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Ok  Just don't want to misunderstand.
A thought: (You have probably all thought this already, I'm just a bit slow...) A hunter-seeker ish thing on the wraith will be very similar to irradiate. I don't really see the advantage of getting this wraith over Science vessel vs mass muta (since the SV comes with so much other utility), and as HideR points out, getting this wraith over banshee for harass, which leaves as little use for the wraith was had the viking...
I really think we should just try the ground viking idea from Dec for now and see how it works. I like the "flying, re-position" idea. Having a race which fights air primarily from ground will also add something unique to the terran race (BC's are exception). If we go for this, then we'll probably give banshee a very light AA attack though to pick off overlords and stuff.
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Just to clarify what we're doing!
@Ghost
We are by no means set with this lineup. That was just a sugguestion, not the current plan.
Another lineup I am very interested in doing.
1. Snipe: 25 energy, 60 damage (or lower if too overpowered), relatively fast projectile and long range. THe closer your target the easier the shot. Lets you use the ghost as a harasser if your oponnent lacks detection.
2. Lockdown: 100 Energy. It'll be a slow projectile. It will intiate a short duriation, AOE lockdown. It could perhaps give bio some way to actually punish clumped up tanks and force more separation. It lets you actually pick really good fights and win them as bio.
Three nukes in each silo. Already added to the starbow file.
The role I'd love to see is that of an assasin. An infiltrator. The terrans version of DT. Lockdown gives it army support and utility outside of that role.
3 nukes per silo means you don't have to invest in infrastructure just to make good use of nuke. Could be abusable. We'll see.
What do you guys think of this lineup? I have a ton of suggestions written down from various people, I am certain we can make an amazing ghost ^^
@Frenzy
This spell is so boring. It makes fights shorter. If you can't benefit from dark swarm, you cast this.
I'd love to hear more suggestions on this.
A utility spell that you don't cast during battle would be awesome.
@Bio
I am thinking bringing back kabels combat armor wouldn't be too shabby of an idea. It basically made marines take less damage from splash. This was critical in letting marines serve the form of stimming up to sieged up tanks and taking them out when they are out of position without dieng too bad. Lets them actually take a hit or two instead of just getting instantly killed.
@Bio vs P
This is impossible because of stalkers. They are simply too amazing early game vs early bio to make them work. Marauders however are too game breaking to add (rolling over static D without sieging up, crushing through lurkers). I'm up for suggestions on this if you are seriously gung ho about bio vs P. Please consider this though. Mech vs P creates an incredibly interesting and dynamic game play. If you have bio able to take map control vs P you've broken this dynamic. This MU revolves around vultures able to combat stalkers for map control via speed and mines. P needs to figure out ways to get his army close to the terran army, and poke holes in his defences. Drops are incredibly effective. It is just so much better than two mobile balls slugging it out (even less interesting than SC2's version because of no medivacs which have no place in Starbows logistical gameplay).
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Hi, I have made a new version of Valley of Nis that you have been using for the mod:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=393677
Please let me know if you want to use the new version and who I should send it to. If you prefer the mineral backdoor blocker and old natural layout, I coudl change that. Except for that part, what's new is mostly looks.
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@Bio vs P
This is impossible because of stalkers. They are simply too amazing early game vs early bio to make them work. Marauders however are too game breaking to add (rolling over static D without sieging up, crushing through lurkers). I'm up for suggestions on this if you are seriously gung ho about bio vs P. Please consider this though. Mech vs P creates an incredibly interesting and dynamic game play. If you have bio able to take map control vs P you've broken this dynamic. This MU revolves around vultures able to combat stalkers for map control via speed and mines. P needs to figure out ways to get his army close to the terran army, and poke holes in his defences. Drops are incredibly effective. It is just so much better than two mobile balls slugging it out (even less interesting than SC2's version because of no medivacs which have no place in Starbows logistical gameplay).
Yes I agree that is not interesting. But that is bascially why I believe bio needs to be more mobile than protoss. I think 50/50 dropships will help with that, and if you combine it with no neccesity of matrix upgrade, I think bio will maintain map control early on vs protoss which it can use to gain economic advantage going into mid/late game.
However, this is actually a more interesting scenario than in Sc2, as protoss can't just stay and turtle on ½ base less than the terran player. In Starbow he needs to fear the mech transition. So as the game progresses's he needs to begin putting pressure on the terran and relcaim the economic advantage. On the other hand the terran needs to win time (while he tech switches) by dropping and threating the counterattack (when the protoss player moves out). I believe this could be an extremely interesting type of game, and I don't think significant changes are needed to make this style viable as a terran player (only dropship cost reduction, reaver change and matrix change).
I am thinking bringing back kabels combat armor wouldn't be too shabby of an idea. It basically made marines take less damage from splash. This was critical in letting marines serve the form of stimming up to sieged up tanks and taking them out when they are out of position without dieng too bad. Lets them actually take a hit or two instead of just getting instantly killed.
On the other hand, this isn't the way I prefer bio to be viable. I don't think making them 20% more buffy in a battle is the way too go. Rather we should focus on increasing its mobility. Also, I think we should remember that bio has a lot of undiscovered micro battle micro tools which needs to be figured out. The skillcap with bio in Starbow is much higher than in Sc2 I think, so I think its kind of unnecesary at the time being to give bio more big buffs.
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On May 14 2013 16:21 decemberscalm wrote:
@Bio vs P
This is impossible because of stalkers. They are simply too amazing early game vs early bio to make them work. Marauders however are too game breaking to add (rolling over static D without sieging up, crushing through lurkers). I'm up for suggestions on this if you are seriously gung ho about bio vs P. Please consider this though. Mech vs P creates an incredibly interesting and dynamic game play. If you have bio able to take map control vs P you've broken this dynamic. This MU revolves around vultures able to combat stalkers for map control via speed and mines. P needs to figure out ways to get his army close to the terran army, and poke holes in his defences. Drops are incredibly effective. It is just so much better than two mobile balls slugging it out (even less interesting than SC2's version because of no medivacs which have no place in Starbows logistical gameplay).
I am not sure of the direction but I think I know the Road. Firebats. They need some utility or bonus that boosts its use vs protoss.
In SC2 the design of the stalker where it outranges and outruns marines is made possible only because concussive shells exists. Whether you like that design of that anti-micro ability it is the only thing keeping the rather extreme microbility and utility of stalkers balanced. Even then Marauders had to be designed to beat stalkers soundly to make it work.
As I said the road to make something similar work in Starbow without nerfing stalker would be the firebat, but I am unsure of the direction. It could just be a single target anti-mechanical ability that would scale terribad in the lategame due to the massive micro casting it on a larger number of stalkers would require.
Or it could be something similar to concussive shells, which would be probably be more balanced given how hard a time firebats have even reaching stalkers let alone attacking them. So a "punishment" if you get outflanked by firebats or have them dropped on top of stalkers if you will. Say that the attack of firebats "overheats" mechanical units reducing their attack and movement speed by 50% for X amount of seconds.
Or it could be something else but I think buffing firebats vs protoss would be the best road right now.
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On May 14 2013 17:55 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2013 16:21 decemberscalm wrote:
@Bio vs P
This is impossible because of stalkers. They are simply too amazing early game vs early bio to make them work. Marauders however are too game breaking to add (rolling over static D without sieging up, crushing through lurkers). I'm up for suggestions on this if you are seriously gung ho about bio vs P. Please consider this though. Mech vs P creates an incredibly interesting and dynamic game play. If you have bio able to take map control vs P you've broken this dynamic. This MU revolves around vultures able to combat stalkers for map control via speed and mines. P needs to figure out ways to get his army close to the terran army, and poke holes in his defences. Drops are incredibly effective. It is just so much better than two mobile balls slugging it out (even less interesting than SC2's version because of no medivacs which have no place in Starbows logistical gameplay).
I am not sure of the direction but I think I know the Road. Firebats. They need some utility or bonus that boosts its use vs protoss. In SC2 the design of the stalker where it outranges and outruns marines is made possible only because concussive shells exists. Whether you like that design of that anti-micro ability it is the only thing keeping the rather extreme microbility and utility of stalkers balanced. Even then Marauders had to be designed to beat stalkers soundly to make it work. As I said the road to make something similar work in Starbow without nerfing stalker would be the firebat, but I am unsure of the direction. It could just be a single target anti-mechanical ability that would scale terribad in the lategame due to the massive micro casting it on a larger number of stalkers would require. Or it could be something similar to concussive shells, which would be probably be more balanced given how hard a time firebats have even reaching stalkers let alone attacking them. So a "punishment" if you get outflanked by firebats or have them dropped on top of stalkers if you will. Say that the attack of firebats "overheats" mechanical units reducing their attack and movement speed by 50% for X amount of seconds. Or it could be something else but I think buffing firebats vs protoss would be the best road right now.
The question is if there is any way to buff firebats without making it too strong vs zerg.
I have always suggested to remove it from the game as bio atm. has enough different and micro intensive units.
But if it should have any type of role I think we should consider making it more tanky and slightly slower....
And that gave me an idea. Lets give the Firebat two modes... Obviously this idea has been presented before, but I never felt like any of the presented ideas (including my own) really worked that well (from a theoretical POV). But now I actually think I have thought of an idea which seems theoretical sound. Let me know what you think.
The Firebat will have two modes
One mobile mode (but very weak, unlike hellions which are usefull in mobile mode, this mode will be mostly for transport reason).
Immobile mode: more buffy and extremely slow version of the firebat. Compared to hellbats though it should have much less DPS.
Mobile Mode specificaitons
- 3.5 movement speed when unstimmed.
-5.25 when stimmed (fastest unit in the game).
- HP of 60 (thus much weaker than a hellion for instance).
- DPS vs light also much lower than an Sc2 hellion.
Immobile mode specifications
- HP is increased to 150 from the current Starbow Firebat HP of 110 (thus making it a true tank).
- Damage vs light is slightly reduced though compared to the current Firebat
- Physical model slightly increased (which will make it easier to block pathes, but also make it scale relatively bad).
- Movement speed when unstimmed = 1.6. When stimmed = 2.4 (still extremely slow).
Transformation mode, however is almost instantly, as there is no neccesity for a delay like there is in HOTS as the damage output of the unit is much lower. For instance in HOTS if your hellions were surrounded by lings and you could instantly transform it to a hellbat, you would actually punish the zerg player from surrounding your hellions, which IMO doesn't make sense. But in this case the "surround-punishment" is much less severe as I expect the Firebat to have much less DPS than the HOTS-hellbat and slightly less DPS than the current Starbow-Firebat.
What this will accomplish
- Maintain the mobility of the bio army.
- Give a clear defined role for the firebat (tank).
- Increase the micro neccesity of the opponent. In HOTS Hellbats are both a tanky unit and a high DPS'er which IMO doesn't really work as there is no optimal micro-strategy against it. Should you focus fire it or attack something else? There is no real reward for doing anything else but A-moving. However, if you A-move against my suggested immobile Firebat you will almost definitely lose the battle as it has low DPS but very high HP.
- Rewards positioning from the terran bio player as he needs to carefully position firebats in the front, however this is slightly difficult to maintain as firebats just moves slower. Thus he will typically need to have them in the mobile mode for the majority of the game, and only transform in the last second.
- Increase the skillcap of the firebat, which at the moment is purely an A-move unit. But when you have to constantly transform between mobile and immobile mode the Firebat becomes very challenging to use optimally. This differs from the hellbat vs hellion in HOTS where you can use the hellbat all the time (transformation isn't actually neccesary).
- It won't be that good vs lings as lings are mobile enough to avoid taking damage from the immobile firebat. Unless of course the terran blocks the path with a couple of firebats. In that case the zerg is incentivized to flank with his speedlings.
This means that the winner of the Ling Battle vs Firebat is determined by unit control and not by the "who has more stuff"-concept (where two players just A-moves against each other).
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I don't like that approach. For one thing it is essentially just a fully bio HOTS Hellion. And probably even more micro intensive than the current firebat.
The concept of Tanking doesn't work very well in SC2 except really against Ling/Bling, which it already does a good enough job, or in cases where the unit being protected is far far away, like siege tanks. Most things that the firebat will take damage against will also be able to hit whatever marines are behind. In SC2 it is not uncommon to get a marauder-heavy composition against storms and colossi but it is not tanking, it is because they survive and marines don't. As such whatever is tanky also needed to be able to dish out some damage in SC2.
Finally this design doesn't solve the vastly better mobility of Protoss early on. The safe bet is something that works against mechanical only because that won't affect Zerg, nor will it have much effect against what firebats already excel against(Zealots for example).
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And probably even more micro intensive than the current firebat.
Yes thats the point. Making an attack-move unit more micro friendly.
The concept of Tanking doesn't work very well in SC2 except really against Ling/Bling, which it already does a good enough job, or in cases where the unit being protected is far far away, like siege tanks. Most things that the firebat will take damage against will also be able to hit whatever marines are behind.
Thats the point with the tanky unit. Make the firebat capable of tanking baneling splash damage (similar to maurauders role in Sc2), and then you make sure that you retreat with the High DPS + low life units (such as marines). That is the exact point with a tanky unit. The intention isn't that you should just be able to A-move your whole bio force vs banelings.
As such whatever is tanky also needed to be able to dish out some damage in SC2.
It does deal damage. Just not a lot. It will work in a difernet way than mauruders as units actually will target the firebat over te marines (automatically) unlike the maurauder vs marine (as the firebat is in front of the marines).
Finally this design doesn't solve the vastly better mobility of Protoss early on. The safe bet is something that works against mechanical only because that won't affect Zerg, nor will it have much effect against what firebats already excel against(Zealots for example).
Protoss doesn't have better mobility than bio at any point in the game. It might be somewhat even in some stages though. But making dropships 50/50 is my suggestion to increase mobility in the early midgame.
Secondly, a tanky unit will work also against A-moved ranged units. Hydras targetting Firebats instead of marines is extremely inefficient.
For one thing it is essentially just a fully bio HOTS Hellion
Look at the stats. It will work very very differently from the hellion/hellbat thing. In mobile mode the Firebat will be extremely terrible in a battle. Thus the mobile mode is just for transportation. It won't be anywhere as efficient as harassing as an actual hellion.
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Hope you don't mind my intruding into your small community... I have been following Starbow with curiosity for some time, and I watched the last tournament - which was great, so... First of all, thank you all for the entertainment you bring :-)
May I give my 2 cents about bio in TvP and TvT ?
Bio armies lack sturdyness and dammage output. As I understand things, you can't fix that either by adding a marauder-like unit or a super-firebat which I think nobody really wants (boring) OR buff some "specialist" unit like ghost. The problem is, if ghost is good, well, people will just go Mech+a few ghost.
So here is what I would suggest to make a ghost that synergises well with bio and not so well with Mech:
-Make ghost cheap and relatively massable with low DPS but make its attack slow/stun units (no AOE though so you have to make many ghosts) and remove armour (which makes unit vulnerable to low burst dmg/high attack speed bio).
Maybe make the power of this spell benefit from infantery upgrades ? (if that doesn't feel to unnatural)
-Transform nuke strike into a more moderate but realively spammable artillery strike in the late game.
With this bio armies would be good at forcing superior firepower armies to move, and then pick off stray units.
Consider this if you like it, ignore it otherwise, I won't go into an argument. Honestly, maybe I am completely irrelevant.
I am looking forward to the future of Starbow though :-)
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Welcome to the wonderfull community of Starbow! I'm always excited when new people follow/try out the MOD.
Any suggestions are good atm, and you bring a fresh and interesting view on the matter. It will be taken into consideration.
In general, a longer ranged bio unit that is decnet in combat might work as they can attack mech more safely than marines. I'm not too keen on the stunish ability, reminds me too much of concussive shells....
Hopefully the future of Starbow is bright and filled with many awesome players
Edit: U'r right about buffing ghost though. If we make it good, it will be good with mech as well as good with bio, and if mech is better than bio then might as well make 2 rax mech for ghost and bio would still be unplayed.
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Well the simple solution to that dilemma is to make sure that the buffs to ghosts only make them good against Mech/Protoss which could be done either by applying the mechanical tag, or exploit the common weaknesses such as immobility of Tanks and Reavers.
Sure Terran might employ Ghosts more in the TvT in mech vs mech battles but if designed properly it should not be as good to employ vs Bio.
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Maybe ghost can help early game vs stalkers? With stats/cost tweak? Low hp, long (6-7) range, 10 dmg/shot. Basically you add couple to army and they are there to punish stalkers trying to get free shots at marines.
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On May 14 2013 23:25 Danko__ wrote:
Maybe ghost can help early game vs stalkers? With stats/cost tweak? Low hp, long (6-7) range, 10 dmg/shot. Basically you add couple to army and they are there to punish stalkers trying to get free shots at marines.
You wouldn't be able to get Ghosts vs early game stalkers at the moment, unless we remove the Ghost academy requirement. I think a safer option would be to buff Reapers or Firebats with something that could damage or Slow down stalkers.
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There is still option to remove techlab requirement so they can be produced out of pure rax or ones with reactor. I think ghost academy bt is already quite low (40 sec as far i remember), and cost of it can be reduced to 100/100.
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I don't understand why stalkers are that big of a problem? Marines + medis with stim rapes stalkers in an A-move vs A-move battle. Even with a bit of kiting bio trades well.
I honestly don't think bio is that much underpowered at the moment. Rather its just incredibily difficult to use correctly as there are so many microintensive biological units you need to use at the same time in order to optimize your play.
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Who is amoving stalkers vs marines?
But maybe you are right. Removal of medic shield upg may be enough.
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On May 15 2013 00:40 Danko__ wrote:
Who is amoving stalkers vs marines?
But maybe you are right. Removal of medic shield upg may be enough.
I didn't use matrix either on marines. THat would absolutely have raped it. Even with blink micro. I honestly think that bio is pretty fine shape vs protoss.
Obviously wiht range 11 reavers that is just too good even in small numbers. I suggested to relatively small changes to the reaver to make it easier to micro against. This will result in bio being playable vs a medium sized HT + Reaver + gateway army. However, once the toss gets to a critical mass bio shouldn't be playable (unless you are like marineking or something like that).
But by making bio more mobile than protoss (dropships at 50/50 and my firebat suggestion will also make it slightly more mobile in the hands of a good player), terran can open bio and get a better eco lead before they transition into mech.
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I think pre-reaserched matrix upgarde and some sort of utility for the ghost alongside the prodjectile reaver shot will do for starters. If bio is still unplayable vs toss / mech early-game we can look closer at firebat / reaper.
We'll keep you firebat idea in mind, HideR, but won't probably implement it in this next patch.
Let's not take too big steps.
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On May 15 2013 01:16 Xiphias wrote:
I think pre-reaserched matrix upgarde and some sort of utility for the ghost alongside the prodjectile reaver shot will do for starters. If bio is still unplayable vs toss / mech early-game we can look closer at firebat / reaper.
We'll keep you firebat idea in mind, HideR, but won't probably implement it in this next patch.
Let's not take too big steps.
Sounds cool. When is the expected release date roughly?
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I think it can be done around this weekend actually, but I won't promise anything since Dec has to handle most of the work.
I am learning the editor though
Edit: Yey! I'm a hydralisk now!
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EPT
