EPTThanks!
[A] Starbow - Page 127
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Freeze967
United States230 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Doing a decrease of 5 seconds build time on each gateway unit sounds kinda drastic. I am not even sure there is a balance problem between Protoss units and other races units in terms of build time. It might be. But I need to understand it better before I change anything. @selection limit This is just for the sake of discussion. I am not saying that I at all costs shall add a selection limit system. I just want to explore if there is any possiblitiy to do it and whether it would add something good to the gameplay or not. Here is an example of a test map with the selection limit system: http://speedy.sh/3SkWQ/Limit-Unit-Selection-Trigger.SC2Map If anyone wanna explore this in the editor, and play vs the computer, you can change the maximum number of selected units by going into the trigger editor (F6) and adjust the value... then just test the map... | ||
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purakushi
United States3301 Posts
Also, regarding unit selection limit. Although I would be totally fine with it, and it would kind of help with clumping and may inadvertently give people obligation to flank/harass, I do not think it is necessary and may deter some people from playing Starbow. However, if you are to include the limit, I think 24 is perfect. You should try and see how it is implemented in SC2BW but only for starters. In SC2BW, if you try and select more than 12 units (same goes for more than 1 building), it has that number selected for a brief moment and then subtracts X-12 (or X-1 for buildings). I can see some glitching going on that would affect quick gameplay if that is implemented the same way. For the zerg stuff that was added, I think it does add some more depth to zerg macro. Queens are a bit more necessary, at least in the early game. Furthermore, teching becomes more interesting in the decision to tech or produce. Now, I am not saying it is balanced, because it is still very difficult to punish a zerg from mass expanding, etc; however, the macro of zerg is a step in a better direction. The issue with zerg is the overall economy. It is too easy to get tons of money and expand, and I do not think 1500 minerals will change anything, in terms of T's and P's ability to successfully suppress Z's rampant expanding. | ||
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makmeatt
2024 Posts
Should I move the thirds closer to the middle axes? Right now it seems like after the fourth is taken, all the other bases are so far away it's a big risk trying to secure them. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Z's regular larva rate is unchanged apparently, so this match wouldn't have been effected by the new patch since I did not build a single queen. Note though, I didn't emphasis how huge three reavers killed is early game. Despite that, there just wasn't enough army so reavers are easy pickings from hydra unsupported. HURRY UP AND WATCH THIS CAPN SO I GET ME SOME ALTERNATE THOUGHTS ON THE MATCH AND WETHER ITS VALID OR WAAAAAAAY TOO BIASED  | ||
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CapnAmerica
United States508 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On October 24 2012 09:56 decemberscalm wrote: And a not so serious cast. Mainly just talking about PvZ. Z's regular larva rate is unchanged apparently, so this match wouldn't have been effected by the new patch since I did not build a single queen. Note though, I didn't emphasis how huge three reavers killed is early game. Despite that, there just wasn't enough army so reavers are easy pickings from hydra unsupported. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWdu9L1UJ4&feature=youtu.be HURRY UP AND WATCH THIS CAPN SO I GET ME SOME ALTERNATE THOUGHTS ON THE MATCH AND WETHER ITS VALID OR WAAAAAAAY TOO BIASED I'm going to say that, for this specific game, I played very poorly. You NEED to have solid prism and reaver micro immediately after that zealot poke to take a safe third, and I could have saved more units after I had confirmed you went mass Zerglings to negate any direct zealot damage. The only real way to win PvZ that I see working consistently (outside of surprise builds that your opponent doesn't prepare for at all and takes a huge amount of damage from, is to force those early units and then do stupid amounts of damage with your reavers on the field to the army. However, in this specific game, december also botched his macro and should've been getting up hatcheries 5 and 6 (more drones, more army) when he had that 600 minerals where he talks about queens. As Protoss or Terran you have to be so aggressive with your units and use your tech units carefully to make it work until you get to almost an even footing with Zerg later on, which takes superb micro and just generally outplaying your opponent. EDIT To expand on this, when you see me taking that third with cannons, I really should have been sharking back and forth with a reaver in a warp prism to deny ling surrounds on zealots and shatter his hydralisk force. I also should've been taking a 4th Nexus at the same time as the third, to force more micro, as cannons aren't worth much until you have your reaver up to deny that huge army advantage Zerg can have early game. Simcity and reaver play determine whether or not you enter the midgame capable of playing out the game and winning, and while it's not impossible to win PvZ by any means against an equal opponent, playing Zerg is WAY easier. This said from someone who plays ZvP with a stupidly high winrate on NA. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
On October 24 2012 05:25 Kabel wrote: Its been a lot of talk about Zerg lately. The race is still a mess. But I will not forget that P and T could need some love too.. So here are things I consider to change in the coming patch that might come within a week: - Bring back combat shield upgrade. Bio seems to be very weak in TvP and TvT. Im not saying its unplayable. I think this small upgrade will strengthen bio and just make it more viable to use as a part of the army. And some kind of "shock troop" can be needed in TvT, cause games can go on forever.... Im not bringing back the marauder for many reasons. But if Marines get a bit tougher, maybe we will see them being played more aggressively in conjunction with the Medic Shield spell to soak up tank fire.. I like the idea, but the numbers are important. Are we going to leave Marines at 50 base HP and have it increased to 60 after the upgrade? They're already much more durable than they were in BW, we would be talking about a 33% increase from BW Marines at max 60 HP. Seems ridiculous for a unit that is supposed to be a glass cannon. - Add SC2 Hallucination as starting spell to HT. I will make hallucinations a bit more "meaty" so they can soak some more damage than they can in SC2. It can be a good way for P to soak up spider mine damage and lurker damage.. Besides, tricking the opponent is always fun and I kinda miss it... I would like to see this back in the game. However, make it operate as it did in BW rather than SC2 - ie, cast it on a friendly unit to hallucinate a copy, not hallucinate any unit regardless of if you have the tech or not. Using hallucinated phoenixes to scout in SC2 just rubbed me the wrong way, sort of like how Terran would always float a factory and other weird gamey shit. - Matrix s finally starting to see play. I made it the starting spell for HT to encourage the use of it, since I wanted to see players use it. I think its a nice spell and creates some fun situations. But its very spammable and it looks silly when a screen is covered with Matrixes.. I will probably add it as an upgrade for High Templeras, make it a bit stronger and more expensive to cast. (But with a good effect!) I would support this. - Give Planetary Fortress a splash attack again. They are really bad now without the splash. I do not wan´t it to stop an entire army alone. But without splash it just feels.. weak.. Besides, splash damage encourages unit splitting and players might pay more attention how they clump their units when attacking a PF. I would much prefer leaving them single-target but increasing the rate of fire so they can deal with Zerglings more effectively. It's just odd that the splash damage doesn't do friendly fire to an SCV line. - Adjust Spider mines.. The spider mines change a while ago was supposed to encourage spider mine dragging and mine sniping.. We see some nice mine dragging but we never see someone target fire a spider mine moving towards your units. Its too damn hard. The problem is that Spider mines becomes non-autoattackable when they unburrow. This means that especially Protoss units moves into spider mines all the time, even with observers, and the P units do not shoot them. Unless you target fire them.. and its unrealstic to do in a combat situation.. I can either make spider mines move even slower OR revert spider mines to their old state.. Cause right now they feel very annoying and unavoidable.. I agree with Decembers solution - slow the acceleration rate and increase the model size. Spider Mines in BW were certainly larger than the ones we're using. I miss Recall. Arbiters with Recall is indeed a beatiful mechanic and a fun part of PvT. But I like Nexus Recall too.. It gives Protoss the ability to do early pressure, without "sacrificing" their slow units vs Zerg.. It also encourages some nice "puh that was in the nick of time" - situations where P teleports his units home. I consider to make the Nexus recall be a smaller type of recall and the Arbiter a huge recall.. But still it feels like they overlap.... I would go the other way. Leave Nexus 'Mass Recall' as the large one and Arbiter Recall/Rift as the small/single target one. I don't see why Rift as a single target spell at 25 energy isn't still awesome. You can teleport important units out of danger instantly or offensively "drop" 8 units per Arbiter from anywhere on the map. And we have the new Zerg stuff I added... Honestly, I am doubtful if the new macro mechanics actually made anything "better and deeper" for Zerg..Now when I've seen it used in the game.. But I will give it some more time.. Anything is better than the old Inject. Anything. But there is most likely still room for lots of improvement with Queen spells. I agree with giving it some time to collect more data. Major changes I consider: - Try Dankos suggestion. Make 4 of 8 mineral patches in each base have 1500 minerals. The remaining stay at 1000. In this way, the dry out will not be as abrupt and the pace of the game won´t decline as much as it currently do. At around 15-20 minutes, when the main and natural are dried out, players income drop a lot since they often only have 1 or 2 additional bases. Now bases will dry out in two steps. I AM IN LOVE with this idea actually. It will still encourage expanding but not completely abandoning bases, spreading armies and defenses thinner and wider across the map for more tactical play. | ||
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WarpTV
205 Posts
Protoss, High Templar seem out of place, storm with a cool down kinda kills it, When a player micro's out of storm, they gain too much. The HT is 100% negated with a simple move command. The 2nd spell is off for protoss. I know what you want us to do, Slow them and then storm, but why not just storm 2 times and have the same effect? I would recommend Feedback be given too them wile allowing Dark arcons to have maelstrom as a base line spell Recall at the cyber core feels cumbersome. it take too long to get Warpgate, Stalker range, and recall at a reasonable time. moving the recall research to another building or clipping the time off abit would ease this. Infestors, fungal growth not dealing any damage makes it too hard to justify the cost of the unit. I feel -75% movement speed feels right, it could feel a few niches in supporting hydra armies. (vs mass chargelots) Queen, I only build one per game after I have a 3rd, and that is to spread creep. I fell they cost too much to get early. Zerg really needs needs that 3rd macro hatch. A cost of 75m per queen feels much more in line with their role as really game . Brood lords, OMG OP, both Terran and Protoss has huge issues with it. Terran, IDK not my race. Tank seems oddly stronger than in BW. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
On October 24 2012 06:55 Freeze967 wrote: Uh, that's the point of having a macro cycle. If you don't have that then the game becomes very easy to play, and the skill ceiling drops dramatically. That was the entire point of having inject. If anything, Queen energy should regen somewhat faster as to allow them to possibly do like 1 1/2 injects every time, as macro hatches are needed. If it's not a chore, then suddenly people don't care about it. You don't need to worry as you can spam whenever you feel like paying attention. This is very counter-intuitive and noob-friendly. There really is no reason to do this if we are trying to make a more "difficult game" (read: Non, mass army) If you have to stay on top of macro, then some kids will slip up. If you slip up you have less units. If you have less units then you don't have a deathball. This means it limits deathball play to only the top players, the ones able to inject on time. Suddenly you can make very minor changes to deathballs that will only affect top players, who are the only ones deathballing. No you miss the point. There is still a cycle, that being whenever the Queen has enough energy to cast the spell. However that cycle is no longer synched up to the actual spell duration, meaning it's less artificial and more open to variance in timings and decision-making. Chrono Boost does not last as long as it takes for a Nexus to recharge enough energy to cast it again, does it? Also the very nature of Breed is completely different from Inject, "spamming it when you feel like paying attention" (which can't actually be done as it still doesn't stack) will do nothing unless you spend those new larvae, optimally keeping every Hatchery below the maximum of three so you aren't losing time on the accelerated spawn cooldown and thus being less energy/time efficient. Lastly, macro mechanics have absolutely nothing in the slightest to do with deathball play. All players should constantly strive for better macro, but even in an ideal world in which we all had pro level mechanics, deathball play should still not exist. It's not a "privilege" for top players to use, it's bad game design that we are trying to remove entirely. | ||
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hipo
France482 Posts
On October 24 2012 07:12 Kabel wrote: @Build time on gateways units Doing a decrease of 5 seconds build time on each gateway unit sounds kinda drastic. I am not even sure there is a balance problem between Protoss units and other races units in terms of build time. It might be. But I need to understand it better before I change anything. I don’t know if it is a balance problem either since I’m fine with the current state of balance. This remark is only based on the fact that those build times don’t make sense to me. Look at Terran’s units build time. Only two of their units have a build time higher than HT or DT: Battlecruiser and PF. - Science Vessel? 50 seconds (it was 80 in BW, 60 for Raven in SC2). - Wraith? 30 seconds (60 in BW). - Tanks? 40 seconds (50 in BW, 45 in SC2). - Goliath? 35 seconds (40 in BW, and in top of that they can be reactored). - Ghost? 40 seconds (50 in BW, 40 in SC2). How is this fair? I don’t know how you came with those numbers but you shall really take a look at them. EDIT: A lot of people have complained that being aggressive in the early game isn't effective. Fixing the build time issue would allow Protoss to put pressure against a greedy Zerg more easily (it can be a good thing since a lot of people think this matchup favor Zerg). I don't know how it can affect PvT, but after looking at Terran's units build time, I don't think it would hurt from a balance stand point. @SmileZerg Rift as a single target spell isn’t awesome. Arbiter is supposed to be the highest technology units in the Protoss arsenal. It is supposed to have spell that can give you the victory if you use them well. Vortex is good in this regards but Rift is way too weak for a late game unit like the Arbiter. Rift also overlap with Warpgate and Speed Prism: if you need a gateway unit somewhere, Warpgates do the job and if you need a robot unit somewhere, Speed Prism does the job and does it better since you can micro them… | ||
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Weerwolf
75 Posts
On October 24 2012 05:57 JohnMadden wrote: + Show Spoiler + On October 24 2012 05:25 Kabel wrote: And we have the new Zerg stuff I added... Honestly, I am doubtful if the new macro mechanics actually made anything "better and deeper" for Zerg..Now when I've seen it used in the game.. But I will give it some more time.. I feel like you've been thinking a lot about how Zerg's macro is boring and such, but on the other hand, I see a lot of Zs stacking larvae and not spending it for a long time. I think they don't need anything funky really, all this commotion around the Queen, I find unnecessary and overblown. I'd even go as far as to say make it a T2 unit or something and leave Breed as it is so that early on, Z has to decide between drones and units, but later, once the queens get out and the infrastructure is up, it can just start pumping units out at an amazing rate. This really sounds like the most awesome thing yet. Make the Queen tier 2. It's really a good idea! This means it has less effect on the early game, and can be fiddled with more easily. If zerg would need more larva early game, you can fiddle with the rate of larva spawn, and to make the queen not too overpowered you can reduce the larva speed up a bit. I love this. It would also encourage more bases early game. It could also change the entire dynamic of zerg. If bases are denied, it has more impact, zerg would need more units to help its bases, which would result in a later lair, which results in later queens, which results in less macro power. If you would want more macro power earlier, you can build more bases instead of the queen, and still have queens in later stages of the game to get stronger macro. Since reapers and banshees are out, the queen isn't truly needed for defence anymore. This change would be awesome! | ||
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scen
Wales61 Posts
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
I think you guys lack creativity but a small AoE on Arbiter Recall couldn't hurt I guess. If we kept the area small we could also keep the energy cost small so you can still use it on a larger army with more casting, but retain the option to only transport/rescue multiple small groups as well without feeling like it's a waste of energy. It would also separate it from Nexus Mass Recall if we make that one substantially larger.@ Queen Making the Queen Tier 2 is a terrible idea. She doesn't fit any of the requirements for that (flying or burrow-move/burrow-attack) and is the Zerg counterpart to Orbital Commands and Chrono Boost. Should OrbCom require Factory, or CB require Cybercore? Shall we completely redesign creep spreading with later Tumors? Everything about it would feel out of place. Zerg's economy, and the economy of the game in general, clearly needs a lot of work right now. But changing the tech requirement on something as basic and integral as Queens is absolutely the wrong fix. | ||
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makmeatt
2024 Posts
On October 24 2012 19:56 SmileZerg wrote: @ Queen Making the Queen Tier 2 is a terrible idea. She doesn't fit any of the requirements for that (flying or burrow-move/burrow-attack) and is the Zerg counterpart to Orbital Commands and Chrono Boost. Should OrbCom require Factory, or CB require Cybercore? Shall we completely redesign creep spreading with later Tumors? Everything about it would feel out of place. Zerg's economy, and the economy of the game in general, clearly needs a lot of work right now. But changing the tech requirement on something as basic and integral as Queens is absolutely the wrong fix. Queen is only arbitrarily basic and integral when you compare it with CB and OC, when in fact, since it makes such a big difference early game, further restricting the access to it is simply one of the ways to put P/T on an equal footing with Z. It might not be the best one, but the validity of it cannot be disproved just by saying 'welp, that doesn't feel right'. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I do agree that it looks a bit odd. Protoss has a lot longer build time on their core units. But we must also consider that they have Chrono boost at their disposal. For example, Protoss has longer research times on most of their upgrades, compared to the other races. If Chrono boosted properly, they can get the fastest researches in the game! Same with their units. No other race has that option. But again, I am not saying this is perfect. It might be unbalanced. We just have to consider Chrono boost as a part of the equation. If I adjust the numbers, would it benefit the game more if all units takes longer time to produce, or would it be better if all units were faster to produce? (For all races)That is another thing I need to understand before I change anything with the races build time on units. @Rift / Recall Nothing prevents the current Rift on Arbiter to be used as a mass recall since it costs 25 energy and has no cooldown. Just spam it on your army and you have a large recall. But I have never seen a Protoss player do it : / But I agree that it feels silly that the most advanced Protoss spellcaster has a rather weak spell like that. So I would prefer to give it Mass Recall since it would add a lot more power to the unit and make it feel... more fearfull.. And it would be a more effective tool to assault Terran siege lines. Rift, in some form, can go to the Nexus. I fear it would break the game if Nexus could recall 1 unit at a time for 25 energy without cooldown.. A skilled Protoss player with 3-4 Nexuses would rarely lose a key unit in any fight... If I do add a cooldown, it feels very weak.. And if I make it a mass recall too, it would overlap with Recall for arbiters.. hmm.. The purpose of recall for Nexus is to provide an extra edge to defenders advantage. You can reinforce a base under attack. It also allows P to do more early pressure mainly vs Z, since their first attacking army easily gets overwhelmed. Its like a parachute. With it, we will see more daring jumps from the aircraft... Without it, we will see games where P only jumps when the aircraft is close to the ground and he feel very comfortable.. :p @Hotkeys! I´m getting more PMs from players saying that the Zerg hotkeys can not be customized in the game! Lurkers burrow R and Dark Swarm button can not be adjusted. I need to know if this is a problem for everyone. Can you customize your Zerg buttons ingame on EU and NA without problem? @Marines with combat shield Marines start with 45 HP. As we see in the TvT above, and in countless of other games, going bio is a bad move. Tanks + Vultures is so much more effective. Medics with Shield provides an edge, but the marines just melt. A combat shield upgrade would make them a bit more durable atleast. - Vultures kill marines in 4 shots instead of 3. - Siege tanks deal 35 dmg vs light, so marines would still be two-shoted. It would strengthen marines ability to absorb splash damage though, since that is lower the further away the marines are from the impact. - Stalkers deal 14 damage per shot. They would still 4-shot marines no matter if they have Combat shield or not.. >.< Obviosuly I do not want marines to become "tanky" units. They will still be fragile high dps units. Firebats will be way better in absorbing damage from Banelings and Zealots, for example. I just want to increase the viability of having marines as core units in more match-ups than just TvZ. If Combat Shild is added as an upgrade, I need another name for the Medic Shield ability. Feels weird with two "kinds" of shield upgrades. Suggestions? | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
If it doesn't feel right then there is obviously a problem and the reasons as to why should be heavily examined. I firmly believe that you shouldn't underestimate the importance of intuitive themes and mechanics in game design. But even besides that, there is no good reason for such a change. The current goal with Zerg macro is to make it deeper, more involved/interesting, to increase the complexity and the frequency of decisions. Removing the races most flexible tool towards that end from the early game is in direct opposition to that goal - it's pretty much the most ass-backwards thing we could do right now. I think this is yet another case of too many people looking at balance when we first need to look at design, and then adjust the numbers. Yes Zerg is quite seemingly overpowered right now. No, moving the Queen will not fix that, as December's recent cast just demonstrated in which he didn't even use the unit once all game and still had an explosive economy. And no, even if it would fix the issue to move the Queen to Tier 2, we still shouldn't do it, because there are a multitude of better solutions that don't suck from a design perspective. Where we should be looking is: - Larvae base spawn rates. - Resource collection per trip. - Worker build time for all three races. - Drone build time in particular. - Increasing possibilities for T and P early game aggression. @Kabel Regarding unit build times, my first instinct is that it will benefit the game more to increase build times across the board, rather than decrease. This should theoretically encourage players to build more production facilities to reinforce faster, which makes bases larger and controlling more space more important. But I could be missing something... it's definitely an aspect of the gameplay we should experiment with. | ||
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hipo
France482 Posts
Even with no cooldown, Rift can’t be used as a mass recall. An Arbiter can only cast it on 8 units with 200 energies. With mass recall, you can cast it on a whole army for 150 energies. If you put Rift on Nexus, it might be a good idea to increase its energy cost (from 25 to 50) or to make it available only on Gateways units (saving a Reaver for 25 or even 50 energy seem way too strong). @ Kabel on Build time It’s true that Protoss have CB to speed up units production, but they have it too in SC2 and it doesn’t make them imba. And don’t forget that in early game, most CBs are used on Probes to keep up with others race macro mechanism (call-down SCV and Breeds). The others races can also increase their production rate: Terrans with reactor and Zerg with Breed (increasing larva spam rate greatly speed up units’ production). Concerning your question, I think it would be better to use SC2 build time as a reference (faster production than in BW) because it promote early game aggression. If you need a lot of production building in the early game, it means that as Terran or Protoss, you cannot use as many resources to produce units in order to pressure your opponent. | ||
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Weerwolf
75 Posts
The problem is with the queens larva boost, is that especially in the early game, its almost always going to be your best ability. What could be better than getting more drones up at extremely low costs? To move the queen to tier two because the T and P both have early access to macro abilities is just silly to me. Why shouln't they be different? Chrono boost is available from the start, scv calldown after an orbital, why not let the queen be available at tier two. It's the difference in flavors that makes it all better. If what you say is true, and that zerg is remarkably strong even without the queen, than that is even more reason to, in conjunction with adjusting larva span rates,move the queen to tier two. In fact, since creep isn't as wide spread because the queen wasn't available from the start, once you get queens you will definetly be in a decision. Do I want to add creep tumors a lot to get it all rolling, or do I boost my larvae? If the queen was out in the start, it makes a creep tumor somewhere, and it will be sufficient usually. Also, the queen supplies defence, which is more reason not to make units, and continue on with drones. To me, the decision you have to make will have even more impact since both choices are really good at this part in the game, you really want creep now (and fast, so you probably want to make more creep tumors than one), but ofcourse you also want production. Thats why I think the queen at tier 2 would be a great idea. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I am a retard. I have chosen the wrong approach with modifying Inject... I have tried to add a deeper decision making to it.. It is probably a little bit richer and deeper than sc2 Inject, but far away from solving the real problem.. Instead of writing a novel about it I will demonstrate it with pictures. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zXbos.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Gr1Tv.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0xdYj.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SN1HR.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hLRBZ.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/65UNJ.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/339Gl.jpg) I can let it be and just focus on getting the Zerg macro under control via balance adjustments. But I can´t look myself in the mirror anymore if I don't solve this fundamental design flaw... Something more must be done in the design of the Queen so it really becomes an improvement over SC2 Zerg.. | ||
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