|
On July 06 2013 18:20 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 17:58 Big J wrote:On July 06 2013 04:12 Hider wrote:I agree with a lot of your analysis, especially the ZvP part. Yet I'm not completely sold that there isn't just a very standard way to play a very dynamic PvZ as a Protoss with a corsair opening with a lot of zealots and an decently timed third. And then transition into whatever you want/need.
As I said yesterday, Zerg and Protoss are two races that are hard to matchup by unit design on the ground. Zerg is just way superior in terms of mappresence and I don't see how to change that, given that we don't cut the zealot and/or the stalker and start from scratch with basic unit design. However, zerg can be pressured in the air (the overlord dynamic makes this a really potent playstyle vs zerg - and corsairs cut one of the strongest zerg options in form of the mutalisk just out of the gameplay).
I'd encourage all Protoss players to explore the viability of such a playstyle where you open up with a small amount of corsairs (and scouts?) that is just good enough to harass and scout and see whether it is possible to hold a third with it. Before we make final calls on the state of the matchup without bigger changes.
I agree, I just see it this way; There should be two overall styles for protoss to play in PvZ. The corsair one as you mentioned which grants protoss map control, and the gateway heavy style as I talked about in this post. I don't really understand the corsair balance well enough to comment on that one, but I think there are problems with the gateway heavy style which IMO needs to be reworked.
To suggested units in specific. My main problem with those units is, that they fill roles that are already filled - just that the units that are currently in that spot (marine, ghost, stalker, reaver) have vulnerabilities that you want to overcome. Rightfully so. However, the current unit setup doesn't feel like it needs those units for other reasons than balance. F.e I think a marauder would be more interesting, if the marine was a specialized antilight unit. The Immortal would be more interesting if it wasn't just another beefy ranged Protoss unit with different damage.
I don't think that either the immortal or the maurauder will be that interesting in them selves. I can see potential for target firing and a bit extra micro, but overall, the unit control experience won't drastically improve for either the protoss nor the terran player. But what instead can happen, if we balance things accordingly, is a much more fundamentally sound gameplay. Further, I don't think that anything will be taken away from anyone; Protoss will still have the strong gateway army they want, but terran players also have the midgame (but not lategame) viability of bio that they want. When that is said, I am a bit confused from the comments. The marine would be more interesting if it was antilight with the maurauder as anti-armored, but applying the same concept to the stalker and the immortal makes them uninteresting? But please take away from my post, that this isn't about "unit design" in it self, but a lot more about "match up design" (is it fun to play for both races + spectators to watch?). The difference between marine as antilight + marauder as antiarmored and stalker as antilight + immortal as antiarmored is for me, that marine+marauder would be the core bio composition. They are the biounits you build to fullfill core combat roles and nothing else.Unlike marines and marauders which have to be capable of combating most things on their own, stalkers and immortals are not the end all solutions of their respective techpaths. The Stalker and the Immortal both share their roles with a long list of Protoss ground combat units that you already mix into the ground composition. Reaver and Archon are both kind of similar to immortal and stalker - apart from the higher tech requirements, they fullfill core ranged combat roles. The zealot also plays a role in this, as it is a core combat unit and quite a strong counter to certain units in itself, while synergizing well with ranged combat units to begin with. Therefore, I find it hard to see the real need for another Protoss core unit in the immortal, especially from the gateway. I rather have the feeling that there are at least 3 other units - namely I could give solutions for the Archon, the Sentinel and the Reaver, but other people may also come up with solutions for other units - that could be adapted to fill the same hole in Tier 2 unit balance without giving Protoss another situational combat unit. About the unit design: I just believe that you can have all of what you write in matchup dynamics from a marauder/immortal that are interesting in itself as well. I see reavers and HT/archons as something completely different. They are the late midgame/late game units which makes the protoss army less immobile than bio/zerg lair, but increases their cost efficiency in the late game. They are very to provide an incentive for the bio + zerg player to army trade/harass so he the protoss player doesn't have an easy time teching to them. The ultralisk/infestor combo in HOTS gives terran bio the same incentive. Terran in HOTS benefits quite a bit from army trading against the zerg player which creates so much action. But unlike in HOTS, the current protoss gateway unit lineup against zerg isn't strong enough for army tranding to be "fair". But instead of nerfing the zerg players tools of army trading (which would reward stalemales), I suggest we add the immortal to the game, which will make it possible for us to balance the PvX matchups in a much more healthy way. If for instance we had just buffed the stalker and the zealot straihgt up by like 10-15%, then that would likely have had severe uninteded conseqences for the PvT matchup. However, with the immortal in the game, we can make the stalker better vs hydras (and mutas) while maintaing/improving balance in PvT. The immortal simply gives us the chance to design all of the matchups in a healthy way, and that's why I believe it is needed. So to sum up; 1) Protoss gateway + sentinel is the midgame army which should be significantly buffed vs zerg. 2) Reaver + HT/Archon are the later game units which gives an incentive for the zerg to armytrade against the protoss player. Thus units scale better in larger numbers. 3) Teching super early (say pre 12-13) minute mark to thus late game units shouldn't be viable as protoss as it will take away midgame action by providing a too strong defenders advantage too early in the game for the protoss player. I imagine that if gateway units are buffed in the matchups by 10-15% and BT/cost of reaver tech is unchanged, then players will just have an easier time teching to reavers on 3 bases while making sure that the zerg can't really army trade efficiently. Therefore the key is to make the tech cost very expensive/risky to do on 2-3 bases and instead make it possible for protoss to stay longer on gateway + sentinel units. Coming to think about it: Making the immortal more gas-intensive might be the simplest way to delay the viability of teching to reavers + HT's.
I guess we really do see it differently. For me the biggest reason to attack is not that I want to army trade or something like that, it is that I simply have the opportunity to do so with less on the line than my opponent. Like, right now in Starbow ZvP, it is simply a clever move to attack as Zerg because you get stuff done. In HotS TvZ, there is little drawbacks to attacking due to the baneling/marine dynamic.
I think it is less the need of trading, than simply the opportunity to win (or at least take control of the game) that lets people attack. Drastically speaking, an attacker can win the game right at that point, a defender cannot.
I believe the Protoss midgame combat options in ZvP don't lack raw power - if you make enough zealots - but it lacks versatility and tries to make up for it by overbuilding versatility (stalkers) and than overteching power (reavers). I don't believe the problem is the stalker. It's more that the stalker is the only gateway unit early on that even has a GtA attack and therefore the only unit that is reasonable against the threat of mutalisks if you go for gateway-->robo. And I believe that this is all solveable without introducing another unit.
Also to the last part, I believe that I'm not the only one that really wants reaverdrops to be viable rather early and therefore it should be considered as a backbone of the Protoss army in the midgame in all cases.
Three different solutions that could just do that (bah... I'm doing it again, suggesting stuff before I'm even sure it is needed  ):
- The "adjust balance to desired gameplay": Reavers don't require the robotics support bay anymore. A big amount of their damage gets rolled into the upgrade, leaving it with something like 40+10vs light and a small detonation radius (instead of 80+20 vs light) before the Plasma Charge Upgrade.
- The "doesn't the Archon do what Protoss needs in the midgame?": Archons are now available at Twilight Council. In particular, Dark Templar requirement is now the Twilight Council. Their cloaking requires a Templar Archive.
That way Protoss has a strong antimutalisk unit that is also a strong combat unit.
- The "Sentinel" option: Basically just give the Sentinel a spell that is strong vs a lot of Zerg midgame options at once. Some ideas from the top of my head for that (some recycled ones):
- Similar to my old "turn Stalker into Immortal spell for some time". Just a spell that adds damage/HP to a targeted ground unit for some time. Like 25energy, +40HP +5damage per attack for 20seconds. Works on any Protoss ground unit.
- Reflecting Shields spell, 25energy: Lasts 10seconds. The next 5 projectiles hit their their source. (doesn't work on nonprojectile attacks like reaver, lurker, siege tank, marine, zealot, zergling...)
The idea behind this spell is that by setting an amount of projectiles, it doesn't scale with its target (so it's not better to cast it on a reaver, than on a probe or zealot). But it would help greatly vs hydralisks and even more vs mutalisks. Like mutalisks try to harass a mineral line with a probe in it that has the reflecting shield on it. Now if any one of the bounces hits the probe, the probe returns a full mutalisk attack with all the bounces.
E.g. 3mutalisks attack 3probes with reflecting shield. Damage to the probes = 0, damage to the mutalisks = (10+5+3)*3 on every mutalisks, for 5attacks.
If it is too in AtA combats (like devourer or viking attacks), only make the spell targetable on ground units.
- A good defensive nullward trap spell. Like slow + small DoT gets applied when it detonates, or just make it a static/timed life trap that slows units in it and does damage to moving targets in an area around it. Should be pretty good as mineral line protection as well as against busts.
I understand that "just adding an Immortal" maybe the easiest solution, but it may not be the cleanest one, it also may require changes to the stalker (which may then again cause much more severe imbalances in early rushes than stuff like the above suggestions which could also cause imbalances like early reavers or early archons). It may not even be a solution, if the immortal needs to be balanced in a way (e.g. due to zealot/immortal rushing) that you cannot support enough stalkers again.
|
I really don't understand how this Sbow immortal will help at all if it is on the robo. Is not the whole point to be able to nerf the stalker? Make it more spezelised? Make it light and fast with a longer range (not super-long) and a good blink ability? It should be the "mutalisk" of protoss. If so, we need a beefy, though unit that can help put on pressure early. You'd need about 3 robo's to do that, and they would come too late imo. Put it all on the gateway and the warp-gate, I don't really see a problem in that. Warp-in cooldown is still 10 sec longer than unit build time.
They main problem with the stalker is that it really is two units in one. It is both the light, fast, mobile stalker of sc2 and the beefier, dragoon of BW. But it had the best traits of both. InWe could, ofc, mkae the stalker weaker and add the dragoon, but that would make them too similar imo. The immortal is pretty close, and something sc2 players can familiarize themselves with.
Now, one more thing. I am not overzealous to see the immortal in sc2, but the protoss core needs some rework. If someone can make the protoss core units reworked to fit what we need without adding the immortal, I am all ears!
|
I think it is less the need of trading, than simply the opportunity to win (or at least take control of the game) that lets people attack. Drastically speaking, an attacker can win the game right at that point, a defender cannot.
Obviously you have a point: If you can engage wihtout any risk (always have the opportunity to retreat) then you are more inclined to attack. But in the end it is a combination: For instance if you know that your units would scale much better than your opponent units, then you would be less inclined to army trade.
On the other hand, if you know your opponent would have a really strong army if you didn't do damage within the next couple of minutes, you would be more likely to attack.
Here is one clear scenario very relevant for ZvP:
What is the best scenario for the zerg player;
Scenario 1: Zerg has 16 mutalisks. Protoss has 20 Stalkers on 3 bases, with 2 cannons in each mineral line.
Scenario 2: Zerg has 7 mutalisks. Protoss has 10 Stalkers on 3 bases, no cannons on each mineral line.
Scenario 2 is much better for the zerg player as it is almost impossible to defend multiple locations with so few stalkers. So with zerg you are rewarded for keeping unit count relatively low for both players and making it dififcult for the protoss player to get a critical mass of blink stalkers + reavers.
So it obviously isn't just variable. There are different variables.
In the end, you weight the benefits of armytrading against the expected cost efficiency.
Risk-free engagements (aka map control) allows you to choose more carefully when you want to engage, and increases the costefficiency.
So lets say put up a short formula with random values from the zerg POV (just to illustrate the point).
Defenders advantage = -12
Benefit of army trading = 5
Expected cost effiiency in a "straight up fight" = 10
Value of taking an engagement as zerg = 5 + 10 - 12 = 3
Thus the zerg in the above scenario, will be kinda rewarded for engaging and we should expect to see a decent amount of action (since 3 > 0).
If we buffed reavers then for instance, then the benefit of army trading around the 10-14 minute mark (before reavers are out) would increase further (let's say from 5 to 7)
New value = 7 + 10 -12 = 5.
If on the other hand, reavers became easier to get (no robo bay requirement), it would make it much less efficient to engage with hydra/lurkers (around the 10-14 minute mark). This would further reduce defenders advantage (let's say from -12 to -15), and it would also reduce expected cost efficiency in a straight up fight from 10 to 5.
Thus the new value would look like this; -15 +5 +5 = -5
Thus the latter change would likely be extremely unproductive at creating engagements. It's possible though that it may reward more multitasking, but overall, this isn't the correct change IMO.
I understand that "just adding an Immortal" maybe the easiest solution, but it may not be the cleanest one, it also may require changes to the stalker (which may then again cause much more severe imbalances in early rushes than stuff like the above suggestions which could also cause imbalances like early reavers or early archons). It may not even be a solution, if the immortal needs to be balanced in a way (e.g. due to zealot/immortal rushing) that you cannot support enough stalkers again.
Well, the immortal at gateway/warpgate allows us to change the stalker. We can't actually change the stalker as much as we want if this type of unit isn't implemented. But yes of course there can be uninteded consequences, but thus can likely be fixed. If we look at ZvP at the moment, stalkers aren't that strong early early game, and even with a +4 buff to light units, i doubt it will break anything. But rather it will allow early zealot + stalker pressure to be a bit stronger (which is a good thing IMO).
In PvT, it could be really good indeed, though obviously terrans can still scout and report, and get 1-2 early maurauders vs stalker pressure. Even if you go mech this might be a decent idea.
|
On July 06 2013 20:58 Xiphias wrote:
I really don't understand how this Sbow immortal will help at all if it is on the robo. Is not the whole point to be able to nerf the stalker? Make it more spezelised? Make it light and fast with a longer range (not super-long) and a good blink ability? It should be the "mutalisk" of protoss. If so, we need a beefy, though unit that can help put on pressure early. You'd need about 3 robo's to do that, and they would come too late imo. Put it all on the gateway and the warp-gate, I don't really see a problem in that. Warp-in cooldown is still 10 sec longer than unit build time.
They main problem with the stalker is that it really is two units in one. It is both the light, fast, mobile stalker of sc2 and the beefier, dragoon of BW. But it had the best traits of both. InWe could, ofc, mkae the stalker weaker and add the dragoon, but that would make them too similar imo. The immortal is pretty close, and something sc2 players can familiarize themselves with.
Now, one more thing. I am not overzealous to see the immortal in sc2, but the protoss core needs some rework. If someone can make the protoss core units reworked to fit what we need without adding the immortal, I am all ears!
My point is to have a counter for stalkers in PvP that doesn't involve Blink tech. Meaning to get it you would need to go into another tech route, forcing variation. And in other matchups there are no need for an anti-armored unit that early anyway. Neither Terran nor Zerg have a T1 unit that is armored(aside from Queens but that is non-relevant.), so there would be no reason for getting early Immortals anyway. At least not atm.
Something I think we could try is to add observers to the core of Protoss. Compared to current SC2 we haven't just mutilated the early scouting options of protoss, we have completely obliterated it. No phoenix Halu, no mothership core, no nothing.
If we added observers early in the game it would allow protoss to be less coinflippy and allow protoss to select the right countertech. I think the best place would be the Nexus with the requirement of a cybernetics core. Thoughts?
|
Here is one clear scenario very relevant for ZvP:
What is the best scenario for the zerg player;
Scenario 1: Zerg has 16 mutalisks. Protoss has 20 Stalkers on 3 bases, with 2 cannons in each mineral line.
Scenario 2: Zerg has 7 mutalisks. Protoss has 10 Stalkers on 3 bases, no cannons on each mineral line.
Scenario 2 is much better for the zerg player as it is almost impossible to defend multiple locations with so few stalkers. So with zerg you are rewarded for keeping unit count relatively low for both players and making it dififcult for the protoss player to get a critical mass of blink stalkers + reavers.
I have to say I don't like that example too much. Like, you are right with what you say, but you disregard that a 3base Protoss is very likely capable to warp in 5+ stalkers at any of his nexi if it is unprotected, and then the other scenario would actually be better, because 16mutas ca easily take on 5stalkers, 7 no so much.
But there are obvious reasons why the zerg might want a Protoss army to be kept low, like production and rangeadvantages from the Protoss which probably favors lowtier Protoss units over lowtier Zerg units in bigger engagements. But that doesn't really convince me to trade, as a Zerg is often just capable of switching into a more efficient army for the task at hand, and especially as I don't max out in starbow, I don't need to get rid of units to do so.
Generally, I think you are overestimating the incentive of "just don't let him get there". I think this is the last thing people will think about. E.g. if the reaver would get buffed a lot, my first thought would probably be:
I need to go more heavy into air when I see many reavers
If that doesn't work for some reason, my next idea would be reavers are slow, so I'm going to attack/counterattack him where he isn't.
Only if both of those ideas fail, I'd start trying to figure out a gameplan that forces my opponent away from such compositions. And to be frank, I believe that this third option should be rare in a well-designed strategy game, given we are not talking about ridicolous strategies such as 3base straight to air and stuff like that which is usually classified as nonviable.
I like your formula and it makes a lot of sense, but the detail where I just think differently is this one:
So lets say put up a short formula with random values from the zerg POV (just to illustrate the point).
Defenders advantage = -12
Benefit of army trading = 5
Expected cost effiiency in a "straight up fight" = 10
Value of taking an engagement as zerg = 5 + 10 - 12 = 3
Thus the zerg in the above scenario, will be kinda rewarded for engaging and we should expect to see a decent amount of action (since 3 > 0).
If we buffed reavers then for instance, then the benefit of army trading around the 10-14 minute mark (before reavers are out) would increase further (let's say from 5 to 7)
New value = 7 + 10 -12 = 5.
If on the other hand, reavers became easier to get (no robo bay requirement), it would make it much less efficient to engage with hydra/lurkers (around the 10-14 minute mark). This would further reduce defenders advantage (let's say from -12 to -15), and it would also reduce expected cost efficiency in a straight up fight from 10 to 5.
Thus the new value would look like this; -15 +5 +5 = -5
Edit: Read over the part that said "before a reaver is out". Still, I can't really see my incentive increasing to attack you before reavers are out unless it gets buffed to the point where I really don't have another option or unless we are in the current situation, where attacking pre-reaver is simply benefitial in itself.
Like, I don't see the benefit to keep your stalker count low changing from buffing the reaver. It looks for me like it would still be 5 + 10 - 12 = 3.
Generally speaking, I'd want those values to be roughly around 0 for the player with the better offensive army (so for one side it would be negative, yet the other one would not have a clear advantage due to defenders advantage) for big army engagements. That means the outcome of the combats can favor either party, depending on the engagement. On the same page, I want harassment to be slightly on the positive side like +3, to give people the incentive to harass.
And that's why I think an earlier reaver (not so much the earlier archon, though the uncloaked DTs might still be an interesting harassment, but not sure) provides that. It equalizes the current +3 for zerg to +/- 0 for head on engagements and takes away the intention to blindly attack as a zerg. But if the zerg does not build an army and attack, he is probably slightly ahead which gives the Protoss the incentive to put his reaver in a warp prism and harass (with a payoff of +3) if he does not get attacked. Which then means the zerg actually may still be able to get something done with an army, as the Protoss is lacking crucial parts of his defense, and you may be able to attack again with +3.
|
On July 07 2013 00:09 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 20:58 Xiphias wrote:
I really don't understand how this Sbow immortal will help at all if it is on the robo. Is not the whole point to be able to nerf the stalker? Make it more spezelised? Make it light and fast with a longer range (not super-long) and a good blink ability? It should be the "mutalisk" of protoss. If so, we need a beefy, though unit that can help put on pressure early. You'd need about 3 robo's to do that, and they would come too late imo. Put it all on the gateway and the warp-gate, I don't really see a problem in that. Warp-in cooldown is still 10 sec longer than unit build time.
They main problem with the stalker is that it really is two units in one. It is both the light, fast, mobile stalker of sc2 and the beefier, dragoon of BW. But it had the best traits of both. InWe could, ofc, mkae the stalker weaker and add the dragoon, but that would make them too similar imo. The immortal is pretty close, and something sc2 players can familiarize themselves with.
Now, one more thing. I am not overzealous to see the immortal in sc2, but the protoss core needs some rework. If someone can make the protoss core units reworked to fit what we need without adding the immortal, I am all ears!
My point is to have a counter for stalkers in PvP that doesn't involve Blink tech. Meaning to get it you would need to go into another tech route, forcing variation. And in other matchups there are no need for an anti-armored unit that early anyway. Neither Terran nor Zerg have a T1 unit that is armored(aside from Queens but that is non-relevant.), so there would be no reason for getting early Immortals anyway. At least not atm. Something I think we could try is to add observers to the core of Protoss. Compared to current SC2 we haven't just mutilated the early scouting options of protoss, we have completely obliterated it. No phoenix Halu, no mothership core, no nothing. If we added observers early in the game it would allow protoss to be less coinflippy and allow protoss to select the right countertech. I think the best place would be the Nexus with the requirement of a cybernetics core. Thoughts?
If stalkers are nerfed so that immortals can be the beefy one, how are protoss suppose to hold early mech agression before robo-tech? Immortals is not all about being anti-armoured, it is also about being a "tank". I kinda look at them as the "roaches" of protoss. Roaches are, after all, a much more protossish unit (in stats) than zerg.
|
Like some have already said: there are three options, ignore the economic problems and fix it with adding units, fix the economy system or do both. I'm of the opinion that the economic problems are too big to ignore and you will never be able to fix the problem purely with unitbalancing.
Now, you need to do A, but you can choose to add B, but B is an option that might throw the starbow development back by a few months, because adding 1 core unit into the game can have a huge impact and will require the whole early game to be rebalanced and figured out again.
So I suggest you just do A and see what happens, if the problems aren't fixed, then think about adding units.
To the argument that we need to have a variety of playstyles available for each matchup, i suppose you want all of them to equally strong and not be hardcounters, so... are you insane? This is not possible, every change you make to fix one matchup will create other problems in the other matchups. It is impossible to have 2 playstyles to be equally strong, else every race has to be designed the same.
PvP has only one strong and safe opening, reaverdrop. Aside from that it has some risky openings, like going for quick blink, but this makes you vulnerable to quick basic gateway pushes. Or you could do a quick stargate to blindcounter a reaveropening and try to snipe the warp prism. This creates the possibility to metagame the metagamer by going for quick dt's against someone that will go quick stargate. And so on...
The reason you mainly see the reaveropening is that we don't play best of X's, these are buildorders to get a quick win by outsmarting your opponent and gambling with openings, BUT a player that believes he is better than his opponent will usually choose for the safe opening and try to outplay their opponent ---> reaveropening.
My question is, why the fuck do we need 2 openings that are equally strong? if they are equally strong then there is no reason for both to attack as it doesn't give them any advantage in trading and stuff like that. So what's the point really. If there are 2 openings where 1 has an advantage, then why would you go for the other one? There is no point.
The problem of for example PvP is that it seems one-dimensional, they don't tend to last long, so it seems boring for a spectator, but why is this? Think further than gamedesign. We have a small player pool and PvP isn't really a matchup with a defender's advantage, this means that if one player plays better than the other player, he can capitalize on the mistakes the other player makes and keep pressing his advantage and thus finishing the game rather quickly. So the real reason you don't see a variaty of playstyles is that there are very few players of equal skill and even fewer games played between those who have about the same skill.
In a game between 2 equally skilled players, they would probably both open reaver to harass, then we would see a phase like banshee vs banshee in early tvt, the best multitasker would come out ahead. Let us assume they both deal equal blows to each other, now comes the moment for diversity. A player could choose to get a stargate to harass the enemy's warp prism, he could go blink and to take map control (allowing him to expand and possibly delaying the enemies expansion) and bolster his defenses against the enemies warp prism, he could try to go for a couple dt's and drop them to screw over the enemies multitasking and allowing him to trade well versus the enemies forces while the enemy has to split his attention, .... a lot of things are possible. Now why is this different from the early game? The reavers allow you to not die to something silly, the choices you make after the early game usually aren't game ending for either player because you already have an army to defend.
Now let us talk about the immortal you want to add, you don't want it to deal much damage, but be better versus armored than the stalker is and it needs to be beefy... the archon could fit this description easily, the reason no one gets them is because they are underpowered, few damage and classified as armored...due to some random terran having problems in tvp versus a-move tosses with zealot/archon. Let me break it to you, he woulda lost vs other stuff aswell, the archon wasn't that good versus mech, it never was. But this cry for nerf came from terrans that clustered 10 tanks at the same spot versus zealot/archon, OFCOURSE YOU AREN'T GONNA TRADE DECENTLY. The undeserved nerf the archon recieved in tvp made it bad in zvp, archons get raped easily by hydra's... wait what? Why should a tier 1 cheap, massable unit be countering a freeking high tech unit with splash damage? This makes no fucking sense.
So, if you want to change the toss line-up? Make the archon decent enough to mix in your army and your problem is solved, it fits the description of the unit you 'need'.
Another reason to not make this dynamic of marine counter vs light, marauder counter vs armored, stalker counter vs light, immortal counter vs armored is that it's fucking silly. If you choose to make only stalkers, you're gonna get pwnd by a mix of marines and marauders or pure marauders, the same applies to other one-dimensional openings. This means you'd always get a mix of the two, this could give some opportunity for some harder micro in early game, BUT once we're in midgame, you have too many units and thus shouldn't try to focustarget, because you could overkill with it, which is bad. So once we reach midgame, this just hasn't got any influence anymore, so my question is, what's the point? some cool (is it actually cool?) earlygame dynamic which might create more problems than it solves?
Adding the marauder is a different story, Why add marauders? This could help to deal with ultra's in zvt, but this can already be achieved by good micro with marine/medic (matrix) and you could create the problem that marauders counter ultra's too hard (WoL zvt), meaning that if the terran scans the hive and adds some marauders if he hasn't already got them ---> the zerg would never have a reason to try to go for ultra's.
The marauder could help bio in tvp, but it can't be as good as it is in sc2, because that would lead to a turtling toss until deathball is complete and then crush the bioforce. So ideally it would allow the terran to make small drops viable for a longer time. I say this is already possible with bio/mech. Only drops we have seen are one dropship with marines in it and maybe 1 or 2 medics, ofcourse this isn't gonna do a fuck in midgame, but why not drop the toss on 2 locations with 2 medivacs each with a siegetank, couple medics and some marines? now this is a force that can fight off warped in units, the marines can deal with zealots and the siegetank will be the support they need versus low counts of stalkers (focustargetting the siegetank with 6ish stalkers wont be viable due to matrix). Now this means the protoss needs his army to deal with the threat if he is caught offguard. --> the terran player has mapcontrol due to this threat, because the protoss will need to defend his expansions in the midgame. This creates opportunities to set up traps when the protoss army moves to deal with the drop, cutting off the way between the protoss army and his expansion. Bio + tanks setup on the map can be as strong as a meching terrans setup, IF you use terrain to your advantage (it's obvious to not setup where the enemy has 4 attack paths, you'll just get surrounded and dealt with) and IF you pre-spread your bio so some reavershots aren't gonna wipe out half of your bioforce. It is possible the protoss will deal with you in a time of 2ish minutes, BUT you have bought time for you drop to do a lot of damage if he chose to deal with your army ---> you took out an expansion while having the enemy on the defensive ---> economic advantage possible.
This is a much more interesting dynamic than what the marauder could bring imo, by far. I could write much more about this, but I have problems to write down the train of thought that is my brain.
Now for the economic problems, they could have a huge impact on zvp, for example, if i would be able to stay longer on 2 bases, then a corsair/warpprism with reavers would be actually viable, this would allow me to expand behind this and allow for lots of action during the game, and dance between hydra/muta/scourge and corsair/reaverdrop, a lot can happen between these compositions, i'm sure you can imagine some. This would immediately fix the zvp problems, as toss isn't forced to expand with few units and stay on the defencive for most of the game.
I could go on...
|
|
|
@Solid
I am honestly a bit confused by your post. I am not sure we are talking about the same things, or if we see the same problems.
- I do not intend to make every opening/play style equally strong...
- I do not ignore the economy. I even made a post about it earlier today, but no one has continued the discussion.
- No, rebalancing the Archon will not be enough to fix the problems I see in the PvT and PvZ dynamics in Starbow.
I trust you when you say you could go on. Imagine if we had this discussion in Warcraft 2. I am sure good players could write tons of reasons why the current units in WC2 is everything that is needed: how many different strategies can be done, how many build orders, how good the game already is, and how everything will be destroyed if something new is added.
Why would WC3 ever be needed when WC2 was deep enough?
Do you honestly see no potential at all if the Immortal or Marauder are added, in modified versions?
Would those units contribute to NOTHING good for the gameplay?
|
Nuturing Swarm might be a big contributer.
In both BW and SC2 you have real solid timings for when you know without a doubt what the fastest timings are for some things. This ability lets you tech up super quickly, letting you do things like get out mutas so fast there isn't anywhere close to enough time to respond to it.
Compare this to chronoboost. Sure it'll speed up the process of getting blink or charge timings, but actually getting the upgrade structures in the first place takes quite some time.
Just food for thought.
One thing also, we changed larva rate and then changed zealots+stalkers. Buff to zealots, nerf to stalkers.
The zealot buff got reverted.
Is there a reason for the larva buff to be in at all anymore?
As for economy, this is a huge can of worms.
On one hand SBOW has always historically had the whole, better return on minerals per trip, but less workers per base thing going for it.
I'm thinking a more BW/SC2 approach would be better. The dynamics of how each race gets their upgrades, productions, and expansions simply doesn't work well with 16 workers 8 min per trip.
I'd love to see something like tiered saturation up to 24 workers, less min per trip (in addition to nerfed gas) and find out which mix (and count) of mins+gold mins would lead to the desired game play.
Sure more bases, more spread out action, but that happens naturally as the game progresses, especially if the eco rewards taking expansions.
You should be rewarded for taking expansions, but not punished quite literally to death if you think its better to sit back for a little till you can sure more bases.
BW (and SC2 but not as much) rewards taking more base.
SBOW punishes for not taking more bases (ie in the form of no more minerals left to continue play).
This gives a 2 base Terran an actual chance to fight against a naturally 3 base Toss.
|
I do think there could be some real benefit if we did something like
Stalker= lighter harasser/skirmisher
Immortal=smaller than SC2 immortal, but the toss core ranged unit
Making the frontline combat agile and blinkable is just too much mobility for what it does.
|
My post is not directed to you kabel, sorry if it came across like that  , but i know your decisions are influenced by other players/spectators, there are many people with many opinions and i couldn't be bothered with quoting everyone everywhere. This is just my view on the problems, I know you do not ignore the economy, you've changed it and i already felt a huge difference, props!
I think it was hider that said that it isn't enough to fix the economy alone.
Sumadin about only 1 playstyle being available in pvp and that it's bad.
...
Just stuff I read and I give my opinion on them, trying to make you not follow those ideas when I do not agree with them. Changing the archon to armored was one of those things where i kept my mouth shut when i shouldn't have and I know that it will take me a while to convince you to revert that (I even doubt it will happen).
The main point about my huge rant is that some changes do more bad than good and i fear that adding the marauder will be such a thing. I haven't even fully convinced myself that the marauder will be bad, but there come up a lot of scenario's with marauders in my head that will fuck up the starbow feeling. It will either end up like the marauder in sc2 that will make marine/marauder viable all game long or it will end up as a second marine, I have a hard time to find a middle ground between the two.
About the immortal, I don't say it can't work out, but what I say is that adding that will change the core of protoss, protoss will have to be played completely different, all unit interactions will have to be rebalanced, whole new styles will have to be developed and tested out, ...
So I see it as throwing away something good we have now for something that could end up better or worse, but taking a huge investment regardless. So I say, stick to the good stuff we have at the moment.
People argue that the stalker is too strong, if you closely look at unit-interactions you can see that it's not true, it seems to be like that because stalkers make sure reavers and ht do their job.
Why don't i use zealots in my main army in pvz? Because I believe that fights vs hydra/lurker/scourge are a slow dance, you can't approach it like sc2, where you have a perfect engagement and win the fight in a couple seconds. You have to carefully pick away targets in range with your reavers while covering them with your stalkers, whenever there are scourge incoming or just hydra's moving in to try to snipe the warp prism you gotta react instantly and try to save the reavers. The stalkers also help you catch fleeing units. So long story short, zealots don't help me with that, they are only valuable to me to roam the map and kill expansions. The stalkers are just the core of my army that cover my tech-units and have a decent range.
I like this dynamic, where I can't just roll over the zerg, as you could see in my game vs hider, he was behind 50 supply for most of the game, but he stretched the game out for quite long, it took me quite some effort to kill him. I'm positive that he could've even swung the game in his favor if some things went differently. You can fight from behind. This is something that sc2 could never achieve, as a spectator, when you see the protoss ahead in supply versus a terran for example, you just know that it over, that a miracle has to happen for the terran to win.
But now something directly to you kabel, what do you define the archon's role at this moment?
edit: but yeah, reading my rant again it seems to be directed to you, but let me just tell you that it's not  . The 'you' in my post is the person's ideas i'm trying to refute(not sure if this is the right word).
|
@Solid
+ Show Spoiler +Glad to hear you are not angry. I don´t mind heated discussions, and I really try to be open to critique and peoples views, because I know that I can not make Starbow alone. We are many players involved, and it is important that we criticize and discuss different stand points. We all want the game to be as good as possible. I know many players have been upset and disapointed at me in the past, due to changes I have made. And it really is hard to make everyone happy and satisfied. : / I also understand that it is hard to follow the discussions in detail. There are generally a lot of long posts written every day. After all, we try to do something really hard: design and balance a complete game via text on a forum and in-game chats. (And people wonder why this takes so long to finish. ^^ ) Anyway, adding one or two additional units is indeed a risk to take. Starbow is quite good atm. Not perfect. But still entertaining to watch and play. Maybe will we "go back" in development. Maybe will it be better. All I can do is evaluate the possibilties, discuss with you all, and then make a final judgement if a change will improve the game or not. If it feels and looks solid in theory, I try it in reality. Look at any pro PvT in BW. Imagine if Dragoons had Blink. There is where we are today in Starbow. Can it be balanced? Sure. But it will be hard. Is it really a good foundation for the game, to have that design flaw constantly in the back head? So I do think there are possibilities in the Immortal. It can help to contribute to a better foundation for the game, and in the long run a better balance and funnier match-ups. (This is just what I see in it.) IF this unit gets added, I will try to be so careful as possible with the balance. The Marauder, however, am I a bit more doubtful about. I see some potential in it, but also some downsides with it. But it is late now so I will not write another novel about it. ^^ In the end, the only thing that matters is how it works in game. No matter how good the reasons are, or how good it looks in theory, if the stuff does not work or make sense in the game, then it must be scrapped. No excuses.
@Archon
+ Show Spoiler +The Archon might be too bad atm, and underused.
The reason I made it armored was due to the Hydralisk and Vulture vs Archon balance from BW.
In that game, all attacks made full damage to shields. Hydras did 10 per attack, Vultures did 20 per attack!
In Starbow, when Archons were not armored, Hydras, Vultures, Stalkers and Siege tanks did their LOWEST amount of damage vs them. Back then, we got the impression that Archons were just super strong vs everything.
So I looked at BW balance, and then copy + pasted it for Starbow. :p
So I am absolutely willing to rebalance them, if necessary!
I would say that the main purposes of the Archon is:
- Tank damage, due to having one of the highest life values in the game for that cost. (The size also makes them good for absorbing splash damage from Siege tanks.)
- Be a "wall" for Protoss, since it has a melee splash attack, it can fend off large amounts of Zerglings/Zealots and Marines.
It is a unique unit in a couple of ways:
- It comes into the game in a nice way (Two Templars morph)
- One of few melee units with a splash attack.
- It has a very large body, which makes it good for blocking ramps etc.
It is also a good example of an expensive late game unit who is able to slaughter low tier units very cost efficently. (Which it probably does not do very well atm, due to the balance.)
It does share some purposes and similarities with the role of the Zealot. But that is not a problem since they are so far apart in the tech tree, and still quite different.
I assume you wonder what the differences between an Archon and a potential Immortal would be? Why not only use the Archon?
- Immortal would be the Dragoon.
- Archon would be the Archon.
- Stalker would be the Stalker.
In fact, the three units exist in SC2. Do they feel like they overlap? Do they feel identical? Do they feel like they have a purpose in the game? If we manage to capture that feeling, and balance it into Starbow, then maybe can the game become better/deeper.
@Nurturing Swarm
+ Show Spoiler +For those who do not know, the Queen has three abilities she has had for many months now:
Inject a Hatchery so it spawns larvas 50% faster for 40 seconds.
Spawn a Creep tumor.
Nurturing Swarm - Heal 75 life on a building or unit. If used on a morphing building, it morphs a bit faster.
A long time ago I looked at the Queen, and I felt it offered very limited use to Zerg: Just keep it near the Hatchery. I wanted to give it some more type of base management ability, so it became more interesting how to use the energy. Make buildings morph faster felt quite simple, unqiue, Zergy and useful. It would allow Zerg to play around with timings and get tech / macro hatcheries faster into the game. Fun in "theory." Now it might bite me in the ass in reality, since we discover the game more and more, and unbalances unfold.
|
Why do goliaths do extra damage vs armored units? The problem I see with that is that it makes goliaths too good at just killing overlords super fast, which makes the mutalisks into overlord drop transition kinda bad. In BW they did the same damage vs everything
A long time ago I looked at the Queen, and I felt it offered very limited use to Zerg: Just keep it near the Hatchery. I wanted to give it some more type of base management ability, so it became more interesting how to use the energy. Make buildings morph faster felt quite simple, unqiue, Zergy and useful. It would allow Zerg to play around with timings and get tech / macro hatcheries faster into the game. Fun in "theory." Now it might bite me in the ass in reality, since we discover the game more and more, and unbalances unfold.
After the BT increases of spire and lair, I kinda like it now.
|
@Stalker blink
Since stalkers are strong like dragoons, have we considered moving blink to the DT? Coupling this with the dts at citadel with cloak upgrade at the dark shrine, might just make DTs a consistently viable but expensive way to harass. It would also give some depth to the DT. If I see a citadel, how far is my opponent commiting into DT's. Just visible dts drop?, or cloak+ blink+obs.
This is pushing the envelope, but often in pvt I see situations where terran has turrets everywhere and dts are useless. What if you made blink grant temporaily cloaking to the dt, say for 1 second after it blinks.
-just blink --> normal cloak for one second.
-blink+cloak --> undetectable for one second.
|
@Economy:
Is this a problem anywhere but ZvP? I can't see Terran having too much trouble getting/holding a third/forth/... in ZvT, nor do I think that Protoss can outexpand Terran more than it maybe necessary in PvT Mech.
There are two "problems" with the economy:
-) Protoss has a hard time getting a third base up against Zerg.
-) Tech openings from 1base are very weak - and that one mostly comes down to the banshee
For me it's hard to comprehend why we would like to screw around with the core economy system at this point to allow for more turtle play, instead of directly adressing what's wrong. Isn't forcing people to expand very fast one of the core ideas to get the game more dynamic? And allowing a Protoss to tech T2 corsair (phoenix), then T3 reaver (colossus) of 2bases and then taking a third off a big army sounds like exactly what Starbow wanted to prevent - not to mention that similar to SC2 such a playstyle could simply get figured out and then we are back to "protoss can't expand fast enough and has to rely on timing attacks".
Addendum: I agree with Hider that SCV Calldown feels bad. It's right now nothing but a "SCV only" chronoboost. (it costs money and if used regularily, you simply just bought more workers)
|
Hider:
Goliaths had explosive damage (vs air) so they did half dmg to light.
Archons:
They should be more of dps unit than tanks. They should deal damage from behind of zealots backs. Only reason they are bad now is cause dps was nerfed severely. In bw they attacked faster than zealots with 30 dmg per atack. And in starbow they had around half of that value after WoL => hots transitions.
Corsairs:
Again explosive damage. This means they were great at killing units like Overlords (opposite to what they are now).
Turrets:
again explosive damage (worse vs mutas)
|
@ Sentinel
Overall this unit feels a lot more right and intuitive, however it still needs further refinement; Kiting still isn't really that good vs hydras/marines. But I think that would be kinda easily fixable by increasing range from 5 to 6. Would that break anything? We could consider reducing damage from 8 to 7 if 6 range would make it too good.
This will allow sentinels to set up a trap, and when units walk into it and get attack, they are slowed which means 2-3 sentinels should be able to pick off 1-2 hydra's with good micro, and when the slowing wears off, they retreat.
With 5 range it feels like the opponent isn't forced to react to the sentinels, he can still just a-move. With 6 range I believe a great terran player will find it neccesary to stim a couple of marines to kill the sentinel or force it away. Against hydras, it will likely reward flanking more rather than a-moving (when range is upgrade for hydras, hydra's can basically amove sentinels - even when slowed by the rupture attack).
Besides higher range, I also want to suggest these changes;
- Damage: 25 vs light and 50 vs. everything else
- Cost of energy increased from 25 to 50.
- Duration time increased from 120 seconds to 180 seconds.
This will have the following effects;
- More exciting, right now its damage is so low that it's kinda boring. Especially against medi healing.
- Less spammy - Easier for new players to use, but still high skill cap.
- HIgher reward for manual targetting. Right now noone will manually target, as its damage is so low.
- You can set up traps in defensive locations and then move around the map due to the higher duration. Right now, duration feels just slightly too short to be used in this way, and I kinda fear that many players will just have sentinels in their main base rather than having it out on the map if this (these) changes aren't implemented.
Oh, and please also make it a bit more clear visually when it is not activated yet and when it is activated and ready for attacking
|
Russian Federation216 Posts
my couple of words:
@immortals
new core unit for toss sounds interesting, toss lacks of it due removal of both sentry and immortal. then you can stop tearing stalkers apart and fix their mobility in tvp and lowdmg in tvz
as i understand currently stalkers too good in PvT and too bad in PvZ
@economy
i said this from first day i joined sbow, a way toooo much gas. And 9 min muta 3 base zerg is just wrong.
n1 catch of oversaturation too
@maradeurs
PM me if interested, but i still hightly recommend adding ghosts as "battle casters" instead of maradeurs
they could do what bio needs: rip out mech, push back tanks, catch stalkers and every ghost could send you a free gift on next christmas.
|
@ Jay:
I see two ways (without adjusting economy) to properly adjust the balance/easiness of playing protoss in PvZ without adjusting economy
1) Stronger defensive abilities/units at the time when they are needed (around 10 minute mark).
2) More stuff/higher cost efficiency of core units (+ sentinel).
Your suggestions are mostly based on the former, and not long ago, I would have thought that would be much better as well. However, if you look at TvZ Hots, which arguable has the most action of any matchup in the early and midgame, zerg doesn't really have any significant defenders advantage. Instead, terran (which resembes zerg in Starbow) can constantly poke and then safely retreat behind widow mines (which resembes lurkers).
I fear, that if we gave protoss stronger defensive stuff early midgame, that it simply would be too inefficient for zerg to engage. Instead, I believe they would go back to droning hard and tech to hive. Thus, I believe increasing the viability of the core units of protoss in the matchup is the correct way to go.
This will allow the zerg to poke/engage/look for strong engagements without forcing the protoss into rushing for reavers to survive the early midgame.
But of course the micro battles of hydras/lings/mutas/lurkers vs gateway + sentinel should be an interesting battle (like muta bling vs bio + widow mines is) - If it turns out it isn't, then I believe we need to tweak the various stats of the units a tad to make micro feel better.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
