But I still don't know why you keep being so pessimitic on behalf of Starbow. It's a great game, and I think most of the people who play it agree's with me in that regard.
Well, I would not consider myself pessimistic. I try to constantly evaluate the game, find areas of improvement and good ways to improve it to make it more enjoyable. That process involves a certain criticism towards the game and my work. But I would not call Starbow great. I think there are some flaws in it that concerns me. But that is a subjective thing of course. What I might not like in Starbow, or what I regard as problems, someone else loves. And this has always been a walk on thin glass.
A wise person once said that Starbow is made up of interesting stuff from SC2 and BW and thereby it can never be better than any of those games.
Sorry, but i cant believe that wise person said that.
BW is bettar at being BW. SC2 is better at being SC2. Starbow will just be something in between.
Sandwich with cheese will be better at being sandwich with cheese. Sandwich with meat will be better at being sandwich with meat. But that doesnt matter sandwich with cheese and meat is something worse. Its obviously something different than any of these but also more than any of them.
Please stop listening to that "wise person". Starbow has huge potential.
BW is bettar at being BW. SC2 is better at being SC2. Starbow will just be something in between.
Sandwich with cheese will be better at being sandwich with cheese. Sandwich with meat will be better at being sandwich with meat. But that doesnt matter sandwich with cheese and meat is something worse. Its obviously something different than any of these but also more than any of them.
Please stop listening to that "wise person". Starbow has huge potential.
Yeah I know. I think it can become very good. But I do not think we have hit the jackpot yet.
I am tempted to take the game into a more unique direction, since I think that is what Starbow might need to truly reach the next level.
But there are some days until HoTS is released. So if you think I am out of my mind, please share thoughts on other, less drastic, ways of improving the game in the areas I am concerned about. (Are the concerns valid?)
so... a little bit of stuff regarding the potential changes to come
wagons... I'm not sure about this. on the one hand it sounds exciting. On the other, I feel like the setup isn't right for it in Starcraft. Like: -) why would a zerg want some outpost building over a rather cheap "produce all" hatchery? -) how can a Terran use that outpost? most of the time a Terran can have an additional CC anyways. He just can't control the space yet to fly it out! --> generally speaking, headquarters in Starcraft are already really cheap compared to other RTS games. Unless those waggons are nearly free, I don't see the huge advantage over normal bases... unless you plan on doing something really unique with them, like being able to lift off with 8workers in it. Additionally, I never really used the outposts in CnC... though those work differently. Though I kind of like such concepts... I believe it's going to be hard to make it useful in Starcraft.
New units: Carrier <--> Tempest: I like that idea. At least the way you describe your Tempest. Though at this point, I just have to say that I'm not the biggest fan of bigass air units that own ground, so I believe the Tempest should come with some twist when fighting against ground. Oracle/Nullifier with AoE: One thing that comes to my mind with this is, whether it overlaps with the reaver. Because the reaver already punishes clumping on the robo path. + Show Spoiler +
Just a random idea which might also go into your direction. An Energy draining spell which prevents (all?) damage on the Oracle/Nullifier and instead each time it gets hit the nullifier gains energy. Basically you would have that caster that is (near) invulnurable for some time and punishes players that allow their units to shot at it. And the more units are there, the happier the Oracle/Nullifier. (though this could be hard in conjunction with static defenses and such a unit must not be a good attacker, to prevent masses of invulnerable units). Or make the first hit every 0.5seconds do damage normally, and all other attacks in that periode are prevented/regen energy.
(re)balance stuff: Matrix: I like how right now matrix is good in combination with nonbio units. I kind of agree that it might be too strong on some units. So either just cap the amount of shots or damage it can absorb, or make it a straight "X extra HP for some time". Calldown Turret: Interesting, though it feels a little gimmicky because it's only placeable on a depot and I think it cannot be too strong/cheap unless it should render the turret/bunker useless. Maybe make it very weak (2-4dps) and permanent for 25energy and placeable on all (Terran) buildings. But I believe this doesn't have priority. Creep I love how creep spreading works. Nevertheless, I believe a good creep spreader has it too easy to spot incoming threads. You hardly ever have interesting "omg, time to improvise" moments. So I propose that inactive creep tumours don't give vision. That way, you still see the frontline. You can still spread creep from active tumours without the need of extra units "running with your creep". But you don't have that huge "i see half of the map for free" advantage. Scourge vs ground splash: I like the idea, but I think it should have only a very small impact. Like in the 10-25ish area. Else I think that air units against zerg might be too counterproductive. Baneling: I'm not sure about this unit. At the one hand I believe that it is exactly what you (we) are looking for - needs some control to reach the target in time, punishes clumping - on the other hand it feels very week in the lategame and somewhat of a cheap trick sometimes. If needed, maybe just a rebalancing? Like, bigger splash, less damage. (e.g 25damage to all with 3range) Swarm Host: Not sure if needed. The original idea behind the SH was to give zerg midgame tools to break an opponent that turtles. In Starbow, zerg has banelings but protoss has no forcefields. Zerg has (useful) midrange hydras/lurkers (compared to the lower range roach) which allows the breaking of walls anyways. Hellion Me likey. Hellbat: Not sure, too little experience with it. If added, I would take it to the extreme: Make it "morph target" with a 1x1 or 2x2 footprint/static unit. That way it becomes less of a "splash zealot" and more of a positional mech unit. Engeneer Yes please. I have played around with a similar unit in the editor which could place 15hp sandsacks and PDDs with charges. I think there is a variety of spells (mines) that you could add on this unit. Reaper: I believe this concept has somewhat failed and overlaps with the hellion/vulture in terms of early harass speed.
Army separation... actually, I kind of have no clue how to achieve that exactly from where we are. I kind of believe that the best way to achieve that is to just make expanding a lot required, hitting frontal kind of mediocre and harassing a little bit kind of good/required. I think harassment units shouldn't have the potential to outright kill an opponent too easily, because then he has to turtle too hard. But they should be able to do reasonable damage, even if the opponent has the right cards in his hand. Right now I think that Starbow features too little of such units on the Terran (maybe even Protoss?) side. Therefore it's kind of hard to really get something done. Also I believe zerg is too much all or nothing with his "get into the opponents base" options. Like, drops have to be balanced for doomdropping, nydus similarily, mutas are balanced for mass mutaplay etc. Though this is probably a minor problem, as zerg already dominates the map, no need to take the war into the opponents base.
Perhaps we can give the Engineer Repair, Auto Turrets (or the fire auto turrets), PDD, the ability to construct Missile turrets, Bunkers, sensor towers.
Idea for the baneling: Focused Detonation: Single target, 200 damage over 10 seconds. So we could make banelings auto-attack be the AOE, and also give them this ability as auto-cast. This could be used on Tanks, Queens, Lurkers, and Reavers, mostly.
I prefer vultures over hellions. I'd also prefer we make dropships more interesting than to reintroduce medivacs.
- The Nullifier/Oracle will be added to the Robotic facility. I want to give it a starting spell with a useful AoE-effect that punishes enemy clumped up units. All AoE-spells for Protoss are late game spells. (Storm + Stasis) It will probably have Void Shell and Vortex aswell, since I have no other abilities in mind atm.
Nulifier/Oracle: I have nothing against adding something to robo. Maybe not direct harass, damage dealing unit (reaver is for that) but something with bit of finesse.
Carrier/Tempest. Messing with AI is whole charm of carriers. And tempests with AOE damage are gonna be deathball friendly as well.
Scourge: But why? They are perfect now. They are cheap. Great to defend vs dropships or warpprisms. They can snipe very expensive stuff like arbiters and vessels very cost efficent. If you want to change anything then only change range on vessels spells, so they have to put themselves in danger so zerg have window to kill them. Also, whole point of having marines beneath vessels is to protect them. Also adding that kind of feature will force to rebalance scourges, while they are great right now. Instead i would prefer dancing with marines at edges of lurkers range, trying to snipe scourges, while vessels try to snipe lurkers with irradiate.
Banelings are banelings. I dont know what to do with them either. Honestly, i would prefer them to be removed.
Swarm Host - I like the concept of a positional unit that spawns stuff. BUT in it's HoTS-form it is a deathball unit: Alone it sucks, but the more you have together the stronger they get. One way to overcome this is by making Locusts be suicide units that also deal friendly fire. In this way it is a bad idea to clump 10 swarm hosts together since the Locusts will kill each other. So MAYBE this one gets added to the game in some form.
Lurker spawning banelings? Oh, come on. Forget about swarm host. Blizzard is dumb.
Hellion will replace the Vulture. This is due to the Hellions splash attack which forces more seperation for the enemy. I think the Hellbat transformation adds some extra spice to the unit.
Vultures are superior in every way to hellion. They can harass and delay opponents attack. All you have to do is just buff their damage vs light to 20. You had that value before! And you lowered that to 18 cause "that was too easy for terran to harass". Too quick changes are always bad. Just bring back vultures with 8/20dmg and 1,85 cd. Also, helions vs these zerglings are gonna be just unfair. Keep in mind that zerg have 2 times less larvae now.
Thor might replace Goliath. - It will have a splash attack vs both air and ground units. - It has a new ability that upon activation deals X damage as an "earthquake" to both friendly and enemy units within a circle around it. (Based on an idea from OneGoal) - It will be slow. Maybe even slower than in SC2. - To increase the synergy with the dropships, MAYBE the Thor will not die if loaded into a dropship and the dropship dies. The Thor will just take damage and fall on the ground. (Unless the dropship dies over impassable terrain.)
I dont like it. Too complex. Goliaths are fine. Simple and efficent. Also they give some room for micro and can defend much bigger area due to their mobility and numbers.
Version 1:
Marine Reaper that can cast some kind of Spider mine/Widow Mine. (Different balance ofc) Medic with Matrix + Heal and maybe one more spell. Ghost
If any bio unit is supposed to have spider mines, its reaper.
Version 2:
Marine Reaper "Engineer" Decent HP, ok damage vs armored. More of a caster than a combat unit. Not strong enough in combat to make it spammable as marauders. No stimpack. Can place some kind of mine on the ground and use Matrix. Ghost Medivac replace Dropship.
I dubt that you want to make engineer map control unit with decent speed. I guess that would be slow support unit. So thats bad choice to give it spider mine. Charm of vultures is that they are fast/mobile and they can lie mines everywhere. Only bio unit sharing this traits is reaper. You cant give mines to slow unit or you will limit heavly usage and potential of this skill. Also, removal of medic will weaken terran early pushes, instead of strenghtening them.
Version 3:
Marine Reaper can heal itself AND nearby biological units in a small radius, when standing still. (It only heals itself in HoTS) "Engineer" with the stuff I mentioned above Ghost Dropship
Healing reaper. Well, kinda weird idea.
Have you considered changing firebat instead? Maybe just make firebats deal 20dmg vs all units.I dont think that would break anything. Also maybe give them slow? Thats not gonna be ridiculous as concussive on marauders cause they have melee range, but toss will have to be more careful with his units. Also, removal of armored trait could be significant buff while not breaking them vs most units they are strong already.
Well, as I said, I can go on and just smoothen the content in Starbow via balance adjustments. Let almost all units stay in the game and do nothing drastic to them. But if I do, I do not think these areas of the gameplay are improved:
- Economic development will still be a quite slow process since it is a large step to expand. It is in the lategame where the true multitasking over the map begins, when players have +5 bases to harass, attack, deny etc..
- Army seperation will remain roughly as it is - most of the time players move everything in a huge clump, except when fighting vs certain units. I want control groups / army seperation to play an even bigger role in the game.
- Terran will still have a divided tech path to choose either bio or mech, due to the way bio currenly is in Starbow and how superior mech is vs P and T.
These are areas of the game I would like to improve. My suggestion is to replace/change some of the units in the races, in order to archive this. I invite you all to share ideas on how to improve these areas of the game in less drastic ways.
But why? They are perfect now. They are cheap. Great to defend vs dropships or warpprisms. They can snipe very expensive stuff like arbiters and vessels very cost efficent. If you want to change anything then only change range on vessels spells, so they have to put themselves in danger so zerg have window to kill them.
I think irradiate is just too easy too use efficiently due to smart cast and requires more skill from the zerg to counter it. A scourge buff would help even that out as it will require more micro from the terran player. Besides that, I mostly agree with everything else you said (though I would prefer a straight up baneling buff rather than removal. If you don't like the unit, then you can use other units instead - Starbow gives players these choises which I think is nice).
I think Kabel will change his mind regarding the vulture/hellion as it is just such a popular unit, which means that reapers can't have spider mines. In that case they could be given auto-turret as seen in Onegoal. Now the problem is that auto-turrets doesn't matter in the attempt to gain map presense as bio. Remember this; You already have map control if you go bio heavy. You don't need to put up preemptive defensive structures such as mines or turrets as your army is very mobile.
Secondly, I think auto-turrets are quite boring as it is basically a defensive structure with no way to micro it or micro against it. This means that the outcome before an opponent attacks the auto-turret is predetermined beforehand which makes it quite boring. Mines on the other hand feels differently, as sometimes they manages to kill like 3-4 hydras, and in other situations they don't do anything else besides winning time.
Basically, I don't think bio should have these kind of "pre-battle set up defensive structures", as it is irrelevant for bio in the first place and secondly it slows down the pace of the game. Mech is the slow/strategical way of playing the game, while bio IMO should be the more fast paced and battle micro oriented way of playing the game. If a bio player gets a unit where he has to set up a lot of weird stuff in order to win the game it will make bio feel more similarly to mech and I think in the end it will make bio more boring to play. While I generally prefer mech play over bio, I need to admit that bio has its charm in WOL as you feel like you can do anything with bio, and you don't have to play patiently and waiting 20+ minuts to move out. I'd say we should focus on keeping bio that way.
Creep I love how creep spreading works. Nevertheless, I believe a good creep spreader has it too easy to spot incoming threads. You hardly ever have interesting "omg, time to improvise" moments. So I propose that inactive creep tumours don't give vision. That way, you still see the frontline. You can still spread creep from active tumours without the need of extra units "running with your creep". But you don't have that huge "i see half of the map for free" advantage.
I agree, while I like the idea that a mechanically strong zergs gets an extra small advantage from being good at spreading creep, I don't like that it gives so much map vision as this is an indirect nerf to harassbased play. In fact I would suggest to completely remove map vision and replace it with something else (higher damage/+1 armor or something like that to increase defenders advantage). A more extreme suggestion would be to offer 2 kinds of creep spreads. This is based on the idea that creep spread should not only reward great mechanics but also great decision making/well-thought out gameplan.
Creep spread 1 = Spreads way slower than creep spread 2, but makes your units/defensive structures better in a fight. It's typically a good idea to use creep spread 1 if you plan to play defensive for the near time being and want to survive.
Creep spread 2 = Spreads it self very very fast. I suggest making new creep tumour available each fifth second in order to reward high APM zerg players. On the other hand this provides no other benefits besides making the zerg units faster. Typically this will be a good idea if you go for a map control style (like muta/bling) as your army will be really mobile.
Neither creep spread gives any map vision on minimap. However, you can notice (if you pay attention) where your opponents army is, as you can see the attack animations when he kills the tumours.
Basically the idea behind offering different kind of creep spreads is to reward zerg players who plan ahead. Also the opposing player will be able to get an idea of the zergs likely future unit composition based on which creep tumour he uses. The zerg player can of course use that to his advantage in order to trick the terran player through mind games.
Thoughts on Nullifier
So lets try to discuss what kind of unit we want the nullifier to be. The following characteristics is something I believe it should have; - A manual vertical line attack ability which will punish the opposing player if he tries to move up on ramps. At the same it will be very efficiently in battles if you "flank the opposing bio/hydra army" as it's potential damage should be very high.
- A way to break a turtling opponent. This can either be through some kind of stasis/hallucination ability which allows you to attack a siged up terran army if he doesn't control his units properly. Void shell is such an ability, but as Kabel previously has stated this overlaps too much with hallucination. I actually think the vertical line attack will be enough as lined up siege tanks will be very weak against a flanking nullifier. So I don't think it needs Void Shell or any other "battle-abilities".
- Instead, I suggest to give it an increased mobility ability. If we look at the way warp prism/recall/blink works they are all about getting from location A to location B without actually moving your army there. To make the Nullifiers mobility ability differentiated from the before mentioned abilities, I suggest to simply give it an ability which allows a small group of units to move faster for x seconds. This will help to incentivize small army play, and you can now send a small group of gateway armies out to harass a zerg opponent and escape without losing all of them. However, it is a neccesity that the Nullifier will be a high-supply unit so it will not be possible to have enough of them to use it on your whole deathball army. Rather I expect protoss player to have 1-3 Nullifier, which means they have to think somewhat carefully on how to use the "mobility-ability".
How the vertical line ability should work
I think this ability should be cooldown based, but relatively short (like 5-10 seconds). You activate it by clicking on a location within a radius of 10 of the nullifier. The attack will hit everything on the ground from a distance of 1 to a distance of 10. It will target the nearby units first and then the line ability will slowly get closer to the units which are further away. I expect that it will take roughly 3 seconds from the ability is activated till it will attack the unit which are 10 range away. This means that it will likely do some guaranteed damage as the opponent won't have time to move the nearby units away, however great players will be able to minimize the damage output of the nullifier by moving the units away from the line.
How to position the nullifier in a battle will also be a huge trade off, because you will be able to do more damage if you get closer to your opponent, however that also makes it more vulnerable to target firing.
But I think my suggested Nullifier will add the following elements to protoss; - Even more multitasking opportunities. - Even more micro opportunities. - The abilities require specific reponses from the opponent - A slightly new way of playing protoss.
Regarding Vortex, doesn't it overlap too much with stasis?
Hopefully there will be an additional form of creep tumor model in HoTS. I have considered to make creep tumors individually "upgradeable" to an other version, so it gives an other type of bonus on the nearby creep. But the creep tumor indeed have room for improvement.
Warp gate/Gateway
What about the current Gateway/Warp gate dynamic?
Currently in Starbow, Warp gate is researched at the cybernetics core for 100/100. (50/50 in SC2) Swtich a Gateway to Warp gate, or vice versa, takes 7 seconds instead of 10 seconds. Warp gate units take 6 seconds to warp in instead of 5. Warp gate units are produced 10 seconds slower than in a Gateway.
Can this concept be improved?
The main criticsm I´ve received from players is that it is easy to overcome the disadvantage of the warp gate. In a late game scenario, when players have loads of gateways/warp gates the 10 second build time reduction does not matter. The slower warp gate also punishes harassment play early in the game. Protoss are safer to turtle with gateways than to harass with warp gates.
On March 09 2013 21:31 Kabel wrote: Hopefully there will be an additional form of creep tumor model in HoTS. I have considered to make creep tumors individually "upgradeable" to an other version, so it gives an other type of bonus on the nearby creep. But the creep tumor indeed have room for improvement.
Warp gate/Gateway
What about the current Gateway/Warp gate dynamic?
Currently in Starbow, Warp gate is researched at the cybernetics core for 100/100. (50/50 in SC2) Swtich a Gateway to Warp gate, or vice versa, takes 7 seconds instead of 10 seconds. Warp gate units take 6 seconds to warp in instead of 5. Warp gate units are produced 10 seconds slower than in a Gateway.
Can this concept be improved?
I don't play protoss so I don't know really - But I think that they seem to work pretty fine? Only thing I dislike is the 6-8 warpgate + warp prism timing attack on terrans which makes starport openings unsafe. I would prefer that warp tech required a twilight tech so you could do a bit more harass oriented builds early game as terran.
I agree with the concept of a line attack-spell. Especially since I want to add more ways to punish clumped up units.
I am not sure about giving it a speed boost-spell though, mainly because it overlaps with the Zerg spell Frenzy at the Swarm Guardian. (It increases move & attack speed for a small group of units for X seconds)
What shall the purpose of the Nullifier be in the Protoss army?
- Corsairs can disable inidividual units with Graviton Beam - Arbiters can disable groups of units with Stasis Field - High Templars can create meat shields via Hallucinations - Reavers & High templar with storm deal high splash damage in an area. - Reavers & Carriers / Tempest are siege units - Scouts can snipe spell casters with the Phase Missile ability. - Scout can scout an area with the Apial Sensor ability. (Will maybe be replaced with Revelation from HoTS) - Corsairs, DT and Reavers work as harassment units - Blink, Warp Prism, Rift, Warp in and Arbiter with Recall offers mobility
Protoss has no spells that: - Buff their own units, - "Traps" .. like spider mines, burrowed banelings, lurkers.. - No area control spells/units (Not to the same degree as the other races, no Dark Swarm, Nerve Jammer, force field, siege tanks, spider mines, lurkers etc that can truly control territory)
The old version of the Nullifier was only useful in very narrow situations. I would like the new one to become more versatile and useful in many match-ups. Most importantly, the Nullifier should help to promote aspects of the gameplay that makes Starbow fun. (The stuff I have talked so much about in earlier posts)
I am not sure about giving it a speed boost-spell though, mainly because it overlaps with the Zerg spell Frenzy at the Swarm Guardian. (It increases move & attack speed for a small group of units for X seconds)
Yeh I guess your correct about that. I don't mind that certain abilities works similarly across races, but this is obiviously completely the same. But I still think a small group movement speed buff is one of the best way to get rid of the deathball, but it probably shouldn't be implemented the way I suggested.
Regarding what protoss currently lacks; It's true that they don't have any traps/defensive oriented units like the lurker/siege tank. But before we give the nullifier such an ability, we need to discuss whether protoss even need it in the first place.
When terran goes mech, the siege tank is the core unit of the army, which means that giving vulture mines makes sense as it helps with the immobility issue. However, giving a mobile army "traps" doesn't make a lot of sense. On the other hand I fear that this will be an indirect nerf to ling/vulture harass which isn't needed.
So in which way would a "siege-nullifier" improve the gameplay? For instance does it create interesting games when a protoss sets up a "nullifier contain" outside a terran mech army? Personally I am not a fan of that idea as I think it will slow down the pace of the game (like it will delay the time it takes for a terran to get 4-5 bases which is where the fun really begins".
Regarding sniping/controlling individual units, they also have graviton beam. Personally, I do not think these abilities are especially entertaining, and I prefer abilities which either increases multitasking or the amount of micro required from both players. Typically snipe/control abilities only requires more micro from the player using the ability while the opponent can't do anything against it.
The main criticsm I´ve received from players is that it is easy to overcome the disadvantage of the warp gate. In a late game scenario, when players have loads of gateways/warp gates the 10 second build time reduction does not matter. The slower cooldown also punishes harassment play. Protoss are safer to turtle with gateways than to harass with warp gates.
Yeh good point. I guess that this perhaps could work; Remove warp tech as a general tech pattern. Instead you manually need to upgrade each gateway to warpgate, which should come at a cost of 50/50 or something like that. Then protoss's will have to carefully think about the amount of warp gates they build, and they can't just immediately rebuild a lost army after a big battle (as having 10+ warp gates will be way too costly).
I like the idea of each gateway needs to be payed for to be a warp gate. Maybe the longer cooldown can be shortened somewhat then, since you most probably won't get many warpgats anyway.
Without giving many reasons why, this is the list of things I feel could be changed in order to improve the game as desired: - Giving PF the auto-turret on supply ability. Give it a mineral cost (make it small risk/reward). Maybe energy. I have no numbers to add to that. - Give vultures 20 dmg vs light, and slow them down slightly. - Buff hp on firebats. Maybe give them 20 dmg vs all. - Make storm stronger (large radius and maybe even more dps), and dark swarm "bigger" (larger radius) and make it last longer. Also make swarm guardian be able to cast it further away. Personally I never use frenzy and rarely use SG's in general. I feel infestors are so much better atm. Maybe frenzy need to be reworked. It is not good enough to turn the game around but can easily be broken if buffed. And if you can use frenzy, you have usually already won anyways. - Make EMP radius larger as well, and maybe move EMP to ghost. I feel SV has all the good spells and ghost have all the crappy spells atm, but I don't play terran. - Irradiate should not be able to kill units, but can be buffed as discussed in regard to its dps. - Give the nullifier the line attack ability thing (man, I am so good with words....). And other great abilities (sorry no new ideas from me...) - Buff the baneling (sorry, no good ideas there either.). - I liked the idea of only the active creeptumors have vision, and if inactive tumours are under attack, you get a notification.
I guess my point is not to say that these are mine or original ideas, but that these ideas should be implemented before we go any further. That includes: - Wagons. - Hellions. - Medivacs. - Thors. - Enginers. - Swarm Hosts. - Tempests.
I'm not saying we should not try these as well, but that the top list should be tried first. And I think it will be enough to move the game in the desired direction. SB is already not that deathbally, mainly because you need more bases.
In connection with "Heart of the Starbow" I will update/rework the promo VOD. Mostly because the non-copyrighted music I used was a bit copyrighted after all....
So, I give you the following idea: 1. Listen to this (defenetly not copyrighted, and streangthening my Norwegian pride ). I will not start at the very beginning of this, almost inaudiable. 2. Imagen seing images of players building bases and expanding. Getting critical units and upgrades. Loading up vultures in dropships, reavers in warp-prisms, and lurkers in nydus worms. 3. We see small harasmenst and engments, cute micro and great use of new and exciting units. 4. We now see large armies, muliple attacks and flanks with all the spells and glory Starbow has to offer. 5. "Starbow" The end.
Your list of suggestions is indeed the safer way to go. It is not drastic and it improves upon the existing content in the game.
But here is the dilemma: I do not think small adjustments is enough to improve the gameplay in the areas I want to improve Starbow.
- It will still be in the late game only, when players have +5 bases, that we will truly see attacks at multiple locations, harassment, armies spread out thin over the map. That is fun gameplay and I want to make it happen earlier/easier in Starbow!
- Army seperation will remain unchanged. I want to give players more reason to seperate armies!
- Terran will remain to be a choice between going bio or going mech. Bio will still be bad vs T and P, unless something is fixed with bio.
As Jay points out in his above post:
Army separation... actually, I kind of have no clue how to achieve that exactly from where we are. I kind of believe that the best way to achieve that is to just make expanding a lot required, hitting frontal kind of mediocre and harassing a little bit kind of good/required.
We are at a stage where expanding IS required. But it is too risky, too expensive and too slow when expanding from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 bases. That is why I am tempted to try the wagon concept, to give players methods to truly stretch out on the map at all stages in the game! This is also why I want to strengthen harassment options for the races, promote seperated armies and make stuff work worse in deathballs. What is fun gameplay?
- Where players fight to control large parts of the map! - When players have many bases each. That equals many places to harass, attack, deny and defend. Multitasking! - When combat is not determined by two large armies in one fight, but rather via many small attacks during the course of the game. - When players are rewarded by great micro and good army control. (aka army seperation and not deathball) - When players have many interesting options and combinations of units to use to win the game. (NOT pure bio OR mech.)
THIS is want I want to encourage even more in Starbow. I do not say it is currently bad. I just think it can be better. HOW can this be achieved with small changes?
Maybe it is possible. Please let me know!
@Xiphias choice of music and the dramaturgy of his video
EPT
