EPT[A] Starbow - Page 261
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
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The_Overmind
United States20 Posts
On April 29 2013 07:27 SmileZerg wrote: HotS added a lot more than just a couple of models though. We got new icons, physics, animations, and some other gameplay features. I suppose it couldn't hurt to remake a WoL edition of Starbow for people who can't shell out for HotS, but I would like the HotS version to remain as well. agreed. | ||
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The_Overmind
United States20 Posts
On April 29 2013 16:53 decemberscalm wrote: I absolutely love how blizz gave rts a long time coming shake up for single player rts. HOTS was cool! But really not enough challenge, freedom, and depth compared to the destroy the enemy base missions of BW. To be fair to SC2, you it was more challenging in BW because macro and unit maneuvering was more intensive. You could 1a in either campaign. I've got a few ideas for missions. One idea: you'd start off with an aircraft task forces to deal damage and secure a landing. This would be the purely micro phase. Then you'd land a cc and some troops (harder or easier depending on how well you did), start building troops while friendly forces are also landing and starting to assault the enemy. Could be cool. I'm the crazy fool who has volunteered to work on the campaign. I love BroodWar and I loved playing multiplay matches, but feeling connected to the races was a big part of my initial drive to play. This will in fact be a labor of love for the community. Like Starbow, the Starbow campaign is about remaking SC2 the way it should have been. I know there are many people who like the WoL or HoTS story... I did not and there are many lore enthusiasts out there who agree. I also know I can not please everyone so for now I'll do my best to please this small community here. If it helps people get into Starbow multiplay all the better. My current plan is to have the missions be somewhere in between broodwar and WoL/HotS style, but with difficulty ramped up. I will introduces units and very general concepts as the campaign progresses, but it will do so faster (I'm assuming I don't' need to teach the basics like they do in SC2.). I'm gong to release them in waves or mini campaigns building up to the standard 30ish total missions. Feel free to post suggestions (mission types, cool story ideas, etc.) here or PM me. The dialog will not be voiced... even the best maps with custom voicing are a bit cheesey so dialog will not be voiced. I will not be adding units that are not in standard Starbow... with maybe the exception of some hero units. Even then they may be more SC1 hero than SC2... maybe, thats up in the air. I want to stay as true to the Multiplay experience as I can while making it engaging for single player. I'm at a conference in San Francisco this week so I'll probably start work on the campaign when I get back. | ||
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The_Overmind
United States20 Posts
On April 29 2013 18:47 Xiphias wrote: Suggestions for new units for the next patch Like stated before, next patch won't be out unitl after the toutnament, but we can start discussion now. I propose the following: Nullifier 50 hp / 150 shield. Movement speed 3 ish (fast) Range 5 or 6 Max 200 energy Attack: No damg (or almost none). Units attacked by the nullifier cannot use special ablities. Cloaked units become uncloaked, siege tanks unsiege, burrowed lurkers unburrow etc. Does not work on dt's? (they would become permanently uncloaked in that case, remember, the nullifier is not a detector) When attacking teh nullifier does not regenerate energy. Has a "do not attack" option (like the Ghost). Maybe even the attack should make it impossible for the other unit to attack (if you understand me). Spells: - The feedback of the scout. (feedback + AOE) cost 50 - 100 energy. - "Psionic Precepsion" gives up to three target (in a "clump") friendly units +3 range for 30 seconds. Cost 100 energy. Does not work on zealots (but should work on Archons and reavers ... OOOOH YEAH!) The nullifier CAN BE chornoboosted to regen energy 100% faster for the duration of the chornoboost (remember, chornoboost in SB is shorter than in SC2) Robo tech or Stargate tech? If stargate tech then I think tempest should be removed... Philosphy: - Fast but not too long range so it's not another tempest, it has to be protected. Better to boost own units than deal dmg to oppodnet, ht has storm and arbiter has stasis. No point with a "vortix". There is room for a third spell if anyone has any good suggestions. The attack is kinda a spell though since it has "special effects (tactics...)" and stops energy regen. Numbers can ofc be tweaked. Also, we need a unit cost. Thoughts? I also have a suggestion for the Ghost but I need a VOD to show. Dec is working on it. I like the idea for the most part. I would make the attack disable or modify active abilities. So rather than making a lurker unburrow, when it get hit by the nullifier, if burrowed it could not unborrow, or if unburrowed it couldn't burrow. Does that make sense? The micro there would be when the nullifier attacks could really change the battle. Can I get to those tanks before they siege? It also means opponents can react. They see the nullifier coming withing range, they can use an ability or try to get into a state favorable to them. The speed on the nullifier would make this fun to watch in my opinion. I like the Psionic Perception and feedback honestly. The scout doesn't need 2 abilities, and I like the more scout like one best anyway. Cost really depends on balance, but I would start high, like 175, 250 or something. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
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The_Overmind
United States20 Posts
On April 30 2013 07:35 SmileZerg wrote: I'd like to help you with the Campaign if possible, when you have an outline for story/missions let me know so I can take a look at it. I'm actually a writer by trade, that's my primary career besides my day job and video game design on the side. Awesome. I'd be happy for the help. I'll PM you with ideas and we can work from there. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
The new unit pathing will also be in. edit  atch is up on both NA and EU.Xiphias Pass has been modified to be less terrible x.x | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
I am most pleased with the psionic presepcion ability as I think that will have a lot of utility, (whether it will be 2 or 3 range). Some scenraioes I imagen: - Open reaver drop. Build a nullifier as the reaver is trying to harass. Keep the reaver alive. When threre are no more "holes" in the defences to exploid, give the reaver extra range, and there might be new holes to exploid. - Giving archons range for breaking tank-lines / lurker def should be good. Same with reavers here. - If we give the scout "lock.on", which sounds like could work (may overlap too much with the tempest, but then the tempest can be removed....) then this + lockon would make it easier for the scout to snipe off targets at a distance, but would be more hard to use and requiver more actions from both players. The feedback is more boring, but can be usefull. As for the attack. That one is more problematic. I kinda like the idea that a unit "gets stuck" in terms of abilities and not in movment as The_Overmind sugegsted. "Attack the tank before it sieges, or the lurker before it burrowes, or the banshee before it cloaks", maybe even the carrier before it launches interceptors.... nah that won't work, they launch to kill the nullifier before it can get into range. I do not like it preventing units from attcking atm untill I can be convinced otherwise. The attack ability will need some testing.... About chornoboost. I actually hink this would be cool to try. Chronoboost in general is a great ability. It let's the player chose beteween eco, tech or units in one simple, intuitive ability. If we add the energy regen, you get one more option in your decition-making, even if it does not "fit" with the rest in tearms of Starcraft. But, remember; Starbow happens 1782 years after Starcraft and the protoss has been taken over by super-intelligent Koalabears, and they will give the nullifier the chornoboost ability! If you have horrible mechanics like me, you always have some extra chrono to spare. @JohnnyZerg: Changing neural to just disable units instead of taking them over might be better since we then could be able to make it castable while burrowed (with a smaller radius). This will suffer from the "oppodent cannot micro agains it though.... But it's already like that. The "micro" is to scan at the right time, and then target fire. At least it has to "hold on" to the unit unlike lockdown, where the ghost can just chill while the unit is disabled, making it a priority for the oppodent to target the infestor doing the neural. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
Two games from last night where I should have made tempest (in both games...) http://drop.sc/329255 http://drop.sc/329256 Also added a HoTS game where I tried to win with mass queen, for funzies.... http://drop.sc/329257 | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
To answer you abour purpose HideR. This has probably been the most difficult with both the nullifier and the Ghost, but let's stick with nullifier for now. Me and Dec feel that protoss already ahs all it needs to counter anything that may be thrown at them, but that it might be the most "boring" race atm. To rephrase; it has all it needs but not much "extra". So I wanted a unit that could add something in general and not to be bound to solve a spesific problem or only can be used in a spesific situation. Regarding what protoss needs, Kabel once looked at the idea of giving the Nulllifier a mine/trap (which will work similarly to how vulture puts down mines, however the trap/mine will attack in a very different way compared to spider mines) as protoss don't really have such a unit. But for unknown reasons he ended up not putting the Nullifier into the game. But just because we feel protoss works fine atm. doesn't mean we can't specificy in which way it should work. Below are some questions one could ask; - Should it work primarily during/just before battles (so it rewards battle micro?) -Should it have a lot of uses when there are no battles going on? - Should it be mechanically challenging? - Should it strenghten defenders advantage further? -Should it incentivize multitasking further (by being a harassbased unit for instance?) Regarding psionic; It seems like this is an ability which will make units that already works pretty fine a bit better. I am not sure whether that (as the main ability) is enough to justifiy putting a new unit into the game. I prefer abilities that adds a new element into the game (given it a trap will do that for instance). Its nok like the Nullifier can't have this ability (it doesn't seem bad), but IMO it should have at least 1-2 other more interesting abilities. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Research blink oh god. Alright Danko, you've convinced me the banshee is a pretty damn fun unit. It is already kinda tweaked to be more microable. Zero damage point (aka moving shot), relatively fast, decent dps, but relies on maneuvering not a straight up fight. I've had an idea I was going to use for an old project. It was bassically a modifed sentry to be more DT tech. First spell, Sentry Ward Gives vision in a small area, activate it to stun units for a short duration. The utility is that it gives you map vision (generally a good thing), but you can also catch units in a trap with it. Sort of like a spider mine (map vision and combat use, but less straight forward). Second ability: ambush field: the sentry cloaks everything around it in a relatively short radius. If any units move or attack they become uncloaked. Imagine entire zealot groups popping out of nowhere mid game. Of course it is easily avoided by paying more attention to your army (groups of zealots are easy to see cloaked). | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On April 30 2013 17:14 decemberscalm wrote: @Xiphias vs Danko Replay Research blink oh god. Alright Danko, you've convinced me the banshee is a pretty damn fun unit. It is already kinda tweaked to be more microable. Zero damage point (aka moving shot), relatively fast, decent dps, but relies on maneuvering not a straight up fight. I've had an idea I was going to use for an old project. It was bassically a modifed sentry to be more DT tech. First spell, Sentry Ward Gives vision in a small area, activate it to stun units for a short duration. The utility is that it gives you map vision (generally a good thing), but you can also catch units in a trap with it. Sort of like a spider mine (map vision and combat use, but less straight forward). Second ability: ambush field: the sentry cloaks everything around it in a relatively short radius. If any units move or attack they become uncloaked. Imagine entire zealot groups popping out of nowhere mid game. Of course it is easily avoided by paying more attention to your army (groups of zealots are easy to see cloaked). I like the activate-thing, as it was something I suggested myself to Kabel (IMO a great way of rewarding skill). However, stun is not my cup of tea (for same reason as fungal growth, it removes micro). Instead, I suggested an attack which would be alot stronger vs a big group of units rather than a small group of units (a deathball-killer). - Make the trap have a very very large radius (7 or so), but make the trap damage relatively low by "draining" just 15% of the units (that are inside the radius) HP. This will give it potential to do a ridcilous amount of total damage against a 50+ food army, but at the same time it will be quite forgiving as the 50+ army doesn't lose any units and it can go back (rather than continue with the attack) to regenerate shield or HP. Obviously the deathball army can just bring a detector with them and kill the trap, but even then the trap (givin it has +50HP) will manage to delay the deathball, and if the protoss player has fast reactions he will be able to activate it before it dies and thus do damage to the marines, zealots, hydras, lings or w/e unit that has a range below 7. So the trap won't be game-changing, rather it will be a skill-based way of making big armies less efficient. | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
On April 30 2013 15:08 Xiphias wrote: @JohnnyZerg: Changing neural to just disable units instead of taking them over might be better since we then could be able to make it castable while burrowed (with a smaller radius). This will suffer from the "oppodent cannot micro agains it though.... But it's already like that. The "micro" is to scan at the right time, and then target fire. At least it has to "hold on" to the unit unlike lockdown, where the ghost can just chill while the unit is disabled, making it a priority for the oppodent to target the infestor doing the neural. Remember though that lockdown works only on mechanical units, and nerve jammer is disabled destroying the structure "jammer" (I would like this structure was flying). For nullifier, i think that we are talking about the ground unit version. The attack that disables the ability to attack, it is interesting because it is difficult to apply to multiple drives with different nullifier. If you a-click with 5 nullifier, they will attack one single target, and the player must do manually attack other units with different nullifier. Evidently more nullifier there are, the harder it is to manage them. The tempest that I proposed doing exactly this, using the "dps loss", damage look great (70 with 6 sec of cooldown weapon), but the dps is very low (about 11dps). In shock mode, (+150% damage + 100% cooldown for 40 sec), dps is increased by 50%, However, if tempests are misused (great quantity), there is a greater "loss of dps". for more info: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=18386230 I have personally tested this unit, and in large quantities loses its effectiveness. This can be the first unit (on sc2) with high damage (damage, not dps), but higher weapon cooldown time. Thx for read. | ||
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Fishgle
United States2174 Posts
Also, we need to define exactly how "Nullify" will function. Does it disable: - spellcasting (silence) - movement (immobilize) - attack (disarm) - all of the above (stun) - passives (such as Detection and Permanent Invisibility) - production (like contaminate) - ?? I think it should nullify Attack and Passives. Feedback is the anti-spellcaster, Nullify should have a different niche. I also agree that it shouldn't force tanks to transform, but simply disable the ability to do it. This brings up something interesting. Some abilities - Siege Mode, Burrow, Blink - are technically 'spells' but cost no mana. Therefore they cannot be dealt with using EMP or Feedback. Perhaps we should separately define these as 'Abilities', not 'spells', and nullify can disable these, but not spells that cost mana. Or is that too complicated? Also, will the nullifier's attack be a projectile (tempest) or a channel (void ray) or maybe an AoE that lasts a duration (psionic storm) , etc? How long will the "nullify" last? For channel, it is obvious, simply as long as the Nullifier is still attacking the target. But for a single target projectile, it'd have to apply a debuff to enemy unit for a certain amount of time. Is 10 seconds too long? Should 1 nullifier be able to lock down a single unit indefinitely? Does Nullify cost mana (like the oracle's 'attack' does in sc2) etc etc questions, questions. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
1. It only targets buildings. If you open it up to target Protoss units as well, you have to make it affect ALL units, not just one. An ability that can only target one kind of unit, apart from very specific things like Archon Merge with Templar, is terribly sloppy design. Also, if you add increased energy regen to the effects of the spell, then cast it on the Nexus... you see where I'm going with this? And making a clumsy exception like "increases energy regen on anything except Nexi" is again, poor design. It's the kind of thing I see really bad backseat devs suggest on the Blizzard forums. 2. It's a Macro ability. In Starbow we have increased it's capability to be hybrid macro/defensive by allowing it to target Cannons, which I like. But it's really stretching it to ALSO make it into a utility spell on top of that. That's like if we made it so casting Nurturing Swarm on an Infestor also gave it faster burrow-movement speed or something, it just does not compute. 3. Energy regeneration rates are a constant across all of SC2. Every unit with energy regenerates it at the same rate. There is one spell, Consume, that allows you to trade off your own units HP for chunks of additional energy, but it doesn't actually affect the regen rate. It's just the kind of thing you shouldn't play with, there's no precedent and it becomes a weird outlying anomaly. @Nullifier basic attack disabling abilities As fishgle just pointed out, there are many different unofficial categories of abilities: Spellcasting, Movement, Attacks, Passive, etc. However, some of the activated abilities of certain units fit most sensibly in categories that aren't immediately clear. For example, Siege Mode, Burrow and Blink are all movement abilities. This is why in WoL/HotS, they are disabled by Fungal - it prevents movement. If the Nullifier attack is not going to immobilize units (and have an appropriate animation/flavor to convey that), then it should not disable movement-based abilities such as Siege and Burrow. There has to be an elegance to the Nullifier and its abilities, ESPECIALLY as a unit we are creating uniquely for Starbow which has no counterpart in either SC2 or BW, or it is not going to be intuitive or liked by anyone coming into the game from outside the group that designed it. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
I think the most difficult question at hand is this: Does the Protoss need the nullifier, and why? I think we are just too few very good protoss-players in Starbow. Sure, some of us play all races, but very few of us have protoss as our main race. This makes answering that question more difficult. To keep in mind: High-templar = battle / fighting, Arbiter = battle fighting (+recall harass....) Nullifier = utility (in my mind's eye...) Game anyone? | ||
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The_Overmind
United States20 Posts
On May 01 2013 01:17 SmileZerg wrote: @Nullifier basic attack disabling abilities As fishgle just pointed out, there are many different unofficial categories of abilities: Spellcasting, Movement, Attacks, Passive, etc. However, some of the activated abilities of certain units fit most sensibly in categories that aren't immediately clear. For example, Siege Mode, Burrow and Blink are all movement abilities. This is why in WoL/HotS, they are disabled by Fungal - it prevents movement. If the Nullifier attack is not going to immobilize units (and have an appropriate animation/flavor to convey that), then it should not disable movement-based abilities such as Siege and Burrow. There has to be an elegance to the Nullifier and its abilities, ESPECIALLY as a unit we are creating uniquely for Starbow which has no counterpart in either SC2 or BW, or it is not going to be intuitive or liked by anyone coming into the game from outside the group that designed it. I think its easy to categorize abilities that require action by the user. The nullifier could disable those.... or is that to abstract to understand. I like the idea of the nullifier being a utility unit that can be used before, during, and after a battle.... just thoughts. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
On May 01 2013 03:21 The_Overmind wrote: I think its easy to categorize abilities that require action by the user. The nullifier could disable those.... or is that to abstract to understand. I like the idea of the nullifier being a utility unit that can be used before, during, and after a battle.... just thoughts. I don't think the problem is that it's too abstract to understand - I think the problem is that it's just too abstract period. Too "gamey", for lack of a better term. Every unit, weapon, ability and spell in StarCraft is rooted in some kind of flavor, that's what gives the game its substance and makes it more than just numbers and points on a grid. Having an ability on the Nullifier that would somehow cause a Lurker to forget how to burrow into the ground (but not affect it's normal movement), or prevent a Ghost from activating a Cloaking Field (but leave an Observer unaffected), or a Reaper to not be able to throw his explosive Charges (but still fire his pistols no problem) etc. etc. especially if that ability did all of the above... how do you work that into Willing Suspension of Disbelief? In other words, if you can't explain how the ability works in the language of the games flavor, it's a gimmick and it doesn't belong. Once again, using Fungal Growth in SC2 as an example - it covers the affected units in a thick entangling mass of fungus that binds them up, stops them from moving, and gums up gears and devices on mechanical units like Stalkers and Tanks so that they can't blink or transform. Although, in SC2 there was the weird caveat that they could still attack unhindered, despite the fact that they should be struggling to move their limbs/aim their weapons or turrets. Of course we fixed that in Starbow by removing the damage and changing Fungal to slow down attack speed instead, which is one of the reasons I love the version we have. | ||
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Chronopolis
Canada1484 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [THE BULK OF THIS POST] + On April 30 2013 15:08 Xiphias wrote: Me and Dec feel that protoss already ahs all it needs to counter anything that may be thrown at them, but that it might be the most "boring" race atm. To rephrase; it has all it needs but not much "extra". So I wanted a unit that could add something in general and not to be bound to solve a spesific problem or only can be used in a spesific situation. I agree with this. I don't want the nullifier just to have three utility spells that interact with around 2 situations each. The nullifier would feel tacked on. To expand on why protoss, lets look at the core units: zealots and stalkers + splash. In pretty much all cases, you use the units in the same manner. Blink doesn't count, any protoss player is so used to blink it's almost attached to the stalker itself. MM for terran works differently depending on whether you are defending behind drop play (bunkers), incorporating it in bio mech (using it to poke ahead of tank range), or going pure bio (many attacks in lots of places). Zerg, I feel, has a decent variety in it's core units: hydralisk, zergling, ultralisk, lurker, mutalisk. More attention should be made to not unnecessarily invalidate some of these combinations (ie. change the god damn firebat splash to linear, its like zerglings rape mm except for firebats. The unit pathing really comes into play here: picture speedlings or cracklings against mm in broodwar, larger flanks let you take on larger groups of marines, until a critical mass forced splash, ultra or darkswarm.) Hole Filling Let's look at the new unit, the oracle in hots. It's not bad, since gives protoss a new angle: viable non-commital harass. However, the reason why this change felt so refreshing was more because WoL protoss had such a gaping void, than the oracle being a great unit. (the gaping whole is that a non-commital amount of gateway units don't do appreciable damage to worker lines except for zealots, and an scv pull mitigates most of that damage.) In summary, the oracle is an alright addition, but it was a hole-filler for WoL protoss, a hole which starbow protoss doesn't have. Allowing (=adding) new playstyles by lifting restrictions Now what about the mothership core, specifically photon overcharge. It seems to have opened a new possibilities in pvx, and especially pvp. These include heavier and safer teching, backstabbing (before in WoL this would usually kill you since you would lose the main battle). The mothership core didn't directly facilitate these strategies, but it made made formely nonviable play viable. What restrictions does protoss or XvP have in starbow? One is static defense and mineral return on expansions being too strong. This puts a restriction on terran in tvp and tvz against "anything that doesn't put a timing attack down at 2-3 bases, or goes passively to late game and 200/200. I am speaking with incomplete knowledge, and it's been a while, but isn't TvZ still messed up in this manner? Finally, the nullifier I think the nullifier should open another style of protoss that runs parallel to the current styles. There should be a possibility for heavy nullifier play, mixed play, or non-nullifier play. All should be viable, just like how (hopefully), pure bio, bio mech, and mech should all be viable in all matchups (ideally). Some nice properties of the nullifier would be: 1)broad spells: simplicity is nice, but broadness is key to making the a spell non-specific (simplicity can sometimes lead to broadness) -This means no 2, 3 trick utility spells! I almost want to give the nullifier a weak some form of attack to give it some non-spell gameplay. Certainly we want the nullifier to be able to be active soon after its produced, (or at least a strong energy-related upgrade). 2)it changes the way you treat gateway units (matrix does this, aside from being silly before it was patched for other reasons) -Now this is a problem. Spells like frenzy, sc2 stim, and to a lesser degree void shell from the old dark archon, were just "cast before each battle and attack". I think d-matrix from bw was a somewhat better, since it was a higher cost ability which could be used even on small amounts of units (in fact, its stronger in small unit battles). The science vessel was generally expected to survive, and so deciding whether it is worth it to use the energy on an army that's going to die (will it kill enough additional stuff to be worth it?) is a real decision. 3)allows counter micro -to be honest, "allows counter micro" means a spell has to be strong. I mean, there are a few spells/units in broodwar that looked useless (corsair->scouting+harrass; maelstrom (when you had mind control on the same unit); defensive matrix), but actually turned out to be relatively good. However, I don't think we are going to stumble those things. So lets just stick with something that looks strong, and then fine tune it. December and I were talking, and I had an ability idea that was sort of "out there". "Deterministic Warping" Targets units in a clump: If any of these units were to die in the next 20 seconds, revive them at the cast location at the end of the 20 seconds, with half shields/hp. Don't shoot this down too quickly, but the problem that came up with this ability was that it has no counter-micro possible. There aren't many situations (other than small harrass groups), where it's viable to wait until the spell finishes to confirm kill the units. It also would be too strong if it could target tightly stacked capital ships. On note, I highly support the newest patch, where tempests sort of collide which other. I really like the idea and think it does has does many good things. Imagine a situation where there is only a small pocket where 2-3 tempests can set, out of range of turrets, and still fire on the expansion. Imagine battlecruiser, having a huge arc, only to have the opponent out flank you can pick off edge bcs. Or the alternative, lots of bcs getting stuck in the back, forcing bcs in the front to move forward, nullifying the dps density of the air units. If you make this apply capital ships, you can perhaps afford to make them stronger than otherwise possible. | ||
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