EPTThe Blinkers might not be away for ever. Same with Void Ray. This is just a way to try it if Blink is good for the game or not. Will it be better without blink? :O
Ps. You can all see patch notes at previous page. Im on EU now if anyone wanna try.
[A] Starbow - Page 175
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
The Blinkers might not be away for ever. Same with Void Ray. This is just a way to try it if Blink is good for the game or not. Will it be better without blink? :O Ps. You can all see patch notes at previous page. Im on EU now if anyone wanna try. | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Notice that I messed up the Dragoon cost. They cost 150/100 instead of 125/50.. | ||
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purakushi
United States3302 Posts
On December 09 2012 01:18 Kabel wrote: TvP with Nullifier and Dragoons. http://drop.sc/282742 Notice that I messed up the Dragoon cost. They cost 150/100 instead of 125/50.. Thoughts from just watching the replay. (Patch not live on NA, yet) - Dragoon attack sound is really bad  - Still prefer using the Stalker model but with Dragoon values. SC2 Dragoons are not as cool as BW ones, even if they have slightly better pathing. Dragoon micro is just meh in SC2. - Null field should be changed in some way. I feel it is kind of yucky. Also, 30 seconds is way too long for that type of spell (15 seconds maximum sounds better) Radius seems like it should be decreased, as well. Thoughts on patch - Will actually have to see the scout in action. Not sure, but worth a try. - Dark archon, please! Mind control for the BMs >_< (125 energy, though, so we can actually see it happen) - Frenzy change, great. - Spider mines change seems like it's going in the correct direction. - Combat shield will have to see. I want bio to work. - +1 to BW high ground system. - Auto-turret change is fine. Is this ability going to be replaced, though? - High templar is perfect now. - As long as plague can not kill (as in BW), that is fine. - Hydra range back to its original value is good. The range buff was never necessary. - Archons armoured now. Awesome, tanks should be fine against them now. Should be a lot more balanced for TvP. No more complaints. - Vessel and psistorm changes are fine. I would like to see more scourge play. I actually would like to try is keep the damage on storm but increase its radius and increase the amount of time it lasts (so less DPS). More microability, but it is compensated by increased radius. Can not wait to play it on NA! | ||
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Zain3
Sweden45 Posts
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Did you have unnamed melee intialization trigger? That gave me errors so I simply gave it a name to be able to save. Moving shot needs a fast stationary turning speed. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Dragoons feel akward and weird. Now its gotten its chance in the game... I will bring back the Stalker + blink instead. If anyone disagree, may you speak now or for ever hold your silence.. or whatever they say at weddings :E The next question is: What can be done about blink? In its normal SC2 form it allow Stalkers to blink in and out in every base everywhere and just ignore terrain.. Starbow is suppose to make terrain matter.. Some suggestions players have mentioned: 1. Make Stalkers lose their shields when they blink.. 2. Give stalkers energy.. blink costs energy.. 3. Make stalkers unable to blink up or down cliffs.. 4. Give blink a long cooldown.. if you blink into a base you can not escape.. 5. greatly reduce the range of blink so you must be near a cliff to blink up or down.. @decemberscalm I will look at that | ||
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satinysol
China4 Posts
Hi, I'm from singapore, I'm wondering if you can upload the map on sea server,cause I like this mod very much,it's just so awesome. | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
Halve the range and cooldown. Require more micro and attention. @voidray You would try to fix it. The idea I have written a couple of times. | ||
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Roblin
Sweden948 Posts
On December 09 2012 07:04 Kabel wrote: The patch will not be sent to NA.. Too many bugs :p Dragoons feel akward and weird. Now its gotten its chance in the game... I will bring back the Stalker + blink instead. If anyone disagree, may you speak now or for ever hold your silence.. or whatever they say at weddings :E The next question is: What can be done about blink? In its normal SC2 form it allow Stalkers to blink in and out in every base everywhere and just ignore terrain.. Starbow is suppose to make terrain matter.. Some suggestions players have mentioned: 1. Make Stalkers lose their shields when they blink.. 2. Give stalkers energy.. blink costs energy.. 3. Make stalkers unable to blink up or down cliffs.. 4. Give blink a long cooldown.. if you blink into a base you can not escape.. 5. greatly reduce the range of blink so you must be near a cliff to blink up or down.. @decemberscalm I will look at that I dont understand the stalker problem, you say it allows stalkers to ignore terrain and that starbow is supposed to make terrain matter, so effectively blink causes stalkers to act kind of like air-units while they are still targeted as ground. then the question is: is this a problem at all? it is common to abuse air-units mobility by passing up and down cliffs, why is it so bad that blink-stalkers can do the same? is it because it is a core unit? possible. the fact that you have a lot of them makes a significant impact. in SC2 they are balanced in much the same way air-units are: they are weak. does this still hold true in starbow? lets for a second ignore that question and assume that yes, blink is not designed to allow stalkers to ignore terrain. then what is it designed for? short bursts of movement? kind of like a speedboost? easier pull-back micro in battles? outside abusing terrain, what is the point of blink? and if abusing the terrain is the point of blink, then is it not true that terrain matters a lot in blink-usage? I am actually asking. 1. Make Stalkers lose their shields when they blink.. this will discourage offensive blinking in general, is offensive blinking something you want to discourage? 2. Give stalkers energy.. blink costs energy.. this will limit how many times you can blink in succession, outside of that it changes nothing. 3. Make stalkers unable to blink up or down cliffs.. then what are the appropriate usages of blink if not abusing terrain? 4. Give blink a long cooldown.. if you blink into a base you can not escape.. makes hit-and-run tactics harder to execute, are those kinds of attacks a problem presently? 5. greatly reduce the range of blink so you must be near a cliff to blink up or down.. makes blink kind of like a targeted cliff-jump (with a cooldown), sounds a little lame in my ears. | ||
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Danko__
Poland429 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
When this is more completed I will try to upload it on Sea and korea server. Not right now though since there are still much stuff to do. @johnnyzerg I know you have suggested the voidray changes many times, But I don´t see how that would make the voidray better/more interesting/more fun. What would be better if I changed it like that? @roblin Hello. Long time no seen. The main conflict revolves around superior mobility <---> strong combat unit. If Stalkers are strong and can blink into enemy bases, it is hard for the enemy to be able to defend vs all possible attacks that can come in the midgame.. If stalkers are weak but blink is strong, well.. P just has a harder time in direct engagements. In SC2 that works due to force fields to protect the Protoss army. In Starbow the P army is "supposed" to be able to fight quite well on its own with Stalkers Zealots etc. So it has mainly been hard to find a balance in it. Mass stalkers + blink killing the enemy was a common scenario not so long ago. I think blink is useful in three areas: - combat utility. A good player with a small number of stalkers can maximize the damage efficency vs a bit larger enemy army with proper blink micro (rotate with wounded stalkers to the back) offensive blinks, flee from combat etc. - terrain utility. Stalkers can move over the map more freely. - "tricky" utility. Stalkers can blink and catch units out of position, blink 1 stalker into enemy tanks to deal friendly fire etc.. Obviously it can be balanced via other factors too. Like giving races better methods to defend, play with the Stalker stats or something else. The blink discussion is merely a way to see if anything can be changed with blink to make it "fit" better into the game. In my opinion, I think the fact that its so easy and free to blink into enemy bases and just walk out again that creates lame situatoins. The enemy gets "contained" and can not move out since mass blink will happen. The same applies to reaver, mutalisk and banshee harass. But its relatively easy and cheap to stop that harassment via turrets/spore crawler/ 1 flying anti air units vs warp prism etc.. To stop mass stalkers with blink the enemy need "roughly" the same amount of resources invested in defence O_o The five alternatives I listed above is what people have been discussing here or in ingame chats. So I just summarized them. Is it a fundamental problem the way blink currently works, or can this be overcomed purely via stats changes? Thats why I brought the topic here, to hear some input. Personally I think number 4 might be enough.. Maye 2-3 times longer cooldown? If P blinks into an enemy base its a bit more commitment. P can´t escape immediately again if he gets in trouble.. I think blink will still be useful in combat and for tricky things with a bit longer cooldown.. Blink will be something to use careful and not spam in combat.. if a player makes a bad blink move, it will take some more time before it can be used again | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
must have the following characteristics: -Voidray must be a bit faster (able to escape to marines). -To be the hard counter/counter massive/armored air units and to be counter to light units. -The attack is direct (without charge) -High damage vs massive/armored, low damage vs light -Remove attack vs groud units -Add special attack vs construction (only one voidray at a time can attack the same structure) high damage. Corsairs is good vs light units. I noticed that struggles to destroy heavier units like tanks, lurkers, stalker/reavers. Voidray to support these situations. It can also create situations of discomfort with a powerful attack against buildings, (if the opponent does not take measures), capable of destroying supplay depot / Pilons, gas, zerg constructions (only one voidray can attack the same construction). -Voidrays in mass is a waste (but good vs massive units in mass) -Excellent synergy between corsairs and voidrays. -Carriers compensates for their almost total lack of destroying buildings and units on the distance. -Arbiters (I do not think it is necessary to recall the mass, preferably a unit recall). @Nexus recall ability Cost 50 energy and an cooldown of 10-15 second but recall 6 units, or Cost 75 energy and recall 8 units. This sacrifices chrono bost save for unity that are certain death (blinkers, reavers) or salving expansion from small run by. This require a right balance between defense and chronobost. Chronobost for fast units build/reseach, on cannos, or recall units? | ||
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Roblin
Sweden948 Posts
good point, I didnt think of that. a way to temporarily neutralize the blinking ability would be quite interesting, much the same way that fungal growth is used in WoL currently. @Kabel you description of the situation makes me think that hit-and-run tactics are indeed the problem at hand, which probably means number 4 "Give blink a long cooldown.. if you blink into a base you can not escape" is a good solution since that makes those exact kind of moves more risky without changing most other dynamics of the unit. as a follow-up question I want you to ask yourself: what can players do to punish such mass-stalkerage and how are these tactics/strategies helped by making stalkers have a longer cooldown? I am mainly thinking about your sentence "To stop mass stalkers with blink the enemy need "roughly" the same amount of resources invested in defence O_o" if this is the case, then stalkers that have gotten into the main and/or natural are obviously quite cost-efficient, and thus the enemy must have a combat superiority to actually be able to utilize the fact that the stalkers have a very long cooldown on blink. the long cooldown forces a fight, it does not make the fight much more favourable for the enemy. am I wrong in saying this? actually asking. //Roblin | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
In theory, Terran should be able to hold a ball of stalkers with a few siege tanks and spider mines spread across the main, Earlier it was a common thing to see Stalkers blink into the Terran main base then 10 seconds later blink on top of the defending 1-2 tanks and take them out aswell. Probably will longer blink cooldown make it harder to engage the defence inside the T base. Spine Crawlers for Zerg seems to be quite weak atm. The best defence Z has is creep spread and fast reinforcements. This means that Z can produce defence quicker and get the army back where needed. With slower cooldown on blink it will be more risky for P to blink into Z base since they can be "trapped" there IF the Z army arrives quickly. And naked Stalkers will have a hard time vs lings.. PvP is maybe the most problematic match up for Blink. Stalkers vs Stalkers. Nothing really counters them since Immortal is gone and Nullifier is a mess..Highest Stalker count wins. (And best blink micro..) until speed zealots or reaver gets out of course.. Maybe will defensive reavers play a role in Pvp? Keep one in the base in case enemy Stalkers tries to be nasty.. @Energy on Stalkers I think its a bit overkill to add energy to Stalkers. The game screen might feel messy with life + shield + energy indicator on the main unit for P. Lot of info-bars. I like to keep it clean. If there shall be ways to disable Blink, EMP can disable abilities for mechanical units for X seconds, even without energy. Maybe the Nullifier can get some spell that affects Stalkers and blink too. @johnnyZerg Your idea requires one other change: Corsairs must be able to lift up massive units so the Void rays can shoot them. And I am doubtful about that.. I think certain ground units must be immune vs enemy Corsairs, otherwise a high enough number of Corsairs will control everything on the ground.. The other points of the Voidray that you describe sounds like the Scout: -Voidray must be a bit faster (able to escape to marines). -To be the hard counter/counter massive/armored air units and to be counter to light units. -The attack is direct (without charge) -High damage vs massive/armored, low damage vs light This can be interesting, but is it really needed? Carriers are already strong vs enemy buildings. -Add special attack vs construction (only one voidray at a time can attack the same structure) high damage. The Scout also allows P to have a strong way to snipe single enemy air units. The strongest casters in the game are flying: Vessel, Swarm Guardian and Arbiter. Corsairs can´t really fly in and snipe them as easily as scouts can. Don´t get me wrong now. The scout is not an amazing unit. The Void ray is cooler and I would prefer it in the game. But I am not convinced that your suggestion would improve the Void ray enough. But I will think about it and look at it in the editor. Ps. Happy birthday! @ new patch I will hopefully get a new patch up today where I revert the Dragoon. I gave it a chance, it sucked. | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
This can be interesting, but is it really needed? Carriers are already strong vs enemy buildings. Is not so much need, is that to do damage to buildings, carriers must be in good number and that takes time and tech. Voidray as I describe it as I do not require fleet beacon. This special attack does not need to destroy buildings, but to give a nuisance to the opponent (and thus a reason to do voidray in mid game). Without this special attack is useless to voidray mid game, not worth it to use it to destroy any tank / lurker faster, I'd rather do more corsairs. @ gravitonic beam add a search in the fleet beacon that allows you to use graviton beam on massive units (these are seen to T3 therefore require a search T3) @scout currently lacking as the classic voidray, the reason to see it in mid game. What can be done over at counter armored air? Destroy gatherers? This is a task that performs corsairs, and against buildings (scout) is quite disgusting (not annoying enough). If there is an corsairs abuse, I would not think two times to lengthen the cooldown time. Secondo me il numero ottimale di corsairs in mid game is 5, and 7 in late game. If the voidray is as I have proposed, I would have a reason to create 1-2 voidray and use them to annoy (to attack different buildings), or use them as support corsairs. Scout or voidray, I do not care, what is important to give an extra incentive to use one of two units in mid game, being effective without being in large numbers. | ||
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purakushi
United States3302 Posts
Drain all shields, increase the cooldown from 10 to 15 (or 20) seconds, as well as decrease the range from 8 to 4. But also buff the stalker (costs/hp/everything) to be like the dragoon. These changes still allow players to blink-micro during battles, which is one of the cool/fun things to watch/do from SC2; however, it places greater stress on blinking at the correct time (no more shields). Draining all shields when blinked will separate the players who are better at using the skill at the appropriate times. All 3 changes combined provide more than sufficient risk to make players have a second thought before blinking into an enemy's base or blinking forward. Blink will be more of a defensive ability but still can be used aggressively if the decision-making and micro is done properly. I do not think energy on stalkers or just increasing the blink cooldown by 2-3x is the way to go. While it may "solve" this issue, it limits its use in an unproductive way. If you are to choose only one change, please drain all shields upon blink. It increases skill cap as well as increases the risk when aggressively blinking, so better decision making is required. It also allows the stalker to have the same stats as a dragoon (i.e. stronger, slower, etc) without making it overly powerful with the normal blink. If you just increase the cooldown by 2-3x, you can not really make the stalker tougher. Protoss units should be able to do more individually, so buffs are welcome. (Though, I am not talking about racial balances here. When I say buff the stalker to be more like the dragoon, it does not necessarily mean the dragoon is stronger than a stalker, it just means make them have the same stats, from cost, build time, movement/attack speed, damage, HP/shield, etc -- everything). tl;dr +1 for drain all shields upon blink if that is not enough, also increase the cooldown by 5 seconds if both of those are not enough, also decrease the range from 8 to 4 If that is still not enough, tweak the latter 2 but keep drain shields. The balancing should come from the latter 2. In that order. If you do not like draining "all" shields. Just drain half of the remaining but also increase cooldown by 10 seconds and decrease range to 4. I would really like to include blink as well as have the stalker with dragoon numbers, as I believe both are beneficial to the game. Not to mention the stalker is the better model, aesthetics-wise. | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
While the core idea is good, it would come with some problems as well. Blinking as defensive mechanic would get nerfed, f.e. you're poking on the map with some blinkstalkers and suddenly zerg comes with a huge army of speedlings. Normally, you'd blink away and lose some of your stalkers before you get home, but if you lose all your shields from the first blink, you'd be kinda forced to stay and fight or lose most of your stalkers. It will also become even harder to defend against mutas because you can't blink to chase or to get somewhere in your base faster, since mutas already trade decently with stalkers. Those are only 2 situations on the top of my head. Imo, the best way to nerf it, is to move it further into the tech tree, the main problem with blinkstalkers is earlygame versus mech, stalkers trade decently versus low counts of mech units and those mech units aren't mobile in their own base, you also have no mapcontrol at this point in the game. If you can only get blink at the mid/lategame, then terran would already have enough mech units to cover more areas, trading stalkers for mech units will become much harder and it will be easier to deny blinkins since you have the methods to kill the observer (because you need vision to blink in ofc). | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
Normally, you'd blink away and lose some of your stalkers before you get home, but if you lose all your shields from the first blink, you'd be kinda forced to stay and fight or lose most of your stalkers. It will also become even harder to defend against mutas because you can't blink to chase or to get somewhere in your base faster, since mutas already trade decently with stalkers. The way to fight these two things there is: nexus recall ability, but now it is penalty, I proposed two changes to about: + Show Spoiler + Cost 50 energy and an cooldown of 10-15 second but recall 6 units, or Cost 75 energy and recall 8 units. This sacrifices chrono bost save for unity that are certain death (blinkers, reavers) or salving expansion from small run by. This require a right balance between defense and chronobost. Chronobost for fast units build/reseach, on cannos, or recall units? | ||
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purakushi
United States3302 Posts
The drain shield mechanic did not come without compensation (though, it is not like I mentioned buffs to compensate for it, rather they come together). Dragoons without blink do fine against zerglings since they are tougher and deal more damage. The situations you are thinking of are from SC2. Starbow is pretty different, let alone the changes to blink/stalker/dragoon. Stalkers in SC2 are fragile units. Also, zealots should be part of your army, too ^_^. Zerglings are a lot slower on creep in Starbow than in SC2 and a tad slower off creep. Regarding mutalisks, players still do not put enough cannons around their bases. Cannons can also be chronoboosted, which I do not see enough of. Dragoons also deal more damage (though, I am aware of damage types -- the 50% reduction against small). The dynamic between mutalisks and dragoons is slightly different from with stalkers. Numbers can be balanced. I am all for tougher units, but I am not arguing to make stalkers stronger necessarily to make Protoss stronger. While factoring in balance and design, I am trying to include the fun factor, usefulness, risk (decision-making), skill cap, as well as the dynamic with all the other units. | ||
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