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On June 24 2013 07:00 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 06:55 Kabel wrote:
I digged into the Baneling. Turns out that the damage values are from the HoTS campaign.
40 vs all!
(Is suppose to be 20 vs all + 15 vs light)
Each melee upgrade give +4 damage instead of the normal +2.
Gonna adjust this for the tomorrow patch. My gawd, I saw that ages ago and supposed you'd come to some surprising decision that it was necessary or ideal. It surprises me that I might not have mentioned it. Anyway, suits me to make them as they are in SC2. 
Hm, yeah I noticed that too quite some time ago and I thought it was a tradeoff for the slower speed.
Basically to make them more valueable versus high HP units (Protoss in general, mechplay...) while making it easier to outmicro them with lowtier units.
not sure what to think about them if they get nerfed to 20+15, as off now I already think they are borderline useless against units that they are meant to be good against (like marines when supported by tanks or vessels, or zealots in general), while the way they are, they are probably too strong in ZvZ (oneshooting zerglings despite armoradvantages, pretty strong vs hydras, no fungal to counter bigger armounts of them).
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On June 24 2013 20:57 Fen1kz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 09:54 Laertes wrote:
An ability that can be used any and all the time is just micro for the sake of artificially raising apm requirements. i like this approach, exactly what i feel with new zealots. Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 12:21 decemberscalm wrote:
It is like blink, there is a cooldown involved.
This lets you do things like trick your opponent into burning their zealot charge (much like stim).
Also, attention is a finite resource. Even in top tier games you'll see groups of units that get crushed because their attention was spread too thin to take care of them.
Spam=clicking a ton in a short period of time.
Hitting the charge button is a very definite action you don't hit anywhere near enough for it to be defined as spam.
It is like saying blink is also a "spam" ability. no, blink is about position, you can travel with blinks, it has much larger cooldown and it allows you to pass unpassable terrain. but charge currently feels like "wow lets add micro to zealots too so u need to charge them every 4-8 seconds" (i dont remember cooldown, but it is short) so the only need u to do is just spam charge every time to need to move ur zealots spam here means - often repeatedly click on button Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 17:01 Kabel wrote:
@Charge
In terms of design, yes it is kinda like Stim pack with some minor differences:
It effects movement only.
It gives a short and strong burst effect.
It drains no life.
But it is used in a similar way!
That does not bother me so much, at least since it seems to contribute to a better gameplay.
and there's the problem. it doesnt have strong burst effect since its necessary to click it to be able to catch hydras and etc also as i saw zealots battle vs hydras this means i charge, first zealots attack, back zealots just running around, charge ends and hydra kite me till the end of cooldown, zealtos are still good because they're meatshield, but their charge not worth to put micro on but! it drains no life, means if i can mindlessly click it by cooldown (every time i select zealots f.e.) - battle could do better, so its spamming ability for apm sake 3 situations: 1) a streamer at 3rd starbow tournament: wow, fen using his blik to surround enemy forces, while blinking back damaged ones, that was cool, just like he catched those mutas 2 mins ago! 2) a streamer at 3rd starbow tournament: omg, fen used zealots charge to catch hydras! that was awesome! just like he used charge to get to marines last game! 3) same: ok fen preparing to push, STIIIMPACK (everyone understands that there comes the battle) boom bam. Wow he used stim only on back line marines, while forward ones remain full hp!! which one of these situations is not so funny as streamer says? 
I agree here, and to be honest, both charge and stim are braindead decisions. Your 3rd example isn't really practical either as your always supposed to kite (even with the forward units) which means that you don't really use the marines as meatshield. So in a battle your always supposed to stim every single unit.
The reason stim is interesting is the battle micro opportunities it gives (since it becomes easier to micro really fast units). It would be interesting to see if we could rework activateable charge slightly to make it more micro-friendly rather than just C + A-move.
By giving it a tradeoff, we could make the charge effect significantly stronger (without making it OP). I suggest the following changes to charge;
- Charge increases movement speed to 4.25
- Charge lasts as long as you want it to (you can swith it on/off whenever you want to).
- Damage under charge is reduced by 25% (first tradeoff)
- Charge drains 2 shield per second (second tradeoff)
- When charge is activated and the zealots turn their back to the ranged attacker, they reduce damage taken by 66% (not sure whether this is possible to do in the editor - would be really cool if it was).
I think this change to charge will reward micro quite significantly as protoss players are incentivized to use charge just before the battle starts. Then a great protoss player will turn it off just before the zealots gets in range of the attackers.
However, the skill ceiling for the best protoss players is even higher; They will be able to manually micro the injured chargelots back from the battle and save them for another today. This normally isn't practical but due to the damage reduction effect and the fast movement speed this will doable for the best protoss players.
But of course this will also give the opponent counter-micro opportunities. He likely won't start kiting untill charge is turned off. So instead of braindead kiting he will base his kiting decisions upon how the protoss player uses charge.
I believe these changes (if they work as intended) will give the spectators something to watch out for.
While one could argue that these changes are complicated, I don't think its that big of a deal as there are gradients of succes: Bad players will just turn on charge right before the battle, and then at some point during the battle they will realize that they are supposed to switch it off again. They will therefore use it somewhat inefficiently, but it won't outright lose them the game (at least that's not my intention).
It's actually possible that new player will still have fun with charge without even knowing that damage is reduced when they turn their back to the defender. So you don't even need to know all the details of this charge-version to use it as a new player.
Thus charge will now be an ability which is somewhat easy to learn but ridicilously tough to master, instead of easy to learn easy to master.
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@Charge
I will keep it in the game for now. If better ideas/suggestions come to mind then I am willing to change it. As usual.
Your idea might work Hider, expcet the "turn the back to the ranged attacker to change damage."
Based on my decent understanding of the editor, I think that would be very very hard to create.
Btw, new patch will be up at 19.00 today!
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On June 24 2013 18:43 Xiphias wrote:
+1 to no cloak warp-in dt's. you can't just warp them "in yo face!" without being punished for it.
I agree.
On June 24 2013 07:03 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 07:00 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:On June 24 2013 06:55 Kabel wrote:
I digged into the Baneling. Turns out that the damage values are from the HoTS campaign.
40 vs all!
(Is suppose to be 20 vs all + 15 vs light)
Each melee upgrade give +4 damage instead of the normal +2.
Gonna adjust this for the tomorrow patch. My gawd, I saw that ages ago and supposed you'd come to some surprising decision that it was necessary or ideal. It surprises me that I might not have mentioned it. Anyway, suits me to make them as they are in SC2. I do wonder though - Would something like 25 vs light + 10 vs armored really be bad? Then we could make lurker the anti-light unit and baneling better against armored units while keeping both of them mobile? Banelings would still be relatively good at countering lings so zvz early game could still be a bit interesting. Evenutally we could slightly buff the AOE of them (?)
Hmm, yes, I at least like the idea of this being tested. I think people made some suggestion like this some time ago but I think I wasn't around here much at the time, but if it hasn't already been tested, maybe it's worth it.
I think banelings should still kill marines in 2 hits though, so they'd need to deal a base of 25 in that case (as you suggested), or 26 if you wanted +0 banes to kill +3 armour marines in 2 hits.
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On June 24 2013 22:44 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 18:43 Xiphias wrote:
+1 to no cloak warp-in dt's. you can't just warp them "in yo face!" without being punished for it. I agree. Show nested quote +On June 24 2013 07:03 Hider wrote:On June 24 2013 07:00 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:On June 24 2013 06:55 Kabel wrote:
I digged into the Baneling. Turns out that the damage values are from the HoTS campaign.
40 vs all!
(Is suppose to be 20 vs all + 15 vs light)
Each melee upgrade give +4 damage instead of the normal +2.
Gonna adjust this for the tomorrow patch. My gawd, I saw that ages ago and supposed you'd come to some surprising decision that it was necessary or ideal. It surprises me that I might not have mentioned it. Anyway, suits me to make them as they are in SC2. I do wonder though - Would something like 25 vs light + 10 vs armored really be bad? Then we could make lurker the anti-light unit and baneling better against armored units while keeping both of them mobile? Banelings would still be relatively good at countering lings so zvz early game could still be a bit interesting. Evenutally we could slightly buff the AOE of them (?) Hmm, yes, I at least like the idea of this being tested. I think people made some suggestion like this some time ago but I think I wasn't around here much at the time, but if it hasn't already been tested, maybe it's worth it. I think banelings should still kill marines in 2 hits though, so they'd need to deal a base of 25 in that case (as you suggested), or 26 if you wanted +0 banes to kill +3 armour marines in 2 hits.
Yeh I think the 25 damage, while not enough to make banelings the best counter to marines (lurkers will be I think), it will still be enough to force a splitting reaction from the terran player.
On June 24 2013 22:44 Kabel wrote:
@Charge
I will keep it in the game for now. If better ideas/suggestions come to mind then I am willing to change it. As usual.
Your idea might work Hider, expcet the "turn the back to the ranged attacker to change damage."
Based on my decent understanding of the editor, I think that would be very very hard to create.
Btw, new patch will be up at 19.00 today!
Well it is possible to make a seperate effect dependant on which direction the unit is facing. For instance Dec's vuluture micro worked in that way, and in Onegoal the BC can teleport to the direction it is facing. So I just wondered if it would be possible to make the opposite effect (when it is not looking in the direction of the attacker).
Besides the whole micro injured units back there are also other interesting meat-shield oriented purposes with this. For instance you could choose not to attack with the chargelots and instead turn their back to the opponent, press hold position and let them soak up the damage. There would be so many cool micro tricks with this type of "passive ability" which would increase the excitement of watching chargelots significantly.
So if this exact idea isn't possible to implement it would be cool to see if there were other ways to implemenet some kind of damage reduction effect which rewarded intelligent micro.
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Regarding Creepers, I don't think they should be coloured the same chartreuse/'lime green' as banelings. It isn't very interesting to have them look so similar while both having splash and they have nothing to do with banelings.
Let's get more interesting, like vermillion orange or a thick, toxic dark purple or something like that, shooting small balls of a volatile substance that explodes when it hits something (like short-range fireballs).
I can imagine the thick gloopy, vile black pudding goo looking quite different to creep (but the fiery quality might be nice too).
Maybe the name can be inspired by such an idea? Gaklings, maybe? XD
Team colours need to apply to them to, painted on them somewhere in some amount. The creeper picture linked here doesn't show any team colour.
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Just touching on this again,
On June 24 2013 03:14 Hider wrote:Show nested quote + Earlier, Fuchsteufelswild wrote
Those changes aren't drastic but with them attacking a 83-84% of the attack speed, I wonder what changed so much in the Starbow metagame so that they're now very very strong.
Did you have Lurkers at 150/150 cost a long time ago? Otherwise this baffles me! I think its a combinaation of 3 things; 1) They were probably always a bit OP vs protoss 2) Zerg received larva buff which put them in a better position going into midgame. 3) Stalker HP nerf. I think the problem is that as zerg I can get so many lurkers at once becasue I have excessive gas (assuming I have gone hydras early game). So having something like 15 hydras and 8 lurkers in the midgame is just too strong. The protoss at that point will have maybe 2 reavers which requires ridiclously much more apm to use efficiently than lurker does.
Hmm, were they really too strong versus Protoss in BW also? As long as protoss DID keep their observers safe, the ground forces were really pretty cost effective against lurkers if they didn't bunch up too much and especially cheap on gas by comparison.
If you had enough basic forces to deal with the supporting units and we're talking about swarm or something else late game being present, I don't recall it being heavily in zerg's favour. Zerg had to be careful to keep its valuable units alive, because the lings and/or hydralisks (in non-mass amount due to being coupled with lurkers) were so vulnerable to storm and reavers and all of the zerg army was pretty fragile. The zerg needed to make units dance around and attempt to prevent toss forces from getting to the lurkers while trying to land as many free hits on the protoss as was possible while they were fleeing.
Kabel wrote:
In BW, we saw this general relationship:
Zealots > Hydras
Hydras > Dragoons
Lurkers > Zealots
Dragoons > Lurkers
I think lurkers only ruled over zealots because detection could be denied and people wouldn't always spread their zealots enough before engaging, so more zealots would be hit than was necessary.
I know it's more complicated than this but 1 Lurker cost 125/125 while a Zealot + HT cost 150/150, a zealot beats a lurker one on one and the storm can make sure the lurker is far, far closer to death before the zealot engages, so even with some free hits against the zealot, I really don't think it was ever so clear-cut as "Lurkers > Zealots", even as a general relationship.
Minus suffering excessive free hits (e.g. romp into a field of MANY lurkers without first using any storms), zealots were much more cost efficient against lurkers than dragoons were, which is probably why having a mixture usually seemed to work best.
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Hey, Kabel! You know that pink SCV glitch I showed you a while ago? Whenever I try to load this replay, SC2 loads with bright fuchsia SCVs, freezes and crashes. SC2 version is updated to latest patch, of course.
EDIT: You're aware that by using Swarm Queens instead of Queens, they are now armoured, right? That was intentional?
All the constantly slowed movement from units getting behind other units (even their own type) is very odd to watch. Is there some micromanagement to avoid that, other than sending one unit at a time?
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@Creeper model
Ah damnit your right, it has no team color >_<
As usual when it comes to the graphic stuff, I only use what is in the editor or stuff I find on fan sites. (Like models from sc2mapster.com) But I will see if I can find something better. (I have no idea how to make fancy new models)
@Lurkers
They will not get any change in the coming patch that will soon be uploaded.
@Starbow Wiki
GamanNo will help me to update the Wiki. It will be done now in the coming week probably.
@Bug when loading the replay
No idea what causes it. O_o
Maybe you need to be logged in to EU to be able to watch it, since the Starbow MOD-file is not uploaded to the NA or SEA server.
@Small value bugs in units
Stuff like the Queen armor class, and similar misses, are found all the time.
When HoTS came out, I and XiA rebuilt Starbow from scratch.
I surely missed some stuff when I ported over the stats.
@Swarm Queen
I use the Swarm Queen model because it had already replaced the ordinary Queen.
I use HoTS Campaign dependencies, which means I get acess to more content.
But that also replaces some of the normal HoTS Melee stuff.
Since the Starbow Queen is quite different from normal SC2 Queen, I decided to let a new model represeant it.
(Maybe it should be armored though.. hmm?)
@Movement speed value changes
I think it is due to the movement system December implemented. He can surely give you a better answear than I can on this matter.
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New patch
Terran
Reaper damage lowered to 3x2 vs all, 5x2 vs light. (From 3x2 vs all, 6x2 vs light.)
Attack speed cooldown increased to 1.3. (From 1.2)
(This gives them slightly more DPS than the HoTS Reaper.)
Reaper splah upgrade now lets them deal extra dmg vs structures. (Same dmg as their light bonus)
Dropships now unload units faster.
Protoss
Photon Cannons attack cooldown increased to 2 seconds. (From 1.5)
They still get the same % boosted attack speed from Chrono Boost.
Dark Templars are not cloaked when warped in.
Warp Prism speed increased to 3.75 with the speed upgrade. (Up from 3.6.. Lets them have same speed as Scourge)
Charge costs 100/100 to research. (150/150 earlier)
Charge now lasts 5 seconds and has a 10 second cooldown. (Earlir it lasted 4 seconds and had 8 seconds cooldown.)
Blink cooldown lowered to 12 seconds. (From 20 seconds.) (Remember, Stalkers are weaker now.)
Observer has a new ability called "Phase Shield"... (Ughh,,, My imagination for names..) When activated, the Observer will not be auto-attacked by enemy units or static defence, unless they target fire it. Activation lasts 30 seconds. Cooldown 60 seconds. (This allows P to scout "into the darkness." Especially useful vs Tanks/Turrets, or Hydra/Lurkers/Overseers who always just auto-kill the Observer.
Zerg
Lurkers now get bonus from upgrades.
Banelings now deal 20 dmg vs all, +15 vs light, +60 vs structures. (Down from 40 vs all, 80 vs structures)
Upgrades now increases dmg by +2 vs all and vs light, +5 vs structures. ("Normal values")
Overseer can now drop a Changeling. Requires a Lair or Hive.
Spore Crawler deal +15 dmg vs biological units. (Mutas.....)
Other thoughts:
The gas income has been decreased so it is now closer to the 7-per-trip income we've had in the game the last months.
I've fixed some bugs. (There are still some more to fix.)
>>>+ Show Spoiler +
I did not do anything to the Turret.
I did not do anything to the Spine Crawler.
I did not do anything to the Lurker.
I did not change the number of Queens a Zerg can have. (Still only 1 per Hatchery.)
I did not change the high ground system bonus. (Still 50%)
I did not rework Corsair vs Muta interaction.
I did not rework the Sentinel. (But it will come in the future.)
We've discussed these topics, but maybe changes will come with the next patch after this one.
I think this was all.
We've got a new map in the pool too. <---- No we do not because B.net is strange and does not allow me to upload it.
I'll be online at 19.00 CET, in case anyone wanna play.
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@Creeper model, fair enough, although I have to say (already have once maybe?), I reeeally prefer the original BW scourge model too.
Most of the people playing Starbow are aware that they now deal splash damage and the description of the unit should say so, so we shouldn't need to worry about people getting confused about scourge them having splash without looking like banelings.
@Glitch, yeah was thinking it might be to do with the server, but I just successfully watched the Azelja vs Xiphias PvZ from around the same time. #_#
I'll make mention if it turns out that was the cause for the glitch in that replay though.
@Swarm Queen
Mostly, I've been against Queens being armoured, but it's not like Marauders or Immortals are present in Starbow, so perhaps it wouldn't be so drastic a "change" to keep them as Armoured (as they are now). Is there anything that deals much more damage to Armoured units that might have an undesirable effect on its strength vs Queens?
Totally should revert to the awesome, standard lurker attack sound from BW though, in my opinion.
EDIT Question: Do banelings affected by nerve jammer still deal damage to nearby enemy units if they are killed by enemy units (rather than dying from attacking an enemy)?
"Blink cooldown lowered to 12 seconds" <- Cool.
"The gas income has been decreased so it is now closer to the 7-per-trip income we've had in the game the last months." <- Cool, there was too much surplus gas, but what do you mean by 'closer to'? Is it now 7 per trip or do they take longer to mine it?
"I did not do anything to the Lurker." <- Technically untrue now that they benefit from upgrades. :Þ
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@Banelings
Not sure. Need to try it.
@Gas
The time it takes to harvest gas has been delayed by 0.75 seconds.
With 7 gas per trip one worker gathers: 76,36 gas per minute <--- (This we had in the game for ca last two months!)
With 8 gas per trip PLUS the extra 0.75 second delay, one worker gathers: 76,8 gas per minute.
With 8 gas per trip one worker gathers 87,27 gas per minute (What we had before this patch.)
@Lurker
True ^^
@Unit sounds
I generally try to not import too much BW aestethic stuff, like sounds. It clutters the file size too much. Sc2BW does a much better job at bringing back the nostalgic BW feeling. But I am willing to make an exception for the awesome Lurker attack sound.. ^^
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Russian Federation216 Posts
On June 24 2013 21:42 Hider wrote:
I agree here, and to be honest, both charge and stim are braindead decisions.
...
By giving it a tradeoff, we could make the charge effect significantly stronger (without making it OP). I suggest the following changes to charge;
this is up to kabel since
- scbw charge exists to buff zealots lategame overall and make them be able to kill hydras
- sc2 charge for buff them lategame in battles
- starbow charge exists for?
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@Charge
The purpose is still the same. The execution is just different.
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@ patch. Coll stuff and congrats on vulture icon
@ High ground. Please, do not change 50% Sure, we can have 50% reduction instead of 50% miss chance (put I prefer the miss chance), but no 30% crap. Starbow is about position, not who has the biggest army. (Unless it's REALLY big )
One thing to keep in mind: I know some of you feel that the miss chance adds an element of randomness that should not be in a RTS like this, but probability is not very probable when the data sample is big. How many ranged units fire in one game? It pans out even very fast, and it adds an element of excitement with the small skirmishes imo.
But if any change is to come. It should not effect the overall damaged reduction (In other words, only change it to 50% reduction and not some other , if there is to be a change, please)
And, no point in queens having armor. They are buffed enough as they are already. But it probably won't make a huge difference one way or the other at this point.
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I thought making Queens Armoured (they currently are, in Starbow, by accident) instead of [None/Medium] as in SC2 would make them weaker, if anything. :Þ
I just want to add...Guardians so weak T__T.
The speed is good for more micro than you could before but I don't see how they're a good answer to anything (including mech) unless the enemy does something like...fail to get any vikings/scouts/goliaths with Charon Boosters.
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Unit test map "StarbowTester" Updated!
I think that queen should be classified armored with 1 armor. This change is userfull for make queen more good vs corsair opening, but more fragile vs scout (using corsair graviton beam).
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@PvZ
We played six PvZ today. P lost all of them. Z just look so strong and has the command.
Three replays:
http://drop.sc/345761 - Mutas around 7 minute. Protoss can not handle it.
http://drop.sc/345762 - Mutas around 7 minute. Protoss barely survives. 30 minute game. Quite good.
http://drop.sc/345763 - Hydra/Lurker early. Mutas later in the game.
Zerg can get Mutas out at around the seven minute mark. OR get Hydra/Lurkers. Both are very strong and deadly. It is hard for Protoss to be prepared for both. Especially if the scouting Probe is denied.
If P goes Stalkers and Corsairs, he will die to Hydra push.
If P goes Zealot / Reaver, he will die to Mutas.
If P mixes units, he will die to everything. :p
If P places Cannons everywhere he might be safe... and we get a boring game.
Note that PvT feels quite good. No apparent balance concerns at least.
Some potential balance adjustements:
- Re-boost Stalker dmg to 12 vs light, 14 vs all, 16 vs armored. (It is currently reduced by 1.)
- Reduce the cost of Stalker range from 150/150 to 100/100. Increase BT to 140 seconds instead of 110.
(This would make Stalkers more useful vs both Hydras and Mutas. It might help to promote early game pressure vs T too. Maybe it breaks PvP?)
- Reduce Stalker build time by a few seconds.
- Rework Corsairs so few are able to engage a large clump of Mutas. Right now the early Corsairs ALWAYS die by the Mutas when they start to shoot.
- Nerf Mutalisks attack cooldown. (This would make them worse in straight up fight, but better at hit-and-run combat)
- Make Lair take 25 additional seconds to upgrade. (Seems like Mutas can come out very early in ZvT and ZvZ too.)
- Remove Charge ability and add a permanent speed upgrade. (Yes, I can see you all smiling now...... >.<)
- Lower tech cost for Protoss buildings by 50 minerals.
- Add something useful to the Sentinel. (I am working on it!)
Stalkers are able to be quite versatile vs Zerg. Both good vs Mutas and Hydras. But NOT the best option vs both!
Instead Corsairs and Archons "should" be better than Stalkers vs Mutas,
Zealots / Reaver "should" be the stronger option vs Hydras.
Otherwise we will get a situation where the Stalker is the only unit Protoss need. And we have been there before...
But atm Stalkers feel very bad vs both Hydra and Mutas!
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Zerg can get Mutas out at around the seven minute mark. OR get Hydra/Lurkers. Both are very strong and deadly. It is hard for Protoss to be prepared for both.
If P goes Stalkers and Corsairs, he will die to Hydra push.
If P goes Zealot / Reaver, he will die to Mutas.
If P mixes units, he will die to anything.
If P places Cannons everywhere he might be safe... and we get a boring game.
I think optimal response is like FE into 3/4 gate + twilight (for blink) + constant blink stalker production. Then take a 3rd around the 10 minute mark or so (when blink is done). Cut probes at like 30 or so if you see the zerg player going for quick lair.
Your unit count should be able to hold off both the lurker and muta timings. If you scout hydras + lair you probably skip blink and go for robo tech instead.
But regardless, I think the toss will get behind as the zerg will just take a 4th around the time the toss takes a 3rd, and the zerg is really free to drone up as long as he keeps up his muta count.
To fix this problem, I think we need to make several small changes which combined will lead to a drastic nerf for zerg;
First of all lair research time must go op - 8 minute in your base mutas will probably always be imba and it just creates a kind of gameplay where the opponent can't attack at any point in the game. I suggest adding +30 seconds there.
Secondly, a lower build time of stalkers will be helpfull in two ways; 1) Create early game timings (something like 2 zealot + 2 stalker pressure) which will force the zerg player to get more lings out faster which will reduce the future muta count, and 2) obv. make any kind of muta opening less efficient as the stalker count will be slightly higher.
3) Reduce cost of tech structures - Reducing cost of stargate, robo and staprort will create a much less punishing game. At the moment I think neither of these tech structures are optimal to get before you have secured your 3rd. Reducing the cost of these structures will make the punishment of teching less severe (and obv. will make it easier to respond to mutas by getting vikings/corsairs out), which will reward players for doing a variety of builds rather than just focussing on getting core units out early game.
4) Some kind of moving shot to corsairs so they can deal with mutas.
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Units moving slowly when behind each other
This is absolutely intentional.
This is the sole reason WHY Starbow pathing is so good.
We don't have a-move deathballs and super clumps because of this.
Moving squads (in terms of marines) of around 14-20 is way more efficient than groups past that number.
What effect on gameplay does this produce? Micro'ing your basic unit formations is a lot more important than it was in SC2. Auto surround isn't as super anti micro. Setting up attacks requires more micro and thought.
SC2 basically crushed unit how you could micro even the most basic of units by more than just pulling back and kiting.
It isn't quite BW, but at least it is a step.
The movement system also looks a lot less silly than anything we've tried before.
Corsair vs muta
Haven't had time to build new micro or numbers for this, but here is whats wrong.
What is the problem now?
1.Corsair shoots too fast dealing too few damage (3-4 vs 5-6 ish of BW, can't remember stats off my head). It is inefficient to try to trade blows with mutas.
2. Corsairs spread way too big. This is 3 range vs 5. This allows only the back two corsairs to shoot at the mutas if they are kited perfectly. That would take forever and a day to kill mutas because mutas also spready pretty nicely as well.
3. Mutalisk range slop is 2.
MUtalisk range is 3. Corsair range is 5. Sounds like you should be able to just kite is easier than banshees vs marines ya?
Wrong. Mutalisks have range slop of 2. This number means that if a mutalisk can target a corsair in range 3, it can keep shooting till range 5. Where is 5 familiar? Oh corsair range. If corsairs make a single mistake trying to run away and shoot mutas they will die.
Corsairs are barely faster than muta, they will stay in range 5 of mutas for a while when running away.
Corsair moving shot: This is already in and very easy to do. Easier than BW actually. The above factors are what cause corsairs to suck at pretending to be phoenixes.
Charge Idea
I had an idea for this a while ago.
It helps differentiate from stim, while encouraging careful use instead of brain dead use.
It essentially would charge your zealot to wherever you click. As in, the SC2 style charge.
If you have a group of zealots, you could charge right on up to hydralisks to get in melee range.
If you have a BIG group of zealots and you charge into one spot you are being really inefficient. Yes you got closer to the enemy, but charge the middle sections of zealots to the middle, the flank to the flanks of the enemy and you are in much greater shape.
It hopefully should promote accuracy and fast decision making. Vs mech you'd rather charge small groups of zealots to the enemy tanks at a time. Charge them in one big group is just asking to get splashed to all hell.
One potential concern I have an answer: "Doesn't this punish zealots compared to the old styles of pure movement speed charges?"
I'm not entirely convinced this would be the case.
Moving your entire group of charge lots in a ball a-moving is already pretty damn inefficient. Not sure if charging to a location would be much more inefficient. AI takes over for automatic splitting units across multiple targets a little sooner than the target charge would.
In both cases you'd rather send zealots in smaller groups.
But with this ability you'd actively want to charge each group separate places instead of just hitting a "zealots, ENGAGE!" button like stim is. Blink requires targeting and consideration to where things are located. Even stim does. Current charge, not too sure on that one.
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I'm surprised P's are having such problems. When we had the gas nerf zealots were often seen just breaking through lurkers. I think charge might have been a big factor here.
Zealots would always just run up and punch the hydras to death and still be so tanky they could finish the lurkers off too.
I'd say storm as your most definite answer towards countering lurkers but that comes a lot later.
Tricky because TvZ will be influenced if you make any minor changes to Z.
Could it be the larva buff that is giving Toss such a hard time?
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On June 25 2013 08:16 decemberscalm wrote:
I'm surprised P's are having such problems. When we had the gas nerf zealots were often seen just breaking through lurkers. I think charge might have been a big factor here.
Zealots would always just run up and punch the hydras to death and still be so tanky they could finish the lurkers off too.
I'd say storm as your most definite answer towards countering lurkers but that comes a lot later.
Tricky because TvZ will be influenced if you make any minor changes to Z.
Could it be the larva buff that is giving Toss such a hard time?
I don't really think this has that much to do with charge. Its the fact that zerg can finish lair at the 6 minute mark (or so) and then follow up with two responses (lurkes or mutas), which require a complete different unit composition from the protoss opponent. For instance if you get an early robo, you just got build order countered by a muta opening. You can only hold off a muta opening if you go for heavy gate + blink and stargate + stalker I think. But the latter just outright loses to various hydra timings. And the problem is that the zerg player can hit every single timing in the world. If he sees X he can make a an 09:30 timing attack. He sees Y he delays the push to a 10:30 attack etc.... The zerg has every single opportunity throughtout the early and midgame to make the life as protoss almost impossible.
And both hydras and mutas can contain the protoss player for a significant time which delays the timing that the protoss can take a 3rd which due to the way the starbow eco works is a gigantic punishment.
Regarding corsair redesign - I agree with Sumadin here, and I think the easy solution is to just bring in the phoenix. It works pretty decently in HOTS, though some of the dynamic in HOTS arises due to the corrupter syngergizing with the mutalisk. Not sure whether scourge + muta vs phoenix can be just as interesting an dynamic.
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EPT
