EPT[A] Starbow - Page 344
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
We have been tinkering with the reaper for so long now, and havn't been able to find a good solution for its lategame viability. Maybe scrap it, go with this and maybe look at other roads for harassment. I have not changed, or done any adjustements, to the Reaper for ca a month now. Its AoE attack has never been adjusted since it got implemented in the middle of June. The only things I have adjusted is its early game presence - build time etc. Nothing about its mid-game potential. The Reaper works great in the early game, but has barely seen any play in the mid/late-game. Thats why I want to give it a small boost - Bring back the G-4 Charge ability as an upgrade. Thats it. See how it works from here. You make it sound like the Reaper has gone through lots of changes in the last weeks, and still has no role/purpose in the game. If it was like that, then I would also consider to remove/replace it, if we had no way to solve it. Btw is the low range of psy storm intentional? It is the same range as in SC2. (9) | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I think these changes might help to overcome the problems I´ve talked about in TvP. The least required changes: - Marauder dmg changed to 10 vs light, 15 vs all (Instead of just bonus vs armored) - Immortal dmg changed to 20 vs light, 30 vs all (Instead of just bonus vs armored) (Makes both units less narrow vs just armored targets) - Reaper gains G-4 Charge ability. (Requires upgrade) - Matrix lasts 12 seconds instead of 15. - Marauder production lowered by 3 seconds. (To make T able to produce from Barrack at a more even pace vs Gateways, and compared to Factories. Will be most useful in TvT and TvP, but probably not affect TvZ in a negative way) Upgrades at tech lab: - Stimpack - Marine + Marauder range increased by 1. (Increased from 4 to 5, from 5 to 6.) - Reaper upgrade for splash and ability (Requires Factory) - Medic +25 extra starting energy (Requires Factory, encourages more Matrix use) - Siege tank increased to 3 supply, +5 seconds build time, stronger attack when unsieged - Spider mines are reworked so they are easier to micro against, and not as extremely punishing to walk into. Instead of 75 to all, 100 vs armored, changed to 40 vs all, 50 vs armored. Explodes in a larger area. Units can now attack unburrowed Spider mines, and when one of them is killed, it explodes on the spot, and deals damage. - Zealot gains back an activated Charge ability, together with a permanet speed upgrade. (3 seconds boost, 60 seconds cooldown) Makes them better at dragging mines. - Goliath gains +2 range from the upgrade, instead of +3. (They currently look very strong vs Carriers) - Viking, Scout, Dropship and Warp Prism now have more similar speed. (Earlier Vikings + Scouts were faster) - Warp tech still requires an upgrade at Cybernetics core. The upgrade requires Twilight council. (Delays warp tech) - Banshees got too heavily nerfed. They die from everything. Revert life to 140 (as in Sc2) Apart from this, I have fixed a bit of bugs. For example is Null Ward more reliable at hitting the enemy units, Dropships can pick up sieged Siege tanks again etc. Anything else worth to change/adjust? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Would a Vulture speed nerf be necessary with the weaker Spider mines? The stats I propose for Immortal/Marauder might need to be adjusted too, after some testing in game vs players. The point is to broaden these units a little bit, and make them part of more match-ups, in a good way for the gameplay. But I will not write more about that now ^^ Gonna eat, fix some stuff downtown, and then I will upload the patch around 19-20.00 CET. Maybe do some last minute changes, in case someone of you post something important. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I also lowered the attack speed of ground vikings from 0.86 to 1 second. (If it is not enough, I can change it with next patch.) | ||
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
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JohnnyZerg
Italy378 Posts
Try "Starbow Tester 2.0" on arcade game, and say what you think. If there are any bugs or errors, please send me a pm. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
This matchup looks pretty fun in the later part of the midgame, however, I have some concerns with the early game and early midgame still. Suggested changes - Keep immortal - Remove maurauder - +15 HP combat shield - 5 starting range for marines. No upgrade - Marines deal 5 damage vs light, 6 vs everything else. - 5 second lower BT of medi + marines - 30-35 second BT on reactor - Starport cost reduced to 100/100 from 150/100 Effects on gameplay - Protoss will have map control for the first 10 minutes with stalkers. - Bio reclaims map control once stim and combat shield is finished - Protoss can still kite the marines and force medis to waste energy when the bio player tries to reclaim map control. This adds a bit more micro than the current state. - Protoss is rewarded for mixing zealots into the mix vs bio rather than pure stalkers which will reduce the mobility of the protoss army which makes them more vulernable to drop play. - A bio player can maintain a high production and tech to dropships at a much lower infastructure cost than currently. - Teching to stargate relatively quickly will be the standard vs bio. You can also do early warp prism + stalker drop before stim and combat shield. - Pure gateway shouldn't be cost effective at the 10-15 min mark vs bio. Otherwise the protoss player will easily be able to outproduce the terran player. Instead, he should be rewarded for adding stargate units into the mix, such as sentinels and scouts, which adds more micro to the early midgame. - Immortals won't be be needed vs bio. I think most people are fine with that as it felt that it was only practical to a-move them vs bio. Against mech on the other hand, target firing tanks seemed pretty rewarding. Conerns - Are these changes enough to make bio capable of outproducing a protoss staying on stargate and gateway tech in the early midgame if the bio player tries to tech to dropships? - Will scouts and sentinels (now that these almost have become neccesity-units vs bio) be too efficient at shutting down the mobility advantage of bio in the early midgame? - Will matrix still be too strong in a straight up fight in the early midgame? | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
Because for me, TvP with a biostyle feels quite fun and balanced right now at all phases of the game. And I don't see the room, nor the need to make bioplay heavily as heavily dropbased as you want it, without adding the medivac. | ||
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Caas
Sweden51 Posts
remember seeing something about a new pathing.. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 28 2013 18:33 Big J wrote: Could you tell us your concerns first? Because for me, TvP with a biostyle feels quite fun and balanced right now at all phases of the game. And I don't see the room, nor the need to make bioplay heavily as heavily dropbased as you want it, without adding the medivac. Matrix early game is too good vs protoss as toss has no way of dealing with it. At least with zerg you can force the terarn bio army to waste stims and matrix and then retreating wtih speedlings. Toss can't do that. The problem is that we can't give terran natural map control early game and keep matrix as a free early game ability. This could either be fixed by removing the maurauder and creating a similar maurauder effect with these suggested changes to the marines. Only difference will be that terran won't have early game map control, and instead this gives toss the option to do a bit of stalker kiting vs marines - Something the maurauder takes away from the game. Alternatively, we can make matrix a midgame upgrade. nor the need to make bioplay heavily as heavily dropbased as you want it, without adding the medivac. It doesn't have to be heavily dropbased if these conditions are met; - Terran bio can poke/army trade with the protss army over and over with protoss being slightly cost effective with its tier 2 units. - Both protoss has ways to micro its units in the early midgame to become much more cost effective. - Terran bio can use its mobility advantage to gain an economic lead which makes a potential mech transition possible. The problem is that matrix is simply breaks the first condition, and sentinel and scout can possibly break the mobiltiy advantage. Thus, a mech transition can never be possible for the terran player who opens bio since he won't have the economic foundation to make it possible. Regarding the second condition, the immortal doesn't add anything to the micro potential of protoss, as micro'ing the immortal really isn't practiacal. Thus, you can as a protoss just a-move your gateway + immortal force. Admittely sentinel and scout adds a bit of micro here, but I would argue that the real protoss micro first begins post 15 minute mark. Thus untill then, the hardest part about playing protoss should related around multitasking - So if drop play isn't a real threat, there isn't enough ways for a great protoss players to seperate him self from a lesser skilled. This is basically similar to how zerg works atm - Throughout the entire game in Sbow micro'ing these units is so easy - So to have interesting zerg games their needs to be a high amount of multitasking involved. In Sc2 this issue is too some extent solved by making larva injects and creep spread very important, in Sbow these things are less important. For mech the same concept is relevant as well - Mech is super easy if the opponent doesn't have strong tools to abuse its immobility. Alternatively, we could be looking at making gateway protoss compositions more micro rewarding. But that was actually exactly what Blizzard tried to do, and have been heavily criticized for with forcefields on the sentry. The issue here is protoss easily can become very unforgiving early game if it needs to rely on a spellcaster. Instead, I would argue that dropplay is often times more forgiving and more exciting to watch than forcefields. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
If Protoss is costeffective in its engagements, what is the reason why bio would even poke? Everytime they poke they lose more than the Protoss, so bio would need to have better economy to make up for that for that condition alone. Why doese a fullout mech transition have to be possible. Can't you just mix in tanks to stabilize if a Protoss has too strong tech units? You have too much gas anyhow if you go MMM heavy. (ghosts/BCs/SVs being the other option to spend your gas) If Terran bio is less costefficient than the basic Protoss units, why would anybody ever go bio? You would be forced to go mech to begin with to not get run over by massive low-midtier play. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 28 2013 19:25 Big J wrote: Why do those conditions have to be met? If Protoss is costeffective in its engagements, what is the reason why bio would even poke? Everytime they poke they lose more than the Protoss, so bio would need to have better economy to make up for that for that condition alone. Why doese a fullout mech transition have to be possible. Can't you just mix in tanks to stabilize if a Protoss has too strong tech units? You have too much gas anyhow if you go MMM heavy. (ghosts/BCs/SVs being the other option to spend your gas) If Terran bio is less costefficient than the basic Protoss units, why would anybody ever go bio? You would be forced to go mech to begin with to not get run over by massive low-midtier play. Terran bio needs to be less cost effective than protoss tier 2 in order not to reward a metagame wherhe protoss needs to turtle on 2 bases so he can fast-tech to defensive tier 3 units which stales the game. For instance attacking into reavers and too some extent storm is almost impossible. If protoss just is 10% cost effective, but terran has a 15% better econ and he scales worse, then army trading can still be efficient for the terran bio player. However, we can't really make this about straight up fights untill protoss is at tier 3 as there is very little room for protoss micro with tier 1 and tier 2 units (before blink and charge). Thus skills needs to be primarily related to multitasking abilities. So in the reason the scenario where terran bio has worse econ, lower mobility and higher cost efficiency, he will be rewarded for attacking straight up with bio. This dynamic will be impossible to balance across skill cap as bio is pretty micro intensive and toss is not. So matchup will be terran favored at higher level of play and protoss favored at lower levels of play. Specifically regarding why mech/tank transitions require a higher econ than the protoss player; If you have the same econ regardless of whether you open bio or mech, then there will be little advantage to ever opening bio (assuming the matchup is balanced) over just pure mech. Why not just open mech and play a mostly passive game and be much more cost efficient in a straght up fight? If the bio player has a worse econ in the later parts of the midgame where he will try to add in tanks or maybe go for vultures as well, chances are that he will always lose this type of game. Remember he is less cost effective with a small mix of tanks and bio compared to if he had had pure mech in his army composition. So if you don't get a mobility advantage than translates into higher econ advantage, then bio openings --> tank transitions will always be underpowered. Overview over alternative game dynamic options of bio vs protoss Option 1: Protoss is less mobile and less cost effective with tier 1 and tier 2 units, but has faster production than the terran player Effect: Protoss turtles on 2 bases to tier 3 units --> Stale game as attacking into HT's and reavers is most often not practical when protoss is just on 2-3 bases. Option 2: Protoss more mobile, slightly lower production and less cost effective with tier 1 and tier 2 units Effect: Engagement can now occur, but bio with its micro is favored at higher level of play + mech transition is ineffective. Option 3: Protoss less mobile, slower production and slightly more cost effective with tier 1 and tier 2 units Effect: Bio can do damage through its mobility advantage and gains an economic lead which it can use to army trade efficiently in the midgame, and as the game progresses, the terran player has the economic strenght to make a mech/tank transition. Obviously I prefer the latter option. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 28 2013 19:38 Hider wrote: Terran bio needs to be less cost effective than protoss tier 2 in order not to reward a metagame wherhe protoss needs to turtle on 2 bases so he can fast-tech to defensive tier 3 units which stales the game. For instance attacking into reavers and too some extent storm is almost impossible. If protoss just is 10% cost effective, but terran has a 15% better econ and he scales worse, then army trading can still be efficient for the terran bio player. But fact of the matter is that right now it's rather Protoss that has the better economy (from just looking at the income tab and the games I have seen so far) and who can afford to trade slightly inefficiently. However, we can't really make this about straight up fights untill protoss is at tier 3 as there is very little room for protoss micro with tier 1 and tier 2 units (before blink and charge). Thus skills needs to be primarily related to multitasking abilities. I'm seeing a huge difference early on between playing against you or playing against Gossen (no offense; all I'm saying is that we are probably both worse than Hider). There is quite some multitasking in the game already with offensive stalkers, reapers, banshees, vultures, sentinels. And quite some micro with kiting stalkers, bio, usage of matrix/nullwards early on. If that's not enough, then the easiest solution is to introduce extra micro on the units that are currently lacking such, e.g. give the marauder a dodgeable projectile, give the immortal an activated ability that justifies its name (e.g. Phase Shift or Phase Shield) Even more, dropships and enough units to drop units won't be out until the midgame one way or another. So in the reason the scenario where terran bio has worse econ, lower mobility and higher cost efficiency, he will be rewarded for attacking straight up with bio. This dynamic will be impossible to balance across skill cap as bio is pretty micro intensive and toss is not. So matchup will be terran favored at higher level of play and protoss favored at lower levels of play. There are quite some degrees of costefficiency. A slight costefficiency by Terran just means that Protoss needs to be a little more careful with being out on the map while teching a little up. But as there are no concussive shells and blink/zealot speed+charge/rift/shields and highground advantages are around in Starbow, it is not impossible to still be active as you can often just avoid combats at will and retreat. Terran does not have those mechanics (apart from highground and heal). Terrans safety lies within combat power. If bio does not have that, I have a hard time understanding how a Terran will be able to deal with massive gateway/immortal play 2base vs 2base. Like, even if it's a highground natural that the Protoss can't attack into. He can still prevent anymore expanding with a cheaper force than the Terran's by camping the front. If Terran drops, he risks getting overrun at home due to having a lot of investments not with his army (starport, dropship, units), while the Protoss can use those extra resources his army that he didn't have to invest into army to be evenly strong for defense at home. Like, you say that a Terran will get mapcontrol after stim/shields finish. How? The moment you try to leave your base you have to face a Protoss army that is stronger than yours if the Protoss low/midtier mix is more costefficient. Imo, the situation would just be a Protoss that forces you into a two base vs two base scenario, and then puts a timer on the Terran by either teching to even more efficient units or taking a third. Specifically regarding why mech/tank transitions require a higher econ than the protoss player; If you have the same econ regardless of whether you open bio or mech, then there will be little advantage to ever opening bio (assuming the matchup is balanced) over just pure mech. Why not just open mech and play a mostly passive game and be much more cost efficient in a straght up fight? There is quite a difference between "having more economy than the Protoss player" or "having more economy than a meching player in the same situation". Imo the game should be (and right now feels like it is) that bio has more economy than mech and forces Protoss to have less economy than when playing against mech. In PvMech, Protoss has an advantage because Terran expands slowly and Protoss fast. In PvBio, Protoss still has a tiny advantage imo but can't really outexpand a Terran, as the Terran can really punish the Protoss. But, generally, there shouldn't be a "straight" advantage to going bio-->mech than going mech, balancewise. The difference should lie in variety, personal style and maybe other things, like bio being able to go air instead of mech or vis-verca in the late/endgame. Also certain openings that you may want to play are better for mech and others are better for bio. E.g. I believe that banshee openings usually lean more towards mechplay (due to all the tech you get unlocked, that you really should put to use), while barracks expands lean towards bioplay (as you have to power out units a little faster afterwards, with only 1production facility) If the bio player has a worse econ in the later parts of the midgame where he will try to add in tanks or maybe go for vultures as well, chances are that he will always lose this type of game. Remember he is less cost effective with a small mix of tanks and bio compared to if he had had pure mech in his army composition. So if you don't get a mobility advantage than translates into higher econ advantage, then bio openings --> tank transitions will always be underpowered. This is something that may or may not be true. For what it's worth, I believe that Marine/Marauder/Medic/Tank should be a more costefficient force than Vulture/Goliath/Tank (assuming equal tankcount). But the latter has more Tanks and more upgrades for Tanks and the better harassment unit. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
But fact of the matter is that right now it's rather Protoss that has the better economy (from just looking at the income tab and the games I have seen so far) and who can afford to trade slightly inefficiently. Your probably right too some extent, but this is very player dependant and build order dependant, but also it is too some extent related to "issues" that I have made suggestions to fix. Like, you say that a Terran will get mapcontrol after stim/shields finish. How? The moment you try to leave your base you have to face a Protoss army that is stronger than yours if the Protoss low/midtier mix is more costefficient. Imo, the situation would just be a Protoss that forces you into a two base vs two base scenario, and then puts a timer on the Terran by either teching to even more efficient units or taking a third. The underlying issue here is most likely the production. In Sc2 there are mules which makes terran have a lot more stuff than the protoss player. I want to replicate a similar effect through changing infastructure requirements (so a terran player can stay on 2 rax's for a longer time). Hopefully, this will be enough to "overpower" your way through kiting stalkers and sentinels harassing your base at the same time. I previously thought (and why I suggested we implemented the maurauder and the immortal) that the underlying issue was related to protoss players having too many mobile stalkers in their composition. However, today, I think it is only a contribution factor. Rather, it is more about production speed and warp tech. So the immortal was implenented at gateway to make it possible/required for protoss to reduce stalker count to like 30% of total army value in the early midgame. However, such a low percentage isn't required/beneficial if we instead look at production speed and move warp tech to a later stage in the game. Thus, I think that a 50-50 mix of zealots and stalkers with a couple of sentinls and scouts is okay. But once the bio force is outside the protoss players natural/3rd (around the 10-12th minute mark), he shouldn't be capable of engaging straight up (assuming the game is even at that point) as the protoss player at that point in time doesn't have enough micro tools to make this a fair fight at higher levels of play. So the game has to be balanced around two factors; 1) Medi's not having enough energy to mass spam matrix (which can be obtained by making it possible for stalkers to kite bio once bio tries to reclaim map control). 2) Bio having a mobility advantage which can be obtained by rewarding protoss players for using a decent amount of zealots as meatshield. Imo the game should be (and right now feels like it is) that bio has more economy than mech and forces Protoss to have less economy than when playing against mech. In PvMech, Protoss has an advantage because Terran expands slowly and Protoss fast. In PvBio, Protoss still has a tiny advantage imo but can't really outexpand a Terran, as the Terran can really punish the Protoss. Im not sure though whether the difference between bio and mech is large enough in terms of economic advantage. With vultures you still make it pretty hard for the protoss player to take mass expos. I am a fan of creating playstyles which works very differently, both in terms of how you control them, and how the game dynamic works. If bio heavy play only gives a sligthly better economy than mech does, then I believe the two playstyles feel too similarly. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
It will be up in ca 2 hours. I am not gonna comment too much on the current discussion, mainly because I want to see more games, so I can get a better picture of the current state of the game. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
If protoss is heavily rewarded for going stargate (if maurauder is removed), then it seems to force a similar response (or even higher) from the terran player in terms of infastructure costs as he needs to get ebay out, 1-3 turrets at each base and preferable a viking or two as well. Thus, terran will always have problems in terms of production speed. At least a response to the immortal required fewer infastructure costs from the bio players POV. Further, fast ebay also makes it likely/optimal that terran gets faster ups than the protoss player, which rewards protoss for responding by getting faster t3 --> more likely to be a stale game. Luckily though, we can "easily" fix this concern by removing the ebay requirement for turrets and instead increasing turret cost from 100 mins to 125. (or 100/25). This will create the following effect; - Terran is more likely to get turrets up faster, but will have less per base than previously. - Terran can afford more bio units. - Terran bio will be less cost effective (due to slower upgrades). Don't really see any huge disadvantage here. Less turtling and more unit vs unit interactions seems to be a win-win situation here for everybody. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
I am not gonna comment too much on the current discussion, mainly because I want to see more games, so I can get a better picture of the current state of the game. If you define the current desired gameplay for early (mid) game PvT (one of the three options I listed), then this is mostly just a matter of testing cost efficiency in unit test maps (with realistic map layout) and comparing various builds to each other in the AI. It seems that this is 90% an issue of straight mathematics. | ||
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