hm, does anybody know a way to decelerate a projectile? Because that could give the proposed marauder more stability against close combat units like zerglings when kiting, if we made the projectile really fast (right now I'm working with 25 speed; so let's say we put it to 40-50 more speed) and then deccelerate it down (to maybe something like 15-20speed at 5-6range).
Sadly, I only know how to accelerate it (by adjusting the mover) in the editor.
I'm sorry but I'm not a fan of such types of attacks, they seem interesting in low unit count battles but just become a mess in big battles, it's gonna be a hell to balance it and it will end up frustrating a lot of people i think.
On July 31 2013 02:54 SolidSMD wrote: I'm sorry but I'm not a fan of such types of attacks, they seem interesting in low unit count battles but just become a mess in big battles, it's gonna be a hell to balance it and it will end up frustrating a lot of people i think.
I think this is much easier to balance than any form of splash. In essence, in most battles of SC2 there is a clear roledistribution of which units always must close in and which must stay back. Like, even if a zealot outside of 3range to the marauder could dodge every attack, he'd never do damage and therefore the best way to attack the marauder would still be to straight up attack it. Or many ranged units. Sure, you could always keep on moving them back and dodge attacks, but you'd lose so much firepower youself that you would just slow down the battle (you don't shoot, he misses his shot) in many cases.
I think there are a ton of RTS games around which use such attacks on basically each of their units and they are not a mess because of that or too hard to balance. But in small amounts, such stuff becomes really interesting. And, especially as there are complaints about Terran being more microoriented than the other races - because of rangeadvantages, which means every Terran unit can/must kite the other units - it would be interesting to put a little bit of stuff on T units against which you can countermicro.
On July 31 2013 03:07 Xiphias wrote: I agree. We should try to keep the game sweet and simple. Too many activation / autocast abilities will make the game unnecessary complicated.
Well, the marauder projectile as I tried it is not any form of activation or autocast. It's just the standard attack that can be dodged, similarily to how you can split against standard splash attacks, or outmicro line of splash attacks like lurkers, or mess with scarabs, or mess with melee units by minimizing surface area.
But basically, there is not difference between amoving a marauder against a stalker now or after such an attack has been implemented. But a good player may be capable of dodging the one or other attack against an amoved marauder, who can counteract that again by closing the distance.
I think the large problem with Hydras is the lack of micro required to be efficient with them. Zerg just A-moves with Hydras and they are strong vs almost everything. The opponent has to do "more" micro vs Hydras, than Zerg has to do with the Hydras themselfes. (I have gotten that impression at least.)
One way to add more "micro" to Hydras:
They currently have 0.83 second attack cooldown. (Faster than a Marine!)
I consider to increase their attack cooldown a bit. Maybe 1.05, 1.1 or 1.2 seconds. (Maybe give a slight dmg increase, so the DPS is still somewhat similar to now.) This would make Hydras have longer "dead time" between shots, which makes them stronger when microed - move forward, shoot, back away, shoot, back away, shoot. If units shoot very fast, and still have decent HP, they might aswell just stand and shoot all the time, since the damage output is so frequent / constant.
Compare it to the slow attack of the Reaver - it is much more efficent when microed since every shot is of huge importance. (This is ofc an extreme example) ---
Update
I am currently working on some bug fixes, and looking for solutions to different gameplay problems. (For example the classic Marauder / Immortal issue) I compare and evaluate different ways to go. I aim to have the next patch up on saturday.
@Dragoon
What made Dragoons so fun to micro in BW?
I can not put my finger on it. But I loved to micro them in BW, back in the days..
Dragoons had a lot of little quirks that on their own did not do much, but combined made them really bad when unmicroed. They had a slow attack point, slow attack speed, were slow to stop and fire, had the second largest model in the game and had a slow projectile.
This meant that Dragoons had a hard time getting into position to fire, and then had several layers of clumsy put on their attack. Each of these things sounds bad, but they were minimal so noone really noticed it. Together however they made the Dragoon super dumb and hard to control in large groups. On the other hand these things also allowed the Dragoon to have an insane damage output, since they could never ever use it all effectively.
But I suspect they are, and have been for a long time, too strong - in the regard that they are massable and quite efficient versus everything! in PvZ and TvZ vs mech, it seems like Zerg can mass only Hydras and win from that point. (I do not say it is super easy.)
A small nerf in attack speed would probably make them fine, which also might open up the need for more other (support) units.
Well as i have said before, the strength of a unit, in any stages past the very earliest game is very dependant on its power/supply ratio. In Starbow we halved the supplycost but i don't know how much it was nerfed to counteract this, if at all.
If we look at the hydras individual stats some of them are very high. Its Heath/supply is 80 which is as much as a Zealot. This is very high considering it is a T1 ranged unit with high dps.
Immortals have very smooth movement and attack. I was actually thinking that giving them a longer attack animation, and giving them overkill would be a very good step in the right direction. Add to that a small attack point delay, and possibly some kind of longer stopping time would make them more like Dragoons. To compensate they can get slightly better attacks and perhaps a small movement speed buff.
While Laertes is definitely making some improvements in his play he isn't quite close to getting Diamond or Masters level soon, let him post the replay and then make analyze if its really a balance problem.
Hydras are historically great against early P gateway without tech. It has been that way since BW and even continued on into hots.
Their disadvantage is obviously their fragile nature and small size making them really vulnerable to splash.
Hence, if you see 2 base hydra play as toss you throw up a ton of cannons and tech straight to reaver or die.
I appreciate your suggestion and tests. I know many of you have different opinions regarding the Marauder and Immortal - some think it should not be in the game at all. I will not abandon the units yet. Rather will I try to find improvements, both in micro and in terms of their roles within the races. After some more efforts, if nothing ends up working, then I will consider to go "back to basics".
Anyway, I will try some of your suggestions for the Immortal. Tweak some values to make it more interesting to micro. But I actually fear the damage point can be a punishing thing to change for the micro. It feels like I should not micro the unit at all, and just let it stand and shoot. Cause if it stand and shoot, it will always hit. If I move with it, attacks, moves, attacks, and does that too quickly, no attack is launched at all.
I don't think we should continue to lump the Marauder and Immortal together in discussions of whether or not to keep them. I stand by the fact that the Immortal could be very good for the game with the right changes - the Marauder, probably never.
And yes that attack animation is freaking awesome. I *demand* we use that projectile Kabel. :D
Attack points are very tricky yes, but when carefully tweaked they can be very potent in allowing units to be much stronger when microing. The trick is to use very small, but noticable delays, and combine them with other things instead of using bigger delays to stand on their own.
On my laptop. Attack point on goon means there is more skill in micro'ing them (timing when your cooldown is done like a vulture/muta for next volley). In addition to timing when your shots get released. There is visual feedback for timing that though, seeing the shot actually get fired. It also adds a lot to the personality of the unit. Heavy walker robot that has to stand in place for a second to unleash its devastating shot to the enemy. I'm quite against how every unit in SC2 handles identically.
More room to improve units via micro=harder to control. Same vein for why things like auto surround is nerfed in sbow, and vulture manuverability. I'm all for that, but of course we all know that can alienate what is probably the biggest group of players we could draw from, SC2 players.
Adding a small damage point delay to more units can also change the dynamics of spider mines for the better. With units being slower to react, mines get an indirect buff, allowing us to remove some of the strange mechanics with temporary invulnerability and benign targetting.
One thing that I noticed is that Starbow overall requires less micro, planning, and action than BW or even SC2. The reason behind this for Brood War is obvious, only 12 units per group, 1 building per hotkey, etc etc etc. The reason SC2 requires more micro higher up (nowhere near Brood War, but higher than Starbow I think) is because of the splash. Most better players will split units up to avoid splash (examples: marine split vs banes, muta square versus thors, this crazy muta micro (I saw Jaedong do this versus Stephano's infestors too!), etc. With Starbow, splash seems a lot less potent. However, there are individual units which either greatly benefit a player when either heavily microed, or microed against. For examples: • Reaver (with shuttle micro for those who use the reavers, splitting units against scarabs for opponents, THIS IS THE EPITOME OF A GOOD UNIT THAT REWARDS MICRO, both parties are rewarded by micro). • Lurker (try to minimize damage by not walking in a line towards them, etc etc). • Vulture (don't walk with massed up units to their mines, suicide lings sometimes and etc). • I swear I had another unit in mind that didn't have splash but kind of forgot it.
The reason why I was hoping for the marauder changes with either some kind of auto-cast or something was to allow more micro potential. The proposed immortal changes also seem to work towards this direction. On the other hand, I don't think the hydra change will help much (perhaps reduce max health or something but give it an upgrade kind of like the burrow-roach one so we can have burrow-hydra micro???).
Even though I said that SC2 required more control and micro than Starbow overall, I still don't think it's a very good goal to aim for. The best players generally have a less consistent win/loss than the best BW players. In BW, the most talented player almost always won. In SC2, the skillcap seems to be a lot lower, so the very best (who have potential to go above the skillcap) are still on par with the almost-best. I'm hoping that Starbow will have a higher skillcap, akin to BW (did it even have a skillcap? In BW, there was no limit XD). What I'm saying basically is that in SC2, no matter how good you get, there's a point where improving doesn't really help your gameplay as much. In BW, this was either much, much higher or completely non-existent.
I think rewarding skill can make Starbow a better mod. I've seen a few steps undertaken already. The new Zerg larva system basically tells Zerg "No, you cannot suicide your army and then insta-macro up to a maxed up army with only 5 hatches, and you have to watch your larva better". The warpgate changes also seem to reflect this to some extent. My main concern is that skill isn't quite as rewarded in micro. I think if we make each unit more unique, we can make Starbow a better game.
On the other hand, I have one major fear. If we make certain units too reliant on certain types of micro, we may be seeing more and more builds where you only mass one unit, as micro-ing two completely different types of units may be hard for some individuals. To counteract this, we could make certain unit combos more synergistic. Make it so that the best players, who can afford to mass different types of units and still micro them effectively (See? Raising the skillcap), benefit from making stalker/immortal/reaver or something, as opposed to only making stalkers, immortals, or reavers by themselves. How we would do this though, I have no idea. I guess the medics synergize with marines and marauders, but that's a relatively simple synergy and it's one of the few examples in the game.