[A] Starbow - Page 216

On February 19 2013 09:11 Hider wrote:


I think its insanely fun to play and i think there are a lot of room for the protoss to attack the weak points of the terran and abuse his lack of immobility. Some maps, however do not work that well. Blue storm is a too easy split map and I believe it should be completely redesigned. Neo requirem has too few attack paths in the late game. Remaining maps, however, are very challenging to get correct as a mech'ing terran which has the option to create entertaining games. Also due to the removal of mules terran can no longer afford to mass turrets in his main + nat to deny drops, which has the potential to create very multitask based games.

Sure some games may turn out slightly passive, but I am convinced tha over time (once it gets figured out + players get better) this will become an extremely entertaining matchup.

One thing to note though about the early game; Due to the strenght of 2 base warp prism all ins terrans can't afford any kind of "creativity" after having fast expanded. He has to get 3 facotires + turret in main and nat asap. If he gets a starport before the 3rd factory he is basically coinflipping. In the perfect world I would prefer that both players had harass options early game whcih would require warp tech to come in slightly later in the game, however that is a luxury problem (as there still is potential for early game harass due to reaver harass being very viable and micro intensive from both sides).

Late game arbiters are without a doubt extremely strong and overpowered in the sense that they can kill the terran if he doesn't have perfect position. From a design perspective it works simialrly to fungal and vortex as it punishe's the opponent insanley hard for making a splitsecond mistake, and doesn't give the terran player a chance to retreat/remicro against the abillity.
Think about how it works the other way around; say the terran player emp's the oppoennt's arbiters before stasis gets out; then the protoss player can always retreat and live to fight another day. However, if stasis gets out faster then the terran will often lose the game right there. Often times, however, the game will go on for a bit as the terran can still defend with siege tanks while the arbiters regain energy. Some may conclude that this creates a back and fourth game, however that is deceiving as the terran is bacisally doomed the spoon death since the protoss after having won a signifacnt battle can gain a gigantic economic and then continously trade armies (which he easily can do with arbiters).

The solution isn't simple to tell terran players to "learn to emp" or "learn to individudally manually split every single unit preemptively. This has a too high skill floor, and will punish any non pro terran player too much and make i somewhat non-fun.
Remember as well that while in WOL/HOTS you will have just one deathball, in Starbow you are spread out over 2-3 positions in the late game, which makes it very very difficult to optimally position/split science vessel premptively/get emp off before stasis etc every single time.
I know that stasis a part of BW, but that isn't an excuse for keeping a poorly designed ability in the game. Well designed have abililties/units have characteristics where you can react to it after the ability has been used/or the unit has attacked (e.g. banelings attacking marines gives the terran player the option to split them or storm on bio units --> a great player will be able to split and minimize damage after storm has been casted).

Therefore I I propose a somewhat simple change to make stasis slightly less punishing and better designed. Exact stats can of course be tweaked.

1) Instead of freezing it slows the opponents units down in the area by 50% (they still can't attack or be attacked). When /if they get out of the area they no longer slow and can be attacked/attack again.
2) Assuming the units aren't removed from the area, the slowing will graudally get worse and over 5 seconds it will freeze the units (as stasis works currently).
3) Reduce energy cost to 100 (with max energy of arbiter of 150 or something like that).

The above changes will make it possible for the terran to retreat if he reacts quickly after getting stasis'ed while possibly only losing 1-3 tanks. However, arbiters will still be very usefull as they can break a position and force the terran player to retreat a bit.

If this change will cause pvt late game to be too terran favored, I propose map adjustments rather than balance adjustments (like making it even more difficult to keep a 4th/5th expansion). This will strenghten the dynamic of terran being the cost effective race (assuming good but not perfect unit control), and the toss having to outmultiask the terran to gain an economic lead (which is an indirect nerf to defenders advantage).

Regarding the nullifier, I do think toss probably could use a 3rd late game option against a terran mech (rather than just arbiters and carriers), so if the nullifier could be replaced by a skill intensive unit which wored differnetly from arbiters and carriers that would be awesome. I don't have any specific ideas atm though.

EDIT: I think plantaries might be a causer of deathball's (even though its nerfed). It still make bases difficult to harass with small groups of units and forces the opponent to bring the majority of his army. Personally I would rather see players defending bases with mines + small groups of tanks or bunkers. On the other hand the plantary makes terran a bit more noobfriendly and it will require a lot of multitasking which increases the skill floor, so its kind of a trade off.