance many units just based on these natural factors, so some damage modifiers are necessary.

There are some "rock-paper-scissors" counters in SC but they are based on strategy more so than just pure unit strengths, like Mutas > templar > hydra > archon > muta, or something like that

this is why the transition from cnc to sc is an a** ...
i got used to the unit 1 beats unit 2 if unit 2 dosent squish unit 1

Yeah, NonY posted this in the TL.net thread that I linked to:

Typically Starcraft 1 is a positional based counter system. This is the most intuitive kind of counter system to play, the most difficult to make and the most rewarding to win with. It simply means the effort you put into the game and the units you use is reflected fairly. If you lose it usually means you were out played.

Starcraft also has an important element that C&C 3 lacks which is high unit lethality. This simply means units kill each other quickly. In C&C 3 you can produce a unit quicker than it's counter can kill it! This is how you can achieve awesome vids of people doing amazing things with 2 or 3 units. In C&C 3, typically you can't do that sort of thing. To make a dent in your opponent vital spaces you need like 50 tanks. There are cheese strats with Engineers which can instantly capture enemy buildings or sneaking commandos in, but the risk/reward element in that game is so screwed up that it melts down to a bunch of cheese strats. Very frustrating. There's a reason why those games died out after the initial 'zing' wore off and why Starcraft is still immensely popular.

There are a host of other factors such as eco, build times, unit design in terms of hp, range, speed, damage and other dynamics, but on paper this is what separates Starcraft. Starcraft also has element of a hard counter system but it's in very few instances. (Firebat to Lings vs Firebat to Dragoon)

In my personal opinion, a hard counter system can be made and it can work well. Take C&C Generals. I think that game has an excellent blue print. I think most of the initial work and design was laid out by Dustin Browder (now lead design of Starcraft 2) and it's superb. It works because the units have high lethality and the tiers are kept simple. (only 2 tiers) On top of that, there are really cool things you can do with the 3D engine in terms of game play. Say for example I launch a tomahawk missile from USA artillery on a quick moving technical from GLA. If you catch this, you can predict the trajectory of how that missile is coming in (as it homes on it's target) and move your unit behind a tall building. The Missile is now on a collision course with the building and you preserve your unit. you move in and make your move while I'm reloading.

The countering in Generals isn't rock hard though. It isn't RPS, (although in a lot of instances it is essentially RPS) which is in my definition a hard counter system which is too hard. You can still squeeze out small victories in a game if you don't have the right units, but it requires work on your part. Which is the way a hard counter system should be: If you bring the units to counter me, you have the upper hand, but the battle isn't just given to you. (except in extreme circumstances such as 10 flame tanks vs 100 rifles or something of that nature) You place your guns right and keep things in control and you beat me in that skirmish, but if you let your guard down I can still make a move even with the presence of my unit's counters on the field.

All that being said, I think C&C 3 and Kane's Wrath is salvageable, but they will inevitably die out, which is sad because they are pretty cool. I also think Ra3 is simply too cut throat in terms of amount of units subjected to the hard counter system it boasts.

That's my two cents.






(That's actually probably a nickel by now...)

I wonder if in video game design schools these definitions are more fleshed out because it seems to me that it is more guesswork on the part of gamers trying to define these terms and concepts rather than anything else.

I think the industry uses them to a rather heavy degree, personally. It's difficult to tell how seriously they take them when you have games such as C&C 3. I don't really know tbh.

I've been reading some more of their posts and I now understand why you don't go there anymore, so much QQing...

I hope we'll see much less of it here.

And I hope to make sure of it, we all do .

I doubt it.

Maybe they use hard counter and soft counter in terms of damage multipliers, but I don't remember the last time any developer ever talked about the significance of unit size with respect to its range. Even in starcraft 2 they haven't said a word about it.

As its been said, the definitions are a little vague.

Now I don't play SC too competitively, I felt I was getting into it simply too late for anything other than casual matches, but I do really enjoy watching vods and commentaries.

There do seem to be "bad" builds in SC that would indicate at least a partial hard-counter system. For instance, its a good idea to field Vultures against Zealots, but not Dragoons. The Spider-Mines work to make it more of a soft-counter system, as the Mines are better against Dragoons and you can 'Tank' them with Zealots iirc.

So I may be way off base, and I agree that positioning and micro are far more important than how the OPs quote was portraying them, but I think there are more elements to a hard-counter system than just AA vs Ground Units and Ground Units vs Air Units in SC.

This post has been edited by Kolaris: Nov 2 2009, 03:28 AM

Those were just the obvious examples that came to my mind, also part of the intention of my post was to try to understand things a bit better, if my portrayal of a hard-counter instance was bad it was mainly due to an ignorance that I want to correct.

No I phrased that badly, those are perhaps the best definitions of a hard-counter system - those units have absolutely no way of winning those engagements. I'm just offering my opinion that those aren't the only hard-counter elements found in SC.

Behind closed doors I meant. They probably don't go into a lot of depth under public eye because I bet a large number of their fan base don't care or understand the intricacies of a counter system. They wanna blow stuff up see cinematics and play through the story.

Even behind close doors, I doubt that they have it figured out all that well.

I wonder if their designers have indeed figure it out that well or to a higher degree than their productions lead us to believe, but that their hands are tied by people holding waving the cash and lashing their authority out.

I suppose they have an intuitive idea of things work, but I have to wonder if they can put together a very good explanation of it. Regardless of whether or not it would be in their interests to write a book about it, I do not think they would be able to accurately represent their ideas.

It could very well be that it is an art that needs to be preserved in the company by keeping the designers in your company and needs to be learned the hard way.

This post has been edited by Nannoth: Nov 2 2009, 22:36 PM

i doubt it, any time they release any info on like any games when they talk about it in terms, and concepts that are nothing like the terms and concepts that the gamers use to describe the game's behavior once it was released, and starts getting figured, and I don't think that they invent an inefficient way of releasing stuff just for security purposes, I'd say the designers just don't completely understand how RTS works, which is why blizzard is looking for all this feedback, and etc.