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I don't understand this neccesity? When I play bio I feel like I have an overwhemling amount of microrelated things to do. I think a 3rd medic ability will simply be overwhelming. At this point, it seems to make more sense to "fix" the ghost instead (it still just have lockdown and cloack).
People said the same thing a year ago when the Medic only had heal. Why add another spell? Then I added Matrix to it. And all of a sudden the Medic became more useful and interesting...
Look, all I am asking for is if someone sees potential for an extra spell/ability/blabla on the Medic. Is there ANYTHING more that can be added to the unit to make it even more interesting/useful?
If no one has any idea then I will just let it be. I just brought the discussion here to hear your ideas. -_-
Ps. I have already "fixed" the Ghost.
Ps2. It must NOT be an APM monster ability...
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@Medics, Adding restoration is the obvious choise, but there are other possibilities.
I had an idea for a buff spell:
50 energy
Lasts 3 seconds
Increases heal by 50%
Units healed by the medic gains +2 armor/+1 attack/[whatever works best] for 0.5 seconds.
Basically a kind of stim for medics with a lot more risk and a bit more gain. Its either a colossal waste of energy, or a clutch save for a dying army.
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Just a plug. Me and GamanNo (mostly GamanNo) have almost added all units and buildings to the Starbow Wiki.
Check it out if you have not: www.starbow.wikia.com
I would love for some of you better players to add some strategy guides / tips. If you find editing difficult just PM me some content and I'll add it. I'll make sure to give due credit 
If you give medic "Restoration" and you want less apm you could make it more expensive and let it restore in a small area.
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Just brainstorming a few ideas.
Medical shield. Acts like a small radius guardian shield (if you want it to matter you need to have medics spread throughout army). This shield prevents spells like plague, fungle, and storm from having effect. It would be really short range, high energy cost, and short lived. Clutch spell that has high risk.
Throwin it out there.
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All defensive area skills not work because forcing the army to stay together in a ball. Starbow want to break this.
On June 04 2013 01:29 decemberscalm wrote:
Just brainstorming a few ideas.
Medical shield. Acts like a small radius guardian shield (if you want it to matter you need to have medics spread throughout army). This shield prevents spells like plague, fungle, and storm from having effect. It would be really short range, high energy cost, and short lived. Clutch spell that has high risk.
Throwin it out there.
time ago I proposed such a thing but but is opposed to the principle of Starbow. Idem for mass restore.
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On June 03 2013 23:05 Kabel wrote:Show nested quote +I don't understand this neccesity? When I play bio I feel like I have an overwhemling amount of microrelated things to do. I think a 3rd medic ability will simply be overwhelming. At this point, it seems to make more sense to "fix" the ghost instead (it still just have lockdown and cloack). People said the same thing a year ago when the Medic only had heal. Why add another spell? Then I added Matrix to it. And all of a sudden the Medic became more useful and interesting... Look, all I am asking for is if someone sees potential for an extra spell/ability/blabla on the Medic. Is there ANYTHING more that can be added to the unit to make it even more interesting/useful? If no one has any idea then I will just let it be. I just brought the discussion here to hear your ideas. -_- Ps. I have already "fixed" the Ghost. Ps2. It must NOT be an APM monster ability...
But why not just add other abilities in other places (other races) first? Bio has so much stuff/abilities already (reapers have been added since). That wouldn't really be the place I would direct my attention on. I would focus on fixing the whole protoss air + Nullifier concern first.
Btw bio's biggest problem from a design perspective is that it isn't different enough from the other races best responds to bio.
For instance look at protoss. What should a protoss do as a response to terran player opening bio?
Answer: Heavy blink stalker play.
Dynamic that creates: Two races which are both equally mobile and where neither play efficiently can harass or attack the other player due to defenders advantage.
I think Sc2 works better in that regard as the best response from protoss player is a mix of zealots and stalkers. This means that the protoss player will be less mobile, which gives the terran player harass options. Too some extent this is nullified in Sc2 as the protoss player can turtle on 2-3 bases and get HT's with feedback + warptech to make medivacs somewhat inefficient. However, I still believe that the races are more different in Sc2 than in Starbow.
When races are somewhat similar in terms of mobility and cost efficiency and you add in a defenders advantage, then neither player has any incentivie to do anything but turtle and macro well. Therefore I believev, that in order to create an awesome game, we need to focus a lot on designing the correct incentivies in each mathcup.
Another thing I would try to prioritize before medi's 3rd ability is getting OC some late-game utility. Right now it seems appropriate to have 2 OC's the entire game and every other base you have should be a planetary. I would OC's to have a bit more lategame utility. Perhaps it could use a 4th ability.
Ps. What did you do with the ghost?
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Thank you for all your thoughts!
It is not that I focus on the Medic ability instead of all other important stuff for the other races.
I threw out the Medic question here, to gather some thoughts on how the Medic can become more useful, maybe even in TvT and TvP, and meanwhile I work on other stuff for the other races.
If you want to bring a discussion about something else, that you find more important, for example the OC's utility in the late game, then do it! If you have ideas for it, then drop them!
The Ghost
+ Show Spoiler +I will not reveal stuff from the patch until it is released. Not because I wanna "keep it a secret" or for any silly reason.
But if I start to present pieces of the coming patch, it will only lead to explanations, missunderstandings, arguments back and forth forever. It is so time consuming. I will not be able to explain the full picture anyway right now.
I will instead aim to release this patch, and yes I will consider all of your thoughts/ideas in the thread in the meanwhile!
I will just try to avoid getting into huge discussions atm.
When this large patch is out, I will present it in a monster post, we can play it, discuss it, try to break it, try to find flaws, try to find improvements, try to balance it. And even redesign it further if necessary.
This is just my way of getting to the next "level" with Starbow. Hopefully it will be for the better.
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On June 04 2013 03:30 Kabel wrote:Thank you for all your thoughts! It is not that I focus on the Medic ability instead of all other important stuff for the other races. I threw out the Medic question here, to gather some thoughts on how the Medic can become more useful, maybe even in TvT and TvP, and meanwhile I work on other stuff for the other races. If you want to bring a discussion about something else, that you find more important, for example the OC's utility in the late game, then do it! If you have ideas for it, then drop them! The Ghost+ Show Spoiler +I will not reveal stuff from the patch until it is released. Not because I wanna "keep it a secret" or for any silly reason.
But if I start to present pieces of the coming patch, it will only lead to explanations, missunderstandings, arguments back and forth forever. It is so time consuming. I will not be able to explain the full picture anyway right now.
I will instead aim to release this patch, and yes I will consider all of your thoughts/ideas in the thread in the meanwhile!
I will just try to avoid getting into huge discussions atm.
When this large patch is out, I will present it in a monster post, we can play it, discuss it, try to break it, try to find flaws, try to find improvements, try to balance it. And even redesign it further if necessary.
This is just my way of getting to the next "level" with Starbow. Hopefully it will be for the better.
I don't really have any idea regarding OC. I just "feared" that you would gather your attention on a 3rd medic ability rather than something that is more neccesary. But it is good to hear that you were just looking for potential suggestions.
But if there should be any 3rd ability to the medi it should perhaps be some kind of ability which made bio more cost effective vs stalkers (+damage vs armored). I am a believer in the fact that bio needs to be significantly more mobile than the protoss army. However, it also needs be cost inefficient lategame to create incentivies for the bio player to trade armies and outmultitask the opponent. But reducing stalkers cost efficiency vs bio will force protoss players to get more zealots relative to stalkers in the early midgame. However, I still have some concern with this, as it may just make bio too good vs protoss in the early midgame if zealots do not get some kind of compensensation buff. Then the question is which kind of consequences that will have for pvz. Marines with stim and medi's can kite zealots efficiently, however hydras have a bit more trouble with it.
Would a potential solution here be to increase the movement speed of hydras so they can kite more efficiently, because that will give room to buff zealots. To be more specific, I am thinking of a +10-20 HP buff as zealots IMO needs to be a tank-unit relative to stalkers (stalkers currently have more hp + shield than zealots).
Then the question will be whether a + damage vs armored ability will make bio too good late game vs ultralisks. Again, that problem can probably be fixed by adjusting the stats of spellcasters, however, there is no doubt that making bio work the "correct way" will be quite time consuming as many changes are needed, and I guess it is a question of priority. Bio is no longer a joke in TvP, but is that good enough? Should bio openings vs protoss also be entertaining? If the latter is a requirement then changes are needed IMO.
Further issues which I belive needs discussion:
- Lurkers vs banelings. How do we differentiate these two units. Is there a way to make lurkers the choice if you want to defensive but cost effective, and banelings the choise if you want to be more mobile and map dominant? Or should they counter different types of units (for instance banelings counter light units and lurkers counter armored).
- Scourges movement speed at 4.25 compared to warp prism speed of 3.4. This is too large of a discrepancy IMO. Scourges are currently much faster than what they were in BW which means they will just hit too often.
- Making BC's fun to use.
- Science vessels - Is Nerve jammer too good? Nerve Jammer feels like the replacement for the old matrix which was so overpowered that you didn't actually need to micro as long as your units were matrix'ed. Nerve Jammer is insanely strong as it is quite easy to use efficiently. Currently SV's are balanced in tvz due to scourges being "overpowered". If scourges movement speed gets reduced, then Nerve Jammer probably needs a nerf. I would suggest a significant AOE nerf so it becomes a lot more positional. I also think nerfing Nerve Jammer will open more op for reaper plays, which currently suffers after the gas-nerf as they are a weaker alternative as a gasdump than SV's.
- Viking obviously. This is definitely something where I expect you will implement some kind of change.
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Hider i think you are overcomplicating things again.
I personally don't think the key to fixing Bio vs Protoss lies in the medic. Tbh i don't think any active ability we add can solve it unless it is stupid OP because in terms of Micro, it is already largely in favor of the Protoss player. If we truly want Bio to be viable vs protoss(I am asking you), then we must try to even that scale somewhat and bring the micro needed for Terran player to play bio closer to that needed for a Protoss player to play against Bio.
There are multible ways for this. One is nerfing the stalker. Its design have always questioned me really. Able to fight efficiantly against almost everything with Ultimate mobility as a T1(.5) unit... In SC2 this design was balanced by the stalker losing to pretty much everything that hit back. But i have to wonder if it pays enough "hybrid tax" in Starbow.
Another way is to passivly buff bio. And you should know which unit needs it the most vs protoss. I am of course talking about the firebat. It is kinda pathetic, 100 Health for 2 supply? Marines got about the same per supply. Stalkers and Siege tank got over 1.5 of that for same supply. It is insanely cheap yes, but still something to look at. I have suggested an ability before for the firebat. "Overheat" make the attack of the firebat reduce the attack and movement speed of mechanical units it attacks.
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On June 04 2013 04:47 Hider wrote:
- Lurkers vs banelings. How do we differentiate these two units. Is there a way to make lurkers the choice if you want to defensive but cost effective, and banelings the choise if you want to be more mobile and map dominant? Or should they counter different types of units (for instance banelings counter light units and lurkers counter armored).
There is already plenty of differentiation between these units. Lurkers can contain and pressure walls - Banelings can bust walls. Lurkers aren't available til T2, Banelings are available T1 (VERY important for ZvZ). Lurkers are more positional, Banelings are more tactical. Banes can be dropped directly onto targets, Lurkers need to set up. Banes force your opponent to kite, Lurkers force your opponent to split and dodge sideways (this actually means the two have good synergy together). Banes are a suicide unit, Lurkers are not. Banes are melee range, Lurkers are just under siege range.
I could go on. I think there are enough differences in the way the units feel and play to justify the moderate overlap in roles and what they are intended to counter.
@ Medic Spell
I would also suggest a tweaked version of Restoration - however, that is highly dependent on the spell line-up of the other casters in the game, so it's actually something I would hold off on until the Big Patch goes through and I can see the bigger picture.
I also think there is room in the game for the old Optic Flare ability the Medic had in BW, however I think it would find a better home on the Reaper this time around.
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On June 04 2013 05:24 Sumadin wrote:
Hider i think you are overcomplicating things again.
I personally don't think the key to fixing Bio vs Protoss lies in the medic. Tbh i don't think any active ability we add can solve it unless it is stupid OP because in terms of Micro, it is already largely in favor of the Protoss player. If we truly want Bio to be viable vs protoss(I am asking you), then we must try to even that scale somewhat and bring the micro needed for Terran player to play bio closer to that needed for a Protoss player to play against Bio.
There are multible ways for this. One is nerfing the stalker. Its design have always questioned me really. Able to fight efficiantly against almost everything with Ultimate mobility as a T1(.5) unit... In SC2 this design was balanced by the stalker losing to pretty much everything that hit back. But i have to wonder if it pays enough "hybrid tax" in Starbow.
Another way is to passivly buff bio. And you should know which unit needs it the most vs protoss. I am of course talking about the firebat. It is kinda pathetic, 100 Health for 2 supply? Marines got about the same per supply. Stalkers and Siege tank got over 1.5 of that for same supply. It is insanely cheap yes, but still something to look at. I have suggested an ability before for the firebat. "Overheat" make the attack of the firebat reduce the attack and movement speed of mechanical units it attacks.
I think if the solution was to just nerf the stalker, then I would probably have suggested it.
I don't think the stalker is good enough at the moment to warrant a HP nerf without some kind of compensation buff to the zealot (or the implemntation of a strong 3rd core unit).
Regarding that possibility, I talked with quite a few players and they directly told me that a compensation buff to the zealot would make them too strong in TvZ.
But basically your right: Stalkers are too good of an all-purpose unit at the moment, the only exception is against mech where they are cost ineffective but mobile, which IMO creates an interesting dynamic. But in all other stiuations I think that they are just mobile enough to defend most types of harassplay, and just usefull enough so that it is never really a mistake to get a lot of them. In Sc2 there is a real downside at getting too many stalkers as your army would be too inefficient. I would like to see a similar concept being applied to Starbow.
Regarding the firebat, I think your right. That is definitely also a unit which needs a change. Im not sure though that overheat is the correct solution to nerfing the mobility of stalkers, because I don't think the mobility is the issue when stalkers are in a battle. Rather the issue is that you can very easily get them from A to B which nullifiers drop play and other types of multitaskplay too efficiently.
Btw please let me be clear: I think bio is viable. The problem is that it isn't viable the correct way (by being significantly more mobile than the protoss player). I think that is an issue which needs to be adressed if bio openings to be awesome. Again please be aware that I am not talking about bio vs protoss late game, but only about bio in the early mid-mid game vs protoss.
There is already plenty of differentiation between these units. Lurkers can contain and pressure walls - Banelings can bust walls. Lurkers aren't available til T2, Banelings are available T1 (VERY important for ZvZ). Lurkers are more positional, Banelings are more tactical. Banes can be dropped directly onto targets, Lurkers need to set up. Banes force your opponent to kite, Lurkers force your opponent to split and dodge sideways (this actually means the two have good synergy together). Banes are a suicide unit, Lurkers are not. Banes are melee range, Lurkers are just under siege range.
I could go on. I think there are enough differences in the way the units feel and play to justify the moderate overlap in roles and what they are intended to counter.
I have also thought that those differences would make it enough to make a clear-cut difference between how you play when you use lurkers and how you play when you use banelings. However, again, those players I have talked to feel that the difference isn't really there. I think pregasnerf you could get both of them at the same time. But I think today players will choose one over the other.
Anyway let me discuss your specific differences;
1) Bust walls isn't really relevant except in allins.
2) Yes banelings add micro to ZvZ early game
3) Any type of difference in micro (dropping, set-up, suicide, meele, siege) between those to units isn't really relevant here. That just means you control them in a different way, but doesn't mean that there is significant difference in overall utility between those two units.
4) Lurkers and banelings have syngery - I disagree that they ahve more syngery than for instance banelings and mutalisks does (or any other type of zerg unit for that matter). You benefit from splitting against banelings and in that proces you do not take damage.from lurkers.
The overall big picture here is that neither unit really has any significant advantage from the other one. Yes you micro them differently, but that's not the point here. I believe that going lurkers should reward a significantly different type of playstyle than going banelings and I don't think thats the case today.
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On June 04 2013 06:10 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +
There is already plenty of differentiation between these units. Lurkers can contain and pressure walls - Banelings can bust walls. Lurkers aren't available til T2, Banelings are available T1 (VERY important for ZvZ). Lurkers are more positional, Banelings are more tactical. Banes can be dropped directly onto targets, Lurkers need to set up. Banes force your opponent to kite, Lurkers force your opponent to split and dodge sideways (this actually means the two have good synergy together). Banes are a suicide unit, Lurkers are not. Banes are melee range, Lurkers are just under siege range.
I could go on. I think there are enough differences in the way the units feel and play to justify the moderate overlap in roles and what they are intended to counter.
I have also thought that those differences would make it enough to make a clear-cut difference between how you play when you use lurkers and how you play when you use banelings. However, again, those players I have talked to feel that the difference isn't really there. I think pregasnerf you could get both of them at the same time. But I think today players will choose one over the other. Anyway let me discuss your specific differences; 1) Bust walls isn't really relevant except in allins. 2) Yes banelings add micro to ZvZ early game 3) Any type of difference in micro (dropping, set-up, suicide, meele, siege) between those to units isn't really relevant here. That just means you control them in a different way, but doesn't mean that there is significant difference in overall utility between those two units. 4) Lurkers and banelings have syngery - I disagree that they ahve more syngery than for instance banelings and mutalisks does (or any other type of zerg unit for that matter). You benefit from splitting against banelings and in that proces you do not take damage.from lurkers. The overall big picture here is that neither unit really has any significant advantage from the other one. Yes you micro them differently, but that's not the point here. I believe that going lurkers should reward a significantly different type of playstyle than going banelings and I don't think thats the case today.
From what you have observed then, does it seem like it is almost always better to get one unit than the other? I.E is one of these compositions a dominated strategy?
If, for instance, Banelings are more effective than Lurkers in most situations, I think we have a problem.
On the other hand, if Lurkers are more effective than Banelings, I think that's fine - they are a higher tier unit and generally more demanding in micro. Leaving Banelings as a niche unit to improve the ZvZ dynamic and occasionally all-in the opponent with a bust is plenty reason to keep them around.
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Regarding banelings and lurkers (being a Zerg player...)
Sure, we can change the baneling slightly, but I do not feel they overlap too much. One huge difference is the mobility. If I go Hydra / Infestor I want to add lurkers (mostly), but if I go Zergling / Mutalisk, I want to add banelings. Banelings are worse than lurkers vs a good terran player in general, so I want to prioritize those if the rest of my army is less mobile, but prioritize the baneling if I have a mobile army. This is just for army composition, there are, ofc, other uses for both.
I don't see a huge role overlap atm, and enjoy both units in the game even if banelings are used less than lurkers.
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On June 04 2013 13:25 Xiphias wrote:
Regarding banelings and lurkers (being a Zerg player...)
Sure, we can change the baneling slightly, but I do not feel they overlap too much. One huge difference is the mobility. If I go Hydra / Infestor I want to add lurkers (mostly), but if I go Zergling / Mutalisk, I want to add banelings. Banelings are worse than lurkers vs a good terran player in general, so I want to prioritize those if the rest of my army is less mobile, but prioritize the baneling if I have a mobile army. This is just for army composition, there are, ofc, other uses for both.
I don't see a huge role overlap atm, and enjoy both units in the game even if banelings are used less than lurkers.
But are there really any differnece in mobility? When you move around with a bling army your banelings are slower than your speedlings which sinks down the mobility. The exact same thing occurs with Lurkers and to the same degree actually.
Lurkers and banelings both seem to move at similar speed and while there is a "set-up" time for Lurkers, it is very fast, and IMO due to the fact that it has range it feels quite mobile.
Last topic needed to be discussed is the economy. Does it punish 1 and 2-basing too much? While we all want to get red of players staying on 2 bases for 20+ minutes, do we also want to get rid of players teching a bit on 1-2 bases? For instance in Sc2 we can see protoss players opening oracle or terrans opening cloakced banshee/hellbat drops on 1 base. In Starbow it is always optimal to just FE, and then get 1 more production infastructure out (gateway/barrack) and take a super quick 3rd, as the punishment for staying on 1-2 bases for just a bit too long is so severe.
To make my self clear: I am not talking about buffing 1-2 base allins, but I am talking about buffing tech/harass-based openings which I currently believe are UP. I think this is a map issiue though, and I would like to see 10 mineral patches in the main instead of 8, and then maybe one could experiment with 7 patches on every other expansion than the natural.
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On June 04 2013 06:10 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2013 05:24 Sumadin wrote:
Hider i think you are overcomplicating things again.
I personally don't think the key to fixing Bio vs Protoss lies in the medic. Tbh i don't think any active ability we add can solve it unless it is stupid OP because in terms of Micro, it is already largely in favor of the Protoss player. If we truly want Bio to be viable vs protoss(I am asking you), then we must try to even that scale somewhat and bring the micro needed for Terran player to play bio closer to that needed for a Protoss player to play against Bio.
There are multible ways for this. One is nerfing the stalker. Its design have always questioned me really. Able to fight efficiantly against almost everything with Ultimate mobility as a T1(.5) unit... In SC2 this design was balanced by the stalker losing to pretty much everything that hit back. But i have to wonder if it pays enough "hybrid tax" in Starbow.
Another way is to passivly buff bio. And you should know which unit needs it the most vs protoss. I am of course talking about the firebat. It is kinda pathetic, 100 Health for 2 supply? Marines got about the same per supply. Stalkers and Siege tank got over 1.5 of that for same supply. It is insanely cheap yes, but still something to look at. I have suggested an ability before for the firebat. "Overheat" make the attack of the firebat reduce the attack and movement speed of mechanical units it attacks. I think if the solution was to just nerf the stalker, then I would probably have suggested it. I don't think the stalker is good enough at the moment to warrant a HP nerf without some kind of compensation buff to the zealot (or the implemntation of a strong 3rd core unit). Regarding that possibility, I talked with quite a few players and they directly told me that a compensation buff to the zealot would make them too strong in TvZ.
I may not be the best player around, but my general experience says that Zealot HP have fairly little impact on the TvZ matchup  .
Last topic needed to be discussed is the economy. Does it punish 1 and 2-basing too much? While we all want to get red of players staying on 2 bases for 20+ minutes, do we also want to get rid of players teching a bit on 1-2 bases? For instance in Sc2 we can see protoss players opening oracle or terrans opening cloakced banshee/hellbat drops on 1 base. In Starbow it is always optimal to just FE, and then get 1 more production infastructure out (gateway/barrack) and take a super quick 3rd, as the punishment for staying on 1-2 bases for just a bit too long is so severe.
Well I think it is comes down to the harass options being too weak. Burst Cloak on Banshees means people can slack on their scouting and their detection. Idk if we ever adjusted the gas cost for DTs in Starbow to the HOTS value but with less gas that would be harder too.
Teching over economy really comes down to 2 things. Either you want to win with Big tech units that roll over the weaker army of the greedy player or you want to use high tech harass units to inflict damage to the opponents economy bringing it back in line and getting an advantage like that.
All-in or harass, if neither are strong enough then getting more economy will always be preferable.
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I may not be the best player around, but my general experience says that Zealot HP have fairly little impact on the TvZ matchup
Its not buffy enough so it sucks vs bio. Stalkers are just a far superior alternative to bio than zealots. With a HP buff, it will be a lot more important to mix them in along with stalkers.
Edit: Just realized my mistake. doh..
Well I think it is comes down to the harass options being too weak. Burst Cloak on Banshees means people can slack on their scouting and their detection. Idk if we ever adjusted the gas cost for DTs in Starbow to the HOTS value but with less gas that would be harder too.
I completely disagree. The current version of banshee's would be insanely overpowered in Sc2. But they actually work okay'ish in Starbow through the logic that they are really good early midgame, but becomes mediocore late game. All types of tech-harass units in Starbow (given how the economy works) needs to follow the same principle if they are to be used on 1-2 bases.
So basically to compensate for the heavy punishment on teching on 1-2 bases, the harass-unit needs to be really cost effective (which the banshee is), but at the same tme it must not be OP late game (which the banshee isn't). However, in general I don't think this is a sustainable design-technique, as I don't think it is always possible to make "tech-harass"-units significantly worse in the late game than early game, and therefore I think we need to relax the economic punishment for staying on 1-2 bases a bit longer than usual.
Like we can just look at the alternatives;
1) We buff all harass-tech units (dt's, nullifiers etc.), which may have unintended consequences.
2) We increase the mineral path count on the main base from 8 to 10 (very unlikely to have any uninteded consequences).
IMO the latter is a much much easier solution. Rebalancing all tech-harass units will probably be too time-consuming.
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On June 03 2013 14:22 Kabel wrote:
Goooood morning!
I am currently working on Terran and the entire race is almost complete now. (Not many changes.)
I have one concern though... The Medic has room for a third spell, and I would like to use that design space. I have created two different spells, but I am not completely satisfied with any of them after some testing in the editor. So I will start to look at other solutions. Maybe something better can be added. So I throw the question out here:
Anyone has an idea for a third Medic spell?
Ps. Medic has Healing + Matrix.
Ps2. If no spell seems to be solid enough, I will NOT force a spell on the Medic just for the sake of it.
A nice extra spell for the Medic would be a spell that removes buff's from enemies. As in:
Name: Discharge
Duration: 10 seconds
Action: Target enemy unit. The current buffs on enemy unit are removed and cannot be reapplied for ten seconds.
This would enable medics to have a more active role during battles, but also a niche role (which I like, personally. See it as flare from SC1. Very niche, but cool if used in certain situations correctly.).
The Medic could counter other medic's their shield, if a cloaked unit was spotted and then Discharged, it would remain visible for at least 10 seconds (banshee, ghost, observer, etc.) Things like that. Things that would be natural for a unit to be able to do (like burrow) should not be affected.
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@The dynamic between units
You bring up some good points Hider regarding the basic dynamic/interactions between the early game units.
The Stalker is far superior to get in PvP and TvP compared to the Zealot.
- It stops all types of harassments. (Reaper, Vultures, Banshee, Corsairs, Reaver drops, Blink Stalkers.)
- It counters almost all types of units. (Bio, Vultures, Terran air, Zealots without speed upgrade, Stalkers, Protoss air.)
- It counters all types of early aggression.
- It can even harass with Blink.
Zealots are almost obsolete to get early. (Except in PvZ, where BOTH the Zealot and Stalker are useful.)
How can the Zealot become more useful in PvP and PvT?
Step one:
+ Show Spoiler + - Zealot gains +20 HP. (180 in total.)
- Stalker gains -20 HP. (160 in total.)
(As suggested in the thread.)
- The HP increase would allow Zealots to be better at tanking damage from enemy Marines and Stalkers.
- If Stalkers are fragile, it becomes more important to keep Zealots in front of them.
Step two:
+ Show Spoiler +
Zealot start speed increased to 2.5 or 2.75, from 2.25.
(Normally Zealots, Marines and Hydralisks have start speed 2.25. Stalker start speed 2.95.)
- The movement speed increase would make Zealots able to actually engage enemy Stalkers and Marines.
- Reapers, Marines with Stim pack, Vultures, Stalkers with godly micro or Blink will still be able to out-micro Zealots. (So early Zealots are not uncounterable, just faaar more useful.)
- If Zealots become too strong in PvZ, Hydras can get a start speed boost too. (And maybe some extra HP.)
- Faster Hydras from start will not break ZvT or ZvZ.
Step three:
+ Show Spoiler +An extra element of micro can be added to the Zealot.
I think Sumadin mentioned that it is unfair that Zerg and Terran must always micro their armies a lot more than Protoss has to do. One solution, that has been suggested many times before, could be:
- Zealot Charge becomes an activated ability. It increases the speed by X for 8 seconds. Cooldown 20 seconds?
(Currently Zealots start with speed 2.25 and gains permanent speed 3.25 with the Charge upgrade. They catch almost every ground unit by just A-moving. Zerglings can do that too, but they have their weaknesses. Speed Zealots are just freaking strong in all areas?)
Temporarily speed boost abilities like Stim pack, Ignite Afterburner, Blink and maybe Charge always add excitement and unpredictability in combats. Especially it adds more room for micro, both in and out of combat. A good player will use Charge at the right moment and in the right positions.
This would further make the Zealot vs Stalker, Zealot vs Bio, Zealot vs Mech, Zealot vs Hydra dynamics more interesting without making things too complicated or different.
Maybe step one is enough. Or maybe there is some better solution.
The next patch:
+ Show Spoiler +In the patch I am working on I will focus on filling the design of all missing spells/units.
(Simply put, I will add stuff that I think will contribute to good gameplay, be useful, fun and balanceable.)
Of course balance and units interactions/dynamics are very important too!
For that we need playtesting and discussion, like we do now.
After the next big patch is out, I will start to focus a lot more on fixing the balance/dynamics.
How can we rebalance the stuff in the game to reach good dynamics between units?
How can we rebalance the stuff in the game to reach good gameplay?
If it is really necessary will I make further design changes after this patch.
(I just wanna make progress.)
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@Further issues to focus on according to Hider
+ Show Spoiler +- Lurkers vs banelings. How do we differentiate these two units. Is there a way to make lurkers the choice if you want to defensive but cost effective, and banelings the choise if you want to be more mobile and map dominant? Or should they counter different types of units (for instance banelings counter light units and lurkers counter armored). I don't think a huge redesign is necessary. I think they can be differentiated just by balance changes. For example, Banelings can become faster, or Lurkers become slower, so there is a more clear speed difference between them.
+ Show Spoiler +- Scourges movement speed at 4.25 compared to warp prism speed of 3.4. This is too large of a discrepancy IMO. Scourges are currently much faster than what they were in BW which means they will just hit too often. This will be taken care of in the next patch. I aim to make the gap more fair..
+ Show Spoiler +- Making BC's fun to use. I have sent my design plan to XiA. Hopefully will he be able to create my ideas in the editor, since I can not do it myself. Hopefully the BC will be more interesting and fun to use now...
+ Show Spoiler +- Science vessels - Is Nerve jammer too good? Nerve Jammer feels like the replacement for the old matrix which was so overpowered that you didn't actually need to micro as long as your units were matrix'ed. Nerve Jammer is insanely strong as it is quite easy to use efficiently. Currently SV's are balanced in tvz due to scourges being "overpowered". If scourges movement speed gets reduced, then Nerve Jammer probably needs a nerf. I would suggest a significant AOE nerf so it becomes a lot more positional. I also think nerfing Nerve Jammer will open more op for reaper plays, which currently suffers after the gas-nerf as they are a weaker alternative as a gasdump than SV's. I do not aim to redesign the spell atm. Balance adjustments will probably be enough to make it less dominant. Smaller AoE, shorter duration or something else. Note that the context of the game will be a bit different after the next patch. So Nerve jammer might play a less dominant role for other reasons..
+ Show Spoiler +- Viking obviously. This is definitely something where I expect you will implement some kind of change. Changed and done. Simple and clean.
I can of course be wrong on this. If I am, please enlighten me! (If there for any reasons are flaws in the spells/units that must be taken care off by redesign.)
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Hydras should definitely get a buff if zealots does. Zealots are surprisingly cost effective vs Hydras atm, even if the hydralisks are decently microed. Speedlots also comes at the same time, or even earlier than hydra speed, so speed hydras are usually an advantage that is short lived.
We just have to carefull not to make the hydras so good that they can deal with bio. We don't want them to be the "stalkers" of zerg (see what I did there? )
But I agree on giving zealot the tanky role and weaken stalkers slightly.
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EPT
