[A] Starbow - Page 273

On May 12 2013 07:31 Hider wrote:
Hots bugs... etc...

On May 12 2013 07:31 Hider wrote:
- Matrix now costs roughly 25 energy, however there is no cooldown.

On May 13 2013 03:24 JohnnyZerg wrote:

I think you meant 125, this is really interesting.

Long post, did not quote it all

I agree with many of your ideas and suggestions, and some of them has been added (in my list at least) just because you posted that, so thanks! Not all will make it into the next patch though (I think), but you will see changes that you have wished for

Hots bugs.
Supply calldown should cost 75 energy not 50.
Also vikings killed my dropships suprisingly fast as they deal Sc2 damage. I am pretty sure they are not supposed to deal 10+4 vs armored. Kinda takes the purpose out of goliaths. I think its damage is supposed to be 10+4 vs light.

Anyway looking forward to next patch, it definitely has the potential to be awesome.

Below is my dream patch, which is based on the way I think creates the most awesome games.

General changes
- Matchpoint replaces Starbow ridge (I feel like this has too few attack pathces and middle is too dominant).
- Gas income decreased from 8 to 7 per patch.
- Unit movement changed back to Sc2 unit movement (still believe this is unnecesary, even though it's playable now. Probably not a popular suggestion in this forum though. But I think all it does is to make your own units easier get stuck. Hardly what was intended. In this patch I will suggest changes which I believe have a much stronger effect on incentivzing "small army play" and early game micro than what any type of unit movement change can accomplish).

Terran changes:
. Nerve Jammer damage reduction recuded from 100% to 80% (it feels too much of a hard counter to meele units at the moment.)
- Matrix now costs roughly 25 energy, however there is no cooldown.
- Medis no longer need to research Matrix (this is debateable and may lead to slightly OP situations in the early game. But I want to see whether this can work. I feel like bio should be really strong in the early game, but as there are so many upgrades requirements for bio to work, it doesn't feel as strong as I would like it to be.)
- Dropship cost reduced from 100/50 to 50/50.
Planetary cooldown increased from 90 seconds to 120 seconds (maybe even more is needed or a maybe an activaiton "cost" is also needed).
- Orbital command receives a 4th ability with late game utility primarily (I am thinking about this one atm.).
- Bug fixes.
- My ghost suggestion.
- Removal of viking.
- Banshee redesign with weak AA.
- Command center cost reduced from 400 to 350 (I kinda feel like I need to cut scv production so often, that scv "macro" is no longer a mechanical skill. By reducing the cost of the bases of all three races I think we will see less "worker-cutting", and at the same time we will see players taking bases quicker which will lead to more actionpacked games.
- Turret cost increased from 75 to 100 (I want players to rely less on static defenses. With the 12% mineral increase in Starbow HOTS + lower vulture cost I feel like terrans can afford too many turrets).
- Reapers no longer require a tech lab. (I guess the main reason they needed one in Starbow and not in HOTS was due to zerg having fewer drones in Starbow. In "this" patch zerg will receive a larva boost, and thus they can afford to sack more drones than "pre-patch". Also, "pre-patch" reapers are simply countered too easily in tvt and tvz (queens + marines). In TvP they work okay'ish on some maps, but even then I think a protoss player who just chrono's out stalkers can deal with it quite easily. As gas income decreases it will also be a slight nerf to reaper-openings and therefore I feel like the tech-lab removal is needed. A +5 second BT increase might be needed though.
- Goliath range (when upgraded) decreased from 9 to 8.5 (to make guardians slightly outrange them).
- Yamato Cannon redesign as I suggested here
(http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=304955&currentpage=231)
Kabel thought it would just be a mass spam ability, but in that regard it's not really different from matrix, so I don't think thats really a relevant concern.
He also feared that it would incentivize deathball play, which I think is true, however, I don't mind seing big tier 3 deathballs battle it out once in a while.
The reason I feel this change to the BC is needed, is that BC's are just boring atm. I wanna see awesome action with BC's late game.


Protoss:
- Nullifier implemented as Chrono suggested.
- Nexus cost reduced from 400 to 350.
- Reaver projectile reduced by 25% (or so), and you can see which unit is being targetted by the scarabs. Range 11 is maintained.
- My old Stasis redesign suggestion.
- Stasis energy cost reduced from 125 to 100 energy (it's important to note that Arbiters aren't OP if terran just get enough Science vessels, however lower gas income will actually hurt terrans SV production more than protoss will be hurt, and thus we may get into a new metagame where terrans can only afford 2-4 SV's which typically isn't enough to cover all the areas which the protoss can attack. Since Stasis can be extremely unforgiven if used correctly, I want to maintain the "siege-breaking ability", but the terran should be able to survive with a decent amount of his forces if he reacts quickly. When that is said, Stasis has received an indirect nerf through the planetary redesign and cheaper vultures.
- Scout movement speed increased from 2.81 to 3.25.
-Attack animation changed
- Scout cost reduced from 175/125 to 150/100.
- Phase Missile no longer deals damage (only energy).
- Phase Missile energy cost reduced from 75 to 50. (hopefully these changes will make the Scout more of a cheap investment and more efficient as a scout (it needs to be relatively fast).

Zerg
- Ultralisk splash damage buff (to make zerg stronger vs bio late game).
- Hatchery cost reduced from 300 to 250.
- Queen spawn larva increases larva production by 60% from 50%.
- Zergling DPS slightly reduced (zerg gets compensated by more larva and thus zerglings needs a small nerf. I feel like these changes are for the better, as I believe Zerg currently has too few drones which make them vulernable to harass. When they are vulnerable to harass they need to make a spine crawler defensive early game which kinda takes potential action out of the game. I wanna see more ling/hydra vs gateway units and blings vs vultures/bio rather than units starring at a spine crawler wall).
- Spine crawler cost increased from 100 to 125.
- Overlord drop tech cost reduced from 150/150 to 100/100 (debateable - as hydra drop timings may be too strong. However, as I really wanna see more drop play I want to see this change tested. If it turns out to be OP we can always reverse it).
- My nydus suggestion.
- Viper's frenzy energy cost from 100 to 25.
- Frenzy doesn't increase attack speed, but only movement speed.
- Movement speed buff of Frenzy increased from 20% to 30% (the reason these changes are needed is that frenzy as a "cast before battle"-ability is very boring and at the same time probably overpriced at energy cost relative to Dark swarm. I want the ability to be more of a tactical ability which is better at harassing the opponent/attacking where the opponent isn't.
- Frenzie'd units receies a new visual effect (so it is easier to see which units are frenzied).
- Viper HP reduced from 150 to 90 (same HP as Defilers had in BW).
- Viper cost from 100/175 to 75/150.
- Darm swarm duration decreased from 20 to 15 seconds (20 seconds is IMO too big of a hard counter. With Nerve Jammer receiving a "less-hard counter" nerf, it seems appropriate that Dark Swarm receives one as well. I guess in BW you could kinda counter defilers by tank target firing. Vipers at 150 HP are uncounterable by anything but nerve jammer, but honestly I don't want NJ vs DS to be the "standard-meta late game battle", as battles where neither players can attack each other for a significanty amount of time are kinda stupid to like at IMO). Furthermore as Ultras receive a splash damage buff, zerg are in less neccesity of dark swarm (though its still a really good ability to use).


What I believe these changes will accomplish
It will make zerg early game feel a lot more similar to Sc2 early game as zerg now can afford more units. But on the other hand it is now neccesary for the zerg player to take more hatcheries early on and defending them with units rather than sitting on 2 base hatch tech. As drop ship cost is reduced we will see a lot of 2 rax starport +dropship builds in TvZ which I believe will make early game alot more exciting.
If anyone objectively look at tvz early game/early midgame in Starbow (+bw) compared to HOTS, I think they will admit that HOTS is indeed more exciting. This is because the terran is A) Incentivizied to trade armies (since the zerg will gain a strong eco if he doesn't), and B) He gets cheap acces to passing through spine crawlers wall with early medivacs.
On the other hand HOTS lategame is obviously way to turtlish and deathball'ish, but I believe we should take/get inspired by the best parts from BW and HOTS, and trying to create a similar early game incentivize as players have in HOTS is IMO desireable. Secondly it will also create increased familiarity with Starbow, which will make the "trantion-cost" from Sc2 into Starbow less.

In PvZ protoss can how harass/pressure early game cost efficiently since zerglings are worse, and due to to rift they still have an escape-goat. If they don't harass, however, the zerg can outdrone the protoss player (and the terran for that sake). Thus the protoss and terran player have a clear incentive to put pressure on the zerg player and I believe they have the tools to do it as well.

In TvP opening bio is now significantly stronger, and great players will be able to deal with reavers in small/medium sized numbers through ghost + splitting micro. As the game progresses, however, the protoss will be more and more cost effective, thus the terran player will be incentivized to transition into mech. The same concept applies in TvZ as ultras will be more cost effective vs bio. But if you as a terran player feel you can outmultitask your opponent, you can continue producing bio units and relying on abusing your stronger economy to beat your opponent rather than cost efficiency.

What this will mean for balance
Though many of these changes are mostly redesigns rather than balance changes, I think we can say that some playstyles will be slightly better/worse.
Bio: Overall stronger, though less cost efficient late game ZvT.
Mech: Overall slightly weaker as the cheaper bases will benefit the mobile races more than the mech player. Also Nerve Jammer nerf will probably hurt mech more than bio.
Zerg: Probably slightly stronger, however it will be in a different way and the race will require more multitasking to use optimally than previously.
Protoss: I guess the old units will be slightly weaker (nothing significantly though), however Nullifier will give Protoss a new element which will mean that Protoss overall is somewhat unchanged balancewise.

Banshee should not have AA

Goliaths should counter gaurdians pretty well.

Statis should definitely remain at 125 energy cost

I really feel that terran needs nerve jammer at 100% to deal with zealots, i just always see zealots rip apart tanks even with vultures there when there are no nerve jammers present.I think pf cool down is a tad bit long at the current moment but I agree with your opinion on turrets.

I do not like your ghost suggestion,

I like starbow movement and 7 is such an awkward number why not 6. Makes gas units more valuable.

Hatch cost should remain the same, you are already giving a larva boost through queens.

On May 13 2013 06:03 Xiphias wrote:
@ Wiki: Yes PLEASE!!!!! Would love for someone to do that. I could start and then others could add stuff. I imaged you want all current stats and stuff for now. We won't do the whole history of all the changes. It is easy to do. I can make a site using some wiki function (I've done this in school already) and start. All you need to do to contribute is get an account and open the Starbow file through the online open function in the editor and start writing stuff from the data bank (F7) over to the wiki-page. Once that is done, maintaining it for future patches should not be that big of a task. I'll post some more info on this if we go for it.

@ Next patch.
Seems a lot of you want to know when it's coming out, which is understandable. Most of the changes has been decided, we just need the work done so this is mostly up to how fast dec can get editor work done. I am thinking minimum one week and max 3, just to be safe.

@ Changes.
We are thinking about making two changes that might be bad and that we need to keep an extra eye on:

1. No research for the Matrix (but make it 50 energy). This could be too hard for zerg's to deal with early game, but I agree with HideR that there are too many bio upgrades atm that is needed to make bio effective. This could work or it could be broken, playtesting will tell.

2. We are entertaining the thought of lowering cost of CC, Nexus and hatcheries. This is very sensitive, especially since the hatcheries playes more roles for zerg than cc and Nexus does for terran and toss. We are thinking 350,350 and 275, which is also weird, but kinda the way it should be. (250 hatches is just too good imo). One of two things may happen: 1. Players find it easier to expand, but it is still a risky thing to do (which it should be to some extend) . 2. Expanding is too easy and we get much more macro-oriented games. Also, zerg's can swarm units much easier and quickly becomes the best race.

I think my # 2 concern is not too valid as 50 (or 25 for zerg) minerals is not that big of a deal, but we'll see.

Also we are definitively going for 7 gas per trip. If gas still floods thorough our noses, we could even lower it to 6, but let's try 7 for start.

On May 13 2013 06:03 Xiphias wrote:
@ Wiki: Yes PLEASE!!!!! Would love for someone to do that. I could start and then others could add stuff. I imaged you want all current stats and stuff for now. We won't do the whole history of all the changes. It is easy to do. I can make a site using some wiki function (I've done this in school already) and start. All you need to do to contribute is get an account and open the Starbow file through the online open function in the editor and start writing stuff from the data bank (F7) over to the wiki-page. Once that is done, maintaining it for future patches should not be that big of a task. I'll post some more info on this if we go for it.

@ Next patch.
Seems a lot of you want to know when it's coming out, which is understandable. Most of the changes has been decided, we just need the work done so this is mostly up to how fast dec can get editor work done. I am thinking minimum one week and max 3, just to be safe.

@ Changes.
We are thinking about making two changes that might be bad and that we need to keep an extra eye on:

1. No research for the Matrix (but make it 50 energy). This could be too hard for zerg's to deal with early game, but I agree with HideR that there are too many bio upgrades atm that is needed to make bio effective. This could work or it could be broken, playtesting will tell.

2. We are entertaining the thought of lowering cost of CC, Nexus and hatcheries. This is very sensitive, especially since the hatcheries playes more roles for zerg than cc and Nexus does for terran and toss. We are thinking 350,350 and 275, which is also weird, but kinda the way it should be. (250 hatches is just too good imo). One of two things may happen: 1. Players find it easier to expand, but it is still a risky thing to do (which it should be to some extend) . 2. Expanding is too easy and we get much more macro-oriented games. Also, zerg's can swarm units much easier and quickly becomes the best race.

I think my # 2 concern is not too valid as 50 (or 25 for zerg) minerals is not that big of a deal, but we'll see.

Also we are definitively going for 7 gas per trip. If gas still floods thorough our noses, we could even lower it to 6, but let's try 7 for start.

On May 13 2013 17:19 Xiphias wrote:
New spell: “Psychic Shutdown” (name could be better...): Cost 50 energy (maybe less…) Disables the attack, production and detection of target building.’
We see Ghost as a harasser. Snipe being the less risk/reward and nuke the higher risk/reward. Disable detection is quite strong for a cloaked unit, but making it cost energy will reduce the duration of cloak. It is the same with snipe. If you cloak and snipe, you’ll have fewer snipes but will be safer, if you do not cloak, you’ll have more snipe but run a higher risk.

Now that the Ghost have very little to do with anti-air, we’ll need to rework the Viking.
- We suggest (up for discussion) a ground Viking made from the factory with a splash AA attack of some kind (Dec will work out something here …).
- It can be upgraded to have transform at a tech lab attached to a Starport. Once in air, it loses its attack but gains very high speed. (remember, Vikings on ground are quite slow). Slightly faster than mutalisk, to be able to land and fly micro vs them…
- It will probably be more expensive and slightly more buffy.
- It will be able to transform while moving. (if we can make the editor do it…

Viper. HideR mentioning that frenzy cost should be reduced got us thinking about that spell again. If we keep frenzy in the game, then it should be cheaper. However, we are thinking about scrapping the spell altogether. Viper needs a spell that synergizes with Dark Swarm and that can help a zerg who is falling behind in army count (as Dark swarm does). We just thought of the following, please share thoughts here:
- Infested swarm: Cost 25 energy, cast on enemy units, when the unit dies, 4 zerglings are spawned.
I don’t want a new “infested terran” spell, but this one cannot make an “egg wall”.
This is just a suggestion; we are very open for other ideas on this one.

Ghost. There will be some changes to this unit. One problem with the ghost is its role. The Science vessel is a very strong spellcaster that supports the army. We don’t want ghost to be the same. Rather, as SmileZerg stated, we want it to be the “DT of terran”. In those lines we will make the following changes:
- Cloak no longer requires research.
- Nukes no longer requires factory.
- Lockdown removed.
- Snipe will now do 40 dmg (60 vs light) and have no cooldown. (more spammy) It will cost 25 energy.
- New spell: “Psychic Shutdown” (name could be better...): Cost 50 energy (maybe less…) Disables the attack, production and detection of target building.’
We see Ghost as a harasser. Snipe being the less risk/reward and nuke the higher risk/reward. Disable detection is quite strong for a cloaked unit, but making it cost energy will reduce the duration of cloak. It is the same with snipe. If you cloak and snipe, you’ll have fewer snipes but will be safer, if you do not cloak, you’ll have more snipe but run a higher risk.

On May 13 2013 19:30 Xiphias wrote:
Two things I forgot to mention (in this post). Banshee's will have a small AA attack so terran still has an air unit that can do AA dmg.

@ Scout. I did not mention this but we will lower its cost as you suggested and also give it a speed upgrade at the fleet beacon.

The relationship between Science Vessel / Ghost / Reaper is a difficult one... We'll think some more. Like I posted, some things are not final yet. Thanks for feedback so far.

On May 13 2013 19:59 Weerwolf wrote:
Go in with a dropship with 2 - 3 ghosts, instant snipe on all probes/drones/scv's, get out 3 seconds later.