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The problem with your ideas in my mind is more along the lines of how hard you hafta defend, he expands for free, you can't do anything about it.
(Also, When I said lose the phoenix, probably in defense for the 4 gate push, since you're low on units, you'll need to grav beam something.)
You don't lose so much then n there, but you get put in a reallllly shitty spot. And like... current VRs can be done moderately on reaction to colossi if that's your choice. Stargate into VRs. That's it. Stargate into Beacon into VRs is not quite as short. And I highly highly doubt your changes would make 1 base Carrier work. Your lack of warpgates if you go that route, and/or the amount of extra gas you gotta spend means you won't having a lot sentries to buy time, so you sink into cannons, and your opponent just expands and preps a stronger push later on.
And with your changes, blink stalker wouldn't be risky. Just go templar tech at a cheaper cost.
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@saet
I can kind of see where you're going with the defense thing, but I think that expanding won't be a problem. 4 gate doesn't have any cliff vision, and cliff abuse with carriers will make them insanely good at holding the natural, theoretically at least. Not to mention you can always switch into voids or phoenix to counter harass the 4 gater's main.
you won't have many forcefields but if the 4 gater comes close enough to your ramp to make you throw one down, he's going to get pummelled by interceptors the whole time and till he backs off a long way. you really only need to build 1 carrier to keep your main secure and if they want to apply pressure they'll have to take a lot of free hits draining your forcefields. That means they can't expand, and by the time they get up, your lesser forces should feel more comfortable, savvy?
But anyhow, it's all theory in any case. I fully intend to make custom maps with these changes implemented, so I'd be happy to test it out ^^
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I'm only going to comment on the Terran stuff because that's what I have the most experience with.
On January 18 2011 23:13 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
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
Admirable goals, I agree 100%. However I also believe it's a fine line to walk between nerfing Terran early game offensive power and defensive power.
Bunker:
-no longer requires barracks
-requires engineering bay
-build time reduced to 30 seconds
Terrible idea. The "no longer requires barracks" will have the opposite effect desired, you're making it easier for a terran to throw down an offensive bunker in the opponents expo; barracks take about 30 seconds longer to build than an ebay. This would make the bunker block even better than the current ebay block because you can salvage it. In addition, by reducing the bunker's build time, you're also increasing the speed at which it can be repaired.
I think a far more elegant solution to the "offensive bunker" problem is to lower its armor from 1 to 0. Then make Neosteel Frame worth getting by having it increase bunker armor by 2 in addition to increasing capacity. That would let bunker still be useful vs 4 warpgate and roach rushes without making it a powerful offensive tool. Letting the Neosteel armor stack with the Building Armor upgrade would also help the Bunker stay relevant in the late game.
Missile turret:
-damage reduced to 10
-has the salvage ability
This is a huuuge nerf, going from 12x2 to 10x1 makes it absolutely worthless. I'm hoping that you intended the reduction to be to 10x2. I have mixed feelings about this purely because of the mutalisk. Missile turrets are the only reason why you can have bio variety in TvZ midgame. Hurting turrets will require larger marine compositions, which counteracts one of our goals. That said, turret DPS is pretty ridiculous. I think a better solution would be to increase its HP, maybe from 250 to 325 or so, and nerf its damage to 10x2. I don't see any reason why it should be given the salvage ability, as it is already very powerful to construct offensive turrets with a mid/late game tank slow push.
stim packs:
- increased cost to 150/150
- lasts 12 seconds
Stim is a too strong compared to other upgrades, I agree with this. Actually I would go one step further with the nerf and reduce its +% movement bonus from 50% to 33% to make stutter-stepping less effective in combination with concussive shells, so it becomes possible for other races' ground armies to disengage from Terran bio.
Marauder:
-damage changed to 12+6 (+1/+1)
Horrible change, this will actually make the marauder more powerful because Z/P core units are classified as light. The only way it would possibly weaken the marauder is versus roach rushes and ultralisks, and even versus Z making marauders better versus zerglings and banelings is well worth the trade-off. A better solution would be to reduce its damage from 10+10 (+1/+1) to 10+8 (+1/+1) to be closer to stalker/roach, and increase concussive shells cost from 50/50 to 100/100.
Ghost:
-now has the light property
-cost reduced to 100/150
I guess this is fine, but if your goal is to make Ghosts useful versus Zerg it's not going to work. It requires too much gas compared to marauder/reaper to be useful for anything other than EMP. Make Snipe a toggleable autocast ability, and add more variety to nuke play, and it might work. Something like a 150/150/110 upgrade at the Ghost Academy to reduce Calldown: Nuke duration from 20 to 15 might work.
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
I admire your intentions here, but these changes would actually make early reaper play substantially more powerful; cutting 15 seconds off the build time is *huge*, requiring less gas means you can get them out faster, and 1 point of bonus vs light damage is easily worth 10 hp. I think a better solution would be to keep all the costs and build time the same, increase the damage from 4+5(x2) (+1/+0) to 5+5(x2) (+1/+1), and allow them to benefit from the combat shield upgrade just like marines. This would give them a place to be useful in the lategame without making early reapers ridiculously powerful vs Zerg again. The reaper scaling well with attack upgrades is not a plus because as your opponent gets more armor upgrades it scales backwards just as much.
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.
This is a really, really, bad idea. I think a game designer's goal should be to make the LEAST number of changes possible to fix a problem. You are going to be much better off changing one race lategame problems than changing two races, because the more stuff you change, the more uninteded consequences will pop up.
Terran's lategame problem is quite simple: build time. The main reason bio play is so evident in late game play is not because bio is stupidly good; it's because they are able to re-max supply far, far more quickly compared to vehicles and ship tech. Or in the case of the medivac, protect against the danger of a 300 food push. This is problematic because although bio is viable in early and mid game, late game AE destroys it. And it should be that way, otherwise there will be no incentive to tech. Protoss has chronoboost and warpgates to remax quickly; Zerg can stockpile larvae; but terran has reactors, which apply to only a small subset of units.
What terran really needs is a series of upgrades at tech labs that decrease the build time of units that require tech labs. This will make terrans less vulnerable to lategame 300-food pushes, and late-game repair a viable alternative to medivacs. Make them require an armory so they won't make midgame timing attacks more powerful.
So something like "Factory Efficiency 1" thats 50/50/110 that reduces the build time of Siege Tanks by 5 and Thors by 6. Level 2 would be 100/100/140 and reduce by equal amount, followed by level 3 at 200/200/210.
And of course there would be similar (but separate) upgrades at the starport that would apply to ravens, banshees, and battlecruisers.
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Nice, we should make a re-balance mod together 
Instead of decreasing the damage banelings do. Why not give Ravens defense matrix, and make it so banelings actually have to [fucking] attack in order to do damage.
Seeing as its in the late game where banelings do dumb amounts of damage, it still leaves the opportunity to go kyrix style, but terran actually has an option to do a late-game composition other than mmm + tank, and zerg has to actually transition out of baneling muta.
Now zerg would need the IQ above that of a fridge, before running their death ball into a bunch of marines with thor hp.
HSMs that are faster, do more damage, require less energy and don't kill your own ravens would also be a nice touch.
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@ Knite:
Bunker: You can no longer block the bottom of a ramp with two bunkers, three is dooable, but that requires 3 scvs and 300 minerals. you'd probably have to cut a barracks, not viable. I'm totally cool with people going ebay first and throwing down a bunker in the expo, sounds like a cool strat, but don't know how viable it would be. Leaves you pretty open and delays your econ significantly- slower rax, slower orbital, slower marines.
Besides, I want to make bunkers more powerful, not less. I just want to make it so you can't do a 2rax pressure with bunker support as that isn't pressure it's a '50% of the time I win the game with little economical loss' move.
Turrets: are at 10x 2 damage yes. Again, I want to make them better, and I do this through salvage. Terrans who expand their bases can salvage redundant turrets and expand their net. it allows them to be more dynamic where they choose to place their static defence.
Marauders: I want to make marauders better. I considered going 12+10 but I think that would make the marine+2 rauder cheese a bit too nasty. 12+8 makes them more versatile while also lowering their power against armoured units enough that other anti armor like thors and tanks is more attractive.
Ghost: As few changes as possible there. Ghosts are great, they just don't fit into a build as they cost too many minerals in an already very mineral heavy bio army, and when other compositions are used barracks tend to be naked or have reactors.
Reaper: My changes are very specific. It means lings take an extra shot to kill, and that you cannot support more than 2 rax reaper off 1 gas early game and still expand/eco/tech up. I believe this combined with the roach range upgrade will prevent reapers from being an early game kill threat and remain a pressure threat.
Lategame issues: the style you suggest is completely outside the existant game logic and has no precedent in blizzard titles. Ideally I'd like to avoid any such changes and keep my modifications within the area that blizzard might conceivably implement for a more genuine experience.
@Slugga
I'm counting on it ^^. I've already implemented most of the harder changes to the protoss, just have to adjust research costs now. might want help with some of the trickier changes, but it shouldn't be an issue. As far as abilities go, I don't really want to add any abilities to units that already have them. If I was going to add D matrix to a unit it would be the BC to make it a more interesting caster, in line with the carrier buff. Forcing banelings to attack would be interesting but I think problematic. zerg really needs the disruption they force on an enemy army to be effective, and have to micro the rest of their force while the banelings force the enemy to micro theirs. I like the dynamic that creates, I just think that too often you don't *need* a 'rest of an army' to support the banelings if a zerg gets a chance to macro up >.>
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Just started working on the editor again. What I did was actually increase the banelings damage and AoE, but make it so they have to attack in order to do damage, if its shot then it doesn't do damage, it also stops for 0.2 of a second before exploding. I created a D-Matrix spell for the SV (the B-Cruiser actually does have D-Matrix, but it only casts on itself).
I really feel this made marine vs baneling a lot more fun, my philosophy on balance is that things can be balanced through mechanics rather than stats. If you don't pay attention to your army, you pay the price. But at the same time, its not mind-numbingly easy to roll 100 banelings into 150 marines and still come out with 80 left over. The problem with nerfing baneling stats, is that it gets used less in the early game, while still being super strong in the late game because it scales so well. This way, it gets used more in the early game where marine vs baneling is exciting, but its not completely game-ending against certain compositions.
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Some of the stuff I agreed with but a lot of it I just can't understand how you'd think they were good changes. Meaning that even though you laid out your reasonings, you're overlooking some other major aspects. Best example being the psi-storm changes (ps this is how you spell it).
The main thing I liked from your list was the overlord speed upgrade earlier in the game. Zergs can basically go metaboost>pnuematized carapace, instead of meta>lair. Then their only threat from wasted earlier gas would be like mass marines (because of the delayed blings and centrifugal) but this could be made up for with spines I guess. So then the problem is that zerg will basically have maphack with 3-5 lords and instant safe creep highway once lair finishes. It might be too strong versus terran. But on the other hand, it might just force terrans to turtle and make a strong t2 push regardless if you see it or not.
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EDIT: TEST MAP IS NOW LIVE ON US SERVERS, NAME IS "XNCaverns SaurusPatch 0.01" SEE BELOW FOR KNOWN BUGS AND CHANGES>
Rightio, I've spent most of the day implementing the changes, some were easier than others. I made a few changes on the fly. My implementation is on XNC and is as follows, with previously not noted changes in italics
>>>>>PROTOSS<<<<<<<
Cybernetics core:
- warp gates research increased to 150/150
Robotics bay:
-Cost reduced to 200/150
-Gravitic drive (warp prism speed) reduced to 50/50
fleet beacon:
-cost reduced to 200/150
-Contains new research: Void Lances. 200/200, build time 140.
Increases the damage of interceptors against massive targets and structures by 5.
Templar Archives:
- psistorm research now takes 80 seconds
- khydarin amulet research now takes 80 seconds
Stargate:
-Void Ray now requires Fleet beacon
Warp prism:
-Shields increased to 100
Void ray:
- Shields increased from 100 to 150
- Speed reduced to 2.15
Carrier:
- Speed increased to 2.15
Dark templar
- cost reduced to 100/100
High templar
-psionic storm redesigned. Now costs 100 energy, does 12 x 10 damage over 5 seconds.
>>>>>TERRAN<<<<<<<
Bunker:
- build time reduced to 30 seconds
- no longer requires barracks
- requires engineering bay
Missile turret:
-damage reduced to 10x2
- now has the salvage ability BUGGED NO REFUND.
Fusion Core:
Contains new research: Aegis barrier 200/200, build time 140.
Battlecruiser ability, 75 energy. Places a shield over targeted unit, absorbing completely the next 10 attacks the unit suffers. the shield dissipates after 20 seconds if unused NOT YET. IMPLEMENTED
Stimpacks:
-now costs 150/150
-now lasts 12 seconds
Marauder:
-damage modified to 12 + 6 vs light
Reaper:
-damage modified to 4+4 vs light, now gains +1/+1 per upgrade
-build time reduced to 30 seconds
-cost changed to 75/25
- health increased to 60
Ghost:
-cost reduced to 100/150
-now has the light property
>>>>>ZERG<<<<<<<
Hatchery:
-Pneumatized Carapace no longer requires lair to research.
Spawning pool:
-Contains new research: Thoracic Metamorphosis. 150/150, build time 140.
queen movement speed increased to 2.25
queen speed multiplier on creep reduced to 1.5 (1.125 bonus speed)
Hydralisk Den:
-Contains new research: Acid spines. 200/200, build time 110.
Hydralisk attacks reduce the armor of their target by 1 for 10 seconds NOT YET IMPLEMENTED
-Grooved spines research now costs 100/100
Roach Warren:
-Tunneling claws again requires Hive. Cost increased to 200/200, build time to 140.
Tunneling claws now allows burrowed roaches to move at speed 2.0
Tunneling claws no longer increases health regeneration further
Tunneling claws now increases the armor of burrowed roaches by 6.
Baneling:
-damage reduced to 15, +10 vs light
Hydralisk:
-health increased to 95
-size increased roughly 20% (to 0.90 from 0.75)
-base radius increased roughly 30% (to 0.9 from 0.65)
Infestor:
-infested terran duration increased to 45 seconds from 30 seconds
Ultralisk:
-no longer has the frenzy ability.
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EPT
