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During Starcrafts run, attacks have been defined by if they do bonus to a certain type of units. A marauder is good against stalkers because it does bonus to armored and Hellions do well against lings because they are light. This is a cool feature because it allows control over game dynamics. If Stalkers are too good vs Terran you can bump up their bonus to damage (example, don’t think it needs to happen necessarily) But it also presents a problem in that it may alienate a unit from being effective vs another unit unintentionally.
Lets look at the marauder vs 3 zerg units: Ling, Roach, and Ultra Let’s say that the marauder does 40 damage +40 vs armored. You look at that and go against lings that is too strong. So let’s bump it down to 20 +40. Well now we have nerfed the marauder because it is less effective vs roaches and ultras now too. Okay easy fix: 20 +60 vs armored. It has the same damage to roaches and ultras as it had before but it is less effective against non armored units. Okay cool. The game goes on for 6 months, and people discovered 60 damage is way too good vs roaches and completely shuts them down. How do you balance that? Well we could cut the bonus down 20 +45 vs armored. Great now the marauder is balanced vs Lings and Roaches but it’s actually terrible vs the Ultra. In the current model how do we fix that? Do we make the damage 20 +45 vs armored (60 damage vs massive) That attack tab is getting pretty long. In the current Bonus attack system we have in starcraft 2, it is difficult to target specific issues and only that issue. With only 2 armor types it makes changes too broad.
So I propose a reclassification of units attack and armor types to allow issues to be dealt with on a more specific manner if balance issues arise. This is based off of Warcraft 3/Brood War type of system.
Current attacks are described as X+Y vs Z usually Armored, light or massive. As pointed out it is very hard to keep a unit affective against an ultralisk if it is way too powerful vs the roach.
To reclassify have 3 primary Armor attributes: Light, Medium, and Heavy, 5 Secondary attributes: Biological, Mechanical, Massive, shielded and psionic, and 5 attack types: Normal, Explosive, Concussive, Special, and Spell.
Propose stats (Not final just to show a representation of how it works) Normal Damage Light: 100 % Medium: 100 % Heavy: 100 % Normal can gain bonus damage vs the secondary attributes (Bio, Mech, Massive, Psionic or Shielded)
Special Damage Light: 175 % Medium: 100 % Heavy: 75 %
Concussive Damage: Light: 125 % Medium: 150 % Heavy: 100 %
Explosive Light: 75 % Medium: 150 % Heavy: 150 %
Buildings- 100 % all damage types Above types take armor upgrades into account
Spell: Does full damage regardless of armor upgrades or type
Special armor type: entity (Archon only) Unit takes either 100 % from all attack types or maybe 75 % from all attack types. I will put a list of possible classifications for units at the end. But let’s look at my previous example in this light. Marauders do 50 damage (Explosive damage). With the proposed changes it is easier to make them stronger/weaker against other armor type without unintentionally making them too strong vs another armor type. In the current system you only have a couple things you can change: base damage and bonus vs X damage. In this new system you can change the base damage for the individual unit. You can change the type of attack it has or you can adjust the bonus % for the attack types. Take Lurkers for example. There are many people who say they are too strong. In the current system, You can either decrease their base damage (Making them weaker overall), add bonus damage keeping them good against all unit and making them better vs a certain unit type, or decrease base and add to bonus making them specifically targeting that bonus group. In this model, You can figure out what role you want them to play. Do you want them to be good vs early and mid game units? Well then concussive damage is what they should have. Do they need to be weaker vs units like marines and zealots but strong against stalkers and colossus? Well then they have explosive damage. All this was done without making them overly specialized towards a broad spectrum of units by simply giving bonus vs armored.
Hopefully I am being clear. If not let me know and I can edit it to try and be clear. But with this model it is easier to target specific unit interactions without weakening or strengthening is vs another unit because of bonus damage to x type.
In summery: No bonus would become normal, Bonus vs Light would be Special and bonus vs armored would be split into explosive and concussive to allow differentiation between units like roaches and ultralisks.
I would love to hear what you guys think. I will post possible unit types of current roster below.
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Unit-Attack type/Armor Type
Terran SCV-Normal/Light Marine-Normal/Light Maraduer-Explosive/Medium Reaper-Normal/Light Ghost-Special/Light Hellion-Special/Light Hellbat-Special/Light Cyclone-Concussive/Medium Siege Tank-Explosive/Heavy Widow Mine-Spell/Light Thor-Explosive (Anti-Ground) Concussive (Anti-Air)/Heavy Viking-Explosive (Anti-Air) Normal (Anti-Ground)/Medium Liberator-Special (Anti-Air)/Concussive (Anti-Ground)/Medium Medivac-No attack/Medium Raven-No attack/Medium Banshee-Normal/medium Battlecruiser-Normal/Heavy
Zerg Larva-No attack/Heavy Drone-Normal/Light Overlord-No attack/Medium Zergling-Normal/Light Queen-Normal/Medium Hydralisk-Normal/Light Baneling-Special/Medium Overseer-No attack/Medium Roach-Normal/Medium Ravager-Normal/Heavy Lurker-Concussive/Medium Infestor-No attack/Medium Mutalisk-Normal/Light Corruptor-Normal (Bonus to massive)/Heavy Nydas-No attack/Heavy Ultralisk-Normal/Heavy Brood Lord-Normal/Heavy Swarm Host-No attack/Medium Locust-Normal/Light Broodlings-Normal/Light Viper-No attack/Medium
Protoss Probe-Normal/Light Zealot-Normal/Light Stalker-Concussive/Medium Sentry-Normal/Light Adept-Special/Light Observer-No attack/Light Immortal-Explosive/Heavy (bonus hardened shield reduces explosive damage by 50% so they only do base 100% damage. Keeping units like tanks affective against them) Warp Prism-No attack/Medium Colossus-Concussive or Special/heavy Phoenix-Special/Light Void Ray-Explosive/Heavy High Templar-No attack/Light Dark Templar-Normal/Light Archon-Normal (Bonus vs Biological)/Entity Carrier-No attack/Heavy Interceptors-Normal/Light Mothership-Normal/Heavy Disruptor-Concussive/Medium Mothership Core-Normal/Medium Oracle-Special (Pulsar Beam)/Medium Tempest-Normal (Bonus to massive)/Heavy
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Hey, you might want to take a look at the formatting. Right now some of your beautiful percentages have been tragically had emoticon reassignment surgery performed upon them.
I agree with your notion that having 3 primary attributes would help to improve the game. However, I don't think it's the right idea to reintroduce the normal, concussive, and explosive damage types. The +damage vs attribute system already allows for more sophisticated adjustment of bonus damage, and I see no reason to change that out. There are a lot of awkward percentages that would have to be adjusted, such as Siege Tanks' 7/3 primary to bonus ratio, Banelings', Stalkers', and Vikings' 5/2 ratio, and Oracles' and Immortals' 3/2 ratio.
Then again, if you really wanted to get your attack category system to work, Starbow introduced 2 new attack types, Plasma and Corrosive. Plasma was a slightly toned-down version of Concussive damage, dealing 100%/75%/50% to light/medium/heavy, whereas Corrosive was a special type for Banelings that dealt something like 100%/70%/70%/250%, with the last category being structures. If you were to attempt the damage category system to work in SC2, you may need as many as 6 different damage systems.
To give an example of the convoluted attempts to equalize the damages, you'd need to make Hellions deal two attacks, one of which needs to be 10 damage, concussive, and the other which needs to deal 4 damage normal. And against armored targets, or unarmored targets that are up in armor upgrades against the Terran player, they'd still not deal the same amount of damage. After they get the infernal pre-igniter upgrade, they'd need to have an entirely different damage type, since there is no way to get it to equal 9 against heavy (armored) targets and 19 against light targets. Unless I'm just too lazy with my math. You could introduce Blue Flame as a damage type that deals 100%/0%/0%/0% and add 5 Blue Flame damage to the Hellion's upgraded attack and 12 Blue Flame damage to the upgraded Hellbat's attack.
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Not necessarily true about multiple attacks. For example Hellions do 8 +6 to light. That is 75% of 6 so to light they would to 175% damage. Then Blue flame would up that a bit so it so for that specific unit it would do more than 175% because of an upgrade. So under Special damage the 175 would be yellow and increased some after BF. Just like how The extra bonus vs light after the upgrade is shown as yellow. As for attack types. This is my point. You can add more depending on the unit. Maybe the baneling needs it's own category or baneling and disruptor lets say since they attack similarly. You can easily address that with the new system by making a new attack type instead of trying to fitting it into an old one. (But there should be around 6 to keep it simple)
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Then my mistake. For some reason, I had it in my head that Hellions were 9 +5, and then 9 +10 after the upgrade.
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this is like a starcraft 3 idea. it would literally trash the balance of the entire game from the ground up and everything would have to be relearned and rebalanced, you can't just make up new damage systems that affect everything like this. even small numeric differences can have massive effects on balance, just look at +1 zealots vs lings
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On July 03 2015 10:20 brickrd wrote: this is like a starcraft 3 idea. it would literally trash the balance of the entire game from the ground up and everything would have to be relearned and rebalanced, you can't just make up new damage systems that affect everything like this. even small numeric differences can have massive effects on balance, just look at +1 zealots vs lings
Normal type unit would keep their stats as now so zealots would affect lings just the same as they do now. The only changes really are Armor is split into two categories and units like hellions would do less damage to units like thors. It's not that big of a change if you think about it. Just reclassify units as most are pretty close to these numbers anyway. It's a big change but not astronomical. Most v armored units would keep their stats as now but would be reclassified as concussive and heavy. I listed vikings as explosive so they would probably do the same ore close to the same amount of damage vs armored as they do now and less to mutas and phoenix. but not by much.
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I'm against making attack/armor classification more complex because I believe that such a system encourages pre-planned unit interactions and band-aid balance patches.
With more attack/armor classification, game designers will inevitably influence unit interactions to the point where they have a heavy hand in how players ought to use their units. There will be fewer players devising radical new compositions, fewer meta shifts, and less thinking involved upon the players' parts.
When there is an imbalance issue, a simple classification will 1. encourage game designers to wait longer for the players to figure it out themselves (which will be easier because more units should theoretically be able to deal with whatever is imbalanced if there are fewer armor/weapon classes), or 2. think of a non-band-aid patch to fix the issue. Restricting the game designers' ability to make "easy" fixes is actually a good thing for the game.
Besides this, a more complex attack/armor classification seems inelegant. I like simple methods that achieve their purpose. The Colossus for example has a flat 30 damage AOE attack. It doesn't need a weak versus armor classification to not be relatively weak versus tanks/thors, and doesn't need a strong versus light to be good against marines or zerglings. I like these elegant weapon designs and would prefer it be this way whenever possible.
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On July 03 2015 10:38 WhiteSapphire wrote: Besides this, a more complex attack/armor classification seems inelegant. I like simple methods that achieve their purpose. The Colossus for example has a flat 30 damage AOE attack. It doesn't need a weak versus armor classification to not be relatively weak versus tanks/thors, and doesn't need a strong versus light to be good against marines or zerglings. I like these elegant weapon designs and would prefer it be this way whenever possible. Technically 2x15. In other words, 30 vs Marines and Zerglings, 28 vs Tanks, Zealots, and Thors.
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On July 03 2015 10:38 WhiteSapphire wrote: I'm against making attack/armor classification more complex because I believe that such a system encourages pre-planned unit interactions and band-aid balance patches.
With more attack/armor classification, game designers will inevitably influence unit interactions to the point where they have a heavy hand in how players ought to use their units. There will be fewer players devising radical new compositions, fewer meta shifts, and less thinking involved upon the players' parts.
When there is an imbalance issue, a simple classification will 1. encourage game designers to wait longer for the players to figure it out themselves (which will be easier because more units should theoretically be able to deal with whatever is imbalanced if there are fewer armor/weapon classes), or 2. think of a non-band-aid patch to fix the issue. Restricting the game designers' ability to make "easy" fixes is actually a good thing for the game.
Besides this, a more complex attack/armor classification seems inelegant. I like simple methods that achieve their purpose. The Colossus for example has a flat 30 damage AOE attack. It doesn't need a weak versus armor classification to not be relatively weak versus tanks/thors, and doesn't need a strong versus light to be good against marines or zerglings. I like these elegant weapon designs and would prefer it be this way whenever possible. In a way he is making it easier, as you'd get rid of all the arbitrary numbers in "+8 vs armoured". Some units have a pretty small + vs armoured (like stalkers), while others have a large +vs armoured (like immortal), and you have to learn which one has which by heart as it is now. With standardised system, you only have to learn "explosive", and it'll be the same for stalkers, marauders, immortals etc. So I'd argue that this system is easier and more elegant, but as mentioned above, this is something for sc3. Far too big change to do at this point.
Also, maybe it'd be neater to have all types deal 100% max, and then have some types below 100%. Like in bw. Or the other way around, with only number of 100% and above. The mix you have now with 50% in some places and 150% in others is a bit harder to read imo.
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I am neither defending the current system nor attacking your proposal, but I have to say, that your example why the current system is bad is not a good example for your own system.
You say that with the current system it is hard to balance the damage output of units, in particular the marauder, with respect to zerglings, roaches and ultralisks. I am saying, with what you propose this will become much much harder. Because now you can not change the attack power of the marauder individually, you suddenly change the attack power of all units with the same attack type. You put more constraints on yourself when it comes to balance.
If you want to give an example where your system would be good and the current system would be bad please be more careful and think things through.
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On July 03 2015 17:23 RoomOfMush wrote: I am neither defending the current system nor attacking your proposal, but I have to say, that your example why the current system is bad is not a good example for your own system.
You say that with the current system it is hard to balance the damage output of units, in particular the marauder, with respect to zerglings, roaches and ultralisks. I am saying, with what you propose this will become much much harder. Because now you can not change the attack power of the marauder individually, you suddenly change the attack power of all units with the same attack type. You put more constraints on yourself when it comes to balance.
If you want to give an example where your system would be good and the current system would be bad please be more careful and think things through.
On the contrary it is easier to pinpoint problems and address them specifically with this system. We already have pieces like this in places now. The hellion, for example, does 8 damage +6 to light that is 175% damage to light units and 100% to non light units. The Marauder does 10+ 10 to armored that is 200% to armored, The viking does 10 +4 to armored That's about 150% damage to armored, The Baneling does 20 +15 vs light (175%), and the Stalker does 10+4 vs armored that is almost 150% damage to armored. Looking at those units they match up pretty closely with what i suggested. So Hellion and Baneling being classified as Special damage line up perfectly The Stalker and viking classified as Explosive line up basically perfectly The marauder I classified as explosive it doesn't align perfectly it actually does 200% instead of the 150% I proposed. Under my classification (Which I remind is not final) the Marauder would do 10 +5 if it was in the current bonus system. (150% to medium and heavy) Well that is why we have other attack types. I listed Concussive as 125/150/100 maybe it's deemed concussive should rather be 100% 200%/150% If that is the case then the marauder functions the same as it does not but is weaker against Thors and ultras.
Maybe there needs to be another type I listed 4 but maybe there needs to be a 5th (I think 5 is about the limit of what you should have) Let's call it Burst So Burst is 100% Light/200% medium/ and we will say 150% Heavy. Now we cover the broad spectrum of unit interactions Now if a problem arises we can simple reclassify Say Siege tank needs to do more to medium Units We can now reclassify it as burst instead of Explosive and we didn't touch it's damage at all in terms of numbers so it loses no effectiveness but gains effectiveness vs medium. Under the current system there is no way to keep it strong against roaches but weaken it vs Thors if that is the case. This system there is. These 5 Different attack types basically account for all the unit interactions in the game that exist currently let me show you how close my % are to the actually units now in the Bonus system (These have been rounded to BTW). Immortal-20+30 Armored (175%)-Explosive Stalker-10+4 (150%)-Concussive Void ray-8+4 (10) (175%)-Explosive Marauder-10+10 (200%)-Explosive Siege Tank-35 +15 (150%)-Explosive Viking-10+4 (150%)-Explosive
Phoenix-5+5 (200%)-Special Oracle-10+15 (150%)-Special Ghost-10+10 (200%)-Special
They almost line up across the board a few units like the phoenix might need a base boost to account but it wouldn't significantly affect much if you round the damage up then the Phoenix would be doing 9 damage vs mutas if it is classified as Special. If it needs to do more you bump the base damage up 1 point and it works out pretty well. All this system is doing it making distinctions between Unites like Marauders and roaches when compared to battlecruisers and Thors. Again these % are not final. Hopefully you can see how this is simply creating distinctions for more precise interactions without overly nullifying a unit.
In the current system they do not want marauders to be Super strong against ultras. Well you cant really do that without nerfing the damage vs stalkers also. What if terran needs Marauders to have the same damage output against stalkers as the have in hots but the game balance needs them to be weaker vs ultras. You can't do both in the current system. My proposal would allow you to do that. Like I keep saying numbers are not final Maybe Concussive 125 and 150 isn't right maybe it needs to just be 100% 200% 100%.
I'm glad for your point because it made me think about somethings more carefully. Hopefully I have strengthened by positions in terms of concepts (remember % are not final)
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You did not adress the issue I was talking about. What if you suddenly realize that the marauder needs 10 + 12 vs armored? (lets just assume) With your system this is more or less impossible without breaking all the other units.
The current system has more freedom. And I personally believe that freedom is something good unless you can prove that we dont lose anything for giving our freedom up.
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Almost exactly same could be achieved with addition of new attribute "medium" along with light and armoured.
Although, this game is not the game where infantry squad can carry RPG or CSW-MG and the later does no damage against tanks, thus little to no benefits from this system.
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The current system has less freedom. If you want to decrease a marauders effectiveness vs an ultra you also have to decrease it's effectiveness vs stalkers because they are both ultras. The main goal of this is to provide a distinction vs a stalker and an ultra so you have have it be strong vs one and weaker vs another without doing a nerf to all armored units across the board. Neither one is 100% a perfect system. The +bonus allows you to fine tune the numbers specifically but doesn't allow for unit distinction. The % base doesn't allow for fine tuning numbers but does allow for a bit more diverse unit interactions. My main goal is to provide a way to have powerful units be powerful but better regulate what armor type they are effective against without doing a general nerf to all armored. Make sense?
But if you had to make a tweak to the Marauder you could do 1 of 3 things 1)Bump it's base damage down or up. Say this had explosive damage and you needed the Marauder to do more damage vs roaches and Tanks but couldn't change the 150% You can adjust the base number. It's already going only 75% vs light anyway so it's not going to be that detrimental if it does a little more or a little less to marines and lings as you are not making marauders to deal with them.
2)You can reclassify them. I presented 5 Weapon types so you can reclassify them if they need to be stronger vs Roaches but remain the same against tanks (My burst example)
3) Change the percentages slightly. This would be the more extreme one obviously as it would bump up a group of units and would have to be tested and watched closely.
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Forget, this system won't be accepted since StarCraft and WarCraft got completly diffrerent damage/armor systems, in fact what u've proposed worked in WarCraft3.
In Starcraft u got marine with 7 attack vs 2 armor zealot = as a result 5 damage/hit In Warcraft u had grunt with 17-21 normal attack that was hitting crypt fiend with 1 medium armor (normal attack deals 175% to medium armor) so u had to count amror/damage types (and any single unit of armor gave damage reduction exponentionally 1 armor - 15% reduction 10 armor - 60% reduction, 20 armor - 70% reduction) and cut off damage/armor points
So it became like (17 - 21 * 175%) - 15% (1 armor) = the actual damage that current unit deals to current target with a single hit.
Why bothering with such calculation and changes? Starcraft 2 damage/armor system in simple and perfect, as well as easy to calculate in any time
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When I first played SC2 I thought the current system was sort of a cop out system that favoured easy balanceable over what makes sense. But I think for a game like Starcraft it might be the better system, since it's a lot easier to calculate the exact damage a unit would do vs a unit. It's not very often you have to round up and things like that in Starcraft, also since armour reduces damage by 1, rather than by a percentage.
What I could see them do, is add in Medium type or something like that.
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On July 03 2015 19:14 cSc.Dav1oN wrote: Forget, this system won't be accepted since StarCraft and WarCraft got completly diffrerent damage/armor systems, in fact what u've proposed worked in WarCraft3.
In Starcraft u got marine with 7 attack vs 2 armor zealot = as a result 5 damage/hit In Warcraft u had grunt with 17-21 normal attack that was hitting crypt fiend with 1 medium armor (normal attack deals 175% to medium armor) so u had to count amror/damage types (and any single unit of armor gave damage reduction exponentionally 1 armor - 15% reduction 10 armor - 60% reduction, 20 armor - 70% reduction) and cut off damage/armor points
So it became like (17 - 21 * 175%) - 15% (1 armor) = the actual damage that current unit deals to current target with a single hit.
Why bothering with such calculation and changes? Starcraft 2 damage/armor system in simple and perfect, as well as easy to calculate in any time
This isn't the end idea to end all ideas nor is it perfect. The intent it to allow more wiggle room in unit interactions and have a middle ground instead of either neutral or good. As for your Forget this system, I won't. I will put ideas out there to spark discussion. It probably won't change anything and will never be implemented in any form. But you don't know if you don't try and now is the time to try. So I will.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
The SC2 armor system is superior to that of BW/War 3. There are more variables and tags that can be added to each unit and each attack to allow for the kinds of balancing that you want.
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On July 03 2015 19:25 Valon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2015 19:14 cSc.Dav1oN wrote: Forget, this system won't be accepted since StarCraft and WarCraft got completly diffrerent damage/armor systems, in fact what u've proposed worked in WarCraft3.
In Starcraft u got marine with 7 attack vs 2 armor zealot = as a result 5 damage/hit In Warcraft u had grunt with 17-21 normal attack that was hitting crypt fiend with 1 medium armor (normal attack deals 175% to medium armor) so u had to count amror/damage types (and any single unit of armor gave damage reduction exponentionally 1 armor - 15% reduction 10 armor - 60% reduction, 20 armor - 70% reduction) and cut off damage/armor points
So it became like (17 - 21 * 175%) - 15% (1 armor) = the actual damage that current unit deals to current target with a single hit.
Why bothering with such calculation and changes? Starcraft 2 damage/armor system in simple and perfect, as well as easy to calculate in any time This isn't the end idea to end all ideas nor is it perfect. The intent it to allow more wiggle room in unit interactions and have a middle ground instead of either neutral or good. As for your Forget this system, I won't. I will put ideas out there to spark discussion. It probably won't change anything and will never be implemented in any form. But you don't know if you don't try and now is the time to try. So I will.
I still kinda don't get why u are trying to invent a wheel that already been inveted literally decade ago.
It is up to ofc, u can present anything u want basicly, but making things harder does not mean it will be better eventually. Simple is perfect.
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