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On July 24 2013 18:53 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 16:00 Weerwolf wrote:On July 24 2013 01:03 Hider wrote:
During this period the terran should have strong tools in order to reduce the economic advantage of the protoss player. However, with cheap warp tech, he can't do this. With a variable cost per warped in unit, he still can't do it as the protoss player will use warped units as "back-up plan". For instance if 6 vultures run past his gateway units or if he didn't spot a dropship in time, he is likely to just warped in units to fend of the harass even though this may cost him 100-300 minerals extra (but it is easily worth it if he can efficiently deal with the harass).
Thus, he won't warp in units preemptively, but only as a response to once he see the dropships. This is a very important difference from my suggestion. With my suggestion you have to make a large fixed preemptive investment, which will be a very big investment in the early game, and since you don't know whether your opponent will opt for an harass based style, it will often times be a big risk to make this investment.
So basically, the variable cost per warped in unit allows the protoss player to always make the correct response to aggression from the opponent - Thus terran agression early midgame will still be underpowered.
That last part is quite crucial, and I see that you have come to the same conclusion in later posts. This is a fundamental element of the warp gate mechanic. Your conclusion is then to therefore remove the warpgate mechanic. Personally, I don't see the warpgate mechanic as that much of a problem. If a protoss would warp in units as an 'Oh I screwed up' action, it will still cost him. He can still somewhat save a situation (which is fundamental to the warp gate mechanic), but this can easily cost him the minerals of 4 probes if 8 units are warped in. If he uses it as a way to get a harrass attack started he pays for not having to bridge the gap. Adding the mineral cost will also make it more costly to harass via warpgate early game, since this can easily cost you 2 zealots in minerals, which will quickly add up. Keep using your warpgates, and you can be a thousand minerals behind in no time. Yes, adding a cost to each warp-in changes the way it will be used. This is the main point of a change to warpgate right? There are two options of using warpgate: Freely or in restricted situations. Currently, the cooldown does not really make you restricted. With the added mineral cost, it would only be used in restricted situations and make harrass less strong. But the problem is that we just change it from being always used to only used to promote bad/boring gameplay. Anyway, protoss kinda need the warp tech atm with the current balance. TvP just need to have new fundamentals (once again - nerf something/buff redesign other stuff). The basic problem is that it is really hard to make this matchup interesting. In many ways Sc2 suffers from the same problems. Basically, I wanna see this; Protoss changes- Warp tech removed. Warp prism with upgrade can warp in - Stalker movement speed increased from 2.95 to 3.25 - Stalker HP reduced from 100/50 to 100/40. - Immortal changed from armored to normal armor (more buffy vs mauruader/tank). - Stasis reworked/nerfed. - Small activateable charge for zealots (so they can drag mines into tanks) - Scouts movement speed reduced from 2.85 to 2.5. - Phase missile can be used on all units. - Sentinel's nullsphre has a more reliable attack. Terran changes- Unsieged tanks better - Vulture movement speed upgrade removed. - Vulture mine AI reworked (units autokill them). - Viking damage vs non-light units and movement speed reduced. - Goliaths range upgrade adds +2 instead of +3 (buffs carriers --> late game incentive for terran to attack). - Marine starts with 5 range. No upgrade needed. - Cost of starport tech reduced by 50 minerals. - Matrix is a 100/100, 60 second upgrade that requires armory Effects on gameplay- Protoss can be out on the map during the entire game with a mix of gateway units/immortals/sentinels. - Terran can harass cus there is no easy "prevent-stuff" in terms of mass blink stalkers and warp tech. But instead, of relying on mass cannons (2 per expo is probably neccesary though in the midgame) it is my hope that stalkers now will be mobile enough to catch up to vulture. But at the same time, protoss won't/shouldn't have enough stalkers to effectively "surround" the terrans bases (the prepatch problem). Instead, him having just a medium amount of very mobile blink stalkers to deal with mobile drop play/runby's will hopefully create a more fair and interesting dynamic than previously. - Siege tank drop play will be pretty good without warp tech, but I think that is a good thing as that type of drop play is forgiveable in the sense that you can be out on the map with your main units, but when you see the siege tank drop, you can react by sending a speed prism with two immortals to your own base and drop on top of tanks. I think that type of gameplay is quite interesting. In TvP bio, these changes will hopefully create a new dynamic where terran has more production, but less cost effective due to no early matrix and stronger immortals. Thus, he will have to invest into dropship tech which is a bit cheaper now. Will this fix all problems? Very unlikely. I previously thought that we could fix the problems by reducing the mobility of the protoss units and while it did add more action and multtiasking in the early midgame (if protoss didn't use mass warp tech) it just created more frustration as protoss had no way of dealing with vulture runbys and drop plays without warp tech and heavy static defense. I hope that gets changed now, and I want to see both players with strong harass options with protoss having map control, but as I previously said, getting this matchup "right" is really challenging.
For once i can fully agree with you on balancing the current starbow design.
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Most of the suggestions sound reasonable. When I get acess to a computer with the editor again shall I see what I can do.
Some thoughts regarding Immortal/Marauder
I did some writing last night, where I tried to fit these units better into the game, and make them contribute to better gameplay. (It is a puzzle) I did not find any good solution, but I can share some other thoughts, in case anyone cares ^^
>>>+ Show Spoiler +There are probably three main reasons for a player to build a specific unit: - It can do something no other unit in the race can do - It is better vs certain types of units, compared to the other units available in the race - The circumstances in the game forces the player to build that unit at a certain point in the game (I am talking mainly about players reason to get a unit. Not the game designers intention WHY units should be in the match-up, and hope players build them.) Ok, lets look at the current versions of the Immortal and Marauder. - Both units do something the races can already do (Break contains, strong vs Armored, tank damage etc ) - In terms of cost efficiencey, they are probably stronger vs certain types of units (especially vs armored units) What are the armored ground units they are currently stronger against? - Structures (incl static defence), Ultralisks, Lurkers, Siege tanks, Goliaths, Stalkers, Reavers and each other. So why would someone build Marauders to gain the extra damage vs armored units? - In the early game - Kill Stalkers and enemy Marauders. Maybe break Spine Crawlers. - In the mid game - Kill Immortals, Lurkers and Photon cannons - In the late game - Kill Ultralisks and Goliaths (Maybe can they kill Siege tanks, depends on how we end up balancing them) And why would someone build Immortals? - In the early game - Kill Marauders, Stalkers and Spine Crawler/Bunker - In the mid game - Kill Immortals, Siege tanks, Lurkers and Static defence - In the late game - Kill Ultralisks and Goliaths This just sounds way too narrow for me. The main purpose of the Marauder is to punish Stalker heavy play, so Protoss can get Immortals to punish the Marauders, which makes the Protoss army slower, and thereby Terran Bio drops become stronger. The Marauder barely has any uses. >>> + Show Spoiler +I consider it a huge problem that both Immortals and Marauders are, or will need to become, stronger vs positional area control units. (Lurker, Siege Tank) It has been suggested to make Immortals NOT Armored anymore, so they are even stronger in just A-moving and killing Tanks. (This can be discussed in a side topic, what fun combat vs immobile units are suppose to be like) When I watch replays sent to me, I still wonder what these units have brought to the match-up, and most importantly, how we can use them to improve the match-ups more. It is as if we have rebuilt Rock-Scissor-Paper into Rock&Cliff-Scissor&Saw-Paper&Tree, where Rock and Cliff can both counter Scissor, but Cliff is actually a bit weaker vs Saw, but still wins vs it, with good micro. So instead of just choosing Paper, players now have the option of choosing Tree, and it does almost the same thing in the same way as Paper. SC2 created this dynamic: All core ranged units (Dragoon, Hydra, Marine) got splitted into two core units for each race. One weaker with anti-air capability, one armored with strong anti-ground capability: Marine & Marauder, Hydra & Roach, Stalker & Immortal. Some minor unique abilities were added to each unit to make them feel more seperated from each other. Via armor classes did they create a dynamic where unit composition and mobile armies became important. (Some like this type of gameplay, others do not.) There is a hole with this dynamic in Starbow. >>> + Show Spoiler +No Roach. One of the key reasons why Marauder/Immortal was important in the army mix. Some of you also have suggested to keep only the Immortal, and remove the Marauder. Even less units will the Immortal now be strong against. Unless we rearrange the armor classes, the damage types, and make sure to create more reasons and opputurnities for the units to see play, and become a part of the game. Examples: - Immortal damage 15 vs light, 30 vs all (including armored) - This would make them strong vs the armored units, but at the same time stronger vs Hydras and Vultures. (Stronger than Stalkers are vs them.) - Marauder damage 10 vs light, 20 vs all (including armored) - This would also make them stronger vs more units. A problem with such an approach is that the normal units (Stalker, Marine) might need to be nerfed/adjusted, so they are not the superior alternative in terms of damage. Another problem is that it is arguably boring and not enough. Rock & Cliff instead of just Rock. Something more might need to be added - something that makes these units controlled in a unique way, and adds something unique to the match-up dynamics. There are currently no units in Starbow that overlaps. Only Marine + Marauder, Stalker + Immortal. (I would call them overlapping units) but when you see the siege tank drop, you can react by sending a speed prism with two immortals to your own base and drop on top of tanks. I think that type of gameplay is quite interesting. Yes, but the same interesting scenario is achieved with Zealots in the Warp Prism. I will try to look for more solutions with these units. <<< <<<
Thoughts?
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Okay first of all... No roach please. Like it is one of those units that, is going to be really hard to adjust. Its basic design is made to suck later into the game meaning they are really only useful in various max-out timings except in the mirror, and only because nothing better is present. The Queen however is armored in Starbow, so maybe if we buffed its stats slightly for defensive purposes it would make people wanna bring some Marauders/Immortals with a push. Later on you would wanna get some to deal with Lurkers.
Alright about the marauder, it seems its general problem is that it is too narrow in its uses. It is kinda funny because the firebat had the same issue but its narrow roles covered entirely different areas. You might rememper that we talked about a Firebat-Marauder Hybrid a while ago Maybe it is time to revisit those ideas. Not sure but i do have a long list of marauder-ish suggestions from before we finally accepted to try it out, so shoot if you want me to dig some more up from the archive  .
Alright Immortal. I guess the issue might be that the thing that seperated them from just being protoss super-marauders in SC2 is missing, the hardened shield. Now we do have safeguard and i do wanna experiment some more with that but maybe we should consider the altered version of hardened shield that i talked about earlier. Basicly this immortal could only take shield damage once per second. This would actually be much stronger vs Bio than mech, as the spelldamage of mines doesn't count and Tank does massive damage to shields so would only take 2 shots or so to down the shieldpool of immortals. I am conserned about what this would do to Zerg through.
Finally i wanna talk about the reaper... It is almost a lost cause right now. Me and Johnny did some testing the other day and it is pathetic... They get outrun by Zerglings off-creep and can't even trade cost-efficiantly with them. Their firing power is just way too low for a 2-supply unit... We are going to need to come back to this once we have adjusted the marauder and immortal some more.
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On July 24 2013 23:26 Sumadin wrote:Okay first of all... No roach please. Like it is one of those units that, is going to be really hard to adjust. Its basic design is made to suck later into the game meaning they are really only useful in various max-out timings except in the mirror, and only because nothing better is present. The Queen however is armored in Starbow, so maybe if we buffed its stats slightly for defensive purposes it would make people wanna bring some Marauders/Immortals with a push. Later on you would wanna get some to deal with Lurkers. Alright about the marauder, it seems its general problem is that it is too narrow in its uses. It is kinda funny because the firebat had the same issue but its narrow roles covered entirely different areas. You might rememper that we talked about a Firebat-Marauder Hybrid a while ago Maybe it is time to revisit those ideas. Not sure but i do have a long list of marauder-ish suggestions from before we finally accepted to try it out, so shoot if you want me to dig some more up from the archive . Alright Immortal. I guess the issue might be that the thing that seperated them from just being protoss super-marauders in SC2 is missing, the hardened shield. Now we do have safeguard and i do wanna experiment some more with that but maybe we should consider the altered version of hardened shield that i talked about earlier. Basicly this immortal could only take shield damage once per second. This would actually be much stronger vs Bio than mech, as the spelldamage of mines doesn't count and Tank does massive damage to shields so would only take 2 shots or so to down the shieldpool of immortals. I am conserned about what this would do to Zerg through. Finally i wanna talk about the reaper... It is almost a lost cause right now. Me and Johnny did some testing the other day and it is pathetic... They get outrun by Zerglings off-creep and can't even trade cost-efficiantly with them. Their firing power is just way too low for a 2-supply unit... We are going to need to come back to this once we have adjusted the marauder and immortal some more.
A quick reaper should usually be able to get at least 1-2 probe kills and scout for you in the first 5-6 mins, i think it's worth the 50/50 investment.
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I do not aim to include the Roach. I just meant that Roach, Marauder, Immortal are within the same "package", since their damage relationship to each other plays an important role for the SC2 gameplay.
In Starbow, I mean we need to either rework this, so Marauders and Immortals gain a new relationship vs units in the game, or do something more clever with them. Otherwise, I might remove them and look for alternative solutions.
The Firebat suffered from the same problem - very narrow use that only had a minor impact on the gameplay. I have played around with some kind of hybrid unit: Marauder who can "switch" weapon between flamethrower and grenade launcher. It looks quite ugly and just feels clunky. But I shall never say never.
Ps. Nice dig in the archieves Sumadin ^^
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How come everyone is thinking in terms of counters? Counter units are just bad for the game and trying to make units fit some pre-concieved idea of what units should be countered will only. lead to horrible design. Focus on what role the unit should fulfill instead.
For the Immortal this role should be core army unit - a Dragoon replacement. If it becomes too narrow then buff its base damage and nerf its armored bonus. If it needs a weakness to prevent it being used too much as a deathball unit then look at model size and movement triggers to make it more clumsy in groups.
I suggested making stalkers light armor, and I just realized this simple change could replace the Marauder completely, as Reapers now would be a great response to blik stalkers.
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To make units hard counter each other might be quite lame. We just get Rock-scissor-paper forever.
But I think it is important that certain units are better/worse vs different kinds of units.
The problem with finding a role for Marauder and Immortal is that their roles are already taken.
This version of the Stalker is just a more mobile but weaker Dragoon unit. It fullfills everything in the same way, as the Dragoon did in BW, except it is just faster and deals less damage. This combined with Safeguard still makes it able to engage Tank lines etc, just as Goons could in BW. (To some degree)
There will probably be a overlap in terms of roles, unless the Immortal is heavily modified. That is why I look to see if the damage relationships between units can be modified, so the Immortal finds a home in the game. Or in other words: gives it a purpose.
I suggested making stalkers light armor, and I just realized this simple change could replace the Marauder completely, as Reapers now would be a great response to blik stalkers.
Some kind of armor rearrangement might be necessary. But this would perhaps be a bit strange. A unit that traditionally counters the Reaper is all of a sudden hard-countered by the Reaper. A total flip.
Overall, the less mobile unit should be stronger than the more mobile unit. I would say Reapers are more mobile than Stalkers (even with Blink)
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I think we should indeed remove the Marauder but keep the Immortal.
I'm also on board with almost all of Hiders recent suggestions except two - don't make Phase Missile able to target any unit, and don't make Immortals 'normal' armor class, that's incredibly unintuitive. I'm not a fan of how we're removing all the targeting restrictions of so many abilities, it makes for more boring gameplay with spell casters due to less counter play and variance. Lockdown > Shock, Feedback > the new proposed Phase Missile.
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I hesitate to change Phase Missile since it overlaps with Graviton Beam for Corsairs. They have a single-target-ability already, that works good together with Scouts. If Phase Missile can hit any unit, Graviton beam might become quite redundant.
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There will probably be a overlap in terms of roles, unless the Immortal is heavily modified. That is why I look to see if the damage relationships between units can be modified, so the Immortal finds a home in the game. Or in other words: gives it a purpose.
Stalkers is kinda bad atm vs armored units(?) I was actually considering whether we should reduce light damage from 14 to 13 and buff armored damage from 12 to 13, but I don't think its a huge concern though.
Immortals robo vs mech = A) For warp prism drop play/sniping stuff and B) A more efficient way to army trade vs mech
Stalker with my suggestions will now have a stronger more efficient role in dealing with vulture runby's and drop plays. Further it is also neccesary in the unit mix to make sure that vultures are less efficient as buffer units - otherwise you would never be able to engage a mech'ing terran player that had vultures in front of tanks.
I would say that these roles are pretty seperate from each other.
Safeguard - Yeh ok, it can help make stalker/zealot breake lines, but zealots don't benefit that much from it (as they quickly leave the saufeguard AOE) and stalkers still do low damage vs tanks. I see safeguard as an ability that good players will use to be slightly more efficient, but it syngergizes well with immortals rather than replace it.
Immortal as normal armor will make safeguard less of a neccesity, but it will still be really good I think.
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Immortals robo vs mech = A) For warp prism drop play/sniping stuff and B) A more efficient way to army trade vs mech
A) What is the difference of dropping Zealots on top of the Tanks, instead of Immortals?
What targets are realistic to snipe with Immortals?
B) In what way do we want army trading to occur? Medium armor Immortals with the current damage bonus vs armored will A-move into Tank lines and win.
As you say, Stalkers are useful vs Terran to deal with air threats and drops. One if its main purpose in the army is to deal with Vultures in front of the Tanks.
Some general scenarios in TvP with the current values in the game:
If Terran goes pure mech, we get:
Stalkers > Vultures
Immortals > Tanks
Zealots > Tanks
Vulture > Zealot
Tank > Stalker
Tank > Immortal (If Immortals gain medium armor, we instead get Tank <> Immortal as even)
If Terran goes Bio or Bio/Tank, we get:
Stalkers > Vultures/Marines
Immortals > Marauder/Tanks
Zealots > Marauder/Tanks
Marine > Immortal/Zealot
Marauder > Stalker
Tank > Stalker (Maybe Immortal)
To me it still looks like Zealot and Immortal does the same thing in TvP. (Both in "theory" and when I watch replays.)
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I have a couple of suggestion:
Warp gate:
+ Show Spoiler +Units created by the warp gate get only 50% of Their shields and energy.
Scout:
+ Show Spoiler +-I like high movement speed of scout (pls 1000 acceleration). Remove phase missile. Add an on/off button to turn enable/disable the anti ground weapon. Easier to use in synergy with corsairs. -Add an ability similar to sc2 oracle revelation http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/OracleThe units do not get vision, they lose their cloak ability for 30 sec.
Sentinel:
+ Show Spoiler +
Additional:
+ Show Spoiler +I also thought the nexus as a better battery of shields, but usable for units without moving
I think that are more interesting g4-charge on ghost. Make reaper best vs light units (through an upgrade, the current one is not enough), even if he loses/limit jump ability.
Edit: try not to touch the t1 units.
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i don't understand why the Firebat was removed (i think it was to add hellions, but then that didnt happen?). Yea, the firebat was a niche unit, but it was a lot less useless than the current reaper. I think it's ok if Bio has niche focused units, since they produce so quickly anyway. I'd much rather have both the firebat and marauder than some lazy combination of both. If anything, we should combine the reaper and the firebat.
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@Fish
The firebat was one big fat hard counter to lings. And it was useless vs anything else.
The reaper is already sort of combined with the firebat. It's got an aoe splash upgrade that gives it a bio based sort of light splash damage. But it doesn't come out so soon that lings are basically cannon fodder to any early bio pushes.
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On July 25 2013 01:46 Kabel wrote:Show nested quote +Immortals robo vs mech = A) For warp prism drop play/sniping stuff and B) A more efficient way to army trade vs mech A) What is the difference of dropping Zealots on top of the Tanks, instead of Immortals? What targets are realistic to snipe with Immortals? B) In what way do we want army trading to occur? Medium armor Immortals with the current damage bonus vs armored will A-move into Tank lines and win. As you say, Stalkers are useful vs Terran to deal with air threats and drops. One if its main purpose in the army is to deal with Vultures in front of the Tanks. Some general scenarios in TvP with the current values in the game:If Terran goes pure mech, we get: Stalkers > Vultures Immortals > Tanks Zealots > Tanks Vulture > Zealot Tank > Stalker Tank > Immortal (If Immortals gain medium armor, we instead get Tank <> Immortal as even) If Terran goes Bio or Bio/Tank, we get: Stalkers > Vultures/Marines Immortals > Marauder/Tanks Zealots > Marauder/Tanks Marine > Immortal/Zealot Marauder > Stalker Tank > Stalker (Maybe Immortal) To me it still looks like Zealot and Immortal does the same thing in TvP. (Both in "theory" and when I watch replays.)
Yes zealots and immortals overlap. There are differences though - For instance vs a combo of immortal + vultures, you rather drop immortals than zealots. In general, you are also better off using zealots as meatshield as they tank more tank shots per cost than immortal does (even with normal armor). The normal armor of the immortal isn't meant to make them a very buffy unit, it is just meant to make them slightly better and thus compensate protoss for them comming out of a robo instead of a gateway.
Anyway, if the immortal wasn't there, then either;
- Zealots had to be even better (ZvP consequences, and is massing zealots even fun?).
- Stalkers had to be even better vs armored (prepatch)
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Anyway, if the immortal wasn't there, then either;
- Zealots had to be even better (ZvP consequences, and is massing zealots even fun?).
- Stalkers had to be even better vs armored (prepatch)
I do not think neither of these statements have to be true. That is the route I have followed in the past, and it has failed, but I think there are ways to overcome this, and a lot of other factors to use, that I have not considered earlier. I am currently sketching on a solution with good gameplay and match-up dynamics in mind, since I can barely work in the editor nowadays. (Keeping the good things from the match-ups, and improving upon them, without the Immortal and Marauder.)
Don´t get me wrong. I will aim to include the Marauder/Immortal, and I look for a solution for them too. But I want these units to play their own unique role in the game, in more match-ups, and not be so narrow/overlap. This is why I discuss so much about them - I want to see what type of dynamics we get by having them, that we can not get without them.
Ps. Yes, mass Zealots in PvZ is fun, if we find a good relationship between Hydras and Zealots, where micro from both parts matter to determine the combat. Earlier in Starbow, Zealots always killed Hydras, almost despite if Hydras were microed or not. (Due to the way Zealot attack worked, and their movement speed was. It might not be perfect atm)
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I have make an Unit test map called "Starbow Reaper". It's not a big change, damage aoe by upgrade have been improved (not increased). Try it and let me know...
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I would not call it a failure or a success. It is hard to get it right, and with further adjustements we might end up with something good.
For me, the main point is to know what we try to reach with these units in the game.
The main reasons why I added the Immortal and Marauder:
- Make Terran able to use Bio as a method for pressure in early/midgame of TvT and TvP
- Make Bio Dropplay better and more viable as a playstyle in TvT and TvP, for Terrans who prefer this playstyle
- Give Terran a tool to punish mass Stalker play, which would indirectly force P to get other types of units too
- Give Protoss a tool to punish heavy Marauder play, and thus make Bio weaker in straight up engagements, but instead gain a mobility advantage compared to the "slower" Protoss Immortal army.
- Give Protoss a tool to punish mass Stalker in PvP
- Give room for both Protoss and Terran to do more varied build order, unit compositions, play styles with the extra units
It seems like some of the above goals are not reached yet. Further adjustements can be made.
But I am concerned about the overlapping roles the Marauder/Immortal currently serve in the races. They do the same thing as other units already do, or can do with small modifications, and their "speciality" - to deal extra damage vs armored targets, is in my opinion, useful in quite few situations at the moment. (Since there are not that many armored ground units in Starbow, compared to SC2)
All of this have I written about in the post above.
The questions are:
What are we trying to reach with these units?
How can we modify these units to play a more important role, and have a broader purpose in the game?
After all, they are core units.
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I think it is likely that the real problems lied in these things;
- TvP mech = Warp tech shutting down terran harass too efficiently. While mass blink stalkers certainly helped make the dynamic worse, it wasn't the real underlying problem here. Alternatively, it was a somewhat even combination of static defenses, mass blink stalkers and warp tech.
TvP bio = Perhaps mobility isn't the real issue here, but instead its a matter of production in the early game where terran desperately lacks the mule. Likely though, its a combination.
Basically, I think mauruader and immortals didn't "solve anything" because the game is more flawed than we expected (compared to obtaining the desired gameplay).
I still think we are at a crossroad atm.; Should we continue to try and solve the underlying issues here, or should we instead admit defeat and be fine with TvP being 20-minute stalemaling in 80%+ of games?
I honestly think the latter is the easier solution. There simply isn't enough time to adress most of the issues here.
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EPT
