|
]I'm a game designer in training, and while I don't like treading on blizzard's shoes, I do like mucking with existing rulesets to see if I can tweak out some juicy goodness. Because of my studies I generally understand why blizzard make the choices they do, but I don't have the problems they do, so I can try and work the game hard to get the best out of it without thinking about the corporate crap the blizz design team have to deal with. Thus I have dreamed up a custom patch for SC2.
It's important to understand the idea of developer intent before looking at this. Whenever a designer designs a game, they intend it to be played a certain way. In most cases my intent aligns with blizzard- I respect their philosophy utterly, but I do have certain beliefs based on the metagame of SC1 and SC2 that they cannot profess to hold, thus I am going to try for a slightly different game. The main differences are to aim for a game of more perfect information, like SC1, where solid play beat creative hiding of play, and builds were considered good because they were powerful even if scouted. I also am designing this patch to work with the GSL candidate maps, and larger maps in general.
Over febuary I'm going to try and take the new GSL maps and implement these patches on versions of a couple of them for people to muck around on. I'd be interested in your feedback but *not* I repeat *NOT* in 'wtf are you mad' or 'yer crazy you should do this' or 'marines OP yo'
Constructive criticism will be addressed and considered. other shit will be ignored with extreme predjudice ^^
Terran:
Overall goals:
reduce power of terran attacks very early in the game
increase active defense options to encourage decision making
increase variety in bio play.
Increase stability and options in the late game
Terran rushes are extremely nasty right now due to being essentially unscoutable and very hard to hold, but once held, a terran player has a lot of trouble not getting stuck into a boring, easy to predict and thus exploitable followup. Terran lategame suffers from a lack of power from basic units to support the more powerful air and mech units.
Buildings:
Bunker:
-no longer requires barracks
-requires engineering bay
-build time reduced to 30 seconds
Missile turret:
-damage reduced to 10
-has the salvage ability
Logic: This is somewhat anti canonical, but I think it makes early game terran far more interesting build order wise. Against zerg it forces a choice between a super fast 2 barracks aggression and a bunker rush, you can't do both. That said, a 1rax bunker rush is more lethal due to the faster build. Less powerful missile turrets with salvage combine with other changes to give terran a more versatile defense that relies on good decision making rather than brute strength. This change also makes more sense if looked at objectively, the bunker by regular logic should require an ebay to build, as the ebay contains its upgrades and also allows other defensive structures.
Upgrades:
stim packs:
- increased cost to 150/150
- lasts 12 seconds
Logic: Terran has a load of upgrades, so not much needs to be done here, that's part of terran's strength- increasing the power of units exponentially with upgrades like blue flame, cloak and stim. Stim however increases the power of multiple units and does so significantly, so the upped cost is justified Imo. I also decreased the length of stim slightly, to force more restims. At the moment terran armies are obliterating the opponent before even the first stim ends usually.
Units:
Marauder:
-damage changed to 12+6 (+1/+1)
Ghost:
-now has the light property
-cost reduced to 100/150
Reaper:
build time decreased to 30 seconds
health increased to 60
damage changed to 4/+4 vs light (+1/+1)
reaper cost changed to 75/25
Logic:
Terran by and large is a fantastic race at the moment, with a wide variety of styles and skills required. All mech and air units are versatile and powerful, as are bio units. However, the marauder/marine combination is so versatile and powerful the other bio units don't usually get much of a show, so this attempts to solve that somewhat. Ghosts can now be produced a touch easier, though to balance this I gave them a type like all the other caster units now have. marauders are a touch better against lings and zealots so they are not so easily dominated in the late game and most importantly I redesigned the reaper singificantly.
Tweaks to health and damage make sure it is not as powerful in early game reaper rushes- despite being significantly faster to build it takes 1 more shot to kill zerglings (50% more) until +1 upgrade hits, and requires more minerals, so massing huge numbers is trickier and can't be done while expanding so easily. This also makes them significantly better in the late game, as their upgrades now scale impressively (doing 28 damage to light at +3 upgrades compared to 24 now) and they now take the same time to produce as a marauder, so can be produced in decent numbers off of a barracks. They give terran a solid option against zealot templar style protoss and ling heavy zerg.
Terran currently has some difficulty in the late game, I aim to change this by adjusting other races rather than trying to alter the feel of terran.
Protoss:
Overall goals:
lower the power of 1 base warpgate play
increase the viability of higher tech units and upgrades
decrease the power of 'deathball' style play
diversify PvP
Protoss currently enjoys an extremely powerful one base push, so powerful in fact that if other units were increased in power without compensating protoss would be ridiculous. Protoss 'death ball' type armies are also more or less invincible unless mismicroed, or thoroughly outplayed by the enemy. I aim to coax protoss to diversify their early build orders and attempt more mobile late games by increasing potential of stargate and templar units while increasing the ability of the other races to hold against a deathball. These changes should also make non robo-gateway PVP a lot more interesting, with psystorm more powerful vs protoss balls and carriers providing a lethal anti-colossus unit once upgraded.
Buildings:
Fleet beacon:
-cost reduced to 200/150
Robotics bay:
-cost reduced to 200/150
Upgrades:
Warp prism speed
- cost reduced to 50/50
Warpgates:
- cost increased to 150/150
Psionic storm
- time reduced to 80 sec
Khayadrin amulet
- time reduced to 80 sec
Void lances (fleet beacon):
- interceptors gain +5 damage against massive units and structures.
- 200/200
- upgrade time 110
Logic: warp prism speed is far more essential to the unit in SC2 due to the AA power and range going around, so I dropped it a bit. Possibly the most significant overall change to protoss is warpgates now costing 150/150. Frankly, 50/50 for such a no brainer makes little sense, and this will force protoss to think a little bit more about the order of their 4 gate and make it a little more vulnerable to countering so it isn't 100% safe for the toss before it comes out. Psystorm and the amulet were reduced in time as they're now a little less super insanely powerful the moment they appear without proper forethought. The void lances upgrade is one of three new upgrades I've added in. Carriers now have a definite niche, are easier to get out because of a cheaper fleet beacon and are generally a more interesting unit. Getting them with the lances is a major commitment, but it makes even a single carrier a threat to an undefended base, with a full complement of interceptors putting out a mighty 160 damage per volley to buildings. I also increased the unit's speed to make this harassment role a bit more viable
Units:
Void ray:
- requires fleet beacon
- health increased to 150/150
Dark templar:
- cost reduced to 100/100
High templar:
-psystorm now costs 100 energy
-psystorm now does 125 damage over 5 seconds
Carrier:
-movement speed increased to 2.25
Logic:
With the cheaper fleet beacon, having the void ray at higher tech reduces the power of early aggression slightly, but its health is increased to compensate. A carrier that can keep up and has anti building capabilities will also add to the viability of air based play while still being very vulnerable to a dedicated AA counter such as mass corruptors, vikings, hydras, marines etc. I decreased Dts to 100/100 as at the moment they simply sink too many resources to be viable, a DT needs to kill 6-7 workers at least to pay for itself. This also makes the cost of an archon consistent across Dt's and Ht's, 400 resources however you do it.
The other major change is to high templar, psystorm has been a thorny issue, being difficult to get to but once gotten, especially with the amulet, it makes victory for the enemy dependant on sniping the high templar via mutas, EMP, lings or something similar. If the high templar successfully storm, you lose. By increasing both the cost and damage, high templar can no longer instantly storm on warp in and storms cannot be used to completely saturate an army continuously. A player will have significantly fewer storms but those that land well will do significantly more damage. Hopefully this makes templar a frightening prospect in the hands of a smart player, but no longer such an 'Iwin' button once established. Storm is now more viable against all army compositions as it is more effective against big tough units, so hopefully temps will be more interesting as a choice.
Zerg:
Overall goals:
increase early game scouting potential
smooth tech so hive is more interesting
decrease lategame power
Zerg suffers from extreme weakness in the early game almost entirely due to lack of scouting options and the necessity to prepare very differently for terran and protoss early play. Zerg are quite capable of holding things if they know what's coming, unfortunately they rely on mistakes by their opponent to find out, scouting as much as possible is rarely rewarded. Zerg also have the tendency to remain on lair tech as lair options are huge compared to the comparatively tiny amount of options hive opens up. I want to lower the peak potential of a zerg on lair tech and widen it a bit on hive, while decreasing the power of an unmolested zerg in the mid-late game. This should prevent zergs gaining a totally dominant position at lair and allow terrans and toss a window to gain a foothold as the zerg goes up to hive.
Upgrades:
Overlord speed:
cost increased to 100/100
no longer requires lair
Tunnelling claws:
no longer increases health regeneration.
Burrow speed increased from 1.4 to 2.0
while burrowed damage reduced by 50%
requires hive
Thoracic reinforcement:
queen speed increased to 2.25
queen speed on creep multiplied by 1.5
100/100
requires lair
available at the spawning pool
Acid spines:
hydralisk attacks reduce the armor of the target by 1 (before damage is applied) for 20 seconds
150/150
requires hive
available at the hydralisk den
Logic:
ok, so a few things here. The main thing was to provide a smooth set of upgrades all the way to hive. Now the spawning pool has an upgrade for hatch/lair/hive and the roach warren and hydra den both have an upgrade for lair and one for hive. Along with the changes I've made to the hydra below, hopefully this will make it a more versatile unit. Never a core one, but one that can improve most compositions in small numbers. Late game where the zerg's damage is usually quite low per shot, an ability to lower enemy armour cannot be underestimated
I've also added the upgrade to queens to provide an alternate AA choice for zerg ground and to allow more dynamic use of the queen's fantastic and underused abilities.
Units:
Baneling:
- damage decreased to 15(+2) +10(+1) vs light
Hydralisk:
- health increased to 95
- size increased slightly
Infestor:
- infested terran duration increased by 50%
Ultralisk:
-no longer immune to stuns and mind control.
Logic:
Banelings get a bit of a hit mostly because they are the most ridiculously effective dump in the game. So long as you have zerglings, you can effectively dump any excess minerals and gas at any point in any proportion and, barring stupidity, do a lot of damage for that. The later in the game, the nastier it gets. So, I reduced the payback investing in too many banelings will give out. The damage change is tuned to allow marines to survive 1 extra hit with shields, and for +1 armor to cancel out +1 attack (just) This should make diversifying play more attractive for the zerg. By increasing hydras health and size I'm trying to make them less ultra vulnerable to splash attacks. Now they can take a few baneling hits (4 to kill them at +1, now it takes 2) or siege tank shots and not melt. However, the size increase should decrease the concentration of fire they can dish out and make balls of hydras somewhat less effective in regular engagements so they should come out around the same except for increased resilience to splash. Also, they now actually look worth 100/50...
Ultralisks are currently unstoppable in any numbers, which is ok, but I want to give terran some way of getting rid of them fancily, so the thor cannons now work again, since they require a bit of diversifying to get to. I figured letting zerg mind controls do the same since it's such a rare occurrence. Protoss can already do a pretty good job, especially with the newly buffed carriers and storm.
 
|
Yeah there's already been some talk from blizz about toss buff and terran bio nerf. "Already" as in half a year late.
Let's hope so  . Nice write up.
|
After reading those suggestions i thought "that guy must be terran"... then i looked at your icon.
I have a strong feeling your suggestions will totally destroy the early game in favour of terran. Making marauders stronger against zerglings, making banelings weaker... making reapers easier to get...
Well, i'd have to think it through to make any suggestions.
|
that supply before barrack patch was dreadful in so many ways, zerg needed to be fixed, not terran really
zerg so boring to play compared to sc1
and zerglings are so shitty =[
|
I'm just gonna say your P changes in regards to PvP will make colossi plays unstoppable entirely.
No void rays without beacon = Can't use VRs to stop them when they added +to massive
Harder to get warpgates = More reason to wait for colossi, less threat early (though not much, just add more gateways earlier while you wait for gas, more zealots in comp, so colossi are even better a decision)
Cheaper support bay = 50 gas faster colossi
DT tech is slightly more viable, but the time and cost of the shrine is more of the issue there imo, and if you go robo tech, the 50 gas saved on the bay is now put in place for an obs while support bay warps in.
HT tech, while storm is faster, the 100 energy for a storm cast ruins that as being a choice.... as you would hafta dump gas into useless HTs, which makes a timing window for a push you lack the units (mainly the sentry count) to stop.
Didn't look at changes for any other races.
|
Obviously it is very tedious to correctly balance such a complicated game so I'm not going to comment on any of the specific changes because one thing affects everything else.
However, I do find your overall goals of each race to be a pretty good idea for a test. Interesting ideas.
|
only read the terran so far....
The bunker change is stupid imo, you say you have to choose a bunker or 2 racks aggression. but if you have to go depot then racks then ebay then the bunker before you can attack you missed any window you might have had for a bunker rush. you're not forcing a decision your removing a possibility.
dont like the reaper ghost changes either. you changed the ghost to be more like the casters of other races? that begging for dull play.
and you want the reaper and ghost to be more standard army units..youre not changing the monotony of a ball of units, you're only changing what that ball will look like, its function will be the same.
thatll be all for now..
I think you have the right ideas but your implementation of them is very flawed
|
@ saet zero: acknowledged. However, note that the cost of getting a carrier out is now only 100 gas more than a colossus and about 30 seconds longer to get out. Factoring distances (this patch is designed taking long maps/GSL maps as standard, so no close position on metal, LT, no steppes etc) a stargate build can easily have 1 carrier by the time there are 2 collossus, and 2 carriers with upgrade by the time colossus range is done. 2 carriers with upgrade will DEMOLISH 3 collossus, unless there are a lot of AA units supporting- and I mean a lot.
Or you *could* go void rays, which would be even faster and cheaper, possibly even get a timing attack in before the first collossus comes out, but it's unlikely, the timings are too fine.
Of course, that's just theory.
|
hf defending proxy gates without bunker
|
While I agree with most of your design goals and a lot of your criticisms of Blizzard, there's a lot of flaws and way too many changes which seem arbitrary. I'm not going to comment on the changes individually, but I will say that you should start with baby steps. I don't think you've fully thought through any of these.
|
A lot of these changes seems pretty poorly thought out. It seems you're considering the power of the individual unit rather than the power of the collective army composition in various stages of the game, something that will screw over balance far more than you seem to anticipate.
Bunker:
-no longer requires barracks
-requires engineering bay
-build time reduced to 30 seconds
This basically nullifies the possiblity of banshee / cloak banshee 1 1 1 against protoss, as the build's dependant on an early bunker to survive agression, due to cut unit production to tech faster. If this is what you wanted, then fine, but I personally do not endorse changes that limit the choice of builds, and since you already complained about terran transitioning into predictable and stale play, I feel that your change would only continue this trend.
Marauder:
-damage changed to 12+6 (+1/+1)
This sounds like an early game gamebreaker. Early marauder / marine pushes are already powerful against any enemies - with the marauders killing light units (read - zealots, zerglings, probes, drones, marines, scvs) even better, this would only increase the power of early terran all-ins, which you wanted to prevent. The two damage penalty against armored is not nearly as significant early game as the two increased damage against other types of units.
Protoss AE tech easier / cheaper.
What are you trying to achieve with this? The power in the protoss army (aside from obvious durable early agression and proxy pylons) is its AE - you want to bring the AE faster? I anticipate this would let protoss dominate mid and late game, instead of just late game as it stands now.
Void ray:
- requires fleet beacon
- health increased to 150/150
Changing this stops Void Ray rushes / proxies / pushes to be a realistic option. Like with the bunker change, this reduces the flexibility and variation in play, something I am strongly against. Even with the fleet beacon cost reduced, you'd have to wait the godawful long time the warp in of said structure takes, making early void rays impossible.
Dark templar:
- cost reduced to 100/100
Dark templar cost was never a problem, so this change makes no sense. The long spawn time of the dark shrine and the fact that it's a split building from the BW Templar Archives is the problem - it's expensive, slow to get and doesn't offer any transitions or options.
High templar:
-psystorm now costs 100 energy
-psystorm now does 125 damage over 5 seconds
More expensive storms is a counter to your earlier suggestion of the cheaper robotics support, as the faster colossus more or less makes high templar less in demand with the reduction of price for its mechanical counterpart. The increase in damage is ridiculous - not only do you increase its damage by 5 per second (up from 20 per second previously), you also add another second. 75 energy for 80 damage previously is already ridiculous, considering how easy it is to warp in khydarin-fuelled instant-storm templars, but with more than 50% increased damage? Ridiculous. Of course, khydarin wouldn't let them instantly storm with the increased price of 100 energy, but with a 50% increased damage on the first storms in the push anyhow, reinforcing your templars wouldn't be needed.
Tunnelling claws:
no longer increases health regeneration.
Burrow speed increased from 1.4 to 2.0
while burrowed damage reduced by 50%
requires hive
By Hive tech, enemy detection is far more prevalent, thus this talent loses its real potential. In the midgame lair stage where this upgrade is most useful due to the players having to choose between safe/defensive and unsafe/agressive, chances of the enemy havign detection is less, meaning the tunnelling claws are potentially good. This change breaks the point of the upgrade.
Baneling:
- damage decreased to 15(+2) +10(+1) vs light
Does this mean unupgraded banelings would need three explosions to kill a marine? As a terran, I'd be overjoyed, but at the same time, this sounds like it'd weaken early-game zerg against agression even more. I can't say I agree.
Ultralisk:
-no longer immune to stuns and mind control.
Marauders kiting Ultras is not cool.
|
Very cool, as 99% of these threads are usually way over the top and poorly thought out.
There's not much point of nitpicking into the minor details of your changes, as obviously it'd have to be tweaked and tested hugely, but this is an overall really nice effort. Perhaps you should create a custom map with these changes implemented? Would be interesting. =)
|
These just make me appreciate the blizzard folks even more...
|
Speaking as a Zerg, the proposed thoughts about them I can't agree with. Ultras being stunned/MCable is one of the reason they made them non-stunn/mcable ><, the Thor's ability still nearly kills them, even without a stun, with the stun there would be no reason to have them once Thors came into play.(As opposed to Immortals, which are ranged.)
As for banelings, mass marines are already hard enough to deal with, why nerf the only counter to it? Yes, they are strong late game against pure marine, but during that time a Protoss will usually have a heavy Armored army(Stalker/Collosi) with sentries, and Terran will generally have more than just Marines(Or even if they do, they have tanks to nullify the banelings.) I don't feel a nerf would help T at all lategame, and flat out kill Zerg early game.
As for upgrades, they're interesting atleast. Though tunneling claws shouldn't be Hive Tech(Lots of detection by that point), and isn't Overlord speed already 100/100?
I do like the thought of an attack lowering armor, it's interesting atleast. And same with the Queen upgrade.
|
On January 19 2011 00:31 Mikilatov wrote:
Very cool, as 99% of these threads are usually way over the top and poorly thought out.
There's not much point of nitpicking into the minor details of your changes, as obviously it'd have to be tweaked and tested hugely, but this is an overall really nice effort. Perhaps you should create a custom map with these changes implemented? Would be interesting. =)
And this one does not fall into that 1% category
|
|
|
I didn't bother with the Zerg one because your view doesn't even really elaborate on anything in different game stages and frankly I don't see the point as your arguments aren't particularly sound or well-backed up.
The difference Blizzard has to you, it seems, is experience, in both game design and with the game itself. They constantly test these things in-house, try to make changes to the best of their judgment, then release it on the masses where they get statistics they can use to look at the game and pinpoint areas where they are not satisfied and they get feedback to see what people are saying about the game. In unison, this creates a system they can use to find problems quickly and figure out solutions that not only satisfy balance needs but to also try to allow players to do things that would be interesting. Phoenixes are a cool unit, are good in both PvT and PvZ in certain situations, but are expensive on time, when they are already expensive on resources. So they reduced the time it takes to build them. They did something else a lot earlier, where people complained about micro feeling non-existent, despite efforts, as well as Phoenixes being shitty against a unit they are supposed to counter (Mutalisks), they gave them moving shot, which doesn't make them auto win unless you actually control them because the units have only a 1 range difference going in favor of the Phoenix. It may not be as extreme as what everyone wanted, but it did introduce some more micro to the game.
Your ideas are poor because they aren't really addressing the issues you bring up, and there are really silly contradictions. You change Warpgate on the logic that it is a no-brainer upgrade to decrease Warpgate rush power and make it a choice. Well, Concussive Shells have a similar issue. They make Marauder-based rushes powerful because they research quickly and are cheap. What's worse is that the relationships between Warpgate tech vs. early Rax pushes in PvT are now more in favor of the Terran, because Protoss has a much larger resource tradeoff for investing in Warpgate tech, which weakens its potential early and it's one of the reasons that Protoss can survive early because it gives them more efficient production on units that are generally shitty early on. All it will do is make Protoss have to rely on more Chrono Boost to get stronger production early game, which they don't really have so you effectively choke Chrono Boost and make the potential go away for that too. Oh, nevermind that you also made Marauders take -2 less shots on Zealots, a unit that makes Marauders cry (when blocked by FF).
Also, consider the TvZ relationships between Zerglings and Marauders. You have reduced the amount of hits it would take to kill a Zergling by 1. If Zealots with +1 vs Zerglings with no armor should tell you anything, 1 shot makes a huge difference. So now, you get these really strong ass Marauders that tank better than Marines. I guess a good result of this is that Roaches take 1 more hit. But the issue of super kiting is still existent, so that doesn't really matter.
You have, despite your "best" efforts, made early game bio far stronger than it was before JUST by changing the Marauder. Worse is, Marauders take small amounts of gas, and with some extra gas, you can invest in Ghosts, which you reduced the mineral cost of. As an aside, its light property is superfluous. Besides Banelings or Hellions, what unit gains a benefit? No Protoss unit does, except Phoenix. Except now, with Phoenix, they can just get hit by EMP and remove the capability to take advantage of that.
Storms are still good in PvT, thankfully, but I wonder if it would be even possible to get to Storms with Marauders just pummeling everything. Also it takes a longer time to get Storm available when making the unit.
Also, why did you do anything to the Void Ray? Really? You just gave the Carrier it's role. If you just made Carriers dominate any Massive unit (and Structure), and put Void Ray on the same tech level as a Carrier, then why would I ever get Void Rays. Plus they are now the same speed. And 2 Void Rays are more expensive than 1 Carrier, despite them doing the same thing but the Carrier now does it better than maybe 3. The whole point of the "+20% to Massive" for Void Rays was because their whole design was to take down capital ships. Now they just get raped by Vikings while the more tankable (and now just as fast) Carriers can take more hits. The slight expense for a much stronger unit (you decrease the Beacon cost so that's no big deal) is icing on that cake.
I hope if you are serious that you actually improve a lot. I read "aspiring" so I understand that maybe it's lack of experience that made you think any of this was good.
|
On January 19 2011 00:02 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
@ saet zero: acknowledged. However, note that the cost of getting a carrier out is now only 100 gas more than a colossus and about 30 seconds longer to get out. Factoring distances (this patch is designed taking long maps/GSL maps as standard, so no close position on metal, LT, no steppes etc) a stargate build can easily have 1 carrier by the time there are 2 collossus, and 2 carriers with upgrade by the time colossus range is done. 2 carriers with upgrade will DEMOLISH 3 collossus, unless there are a lot of AA units supporting- and I mean a lot.
Or you *could* go void rays, which would be even faster and cheaper, possibly even get a timing attack in before the first collossus comes out, but it's unlikely, the timings are too fine.
Of course, that's just theory.
You say carriers... so lets play it out a little.
I go what? 2 gate stargate on 1 base, since stargate tech can't defend a FE with your ideas. I probe scout long enough to see like.... 2 gates and a cy core. I need to phoenix scout now, as 2 gate star will prob die to a commited attack.
So i got a handful of units, but 400 gas is gone for warpgate/star/1 phoenix... so what? mostly zealot stalker out of 2 gates?
If I see 3 gate blink stalker play, I'd dead, not enough units to defend it without letting him expand freely or tech to whatever he deems best (HT in this case would ruin my lack-of-robo-tech-army, as would DT, and prob colossi still)
If I see 4 gate, I probably lose the phoenix and can't scout his response knowing my stargate tech...
It's just you hafta blindly stargate, then blindly fleet beacon, in hopes hes going colossi? Any else and your prob behind?
I don't like it, too flimsy considering the slightly better strength of 1 base colossi+gateway pushes. That's my biggest concern.
|
Against zerg it forces a choice between a super fast 2 barracks aggression and a bunker rush, you can't do both. That said, a 1rax bunker rush is more lethal due to the faster build
Not 100% sure about this but you should be able to do a 2 rax bunker rush regardless due to mules.
I like to see/test a building like the academy in BW to make tech troops (marauder,reaper,ghost) later accessible. Rax with academy but without lab for marine/marauder and with addon for reaper and ghost. Of course pur rax for marines only.
The other races would be better of scouting wise and the early game pressure would get delayed. The upgrades could be splitted more logical between lab and academy (not like the factory as predecessor for infantry ups).
And yes I play Terran and still would like to test this
|
Lots of comments. I'll try and give them their due but have to be brief:
The bunker change is stupid imo, you say you have to choose a bunker or 2 racks aggression. but if you have to go depot then racks then ebay then the bunker before you can attack you missed any window you might have had for a bunker rush. you're not forcing a decision your removing a possibility.
dont like the reaper ghost changes either. you changed the ghost to be more like the casters of other races? that begging for dull play.
and you want the reaper and ghost to be more standard army units..youre not changing the monotony of a ball of units, you're only changing what that ball will look like, its function will be the same.
There's no logic here. you're going to have to convince me a bit more concisely that the ebay requirement totally cripples a bunker rush's timing window, it still seems somewhat viable to me. Your other points are based on intent, not design logic. My design, my intent. Please qualify/define dullness.
While I agree with most of your design goals and a lot of your criticisms of Blizzard, there's a lot of flaws and way too many changes which seem arbitrary. I'm not going to comment on the changes individually, but I will say that you should start with baby steps. I don't think you've fully thought through any of these.
Of course I haven't, but neither does blizzard, nor does any designer when they propose a design pre-implementation. Not because they're lazy, but because it's impossible. I've thought it out as much as possible without spreadsheets and playtesting however ^^
A lot of these changes seems pretty poorly thought out. It seems you're considering the power of the individual unit rather than the power of the collective army composition in various stages of the game, something that will screw over balance far more than you seem to anticipate.
<SNIP>
Thanks for your feedback, though I think you'll find I think a lot more than is obvious about army compositions and overall patterning. I would go so far as to say I am *very* good at it. I'll answer each box in order
>bunker: as above, 125 minerals does not nullify the 111 timing window, due to slower warpgates and a consequently slower robo, also stronger defensive terran infantry (bunkered reapers for example)
>marauder: of course. I don't think it's gamebreaking however. Perhaps on steppes or similar where the timings are so wide, but I'm not considering those maps and currently super early aggression only works fully on them, so there's no reason to think this change will upset that. Proxy barracks play will be more powerful, but that's fine by me, it's easier to scout now. later power pushes that are marauder heavy will come up against sentries followed by void rays, carriers or faster colossus as before, and the stim window is also pushed back a touch. You'll have to do more to convince me
>AE tech: That's fine by me. I've given both other races plenty of better options to deal with it, and it will help balance the noted slight increased weakness to stim/roach timed agression. The point is that it is not overwhelmingly dominant once a deathball is established. I'm ok with giving toss an edge in the open field midgame, I don't think it's going to be enough for them to bust a front and win though.
> Void rays: 1 minute longer is not massive. It's significant, but not gamebreakingly so- two cycles of bio production. Consider that zerg now have an extra upgrade to get before lair (speed) and that terran have more attractive units that can't shoot up (marauder, reaper etc) that may impact marine production. I do not think this timing is gone by any means, especially when you consider void rays have 50% more shields now.
> Dark templar:I disagree with you on Dts, while the length of time it takes to get them out is a problem, it can certainly be done, the problem is once out you must really commit all your resources to maintaining them. 250 resources to waste a 360 resource scan isn't so great. ditto for zerg. by cheapening them, I hope to see them more mixed in to armies or used to keep map control since the loss of one to a detector army wandering around is less problematic. If they continue to be unused, my next change would be to lower their build time to 48 seconds or so.
> Psystorm: your psionic storm argument seems to contradict itself. First you say nobody will want it, then you say it's amazingly good and people will use it in timing pushes. please pick one. You can't warp them in ready to storm, and you can almost always only get 1 storm per templar. Yes, storms are more powerful, but no longer can a protoss build 5 templar, wait a bit and throw down 10 storms. Now it will be 5, and you can dance out of them suffering only slightly more damage than before
> Tunneling claws: even with detection, roaches healing fast, taking 50% less damage and moving at almost the same speed they do above ground is a serious threat. Detection no longer completely nullifies a burrowed roach assault, which is the point of the change. Realistically it was to hard to get out before detection was ubiquitous previously, so this change makes it useful even once said detection exists.
> Banelings: it means 1 more hit against shielded marines that haven't stimmed yet, provided the baneling player is not at +1 attack to the terran's 0 defence. I think that's a satisfactory amount of requirements, don't you? Early game zerg is plenty good against early game agression, so long as it knows whats coming. See speed overlord change.
> Ultralisks: Marauder snare never worked against ultras, they're massive. Also, even if it did, snares are not stuns. Fungal growth still doesn't lock them either.
You're killing T vs P proxy gate
You're killing P vs T early pressure (+ also you're killing P FE completely + instead of diversifying PvP, you're making it even more Colo vs Colo)
You're killing Z vs T early pressure
Exactly what am I doing to kill proxygate? given that I'm not changing pylons, gateways, zealots, marines, barracks, or any worker or nexus structure, IE anything on the field during a proxygate? please, do tell ^^. You... might.. perhaps... want to use your brain and think a little before drooling on the keys, none of your other comments make intuitive sense either. Perhaps research the definition of 'pressure'. I'm commenting on this only as an example, if you feel like this is sufficiently eloquent criticism, don't bother posting, please.
@ rage overdose:
You seem oddly well informed on blizzard's design methodology. care to name a source? I feel you're making an awful lot of assumptions about how and why things are done, ones that don't actually support your claims of speed and rigour in the first place...
your analysis of warpgate balance is spot on. It should now be difficult to do a 4 warpgate that kills an opponent dead successfully. I imagine fast expansions and the like should still be breakable. On the other side, protoss wanting to play more economically now have the option to invest in collossus, dts or air units a bit more effectively. rather than having, as you phrased it, to have to have an inordinate amount of production of shitty low tier units.
Given the longer map distances, longer stim timing and more costly investment in bunkers, I feel giving terran more aggressive options is fair. Marauders are still not amazing against zerglings, particularly with speed, and cost a lot of resources for what they do. Zerg seem to have little trouble holding agression in long positions at this time, I want to ensure that pressure can still be applied effectively, even if it can't win the game outright.
As you say, light property makes ghosts more vulnerable to banelings and phoenix, providing both zerg and toss methods of sniping them if left in vulnerable positions. By the by, have you ever tried EMPing moving phoenix you weren't expecting? it's a lot of fun, from someone who has ^^
I do however agree with you on the void ray. It certainly has a place still, in zvp void ray/collossus compositions is far better than voidray/carrier as the voids tank damage from corruptors much better. they're also cheaper, faster to mass, better against armor heavy terran (marauder/tank etc) and don't require constant mineral support like carriers. All that said, I'd prefer if it didn't overlap so much and I may change this a bit more before I make the map. Possibly by removing the massive bonus and giving them some kind of upgrade back.
I go what? 2 gate stargate on 1 base, since stargate tech can't defend a FE with your ideas. I probe scout long enough to see like.... 2 gates and a cy core. I need to phoenix scout now, as 2 gate star will prob die to a commited attack.
So i got a handful of units, but 400 gas is gone for warpgate/star/1 phoenix... so what? mostly zealot stalker out of 2 gates?
If I see 3 gate blink stalker play, I'd dead, not enough units to defend it without letting him expand freely or tech to whatever he deems best (HT in this case would ruin my lack-of-robo-tech-army, as would DT, and prob colossi still)
If I see 4 gate, I probably lose the phoenix and can't scout his response knowing my stargate tech...
It's just you hafta blindly stargate, then blindly fleet beacon, in hopes hes going colossi? Any else and your prob behind?
well, consider that a blink stalker rush is just as risky, since if the other guy went 2gate robo you're going to get shut down pretty hard since warpgate is coming out later and the timing was already finicky. I don't see why you'd lose the scouting phoenix vs a 4gate, it's never happened to me, and from then on all you have to do is forcefield your ramp while interceptors ping away at the (fewer) stalkers he has. no problems busting down either... Ditto for DT rush. Scout with phoenix, build forge and cannon, be ready to block ramp. donezies. I think what I'm doing does a really good job of making warp gates a choice. If you're going mass gateway, of course you get it, but it's worth delaying if you're going for a 2gate + stargate or robo style, at least until you've secured your expansion.
I'm really not seeing these threats you are. I see pressure, of course, but it's no longer 'wups I lose the game instantly' sort of pressure. you can now tech a little more safely to higher tech units defensively and consequently establish an expansion. With more 2 base play, diversity should increase dramatically, as storms, carriers and void rays are all now solid options to go vs war-of-the-worlds style protoss (though having your own collossus always helps ^^)
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
