On July 13 2015 02:31 Ball656 wrote: make transforming each gateway to warpgate cost the minerals and build time of a zealot. A warpgate is more useful than a gateway, so it makes sense that it would cost more. Since it gives you the units it produces almost a production cycle early, and with more flexibility with regard to location, it makes sense that this additional cost would match up with the cost of one unit. An 8 gate that has to spend 800 extra minerals transforming its gateways to warp gates would be much less powerful, but still a bit better than an 8 gate that declines to transform its gateways, spends the time waiting for its units to finish and then walks across the map (or arrives at the same time with 8 less units).
I actually really like this idea - thank you! Yes, in the late game you want warpgates and there is no reason not to have them. However, in early game, if you attach an extra cost of transforming each individual gateway to warpgate - then there is a really valid decission of what you need most. Maybe, instead of getting 4 warpgates, you want to put that expansion first?
On July 13 2015 02:31 Ball656 wrote: There's a legitimate worry about the power of warpgate if you increase the stats on gateway units. Not only can a warp in occur anywhere with a pylon or deployed warp prism, it also gives you the unit around thirty seconds earlier than traditional production. This is why the timing of warp gate research finishing could decide games in WoL PvP (3 or 5 stalkers vs 7 is very tough). Some have suggested changing warpgates to be less efficient at making units than gateways, but I think there might be a simpler way to take the edge off of early warpgate aggression while still allowing the gateway units themselves to be more powerful. And that is: make transforming each gateway to warpgate cost the minerals and build time of a zealot. A warpgate is more useful than a gateway, so it makes sense that it would cost more. Since it gives you the units it produces almost a production cycle early, and with more flexibility with regard to location, it makes sense that this additional cost would match up with the cost of one unit. An 8 gate that has to spend 800 extra minerals transforming its gateways to warp gates would be much less powerful, but still a bit better than an 8 gate that declines to transform its gateways, spends the time waiting for its units to finish and then walks across the map (or arrives at the same time with 8 less units).
Such a change also delays the Protoss maxing out and makes the maxed out bank smaller at any particular point in time just by nature of being extra infrastructure cost, so the power of remaxing with zealots and stalkers as compared to units which must wait their full build time to be produced is indirectly addressed. Since it's the warp gate itself that enables most of the strongest independent applications of gateway units it makes sense that it would be the warp gate that would have additional cost rather than zealots and stalkers suffering a tax on their effectiveness in all situations.
There might even be room to experiment with bringing back the WoL alpha's 2 gate proxy pylon with warp gates able to be placed on the map without research for 250 minerals and a build time of 95 seconds. That might demand a shift to very aggressive openings in PvP, though, just to be safe from a proxy pylon.
Really like this extra cost idea.
Something, anything, Blizzard.. Why not just give a Gateway vs Warpgate mechanic a try to see how it plays out? You don't really know if something will be better or worse until you give it a shot. And Warpgate by itself definitely defines Protoss way too much imo.
It's stupid in its current form for lots of reasons:
- Shade ability very similar to Blink - At cost very near to zealots, the only thing it does worse is kill undefended buildings - HP overload to make them suck less - No real identity
Instead of a massively confused, tanky as crap unit ... give Protoss' gateway what it has always lacked: the ability to actually stand up to mid-game forces from opponents -- DPS to actually scare opponents away.
Here's an initial set of changes that would lean in the direction I'd go (though of course they'd have to be adjusted for balance reasons):
* Adept - Psionic Transfer removed - Movement speed increased to 2.9531 - Attack changed to 12 damage (no +armored or +light damage) - Cool-down changed to 1 second - Range changed to 5 - Cost to 25/75 - Health decreased to 70 shields, 20 HP - Can shoot up - (if a strength nerf is desired, they could warp-in without shields)
And then, you could do something like the following: stalkers and sentries have their power in the early-game reduced or changed so that all-ins aren't too-powerful whereas a late-game upgrade for Adepts allows them to continue to be a significant threat to opponents despite their low health pool.
* Sentry - Forcefield duration changed to 5 seconds - Speed increased to 2.9531
* Stalker - Attack changed to 5 (+5 vs light) (+1 & +1 vs light per attack upgrade) - Attack cool-down changed to 1 second - Blink cool-down changed to 5 seconds - Health reduced to 40 / 40 - Range reduced to 5
* New upgrade (use the old image and name or whatever) (shield upgrade replaced) - At twilight council available after templar archives AND dark shrine are built - Increases range of Adepts by 2 (total 7)
And now that you have a solid core, you could do something like the following: Disruptor changed to be a general-purpose support unit.
* Disruptor - Purification Nova removed - Disruptors remove the need for the 5 closest GROUND units to wait 10 seconds before shields regen ... shields of those units constantly regenerate (not target-able) (drains 1 energy per unit healed per second) - Disruptors can teleport up to 10 units in a 1.5 radius around the unit to any place on the map with vision
And ... if you want, you can go hog-wild on other changes that are just cool for the race:
* New upgrade - available after robo and stargate are built ... at twilight council - Increases energy regeneration of HTs to 1.0 (or increases movement speed of HTs to 2.8125)
* PO removed
* Time warp moved to oracle - Cost increased to 125 energy
* Pulsar beam removed
* Mass recall removed from MSC
* MSC provides cloaking in a radius of 2 (but doesn't cloak itself) after one of TC, Robo, or SG complete
...
None of that really makes much sense without a solid core of gateway units that can actually afford to be spread out all over the map and still go toe-to-toe with opposing forces.
Instead of mobility due to medivacs ... or mobility due to creep being the defining characteristic of Protoss match-ups, Protoss' mobility comes due to having forces that are just a higher threat (with the damage of adepts and the threat of reinforcements via warp-prisms making any force a serious problem) than opponent's forces unless the opponent is in higher numbers.
Due to the tanky-ness of zealots, the positional wins of sentries (shields, forcefields, hallucinations), the sniping of stalkers (what workers?), and the stand-off-ish-ness of Adepts' new damage ... gateway forces would actually be a solid core upon which support could build (instead of being totally necessary in all circumstances).
But, I'm probably just dreaming anyway. Whatever happens, I hope that Blizzard makes Protoss less-reliant upon high-tech, few-in-number units so that true skill can be displayed and the Protoss race is fearsome for its control once more.
On July 13 2015 02:31 Ball656 wrote: I think there might be a simpler way to take the edge off of early warpgate aggression while still allowing the gateway units themselves to be more powerful. And that is: make transforming each gateway to warpgate cost the minerals and build time of a zealot. A warpgate is more useful than a gateway, so it makes sense that it would cost more.
Simple and elegant solution - I like it Ofc not sure about exact cost/upgrade time but that's tweakable.
So in the leaked Whispers of Oblivion video we can see the Sentry as a medic that restores shields.
I think this would be a great idea for the mutliplayer to make sentries useful beyond forcefields. The difference to Terran will be that it won't restore life, only shield so it's still a unique design.
This might be a bit strong but should be tested imo. Making the gateway army stronger at it's core is important and I'd rather see a gimmick like warpgate or forcefields nerfed to compensate for it.
On July 13 2015 02:31 Ball656 wrote: make transforming each gateway to warpgate cost the minerals and build time of a zealot. A warpgate is more useful than a gateway, so it makes sense that it would cost more. Since it gives you the units it produces almost a production cycle early, and with more flexibility with regard to location, it makes sense that this additional cost would match up with the cost of one unit. An 8 gate that has to spend 800 extra minerals transforming its gateways to warp gates would be much less powerful, but still a bit better than an 8 gate that declines to transform its gateways, spends the time waiting for its units to finish and then walks across the map (or arrives at the same time with 8 less units).
I actually really like this idea - thank you! Yes, in the late game you want warpgates and there is no reason not to have them. However, in early game, if you attach an extra cost of transforming each individual gateway to warpgate - then there is a really valid decission of what you need most. Maybe, instead of getting 4 warpgates, you want to put that expansion first?
I love this idea btw, it makes sense on so many levels. You could even put warpgate later in the tech tree and increase the cooldowns between warp-ins until it''s faster to build a big gateway army through normal gateways instead of warpgates. Then in the lategame you would like to have 10 Gateways for building your army and maybe 5 warpgates for harassing via Warpprisms/proxy Pylons or to defend harass.
Then finally buffs for gateway units like giving zealots 10 more shield and faster zealot legs and lots of other stuff would be possible.
On July 15 2015 18:11 TedCruz2016 wrote: It's simple. Just replace sentry's guardian shield with the shield-healing skill that appeared in the campaign! And remove MSC.
It is fun because when they design Protoss, good and reasonable design concepts are moved to the thrash can in late alfa/ early beta design, maybe kept as some campaign thing, and they keep the gimmicks. Well, in fact that applies to other races, but specially to protoss.
- Standard Macro on Protoss (paying 150 min for macrobooster, Gateways building fast) -> Alpha - Gateway as a situational "upgrade" of Gateways -> alfa - Reasonable design on the Immortal -> Alfa - Oracle as a non-terrible terrible damage -> Alfa - Sentry as a "medic" unit -> possibley alfa, just reimported for LotV campaign - Damage dealer Adept -> alfa (now has stupid tanking with retardedly inneficient shooting)
And we could keep listing more things like Lurker removed in WoL alpha, SwarmHosts design, Widow mines/Hellbats.
On July 15 2015 18:11 TedCruz2016 wrote: It's simple. Just replace sentry's guardian shield with the shield-healing skill that appeared in the campaign! And remove MSC.
It is fun because when they design Protoss, good and reasonable design concepts are moved to the thrash can in late alfa/ early beta design, maybe kept as some campaign thing, and they keep the gimmicks. Well, in fact that applies to other races, but specially to protoss.
- Standard Macro on Protoss (paying 150 min for macrobooster, Gateways building fast) -> Alpha - Gateway as a situational "upgrade" of Gateways -> alfa - Reasonable design on the Immortal -> Alfa - Oracle as a non-terrible terrible damage -> Alfa - Sentry as a "medic" unit -> possibley alfa, just reimported for LotV campaign - Damage dealer Adept -> alfa (now has stupid tanking with retardedly inneficient shooting)
And we could keep listing more things like Lurker removed in WoL alpha, SwarmHosts design, Widow mines/Hellbats.
Well, P should have a medic unit in one form or another, and it better be added in the early game when units are few and money is tight.
On July 13 2015 15:41 Edowyth wrote: Change the adept.
It's stupid in its current form for lots of reasons:
- Shade ability very similar to Blink - At cost very near to zealots, the only thing it does worse is kill undefended buildings - HP overload to make them suck less - No real identity
Yeah, work on the adept please. It's just too strong atm in all match-ups. I don't really like the ability nor the upgrade too. The unit doesn't feel polished.
EPT
