EPT[A] Starbow - Page 297
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Sumadin
Denmark588 Posts
On June 20 2013 21:04 SolidSMD wrote: envision from the oracle could be a solution against those siege lines, granted that the casting range is big enough That would be revelation. Envision is the activated detection. Scout used to have this ability but was deemed redundant. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
On June 20 2013 20:35 Kabel wrote: Unintended consequenses with such an upgrade? (regarding combat shield preventing 50% splash) Terran players stay on bio all game long? Might not be a realistic concern though. I'd love to see changelings and scan on observers, especially the scan on observers. Gives them a slight more utility. Why is the nullward a detector btw? | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Numbers are extremely important here. Should a mine still 1-shot all Marines in the area? Should a Reaver? a Tank? The amount of splash reduced should be so that the Marine is better suited to fighting against these units, but not to the point of being the most cost efficient way of dealing with them (Marines are still dirt cheap no matter how you look at it). I'd say reduced splash damage is a much better upgrade than flat health (especially with stim on Marines), but its going to take some number crunching to ensure that they don't become too tanky for such a cheap unit. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
All splash damage effects in the game deal 100% damage to the impact center, and less damage depending on how far away a unit stands from the impact center. Something like this: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FbPhYXd.jpg) (This is a bit different for different effects, but the general principle is like this.) This means that it is hard to determine EXACTLY how much damage a group of Marines will recieve from a splash effect, since their position matters and can vary. BUT we can look at some values anyway: Marines have 45 HP. Reavers Scarab deal 100 dmg. 80 vs light. (The center Marines dies while the outer Marines survive with ca 5HP.) Siege tanks deal 35 vs light, 50 vs all, 65 vs armored. Banelings deal 20 vs all, 35 vs light. Spider mines deal 75 vs all, 100 vs armored. Archon deal 25 vs all. Lurker deal 22 dmg vs all. (They actually count as splash damage... Hmm.. But that can be changed in case we do not want it to work vs Combat Shields.) What would a 50% reduction do? - Marines survive better vs Scarabs. - Siege tanks need 3 shots instead of 2 to kill a Marine. (The targeted Marine.) - Spider mines need 2 hits to kill a Marine instead of 1. - Banelings need 3 hits instead of 2 to kill a Marine. - Archon need 4 hits instead of 2 hits to kill a Marine. (Storm will still be strong though since they deal SPELL damage!) Remember that Marines far away from the impact center will receive even less splash damage. Does this seem broken? What would the gameplay effects be? Hopefully Bio would actually become more viable in TvT and TvP!! ! ! ! | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + The goal with the redesign of the Sentinel: - Make it more user friendly - Make it easier to understand - Make it have a more distinct role in the current context of the game. - Make it more useful so it contributes to a better gameplay. All of this while still have potential to be awesome in the hands of a good player. Sounds good? ^^ How I consider to do it: Step one: Decrease the casting cost of all spells. Cheaper spells mean that the unit can be used more often. ESPECIALLY since the Sentinel does not have any attack or passive useage. Right now all spells are quite expensive. Most of the time it just sits idle and regenerate energy. Step two: Give it something to do while doing nothing... Almost all other units in the game have a passive usage and an active usage: - Units can attack. They will do it no matter if you look at them or not. - Zerg casters that are out of energy can be used to regain energy via Consume. HT can morph into Archon. - Science Vessel, Observer, Overseer are detectors. Even if they stand still and are idle, they still contribute to the game. The Sentinel right now ONLY has active usage and does nothing while passive. It requires constant control. Step three: Make the abilities cleaner. Not cluttered with information. Each spell shall be distinct and not overlap. Ok, this is what I am playing around with: + Show Spoiler + Rupture costs 25 energy. It has ca 10 second cooldown. It has auto-cast that can be toggled on and off. This means that as soon as an enemy comes within range, the Sentinel will launch Rupture in a line towards it. This is basically the standard "attack" of the Sentinel. A good player will want to "aim" with Rupture and get the Sentinel into a good position before launching it. A newcomer, or a stressed good player, can turn on the auto-cast and just let it stand at an area or float with the army. Just as any other unit! Null Ward costs 50 energy. Safeguard costs 75 energy. Here comes the tricky bit: Exactly what shall the effects of the spells be? Right now Rupture and Null Ward does the same thing, just in different ways. I want them to be more unique from each other! What does Protoss lack in the game? - No protective spells/abilities - Nothing that manipulates terrain (Like Force Field) - Nothing that buff their own units. - Nothing that gives them "area control". (Like Spider mines, Creep, Dark Swarm, Nerve Jammer, Force field?) - Nothing that slows enemy units (They can only disable via Graviton Beam and Stasis Field.) - Nothing that weakens enemy units over time (Plague, Ensnare, Irradiate) Here are some areas we can work with for Rupture and Null Ward: - Damage (Direct or over time?) - Drain % of the life. (Direct or over time?) - Slow movement - Slow attack speed - Stun completely - Stop movement completely. - Block an area (Indirectly or directly) Damage is the best effect in the game. A dead unit causes no problem. Slow/stun is only good in combination with other units who can actually deal damage! So maybe either Rupture or Null Ward can deal damage/drain life, while the other one slows/blocks an area... But only slowing feels very weak... Why would I care if my army become only slowed from Rupture? Why would I care if you fly to my mineral line and just slow my workers? Or if I walk into a Null Ward that just slows my units? How shall the spells be used? I think it is important that the spells are useful in different ways. Maybe like this: - Rupture can be an "in-your-face-spell." I launch it. Watch out! Boom! It makes the Sentinel useful alone. - Null Ward should be a pre-combat spell. You cast it at an area. When the enemy walks into it, it activates. - Safeguard is a positional combat spell. It is only useful together with other units. What shall the Sentinel be good vs? What shall it offer to the Protoss race? - Make Protoss able to attack fortified positions via Safeguard. So it must be good vs Tanks, Spider mines, PF Lurkers, Spine Crawlers, Cannons, Reavers. Maybe it would be more useful if it applied Hardened Shield in an area? But that would make it quite bad vs Marines, Zerglings, Hydras and Protoss core units... This would encourage even more aggression from P, since it allows them to engage players who turtle. - Make Protoss able to take map and area control. "Block" parts of the map. Zerg can do it via Creep. Terran can do it via Spider mines. Null Ward can be the Protoss way of doing it.. Other stuff: Apart from the thoughts above, I aim to make the sentinel less clunky. Make it more swift and elegant when it moves. Right now it kinda has to stop to launch a spell. And it just feels annoying.. | ||
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Sumadin
Denmark588 Posts
Here is the general Mech line up and a gross generalization of their roles. Vulture: Kill stuff Siege tank: Kill alot of stuff. Goliath: Kill airial stuff Science Vessel: Support Okay this is actually how most unit compositions in Starbow and SC2 works. Sure there are support units but in general most of their army units are designed to kill a certain range of units. Now the issue comes when applying this model to the Bio lineup that we are currently to trying to make functional. Marine: Kill stuff Medic: Support Ghost: Support Reaper: Kill mostly the same as the marine kills. See the problem is that Bio is very one dimensional. Even if reapers got some new AOE i can still counter everything that you would use reapers for with a sufficiant number of marines. It is not an issue. The problem rises with a unit like the stalker.Neither the Reaper nor the marine is particular good at dealing with their initial strength or their mobility. Siege tanks is another good example. Even if i can make it unsiege i still lack a unit that can actually take it down. It got 160 HP(I think?). At the same time Bio is hindered by alot of timing related stuff some of which originate from SC2. Stim at 170 secs in a game without marauders? Why is that range there? I know of the stalker harass but i have rarely seen it do anything significant, and at the same time i question the design of a T1 unit that gains its treat-potential from being completely impossible to damage. All that upgrade does is futher delay the bio timings, which are currently slowed alot already. I have said before that it is an issue that the marauder is missing. I will say something slightly different now, it is an issue that we use the SC2 bio lineup yet don't use the marauder. Bio could have the gimmicky reaper and the mostly support ghost because marines and marauders layed a solid foundation. That is gone in Starbow. So what we do need for bio is to add something that kills units like the stalker. Read: kills, not disable, not slows, KILLS units like the stalker, like the siege tank, potentially the Ultralisk. Because every other unit composition works that way. Some short about the shield: I think we should try and go for the HP increase for a start. Splash reduction is kinda a "hidden stat" and basicly makes the marine work with too much math. It got 5-10 life less than any other bio unit, but it takes significantly reduced damage from most relevant sources. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Good thoughts, but just some points: Marines do kill Stalkers. Or are suppose to be good vs them. Especially with the latest balance change where Stalkers got nerfed. Marines are very cost efficent vs Stalkers. They shred Tanks and Vultures too. Try it in the unit tester! The problem is that they can never get in range to reach them. There is a huge mine field in the way and murdering good sieged Siege tanks. I doubt even Marauders would be able to hurt mech Terran? The "normal" SC2 Marauders would also die of 2-shots from the Tanks or from 2-spider Mines. On the other hand, a sieged up well defended Terran siege position should destroy bio. You sacrifice mobility to gain firepower... I dont think a bio-blob with insane Marauders/Marines shall be able to break that easily. Not without help of spells or other tricks: for example Nerve Jammer and Ghosts new ability, or something else. Instead bio should be the more mobile option. Be able to stretch the meching player thin: harass here and there etc. But it is hard. Spider mines and Tanks are so insanely good at destroying bio. And in the mid/lategame, where Terran get enough Turrets in his bases, it becomes hard for Terran who goes Bio to continue to drop the enemy. Which in the end means that the player with most Siege tanks usually win.. : / MAYBE could a combat shield ability make Bio NOT as useless vs mech. Not invulnerable. But just slightly better.. or something.. But yeah TvT bio - mech has always been a "problem" in Starbow. Mech has always been the better alternative. | ||
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bypLy
757 Posts
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Fishgle
United States2174 Posts
I guess it depends on what you want the ability to do. As a passive upgrade, you might have the problem of stimmed, shielded marines rushing tank lines and destroying them too quickly. And also, it won't be researched at all if the opponent is not using Mech/banes/Reaver. As an activated ability it would be useful vs all attack damage (not spells), and might have some creative uses. Also, for the Protoss Sentinal, can we buff Null Field / Null Ward so that it fully kills units in its full duration? Something like 5% for 20 seconds or 4% for 25 seconds. The set up is slow and short range, and the ward is too easily killed by careful enemies since the activation time is rather long (being able to manually activate them would be nice, as would costing less mana, like Xiphias suggested). 25 mana in its current state, or 50 mana with my suggested buffs would be ok. A problem with safeguard is that it isn't very good in small battles; in large battles hardly anyone target fires, but in small battles (stalk vs stalker, etc) every attack is target fired, which makes Safeguard slightly pointless. Since it's a channeled ability which requires research, I think it can be buffed to give Hardened Shields to everyone in its AOE. This will also make it useful against banelings /tanks/reavers, and it gives reason for the enemy to try to kill the Sentinel first. I wouldn't mind if the Sentinel cost more with these buffs (125/150, maybe?). Imagine Sentinals casting a line of Safeguards to make a safe passage for Toss's army to attack a Terrans Sieged up army. Or imagine reacting to a speed prism reaver drop by safeguarding on your mineral line, saving all your probes and buying you time to react. It'll be a truly useful defensive ability. (also, is Serenity supposed to activate while the Sentinal uses Safeguard? Because it doesn't atm.) Rupture being autocast might be worse for newbs than it is now, since rupture hits your own units too. I don't really know what can be done about it. the % based damage overlaps with Null Field a bit. Maybe scrap it, and give the Sentinal Revelation? I don't mind Sentinals having no afk ability, since they should be using Safeguard in battles, and Null Ward when not fighting (also revelation if it gets that ability). | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
If rupture would be the slowing spell, then the null ward could do damage over time, but that would be too similar to storm. It could be a stun, but that means the sentinel becomes full support. I'm fine with that, because the robo already has reaver+prism for harass. I think this is one of the better options. On the topic of bio, I agree with sumadin mostly. Since marauder is not in the game, stim upgrade doesn't need to be so long, this might add some possibility of creating some bio-pressure into mech openings. I'd rather not see pure bio becoming viable in mid/endgame, i truly hate the PvT matchup in regular sc2. If bio is viable in midgame, then people get the upgrades and can't just techswitch out of it, then we create the same metagame as in sc2, protoss turtling hard vs drops, then moving out when deathball is complete. But i'd be fine with biomech being a decent alternative to pure mech. marine/medic/ghost/siegetank would be a cool composition in theory that isn't too easy to play with. | ||
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Sumadin
Denmark588 Posts
On June 21 2013 01:10 Kabel wrote: @Sumadin Good thoughts, but just some points: Marines do kill Stalkers. Or are suppose to be good vs them. Especially with the latest balance change where Stalkers got nerfed. Marines are very cost efficent vs Stalkers. They shred Tanks and Vultures too. The problem is that they can never get in range to reach them. There is a huge mine field in the way and murdering good sieged Siege tanks. I doubt even Marauders would be able to hurt mech Terran? The "normal" SC2 Marauders would also die of 2-shots from the Tanks or from 2-spider Mines. I know, but what also matters is how well they handle spash. When a single marauder is killed by 2 shots from a siege tank, the guy next to him have "only" taken 63 damage. It will take 2 more splashes to take him down. When a marine dies from 2 shots the guy next to him have take 35 damage. He is on the verge of death himself. He will die from a single splash more, or if 2 guys way in the back gets hit aswell. Edit: Did i mention stim? A stimmed marine will be one-shot and die from 2 splashes. Nothing changes for a stimmed marauder. Another thing is related to the timings. Marauders is a very efficiant unit to make while getting the essential upgrades from a techlab. Now those upgrades are still essential in Starbow, but being forced to pump out a single marine while doing so is what tends to leave mech timing avaliable. And early medics pre-stim are not really that good. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Thanks for the input. Maybe this line up for the Sentinel? Rupture: 25 energy. 10-12 seconds cooldown. Can toggle auto-cast. Slows enemy units within the line by X% for X seconds. Can be used on both ground and air units. Can catch targets. Can be used to "delay" the enemy mining if launched on enemy workers? (Obviously the missile need to have a smaller splash area) Null Ward 50 energy. Takes a few seconds to set up. (Currently that is 8 seconds) Lasts 2-3 minutes.. When an enemy comes close, it becomes activated. Upon activation, it drains 5% of the max life for 20 seconds. Which means that it can kill! (If the enemy is really slow.. obviously there shall be a warning being played: "You are under attack") Would it overlap too much with storm? Hmm.. Storm is a direct combat spell that lasts few seconds, Null Ward lasts a longer period, is better vs tougher units, and requires the enemy to "walk into the trap" Safeguard: 75 energy Channel for up to 30 seconds at target area. Friendly units inside that area takes only 10 damage per attack. The passive cloaking ability can be removed because it bugs with the model. People report that it looks red when cloaked. :s Thoughts? | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Idea - Combat Shields as the antithesis to Stim. Instead of increasing movespeed and attackspeed for damage, Combat Shields lowers attackspeed and movespeed in return for reduced damage? Sort of like the footman's Defend ability here: http://classic.battle.net/war3/human/units/footman.shtml Interesting idea Fishgle, but it would probably be too much on the basic Marine. It is after all the most "simple" unit in the game. I'd rather not see pure bio becoming viable in mid/endgame, i truly hate the PvT matchup in regular sc2. If bio is viable in midgame, then people get the upgrades and can't just techswitch out of it, then we create the same metagame as in sc2, protoss turtling hard vs drops, then moving out when deathball is complete. But i'd be fine with biomech being a decent alternative to pure mech. marine/medic/ghost/siegetank would be a cool composition in theory that isn't too easy to play with. Yeah it would be fun to see combinations of Terran units, rather than only pure Bio or pure Mech. Maybe should Bio try to become more viable early. Right now there is no "risk" in teching quickly to mech. Compare it to ZvZ, there it is a risk to get fast Lair. As Terran, I do not fear enemy Bio early. (Except cheeses.) I can "safely" get Banshees or whatever. Faster Stim upgrade can be a way to go? I know, but what also matters is how well they handle spash. When a single marauder is killed by 2 shots from a siege tank, the guy next to him have "only" taken 63 damage. It will take 2 more splashes to take him down. When a marine dies from 2 shots the guy next to him have take 35 damage. He is on the verge of death himself. He will die from a single splash more, or if 2 guys way in the back gets hit aswell. Edit: Did i mention stim? A stimmed marine will be one-shot and die from 2 splashes. Nothing changes for a stimmed marauder. Another thing is related to the timings. Marauders is a very efficiant unit to make while getting the essential upgrades from a techlab. Now those upgrades are still essential in Starbow, but being forced to pump out a single marine while doing so is what tends to leave mech timing avaliable. And early medics pre-stim are not really that good. But if Combat Shield reduces splash.. we get the same effect WITHOUT adding the Marauder? Other ways to make bio better in TvT: - Reapers are not hit by mines - Reapers splash upgrade deal bonus vs mechanial units? ... Anyone wanna play after 20.00 on EU? We can try some TvT for example | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
It works! Like Kabel said some posts ago, you sacrifices firepower for mobility. But... you need 300 apm to do it. HideR's shown us that it can work, but it is the strat for the pro. I'm afraid that if we buff bio even more then it will be preferred for the gosu players. (It might not work as well now that the "johnny bombs" are gone from the reaper. We used those on matrixed medics to kill tanks...) @ Nullward. Even if it looks like storm, the fact that you set it up and not just "cast it" makes it very different from a game design perspective. Go for it! I also like how rapture can be combined with storm for "finesse" (Kinda like meal-storm and storm from BW. Rare but deadly.) | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I'm afraid that if we buff bio even more then it will be preferred for the gosu players. (In TvT) Well, imagine if that gosu player played Mech instead.. After all, mech is the stronger option in TvT. Lets just look at the Vulture compared to Marine: For 75 minerals you get 90 HP, 20 dmg vs light, super speed and the ability to plant 3 spider mines. For 50 minerals you get 45 HP, 6 dmg vs everything, slow. Worthless in low numbers. Requires to be massed. Requires upgrades to even function. They are easily stopped by mine fields and sieged Siege tanks. Why would someone even pay minerals to get such a worthless unit early? :p I doubt Marauders would change too much of this. Tanks are insane. Vultures with mines are insane. Neither Marines or Marauders will barely be able to reach them in a direct fight. Unless the balance is heavily reworked ofc. Do we really want massive bio blobs defeating mech positions? Marauders would bring uninteded balance concerns to the game: A-move into Lurkers, A-move into Stalkers.. without Force Field! Of course balance can always be fixed. But would it make the game better? Maybe we will have to live with Marines not seeing much play in TvT. Maybe Medics sometimes due to Matrix. Maybe Ghosts with the new ability to "snipe" Siege tanks. But it will probably be mostly mech units and air units. Otherwise Marines and Bio would need an insane boost to become viable throughout the game. Or Mech must be nerfed. One way can be to make bio deadly early. Better and earlier Reapers. Faster to get Stimpack. Stronger Marines in general? Delay Mech. Longer research time on the important mech upgrades? Longer build time on mech units? Longer build time on the factory? Heavier supply cost? It shall be risky to just go straight for Mech units? Small boosts that can be done: - Reapers become viable earlier. (No tech lab requirement and faster build time!) - The Reaper splash upgrade deals extra damage vs Mechanical. (Makes them good vs light units and mechanical units, such as Stalker, Vulture, Tank and Buildings.) - Reapers do not activate Spider mines. - Faster Stimpack upgrade? (Will it break other matchups?) - Remove the +1 Range upgrade? Let them start with it? - Add the Combat shield upgrade that reduces splash? Would it actually help to make Bio more viable in TvT and TvP? - Medics inside Dropships can heal Marines inside Dropships.. (Sumadins idea.) - If we wanna go mental: Medics inside Dropships can actually heal units outside the Dropship.. O_o (Only 1 is required per Dropship to make it become a "Medivac") | ||
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Hider
Denmark9389 Posts
I think the general consensus is that bio is suppoed to be relatively cost ineffective but should instead rely on mobility to obtain a better economy than the opponent (the only exception should IMO be when it is playing vs muta/bling). Therefore I don't think we should reimplement combat shield/maurauder as it will only serve the purpose of increast cost effeciciency. I think its current problem is the lack of relative mobility advantage in the late game as static defenses counters drops too efficiently. I suggest removing static defense as harass killers and making a compensation buff to units instead so we see more unit vs unit interactions rather than static defenses vs units (or no action at all which is much more likely when static defense is put). That includes; - Turrets, Spine crawlers, Cannons and too a lesser extent spore crawlers. @Banelings I don't see a problem here really. Lets say the terran goes bio 50% of the time and that the zerg will never go banelings vs mech. Let's also assume that he can opt for a muta/bling composition or a lurker heavy composition. Assuming that both of the options are equally strong he will only go banelings 25% of the time against terran players. However, I think the problem may be that muta/bling is a superior unit composition to lurkers. But instead of nerfing banelings (i don't think they are op) I feel we should instead work on strenghten the design of lurkers as very coste-effective but relative immoble units. If it gets reworked correctly I believe we could see more muta/lurker or lurker +xx compostions instead of banelings. @Stim 140 seconds wouldn't hurt I think. @Mech mobility; I actually think mech vs bio is almost unloseable for the mech player if he plays correctly. That is a probelm because all he really needs to do in order to play correctly is to make sure that drops become a nonfactor by putting up a turret ring. A removal of the viability of turret rings is therefore a big step in the right direction, but obviously isn't enough. Another thing.... Is it really neccesary that vultures have a movement speed of 5? While this isn't the biggest problem with mech mobility (vs bio) I wonder whether a slight reduction to 4.5-4.75 would be a step in the right correction. Further, I also suggest that we consider removing the movement speed upgrade as I doubt this is really needed at this point. I would really like to see more vulture openings and at the moment they just seem to cheesy (rely on opponent scouting), and I believe Vultures starting with a movement speed of perhaps 4.5/4.75 would help a lot in that regard. At last, I also think that a nerf to static defenses as harass-killers will make it possible to reduce the damage vs light to 18 once again as 2-shotting workers no longer becomes a neccesity. These changes will make vulture openings a solid choice but it won't create as volatile games as previously. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
How can we make static defence counter drop play/harassment play less efficently? | ||
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