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I believe the OP is true in some kind of sense. Protoss timing pushes are balanced in the sense if its assumed that protoss has a short rally (warping) however if they dont have it its pretty much isnt the same. The OP suggests to make warpping units offensively weaker however defensively stronger. There is one other way to deal with this as a solution.
First off, warpping units in should not have full 100% shields. By having something like 0% shield when first warped in, it gives units in a offensive sense weaker. However in order to make the defensive sense stronger, we can allow "normal constructing queueing" of gateways rather than warp gate warpping allow full 100% shields. The advantages of having warp gates would be the instant reinforcements and shorter cooldown for units such as HT and DT while normal gateway queueing allows full shield on creation but shorter cooldown for units such as zealots and stalkers.
This should help decide another new style factor for protoss to be more leaned towards warp style or the old standard brood war queueing style for protoss. Each having their benefits and weakness. This is merely a suggested idea that might offer a alternative solution to the OP as well as not making protoss so linear about style choices in battle. It might also amend some things about PvP 4 gate issue by allowing the defensive end having a slight advantage by having shorter cooldown time for zealot and stalker for queueing up (no need to warp in their base when the battle is on their defensive end) while the offensive can instantly reinforce but have a slight attackers disadvantage by having no shields.
It could be no shield or 50% shield, but either way, the idea is there.
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On September 09 2011 03:55 Eps wrote:
The OP makes some good points about Shield Batteries.
However I don't agree at all about buffing Toss units. They're already quite Tanky as is, and that is how their position in the 3 races was always meant to be.
Terrans - Ranged DPS. Zerg - The Swarm Race. Protoss - Tanks.
They're positioned as they should be.
If Shield Batteries were to be re-implemented in SCII, they'd need a completely revised from the BW days. I think looking at PvP is too narrow for Shield Battery applications and ignores how it affects the other races.
Mainly Zergs. Can you imagine a Zerg trying to break a Protoss defensive position with Roaches if the Toss has Immortals out? The attack speed and DPS of the Roaches would make Roach play obsolete for Zergs. That leaves them with only one early game option - Ling/Blings. Shield Batteries would end up restricting Zerg's options immensely.
The only thing I can see to get around this is to either implement some sort of Cooldown to Shield Batteries or restriction on Shield Recharging on one unit. For instance one Immortal can't be recharged over and over again.
Wait wait wait, so immortals will be a decent solution to countering roaches as a defensive measure, when coupled with a building to support it? Is that not EXACTLY what we want? If you're opponent is massing a shitton of roaches, immortals are rarely the answer as is, despite being a hard counter, simply because Colossus are far better from the Robo. You rarely see someone get more than 2-3 Immortals, tops. If you go crashing in with Roaches vs a person camping with immortals + shield batteries, don't go pure Roach? It's not like zerglings/hydras/mutas have ANY problem with Immortals, JUST roaches, and even then in the current state of the game mass roach can ignore a few immortals tickling them.
I disagree with you 100%.
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A lot of people mistake this thread for some sort of whine or. (Im)balance discussion, when really it's about how a fundamental aspect of a race greatly affects a key feature of RTSs in general.
I really like how a lot of you are trying to find ways around it though. It's very possible that warp-ins fundamentally disturb the strategical balance in an RTS game, and alternatives should be discussed on ways to fix the current situation.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the shield battery idea, assuming a few changes are made to warpgates and shield regen as well. The idea would to reduce SOME of the effectiveness of warpgates in assault, while increasing SOME of the effectiveness at defending. Regardless, adding such a game-altering structure should be dealt with cautiously.
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Not sure how I like the shield battery idea. However, as some before have mentioned, it would be great if there's an advantage to using a regular gateway over a warp-gate. (Why the hell give us the option to switch back if there's no reason to, Blizzard?)
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i dont think there is a way to fix protoss without fundamental design changes, which are unlikely to occur until hots or later. The new patch will help slightly I think. Would really liek to see amulet brought back as well. TvP has never dropped below 40% afaik, and i dont think khaydarin is imbalanced at all.
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I always found the warp in mechanic in itself to be silly game design. Why would you make a mechanic that trivializes map features and dumbs them down? Makes no sense.
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United States7483 Posts
You know, I feel like one easy fix would be to put another spell on the nexus besides chrono boost. The Terran OC has 3 spells (supply drop, mule, and scan). There's no reason necessarily that you couldn't put a spell on the nexus that helps with defense but doesn't help much with offense. Something like a spell that buffs an area (a targeted area of effect buff) with a range limitation so it can't be used on offense, or perhaps an upgrade that turns the nexus into a shield battery? Or even an energy battery that can transfer its energy to a sentry or a high templar?
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Yep, shield batteries are a new building, something they would never add until the expansion, but one addition the should definitely make. There is no way someone can argue that they would be too powerful. It's a shield battery! How often were they used in BW?
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On September 09 2011 04:39 Sevenofnines wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 04:19 arsenic wrote:
Thank you for understanding. The OP makes some huge assumptions about unit strength and how that it is because of Warp-ins that this has come about. I see no necessary correlation or any evidence to prove that this is the case and in fact, I would argue that with the tools that Protoss has, they have the ability to be even more cost efficient than most other races (FF, Blink) even with just Gateway units.
That assumption is easy enough to test. Play against the best Toss practice partner you know and have him not use Warpgates at all. Or play it yourself without using Warpgates. Maybe you guys could still trade efficiently with gateway units. I however, seriously doubt it.
How one could test the design behind the 'strength' of units and why they are that way is beyond me... You'd have to go to the developers for the answer. What you are suggesting would not test those assumptions in any way.
In regards to what I think you're getting at, I wouldn't have to test to know that Protoss Gateway units are able to trade evenly and in some situations very favorably against Zerg. I have played enough games where FF and or Blink has let the Protoss come out very far ahead in engagements to know that this is the case.
Also again, for those of you who are for the Shield Battery... please think about what this would do offensively and how absolutely broken it would be if you didn't make drastic changes in another area. =/
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i think ther is no imbalance in this points. in the lategame fight you never talk about collosi, voidray etc. with those units a protoss army is very strong and the warpin is not that big of a deal. at this point of the game when protoss gets to this often called deathball, the efficiency of this army is the best and the other two races have to trade in the fights to stop it. in the early game point my opinion is, that the protoss got more and more greedier in their openings (for example mc on terminus, he walls very far forward to cover all three bases). such builds are of course weak against early aggression, but i think it is not imbalanced. its the task of the protoss to find new builds, that are solid and have no decent eco disadvantage. this is how the game goes. zerg played long time roach hydra corrupter vs protoss, then protoss learned to beat that and zerg had to find new things. so in my opinion this is not a question of imbalance or such things i think it is the normal way starcraft 2 gets explored in terms of strategies and openings. 
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Its a cool idea but would totally throw game balance off
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what if forge was required for colussals not robo bay? Bay required for range/upgrades etc ?
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Units made out of normal Gateways take 5 seconds less to make.
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On September 09 2011 05:36 iRon aka bananajuice wrote:i think ther is no imbalance in this points. in the lategame fight you never talk about collosi, voidray etc. with those units a protoss army is very strong and the warpin is not that big of a deal. at this point of the game when protoss gets to this often called deathball, the efficiency of this army is the best and the other two races have to trade in the fights to stop it. in the early game point my opinion is, that the protoss got more and more greedier in their openings (for example mc on terminus, he walls very far forward to cover all three bases). such builds are of course weak against early aggression, but i think it is not imbalanced. its the task of the protoss to find new builds, that are solid and have no decent eco disadvantage. this is how the game goes. zerg played long time roach hydra corrupter vs protoss, then protoss learned to beat that and zerg had to find new things. so in my opinion this is not a question of imbalance or such things i think it is the normal way starcraft 2 gets explored in terms of strategies and openings.
I agree with most points, however protoss is not always the more "efficient" .. It is all about the engagement and how it goes. I am talking mostly to PvT here.
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On September 09 2011 05:35 arsenic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 04:39 Sevenofnines wrote:On September 09 2011 04:19 arsenic wrote:
Thank you for understanding. The OP makes some huge assumptions about unit strength and how that it is because of Warp-ins that this has come about. I see no necessary correlation or any evidence to prove that this is the case and in fact, I would argue that with the tools that Protoss has, they have the ability to be even more cost efficient than most other races (FF, Blink) even with just Gateway units.
That assumption is easy enough to test. Play against the best Toss practice partner you know and have him not use Warpgates at all. Or play it yourself without using Warpgates. Maybe you guys could still trade efficiently with gateway units. I however, seriously doubt it. How one could test the design behind the 'strength' of units and why they are that way is beyond me... You'd have to go to the developers for the answer. What you are suggesting would not test those assumptions in any way. In regards to what I think you're getting at, I wouldn't have to test to know that Protoss Gateway units are able to trade evenly and in some situations very favorably against Zerg. I have played enough games where FF and or Blink has let the Protoss come out very far ahead in engagements to know that this is the case. Also again, for those of you who are for the Shield Battery... please think about what this would do offensively and how absolutely broken it would be if you didn't make drastic changes in another area. =/
Fungal growth, and nueral parasite do the same. Please don't make a balance whine in the post ^_^. But yeah, the sheild battery would be a really stupid thing to add to this game, but I would say that they would be kind of insane lategame if you just built some in the middle of a map like shakuras.
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The OP is right, and actually stuff people have said for a while. I really like the shield battery idea. Obviously it's an idea for the expansion, but I think it'd be a great solution to the problem. (And yeah, just adding it would have balance problems, but in an expansion you're doing that to all races, so they hopefully balance out, and you can tweak existing stuff accordingly.)
I really think warpgate tech should be a midgame-researched upgrade. Have build times be roughly the same before and after. Make the tech really just about the ability to make units appear anywhere instantly. That should be good enough on its own. (This will make proxy-gate rushes stronger... which is ok to an extent, but will require some nerfing of build times or unit stats to prevent being insane. And yes, that creates other problems, some of which might be solved by a shield battery that just requires a core...)
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I think the problem is that the game is being balanced "mathematically," and thus some bad protoss win situations that they shouldn't have won, while some good protoss lose situations that they should have won.
So overall balance can be achieved before HoTS, but it's still going to be unfair by design.
I know this is not a balance thread, but my point is that the experience of playing as Protoss suffers heavily, because Warp Gate design and Balance cannot be reconciled intuitively. So it may be balanced and still Protoss would have extremely volatile matchups, held only by a fine mathematical balance that breaks easily as soon as gameplay diversifies.
This is the sacrifice that was made in order to keep the cool idea of Warp Gates. But let's face it, it's volatile by nature and is really not good a gameplay experience design.
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You may state that protoss is disadvantaged because of warp in, but they gave us sentries. Sentries are so good it makes up for it. And also wide open expos are bad for terran and zerg sometimes too.
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On September 09 2011 05:04 Jerubaal wrote:
Unit build times are balanced around warpgate. The last few patches seem to indicate that (hypothetically) if warpgates were removed, the gateway build times would be reduced.
We're not seeing a direct connection between warpgates and the 'weakness' of gateway units. It always seemed to me that gateway units were meant to be weaker and the tier 3 aoe compensated for that. The sentry is there to compensate in the early game, but, as I said, that's not a balance issue, that's a desigin issue.
If there was no connection between warpgates and the strength of gateway units, then you could simply remove warpgates, keep all else equal, and there should be NO CHANGE in the strength of gateway units. That's pretty much the definition of no connection. But you, me, and everyone else here knows Protoss wouldn't stand a chance in a situation like that; that part of the strength of gateway units is the fact that you can make them so quickly and instantly reinforce via warpgates. While the actual stats of the units themselves and the resource/food costs would be the same, unit build times are an equally big part of what makes units weak or strong. The fact that gateway units NEED quick build times either via Warpgates or via a reduced Gateway build time if warpgates were removed, means that they are weak. Without the speedy build times they wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance.
Anyone can feel free to prove me wrong and play without warpgates. I think you'll find out just how much people take for granted that extra round of troops that instantly arrive before and during a battle. And that without the warpgate mechanic's quick build/reinforce times, gateway units are hopelessly weak compared to Terran and Zerg counterparts.
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On September 09 2011 05:47 Bippzy wrote:
You may state that protoss is disadvantaged because of warp in, but they gave us sentries. Sentries are so good it makes up for it. And also wide open expos are bad for terran and zerg sometimes too.
The problem the OP is pointing out isn't that protoss is fundamentally disadvantaged. You can balance the game like it is. (Remove stalkers, protoss is too weak, make them do 10 times their normal damage and protoss is too strong. Somewhere in between lies balance.) The problem is that the lack of a defender's advantage for protoss leads to them having to be more aggressive and not having good early expand options. Sentries are very good, and plenty good enough to win, but only when there are ramps are they *better* when defending than they are when attacking. That's the point.
Also, thinking about the shield battery thing more.... What about having the Nexus function as a shield battery? That should make it much more defensive.
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EPT
