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On September 09 2011 05:33 Fig wrote:
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?
I know, right? And some people actually think even a nerfed version would somehow be OP...
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So i just got another Idea and I think it is a good one. Buff the basic protoss units, but in order to mitigate the instant resupply advantage, make it so new warpins start with 0 shields. OR, if that is to harsh you can also add gateways having same build time as warpgates, therefore you would be able to get units for defense in teh standard way without having 0 shields. this would give incentive to switch back to gateways when need to defend or something etc. sound reasonable at all?
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On September 09 2011 05:53 MrBarryObama wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 05:33 Fig wrote:
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? I know, right? And some people actually think even a nerfed version would somehow be OP...
If you think the game is roughly balanced now, then adding them would definitely be imbalanced, because it's something that helps one side in an otherwise balanced game. (Unless they're literally never used, in which case it's a bad idea for different reasons...)
That said, I'm really tired of people calling individual things that favor one side or another imbalanced. You can only judge balance of the overall game, not of individual things. Almost anything can be put in the game and the game can be made balanced by tweaking stats of other things.
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Ok here, look at it this way - Expand vs Pressure builds.
A) Look at a Protoss timing push vs a Terran expand build. Protoss 3gate pressure (into expand), vs a Terran 1rax gasless expand into 3 rax.
Terran expands, scouts the 3gate pressure, and bunkers up. Would you say this is a fair fight? Protoss is probably going to get repelled, but theres a chance that they can break it if the Terran is sloppy. It can go both ways, theres tension in the matchup, and it feels balanced. If the attack fails, Protoss is behind, and Terran has defended well. If the attack does damage, the attack has succeeded, and the Terran is behind.
What's actually happening in this example is that the Terran is compensating for their smaller army (since they expanded first) by using a defenders advantage - the bunker with repair. The salient features are:
Protoss has a larger army (expanded later, pumped units early)
Protoss has a short rally (warpin)
Terran has a small army (expanded first, units later)
Terran has bunkers (defenders advantage)
Terran has a short rally (home base)
And this SET of features creates a fair fight.
B) Now flip the roles. Terran's doing a 2rax pressure (12 + 16 rax, 1 tech 1 reactor, concussive researched) vs a Protoss 1gate expand into 4gates.
These are more or less equivalent builds to the previous example, except its 2rax+addons which is slightly cheaper than 3gates + cyber. Anyways, Protoss scouts the 2rax. The Protoss, on 1 base with a nexus building and 4gates on their way, cannot get cannons up in time. No defensive structure is available, and the natural is wide open. The Protoss expanded off 1 gate, so they have at most, 3 units when the push hits (Stalker Sentry x2 usually), with no repaired bunker to fall back on.
I think we're all familiar with this situation. MC lost in this exact situation to Polt. This fight is NOT fair, its almost a build order loss. You either sac your nexus and abuse your defenders advantage (ramp + sentry), or SEVERELY outmicro your opponent. (Or you could be on Shakuras and you can FF your natural. Which is why I stated in the OP that these maps are good)
Again, examining the salient features:
Protoss has a smaller army (expanded first)
Protoss has a short rally (home base)
Protoss has no defensive structure after gate
Terran has a larger army (units first)
Terran has a LONG rally (attacking)
And this SET of conditions results in a Terran gaining an advantage the majority of the time.
My argument is that an economically focused, defending Protoss, when they engage, has essentially the same characteristics as a Protoss doing a timing attack with a small army... which is, of course, a terrible idea, and results in losses.
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On September 09 2011 05:52 aristarchus wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Noooooo 6 pools impossible to win now 
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however, as a master protoss the strange thing is my strats against terran/zerg are now highly revolving around not using warpgates and getting zero sentries
against terran is like to do a fast double robo + tons of immortals build. immortals are good against barracks units and actually pretty much can beat marines in food amounts less than 100food, however this build is a coinflip and auto loses to fast banshees
against zerg i like to do fast stargates, 1gate + stargate + expansion with zero sentries and then after i expand i like to get two stargates and pump out plenty voidrays with a couple cannons to defend against fast roach or baneling aggression and then go into robo to get immortals/collossi. with cannons ive found hydra pressure isnt that strong against this as long as you defend well with cannons and immortals are not too bad against hydras and as long as you keep scouting your base to prevent nydus ive found this strategy is pretty golden against zerg
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On September 09 2011 05:35 arsenic wrote:
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.
That's a cute dodge, but you still didn't address the issue at hand. The OP thinks that gateway unit strength is related to warpgates: specifically he thinks they have been made weaker to compensate for the advantages provided by warpgates. You disagree and claim there is little to no correlation at all. If that was the case, then removing warpgates completely and keeping all else equal should provide little to no change to the strength of the gateway units. You should be able to be just as effective without warpgates as with because you say there is supposedly no connection between warpgates and unit strength.
However I think you and I both know that Protoss wouldn't stand a chance without warpgates. You cite instances where you held off Zerg armies with FF and Blink, but what you don't recognize is that those spells were HEAVILY augmented by the fact that you are using warpgates to build and reinforce quickly, and thus have more Blink Stalkers and FF's available. I would posit that without the warpgate's added round of units and instant reinforcements, many of those engagements would have gone south for you very quickly unless you were just outright more skilled than your opponent. Like it or not, that IS a direct connection between unit strength and warpgates.
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I disagree with what your statement is.
Warpgate changes everything about protoss and it needs to be thought out in a completely different light. You can't just go off of gateway units defensively but you can offensively. To have to use robo or stargate tech to defend stuff I think is a really crazy thing.
What a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that lesson that we learned during TSL3. Gateway units work better for open feilds and HT's colossi and carriers are better for the closer ones. now we got to worry about where we use them as well.
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After thinking about the shield battery option more... I think it is truly the best idea. You should only be able to make it if you have a gateway and it just heals shields. This means it can be something used reactionarily like the bunker and spine etc... I hope blizzard considers this.
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On September 09 2011 05:15 DreamRaider wrote:
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.
The thing about Qing stuff up is that it takes time to build things. This is weaker defensively vs drops and run byes. I think that the Warp mechanic is defensively quite good currently. I think forcing you to only warp in units close to a warpgate instead of pylons(so if you proxy a warp gate in their base you could warp into their base.) It would make defending against Muta counters, Ling run byes, Terran drops etc. very good while warping in offensively is unpractical. In turn for the nerf you could make stalkers good vs Marauders (Stalkers are a joke vs them) and decent vs roaches by giving a slight buffed attack vs armoured and making Stalkers light units.
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On September 08 2011 19:07 MCMXVI wrote:
Good read, and I agree. Not only is it easier for terran to macro than for protoss and zerg (warp in and larva injects instead of queue queue queue), but to your question; how should they make offensive warp-ins weaker? Units spawn with less shields or armor or something?
Nice balance whine that has nothing to do with the topic.
OP: excellent analysis and I really like the idea of re-introducing the shield battery or another type of non-attacking defensive structure that gets unlocked via gateway.
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On September 09 2011 05:59 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 05:52 aristarchus wrote: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. Noooooo 6 pools impossible to win now
lol. Not sure that's really so bad... But if you care, you could make the Nexus's shield battery function an upgrade of roughly the same cost as warpgate, have it come from the core basically replacing warp gate in the current build order timings, and everything would be great. 
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On September 09 2011 06:01 Sevenofnines wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 05:35 arsenic wrote:
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.
That's a cute dodge, but you still didn't address the issue at hand. The OP thinks that gateway unit strength is related to warpgates: specifically he thinks they have been made weaker to compensate for the advantages provided by warpgates. You disagree and claim there is little to no correlation at all. If that was the case, then removing warpgates completely and keeping all else equal should provide little to no change to the strength of the gateway units. You should be able to be just as effective without warpgates as with because you say there is supposedly no connection between warpgates and unit strength. However I think you and I both know that Protoss wouldn't stand a chance without warpgates. You cite instances where you held off Zerg armies with FF and Blink, but what you don't recognize is that those spells were HEAVILY augmented by the fact that you are using warpgates to build and reinforce quickly, and thus have more Blink Stalkers and FF's available. I would posit that without the warpgate's added round of units and instant reinforcements, many of those engagements would have gone south for you very quickly unless you were just outright more skilled than your opponent. Like it or not, that IS a direct connection between unit strength and warpgates.
protoss wouldnt stand a chance without warpgates because removing warpgates is a NERF. a strong nerf at that
if you removed warpgates, but instead made cybercores have a 50/50 upgrade that said "all warpgates now produce units 300% faster, units are the same cost, buildtimes are just reduced by75%" then protoss would still be the same early game but after getting that upgrade they would probably be able to do the sime timing attacks against zerg (maybe even stronger) while having a defenders advantage as well
the point of this post is gateway units are not made weaker to compensate for warpgates
INSTEAD, gateway unit BUILDTIMES are made longer to compensate for warpgates. and the cooldown on warping in is considered to be a buildtime.
essentially, the rate at which each production building can create gateway units is what blizzard uses to balance the strength of warpgates, not by making gateway units weaker
in even food amounts, 10 stalkers beat 10 roaches. roaches are cheaper, however protoss race design means if protoss gets 200food then his max army beats the zergs max army. 100 stalkers beat 100 roaches, and the zerg doesnt have the option of having a bigger army because of the foodcap
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the problem with warpgates is there isnt a way to make both sides even
if you balance warpgates so protoss aggression isnt overpowered, it means protoss defense is underpowered
if you balance warpgates so protoss defense isnt underpowered, then the aggression is overpowered
currently, the warpgate buildtimes are balanced so protoss aggression is not overpowered, this means currently protoss is equal with the other races in the aggression option, but protoss is weaker with the other races in the defensive option
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They just need to make it so warping in far away from your base/nexus requires an upgrade.
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give standard gate advantages over the warpgate.
Then we could see some games with standard gates and warpgates doing differents jobs
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Strangely, I actually agree with this 100%. On the attack protoss has nothing to be desired, but on the defense protoss is by far the weakest race because of how out of the way forge tech is. A gateway-unlockable shield battery would solve this problem easily.
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On September 09 2011 05:52 aristarchus wrote:
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.
The more I think about it the more I like this idea. It is inherently defensive, since I don't think proxy nexuses would be cost effective, and provides similar energy tension as seen in the queen and orbital.
Something like 25 energy = 40/50 shields. If you, say, 1 gate expo, you'd only have 2 or so recharges by the time an early 2 rax hits, which hardly makes it impossible for the terran to do damage, but might give a slight edge to a good protoss.
It would also still die to a 3 rax or 4 rax marine, something that is blindly designed to kill it. This is similar to how a 1 rax expo dies to a well designed immortal + gates attack.
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Are you a video game designer? I trust david kim and his team. Also HotS is coming soon, and we know nothing about it except that there will be multiplayer balance changes, as well as new units. There's no point theorycrafting and speculating when big changes are around the corner.
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I hope the purpose of this thread is to offer alternatives to the race mechanics of protoss rather than to weaken it, because protoss is by far the weakest race atm as it stands both statistically and by simple observation watching pro streams/tournaments.
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EPT
