On November 29 2012 10:32 Doominator10 wrote: Regarding Frenzy:
My idea of a non AOE freeby stim is....
Frenzy (Single target buff) { Affected unit receives a buff that increases target's armor and speed by 1 in addition, it also increases the speed and attack speed of surrounding units for 20 (ingame) seconds.
If frenzied unit dies, surrounding units are momentarily stunned (very short stun, like .5 seconds?), losing their previously given command. }
The interaction with this is that you would apply a frenzy buff on units that are hard to kill (Aka Ultralisks) and the immediately surrounding units (Aka zerglings) receive the speed and attack speed buff. Obviously lings are already faster than ultras, so what the buff would do is apply a cooldown buff to units that pass near the frenzied units. That way the lings CAN (but dont have to) charge infront of the ultralisk and retain their buff long enough to do some damage.
Ex. Frenzy an Ultralisk, let it run around some ultras and lings, then send the frenzied ultras into the siege line with the lings trailing behind with the originally frenzied ultra to retain the buff longer.... Then battlecruiser show up out of no where--> yamato the original ultralisk--> all the ultras and lings that were previously frenzied by that ultralisk are stunned and lose their orders--> buys an extra siege tank volley off on the ultras and lings--> Terran barely holds --> Zerg gets a cost effective trade... then gets nuked to oblivion.
With this, I think we could make frenzy cost 125 or 150 energy, since this would make it difficult to spam it on a bunch of ultralisks for the extra armor.
Note: Chain frenzied units will not affect normal units. Original frenzy units will not apply buffs to other original frenzied units.
Thoughts? (I think this is a slick way of forcing more interaction between zerg units, as opposed to just 'tweaking' the spell for balance)
Notice how I have to emp at the very start of every battle to get anything close to a favorable outcome. Can is a little bit ahead every step of the way, but nothing out of the ordinary for a PvT. Especially because eco ramps up quicker most of the time simply due to chrono popping faster than T's scv drops.
edit: Keep in mind, highground mechanic is 50% miss rate when he attacks up ramps (ineffectual vs all the zealots of course). Toss is generally just a-moving with zealot archon.
You can't shoot on units at a higher cliff level. You CAN shoot over cliffs still, long as the unit you are attatcking is on the same cliff level. You can still hit the mineral line at the natural with reavers over the cliffs on destination.
hehehe I just saw this video 5 minutes ago. I posted about spider mines yesterday, here's some broodwar spider mine action from torenhire that I have to share now
Chrono boost, trust me for 5 minutes and I'll show you guys something you won't even believe
RE: decemberscalm's 40 minute game:
Check this out about december's replay. Go to about 7:15 and go to the spending tab. I'll summarize it here. Note that December and Canhanrah had almost the same expansion timings.
December/Can
economy 3200/3700 difference: 500 resources
tech 1250 1450 difference: 200 resources
army 300/675 difference: 375 resources
bank, minerals 95/135 difference: 40
bank, gas 150/750 difference: 600
Canhanrah was able to bring in 1700 more resource units in 7 minutes than December was, and December went CC first and you'll notice he didn't miss SCVs (thanks for that btw on that, you saved my entire argument by doing that)
1700 additional resources collected and banked/spent, and that's only by the 17 minute mark.
Follow me for one more moment: imagine that the protoss player uses some of that 1700 resources to create some sort of early army, especially because of stalker range: that protoss player gets intense map control and is able to expand freely, accelerating his lead, which takes to 15 minutes later in the game where December would have no hope in hell if Canhanrah would only learn to spend his resources- enough for 30 zealots and 7 archons, boom, while December by comparison kept his money low.
Later on, Can had enough resources to pump out 50 zealots and 5 archons for most of the late game- instant win if he had a ton of gateways, especially since he can just send those to wreck the base while his army fights evenly with december.
The reason Canhanrah got so far ahead so quickly was chrono boost Friggin WOL macro mechanics, huh?
Okay, admit it: wasn't that cool? Who would have even imagined, right?! XD
ps:
Last Shadow made a vlog where he describes how mules are necessary to compensate terran so they can keep up with protoss and zerg macro mechanics, eg, chrono boost and spawn larva.
I'm NOTTTTTTTTTTT advocating mules, hate those things.
I´m glad you all investigate the detail balance. In terms of pure mathematics, there are lots of flaws in many areas. I will start to focus more on that matter as soon as I have nailed the last design aspects. If I start to balance the game on lose content, everything will be shifted if a unit/spell is replaced. Thats why I try to fix the foundation of the game - the content need to be set in stone. From that point, the true balance work can begin.
Here are the only design areas left that I consider to fix. So this is not stuff that WILL and MUST be added into the game. Its just stuff I look at. Since I am short on time, I will purely write it down without any deeper explanation. I will be back on sunday again. Feel free to discuss it.
Protoss
- Void Ray.. What role shall it have? How shall it work? - Nullifier - Protoss spells. What spells on what caster? - Dragoons instead of Stalkers. I do consider to bring back the Dragoon again for a couple of reasons. - Blink. If Dragoons are added, I consider to make Blink have short range and can NOT blink up or down cliffs. - Reavers. There are still some bugs about them. - Make Nexus produce observers. Observer tech is unlocked via an upgrade at Cybernetics core. (Yeah I know. This is the most controversial one. I have no time to explain why now. I'm in a hurry. But I have a couple of reasons I will share later.)
Terran
- Rework the way Spider mines work. - The line up of spells on the Ghost and Vessel. I want both casters to be useful. But I am not convinced that the current spells they hold is the ultimate way to go. - Energize on Medics? Replace it or rework it or let it remain as it is. - Combat shield. Is there room for another upgrade for Marines? Maybe make it do something else than just a pure +HP buff.
Zerg
- Broodlords and the way their current attack works. (They shoot a "normal" projectile, when they kill something broodlings are spawned from it.) - Frenzy. I will probably make frenzied units recieve more damage, so the spell gets a bit more interesting.. Maybe it can be casted on enemy units too? - Dark Swarm. There is a messy and confusing feeling about it, when I see it on the battlefield. I consider to make it only affect Zerg units. If so, it will obviously be nerfed in some other way to compensate for that huge advantage.
Otherwise, I am quite satisfied with the content in the game. Obviously the balance is by no means perfect. So stats for units and spells will of course be adjusted more. I just want to nail the content, once and for all. So feel free to discuss the above areas I have mentioned. Maybe there is some other design area in the MOD that needs to be fixed, that I have not though of. If so, enlighten me.
Regarding mines there are a few things that I would like to see implemented that might help the overall feel of them.
1. Make the popup time longer - This will make spider mines less likely to clump up when attacking, reducing overkill.
2. Delay the damage point on mines - Make mines take half a second (0.2 - 0.4 or so) to detonate so they are easier to micro against, and can be potentially killed by even melee units if microed.
3. Buff the acceleration of mines significantly - Counteracting the nerfs above to make a mine that feels fast, but has significant delays built in to make micro possible, and make overkill less of a problem with proper spread.
On November 30 2012 18:45 iSoak wrote: Chrono boost, trust me for 5 minutes and I'll show you guys something you won't even believe
RE: decemberscalm's 40 minute game:
Check this out about december's replay. Go to about 7:15 and go to the spending tab. I'll summarize it here. Note that December and Canhanrah had almost the same expansion timings.
December/Can
economy 3200/3700 difference: 500 resources
tech 1250 1450 difference: 200 resources
army 300/675 difference: 375 resources
bank, minerals 95/135 difference: 40
bank, gas 150/750 difference: 600
Canhanrah was able to bring in 1700 more resource units in 7 minutes than December was, and December went CC first and you'll notice he didn't miss SCVs (thanks for that btw on that, you saved my entire argument by doing that)
1700 additional resources collected and banked/spent, and that's only by the 17 minute mark.
Follow me for one more moment: imagine that the protoss player uses some of that 1700 resources to create some sort of early army, especially because of stalker range: that protoss player gets intense map control and is able to expand freely, accelerating his lead, which takes to 15 minutes later in the game where December would have no hope in hell if Canhanrah would only learn to spend his resources- enough for 30 zealots and 7 archons, boom, while December by comparison kept his money low.
Later on, Can had enough resources to pump out 50 zealots and 5 archons for most of the late game- instant win if he had a ton of gateways, especially since he can just send those to wreck the base while his army fights evenly with december.
The reason Canhanrah got so far ahead so quickly was chrono boost Friggin WOL macro mechanics, huh?
Okay, admit it: wasn't that cool? Who would have even imagined, right?! XD
ps:
Last Shadow made a vlog where he describes how mules are necessary to compensate terran so they can keep up with protoss and zerg macro mechanics, eg, chrono boost and spawn larva.
I'm NOTTTTTTTTTTT advocating mules, hate those things.
bias much. I have counted the idle CC timing during the game (not producing or supplyblocked) for you. 4:05-4:15 | 4:33- 4:45 | 4:51-4:56 | 5:20-5:22 | 6:44-7:04 | 6:49-7:04 which makes for a total of 64 seconds (and those earlier add in bigger difference, since an scv could've been mining until 7:15 mins ingame), about 3 scv's. adding to that, an idle scv here and there, not equally distributed mineral lines (less income) and i'm also not a fan of worker trans, lost mining time early on (this will be a much bigger difference than you'd think), it's better to saturate both mineral lines bit by bit. This will already change a ton in those statistics you got up. And btw, december's build was far from optimal, if P gets only 1 gate early you shouldn't get a second barracks and if you don't see any pressure you don't need marine range, so he'd only need about 1 bunker and a couple marines. Gas should be taken earlier -> faster factory -> ability to put on pressure with vultures/banshee. This means toss couldn't have played as greedy as he did -> your whole game looks different.
Please, don't come cry imba with such statistics off of only 1 game with average play. I think you'd see a whole different story if you watch traceback or zlomani's games.
And less on topic, it is ok for chronoboost to be a slightly better macro mechanic than scvdrop, because scvdrop allows you to instantly drop an scv anywhere on the map (this adds in a ton of abusable strategies) and scan allow you to have perfect scouting info, which everyone seems to underestimate, if you can hardcounter, you don't need to spend as much resources.
On November 30 2012 18:45 iSoak wrote: December would have no hope in hell if Canhanrah would only learn to spend his resources WASN'T SO COOL- enough for 30 zealots and 7 archons, boom, while December by comparison kept his money low.
Later on, Can had enough resources to pump out 50 zealots and 5 archons for most of the late game- instant win if he had a ton of gateways, especially since he can just send those to wreck the base while his army fights evenly with december.
The reason Canhanrah got so far ahead so quickly was chrono boost BECAUSE HE IS A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR Friggin WOL macro mechanics, huh?
iSoak... I feel you don't have as great a grasp on starbow as you tend to think.
I'm a terran player as I'm sure you know, and I would be happy to discuss why I disagree with many of your points if you would like.
For example: It was common in BW for protoss to mine more resources then terran. The point was terran should be more cost effective. Trying to argue that toss is broken because of resource differences is not a good argument. On top of that, december is not a native terran player where as can mains protoss. This could also lead to the same results you have mentioned.
Overall, I think your analysis has some serious flaws, some of which I have not mentioned as well.If you want, I can try to explain more about this either here or via PMs. As regards Solid's analysis, you accuse him of being someone who can't think, however, as a player who has mained terran from day one, I can tell you that his analysis makes some good points.
I do still think TvP needs some more minor changes, though, most of these are minor changes which I have already mentioned.
@PvT That replay wasn't an analysis of T and P's economies. The only thing I wanted to draw attention to was zealot archon literally a-moving vs various stages of set up mech during one of our actual games (trading evenly is the problem). If you want to do an analysis of eco you have to do it in a vacuum but also keep in mind the general game flow, which I think there has been quite enough said on the subject already.
@spider mine Movement and damage point changes would actually be pretty cool. As Zaphod already said, a mine that takes a little bit of time to actually start moving after it pops up, then rapidly heads towards the target but takes half a second to actually blow up. The second part wouldn't be hard at all to do, not sure about the delayed attack-move though. That's what I originally used the acceleration values for which ends us where we are now. Time to experiment.
Void Ray.. What role shall it have? How shall it work?
The task of the void ray is that of being a heavy anti-air (corruptor, battlecruisers, carriers). But I thought it would not hurt to make a nuisance units: Remove attack vs ground units. Add attack vs structures: 30 dmg (cooldown 1) (the structure can be attacked by only one voidray) Change attack vs air units: 20 vs massive, 15 vs all, 10 vs light cooldown 1 sec (values can be changed). To make synergy with corsairs, the latter may use the graviton beam on all ground units (including massive) maybe by means of a search.
@nullifier +1 at displacement of skill feedback from high templar to Nullifier (just by its name, must nullify enemy units) is a unit full of potential, I can not wait to watch on field.
@nexus recall ability not require cooldown but cost 50 energy and recall 6 units (this ability is underestimated but it is useful in both phases of attack and defense. Sacrifice some chronobost to do what I wrote above, is a good price). ps: nexus has 100 full energy
@recall arbiter ability I think that recall one unit (25 energy) is more beautiful than mass recall (blinkers + warp prims have great mobility).
@obs Build observer in nexus is good idea but main requirements must be research in cybernetic core and the same cybernetic core. Destroy the cybernetic core does not allow the creation of observer.
@stalker change attack, giving it the attack of the dragoon (but no dragoon damage). Change the blink is a bad idea.
@plague infestor ability I do not know if you wanted to, but should plague will reduce the life rather than the shields.
I hope that at least one of these ideas are taken into consider.
EPT
