On August 26 2013 06:04 decemberscalm wrote: With warp gate, I'm worried it will be an earlier recall utilizing just a warp prism into your opponents base.
Imagine being able to warp in dragoons to your enemies base. Vultures can at least get to zealot warp ins pretty quickly, but if they have to fight against dragoons being warped in????
edit: BTW is anyone able to get on right now? It would help making a vod to show off micro if I had someone to kite against me.
yeh i agre here. I really like new warp tech. Relative to the Sc2 one, it is mainly weaker in two ways; 1) The whole "build half of an army inside your main"-approach which I do not think is good for gameplay. 2) Defensive warp ins to prevent harass, which I also do not think is good for gameplay.
In terms of late game harass potential, it is still very strong I believe.
With warp in time being long enough (like at least 7 seconds) then an active terran could just lay some mines next to the dragoons while they're being warped in and they'd get oneshotted, means you can actually defend it quite easily without much invest if you're on top of your game.
yet vulture harass mid/late game isn't particuarly strong at the moment anyway. In BW it was also doable to deal with superfast vultures without it. Also you can easily warp in units behind cannons, so cannons can kill mines.
That mainly becomes an issue mid/lategame, as you aren't spread out in the early/midgame anyway, warpgates don't really make a difference on 3 bases regarding defensive warp ins. And the other problem: the scary warp ins are mass speedlot/dt, because you can fit quite some in the warp prism radius (and speedlots are much harder to deal with than normal ones). These still come late in the game if we put warpgate on twilight, as you can't rush both speed and warpgates at the same time.
Overall, the game is ok. Otherwise you would never return to play it ^^
I just feel like there is a ton of stuff that must be taken care off for the gameplay. Kinda like I have 100 loose game pieces that needs to be glued together. And I try so many kinds of glues, but the pieces just won´t stick together. And I rearrange them in so many ways. But the puzzle is never completed. :p
So I think I need to have a better method. And the easiest one is to simply look more at BW. We have a wonderful system there that works in so many ways. I can either look more at that, to get the fundamentals to work, or I can continue to try different solutions forevah: One piece here.. That piece here.. Ops, ok not that piece there.. Hmm..
So I do consider to go more BW. Just because it works.
- Economy closer to BW - Micro system closer to BW (As December is working on) - Unit relationships closer to BW
That is just an easier method for me. And less frustrating for all of you. Fix the basics. Work from there so the new fun stuff in Starbow gets a place in the game.
If anyone would prefer to have the Stalker + Immortal in the game, please write a complete solution - unit relationships, potential stats, roles, make it fit in all match-ups. This is what I struggle with.
If anyone would prefer to have the Dragoon in the game, please write a complete solution - how will it fit together with Warp in + Safeguard? Shall Sentinel be moved to Robotic facility? How will P deal with Mutas? Will we see a less action packed early PvZ, where P can actually move out on the map now with Stalkers + Zealots? Will PvP suck as hard as in BW now?
I just want to make progress. The PvT match-up has haunted me for a long time now.
Dragoon write-up: (gonna be quick, exam tomorrow, can make a more detailed post later if requested)
Warp in: issue might be with warp prism, but warp prism radius is small, so if only 3 dragoon can be warped in at the same time (with a warp in time of 7-8 seconds) then I'd say terran doesn't even need to get anti-air to deal with the threat and can purely rely on vulture/tank to defend it if he wants. extra positive note on this: because P doesn't get forced out immediately if terran doesn't need anti-air, then this will promote more micro dances/multitasking with the warp prism in T's base, (couple active vultures can still deal very cost-efficiently with the warp-ins --> protoss can't keep terran in his base for free).
Safeguard: I think the scariest issue about safeguard would still be zealot+safeguard, if mass zealots get into your siege lines then you practically kill your own tanks. Potential problems with safeguard will be sentinel-related and not dragoonrelated (stalker/immortal + safeguard is practically the same as dragoon+safeguard, with the exception that you need more safeguard to cover your dragoons because they are fatter ). I'd indeed put sentinel back on robo, this would feel much better because: There are too many harassing units on the stargate atm and this leaves open an option to give a casting range buff on robotics bay, so the sentinel will not be OP in the beginning and not UP in the lategame. Sentinel is not really a massable unit, which is good because the robo also doesn't feel like a building that should create the core of your army, robo always has been for supporting units, feels right! (This also allows P to open up robo vs Z, make early obs, some sentinels to either harass or help defend against a potential muta-opening so you have enough time to defend with dragoon/sentinel until you have your corsairs up.) This means toss doesn't have to blindly open up with stargate in case there might be muta's incomming, with a balanced null ward we can give toss enough time to transition.
Zealot/dragoon will make earlygame pvz better: stalkers have a too low damage output cost-wise vs ling/hydra, except they do pretty ok vs slow lings, some weird unit relations which just end up in (stalker is neither decent vs lings nor hydra's, so there's no reason to get them, but lings don't really counter them either): just get zealots only till zerg has enough to defend. With dragoon: you have a reason to make dragoons as they are not too cost-ineffecient vs hydra's and they can be micro'd well, but lings do pretty good vs dragoons because dragoon does less damage vs them and they are fatter--> more surface area for the lings. This means we have a better relationship between early units: ling>dragoon, zealot>ling, hydra>zealot, dragoon sort of even with hydra (i factor in quicker hydra's and the new attack system here, good hydramicro will defend vs zealots). This promotes tosses to do pushes so zerg isn't too greedy, but since zerg is still more cost-efficient with most relations they don't instantly die, due to our lovely recall on nexus the toss doesn't need to be too scared to move out on the map and can recall back if the zerg surrounds you with speedlings. Dragoons also have a better relationship with hydra/lurker, with the stalker you just take more damage if you do kiting shots because they don't do enough damage, with dragoons however you can delay the zergplayer moving out with hydra/lurker with kiting. The need for a rushed reaver is smaller thanks to the dragoon.
For PvP i have no idea, the matchup is already unexplored atm, we don't have any metagame atm, we only know that stalker/reaver works ok because it's the logical choice. Apart from that we see some random buildorders sometimes working, sometimes not. I have no idea what the 'new' pvp will become, although corsair+scout might be better vs dragoon than vs stalkers (corsairs are light, scouts too or not?). Anyway, imo PvT/PvZ/TvZ balance and gameplay are much more important than the mirror matchup's and since for all we know stalker/reaver is already the norm it can't get worse with dragoons in the picture.
edit: nearly forgot to mention the most important part: we can adapt part of the BW mech vs P metagame, but with a more earlygame options (sentinel/warp prism/corsair+scout and rine/rauder-openings, reapers, banshee-harassment, 1/1/1 openings?). also: warpgate upgrade on twilight to not make it too early and also not too late, fills in gap that blink leaves and makes you unable to rush both zealot legs and warpgate for speedlots in base warpin => covers early threat warp in poses. This also makes sure that you're not forced into a techpath (atm warptech becomes available once you have templar archives, feels like i'm forced into templar tech for no reason, they aren't great atm vs mech, so you just use archons as a gasdump, since you made the archives anyway), it feels more natural to tech get a techbuilding with a valid reason: you get the robo when because you need observers, get the bay if you need heavy splash, you get the archives if you want dt's or storm. => getting archives because you want warpgates doesn't feel natural, because warpgates are pretty core gameplay and not something you need because you scouted X from the opponent. You get them because you can use the mobility and templar tech isn't really related to mobility. This also brings back the notion of hiding pylons, because warpgates aren't necessarily lategame tech -> allows you to rush out warpgates at a decent timing to be sneaky => promotes scouting the map by the enemy.
Dragoons also have a better relationship with hydra/lurker, with the stalker you just take more damage if you do kiting shots because they don't do enough damage, with dragoons however you can delay the zergplayer moving out with hydra/lurker with kiting. The need for a rushed reaver is smaller thanks to the dragoon.
Not only this, but dragoons are good to break a lurker siege also. In bw it was very normal that zerg went for a lurker siege outside protoss natural for example.
Now to break this protoss went for dragoons to fire at the lurkers. Zerg comes with hydra to shoot the dragoons, now protoss micros the dragoons and/or uses storm from behind. The zealots wait till the lurkers are gone or in few numbers.
So no need to get reavers to break lurker sieges. Keep in mind in bw hydras were better, right now in starbow its not really possible to do this thing cuz of weaker hydralisk, buffed reaver etc
Safeguard: I think the scariest issue about safeguard would still be zealot+safeguard, if mass zealots get into your siege lines then you practically kill your own tanks.
One thing to fix this if it turns out to be broken is to make sentinel work for any units inside the area (enemy, friend)
Warp in: issue might be with warp prism, but warp prism radius is small, so if only 3 dragoon can be warped in at the same time (with a warp in time of 7-8 seconds)
Problem is, its not very hard to get more than one warp prism. Even though warp upgrade comes rather late. I see some potential problems with this. (After all the changes combined).
(This also allows P to open up robo vs Z, make early obs, some sentinels to either harass or help defend against a potential muta-opening so you have enough time to defend with dragoon/sentinel until you have your corsairs up.)
I like this. About the sentinel on the robo In bw, protoss were 'forced' to open fast stargate, make atleast one corsair for scouting purpose and potential mutaplay which was rather lame imo. Now with this, as said by solid it opens up alot of options for protoss in a positive way (especially against zerg) We might even see safeguard used against zerg in early midgame against lurkers for example.
Zealot/dragoon will make earlygame pvz better: stalkers have a too low damage output cost-wise vs ling/hydra, except they do pretty ok vs slow lings, some weird unit relations which just end up in: just get zealots only till zerg has enough to defend. With dragoon: you have a reason to make dragoons as they are not too cost-ineffecient vs hydra's
To look at bw again, it was not really possible to go dragoon and zealot against pure hydras. I would like a change here to protoss zealot or dragoon to be more even against ling/hydra.
I feel this needs further testing. (Fun fact, Flash recommended a slight nerf to zealot and a slight buff to dragoon) when he still played broodwar year 2011-2012). PvZ was considder favored of zerg
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What dragoon also encourage in pvt against mech is giving him the option to do frontal attack against the terran. Imagine 10dragoons with a warpprism with 4zealots inside. Now terran need to have good position on his tanks, vults. Good mine positioning. Turrets, or goliaths
The point is. The action starts alot sooner. Protoss can actually break a terran and trade with dragoons which was not possible with the stalker.
And not only in the opening phase. I mean terran actually needs to focus to survive, to get the best of it instead of now. Is terran players really scared now? All in all, protoss can take commando and even break expansions (it was possible in broodwar) while at the same time it opens up more room for terran since dragoons dont have blink
All in all, the pvt becomes a much better matchup.
What I would like to see, is for the Immortal to be modified to be basically a Dragoon statwise in everything except name and one other attribute - keep it unable to shoot up. It will move and attack like a Dragoon and be built from the Gateway. Perhaps it can also have some sort of activated shield-based ability to make up for the air vulnerability.
Then the role for the Stalker will be to act as something like a Protoss Goliath, or even Viking in a way - cost-ineffective against ground, but good mobile AA with some harassment potential due to Blink.
I think this will open up slightly more interesting gameplay dynamics than simply bringing back the Dragoon.
I tested it. It feels nice, especially the attacksystem, it really do, utterly important to get the relationships between unit right now
The pathing, i saw no change from the start, cuz they do not block each other till after a few seconds, which actually is really nice. Its still disturbing they block eachother after like 4seconds.
So a question to this. Lets assume it takes them 4seconds till they blockeach other, if i after 3seconds press stop and move again, it resets? Anyway to reset it otherwise? Have you considdered a reset someway?
Would it make a huge different to have them wait 8seconds?
Iam wondering if there is a possibility to change the hydra to the bw model? When he shoots there, it feels so nice!
Is it just a variable you change if you want the idle spread out to happen much quicker (the duration until the units are done spreading out, not how long until it starts)? I am interested how fast it can happen.
And just like that December saved the world... wait I mean StarBow.
The pathing system has really been the big source of many problems (along with the Stalker) so this huge change in gameplay really will change the game fundamentally, and probably for the better. Now mines can be a lot slower and more powerfull, thanks to units not nessesarely killing them in time (need micro to kill) Immortals can be strong and weak at the same time. Zealots will not be the end all answer to all units they can catch. AOE attacks can be properly powerfull.
Someone send this to Dustin Browder and ask if BW'esqe movement still won't make a difference.
Zealot/dragoon will make earlygame pvz better: stalkers have a too low damage output cost-wise vs ling/hydra, except they do pretty ok vs slow ling
Well there is absolutely no reason for stalkers to be that bad vs hydras. Im pretty sure it isn't intended that dragoons are better vs hydras and lings than stalkers are. If we balance stalker correctly, I actually expect it to do better than dragoons in BW (if it even is the case atm). Dragoons are supposed to better vs lurkers, which means that it can't be so good vs hydras as the stalker is supposed to be.
Currently I suggest that we try and buff stalker damage to 16 vs normal, which will make it 5-shot hydralisks (and ofc we also add the new zealot vs hydra relationship created by Dec).
I like this. About the sentinel on the robo In bw, protoss were 'forced' to open fast stargate, make atleast one corsair for scouting purpose and potential mutaplay which was rather lame imo. Now with this, as said by solid it opens up alot of options for protoss in a positive way (especially against zerg)
Early game is definitely something we can tweak and since we have already buffed spire and lair times, I do think protoss wil be able to build a sentinel (or 3) for scouting/harass purposes and then throw down double stargate if they scout spire. However, the main problem lies in the later game I believe, with the potential tech switches zerg can do at various points in the game. I think it will feel quite frustrated to have like 15 mutalisks walk into your main when your out on the map or defending your 4th or something like that. At the moment I believe mutalisks vs blink stalkers feel very fair and both players feel powerfull in the sense that zerg won't lose mutalisks if he just plays "correctly" and protoss will defend very well if he just splits up his army correctly. I expect that protoss with a dragoon will feel much more frustrated and powerless with just dragoons.
Now to break this protoss went for dragoons to fire at the lurkers. Zerg comes with hydra to shoot the dragoons, now protoss micros the dragoons and/or uses storm from behind. The zealots wait till the lurkers are gone or in few numbers.
Similar thing I believe can be accomplished with the new immortal. Though at the moment it has too much damage against normal. It should be nerfed to like 20 or 25, and instead stalker get higher DPS vs hydras. This will make it possible to retreat with immortals and then engage hydras with stalkers and use blink micro to save them individually.
Then the role for the Stalker will be to act as something like a Protoss Goliath, or even Viking in a way - cost-ineffective against ground, but good mobile AA with some harassment potential due to Blink.
I think this will open up slightly more interesting gameplay dynamics than simply bringing back the Dragoon.
Well, stalker has that role at the moment (vs mech), and noone likes it as "prevent-units" are straight up boring. You want units that encourage small army play, army trades and harass, instead of preventing it. Thus, I believe stalker need to be able to do offensive damage vs mech in some way.
While in general, putting on abilities on units (like immortals) often times doesn't feel right, I don't want to rule out the idea of giving the stalker an ability that is supposed to promote small-groups of offensive blink stalkers in the mid/late game vs primarily mech. Abilities can work when they are meant to encourage a specific micro/gameplay-element in the game, rather than encouraging random spamming. I believe we could try with the Absorb-ability to the stalker as a mid/late game upgrade, where it can absorb non-splash damage for a 3-second duration. This will make it poor vs lots of tanks, but can be used to take out like 2-tanks + planetary at an outer expo (along with blink). If it is a concern that the absorb-ability has no downside to it, then we could also consider to make it deal friendly fire to nearby units, which will make the stalker a lot worse in deathballs.
I feel like there is still lots of ways/variables we can adjust to make blink a fun ability that rewards micro and action rather than preventing it.
Anyway, I am gonna list up my suggested patch notes;
General - Scv economy saturation changed from 1/0.65/0 to 1/0.65/0.35 - Maps: Starbow Canyon is being replaced with Fighting Spirit without high ground to 3rd (I think that's unnecesary).
Protoss - Zealots as suggested by Dec should be implemented. It may need some testing/refining to see how it fare vs bio though. - Stalker damage increased from 14 vs normal to 16 vs normal. - Stalker receives new type of abilitiy that buffs blink in in the intended usage. It will likely need quite a bit of testing to make it feel right and balanced. - New Immortal implemented. Damage vs normal reduced from 40 to 20. - Reaver splash damage nerfed significantly. - HT damage increased to 120 vs armored over 6 seconds. Damage vs normal/light is maintained at roughly 80-100 over 6 seconds. - Scout movement speed upgrade removed. - Archon HP/shield reduced change from 10/300 to 140/140 which will make EMP less important/strong vs protoss, and this will make help seperate when you want to make HT's and when you want to make Archons, as I personally dislike that EMP's kinda counter both units. - Warp prism movement speed reduced from 3.75 to 3.2 Upgrade increases speed from 3.2 to 3.5 - Sentinel BT increased by 5 seconds.
Zerg
- Dark Swarm replaces the Sc2 binding cloud with 75% range reduction. - Overlords has a tier 3 upgrade that increases HP by 50. With current testing, overlords died a bit too quickly vs goliath + turrets combo in the late game. - New Hydra implemented (Dec solution). - Lurkers might neeed a small HP buff as new Immortals are quite strong. - Ultralisks might need a HP buff with Dark Swarm removal/nerf and immortal buff.
Terran - Irradiate deals damage over a longer period, so DPS is reduced (its too strong/unforgiving vs mutalisks atm) - Maurauder switch mode removed (I think switch mode should add micro to the game, it shouldn't result in counter-units being obosolete). - The Spider Mine from Sc2bw is being implemented. - Turret detection range reduced as DT's at the moment are useless vs mech. - Turret cost increased from 100 minerals to 125 minerals (or damage further reduced). Turret works okay'ish at the moment vs zerg and protoss (as you don't want to overmake them), however with new economy I fear that instead of investing into additional expos, you will use the spare minerals on a faster turret wall off which will reduce action in all matchups. Given that Sentinel openings and warp prism openings have been nerfed a bit, this change seems fair for early game as well.
On August 26 2013 17:40 Hider wrote: - New Immortal implemented. Damage vs normal reduced from 40 to 20. - Reaver splash damage nerfed significantly. - Archon HP/shield reduced change from 10/300 to 150/130 which will make EMP less important/strong vs protoss, and this will make help seperate when you want to make HT's and when you want to make Archons, as I personally dislike that EMP's kinda counter both units.
- Dark Swarm replaces the Sc2 binding cloud with 75% range reduction.
Please no. Most of these things will be adressed with the updated movement system, and Immortals should not go back to being a counter unit.
I don't think you got what dec is trying to show in the video. He is showing specific changes to some unit that have been problematic, but he intends to give similar movement and attack behavior to all relevant units. That includes Zerglings, Ultralisks, Goliaths, Mutalisks?, Marauders, Stalkers and a few more.
On August 26 2013 17:40 Hider wrote: Anyway, I am gonna list up my suggested patch notes;
General - Scv economy saturation changed from 1/0.65/0 to 1/0.65/0.35 - Maps: Starbow Canyon is being replaced with Fighting Spirit without high ground to 3rd (I think that's unnecesary).
Protoss - Zealots as suggested by Dec should be implemented. It may need some testing/refining to see how it fare vs bio though. - Stalker damage increased from 14 vs normal to 16 vs normal. - Stalker receives new type of abilitiy that buffs blink in in the intended usage. It will likely need quite a bit of testing to make it feel right and balanced. - New Immortal implemented. Damage vs normal reduced from 40 to 20. - Reaver splash damage nerfed significantly. - HT damage increased to 120 vs armored over 6 seconds. Damage vs normal/light is maintained at roughly 80-100 over 6 seconds. - Scout movement speed upgrade removed. - Archon HP/shield reduced change from 10/300 to 140/140 which will make EMP less important/strong vs protoss, and this will make help seperate when you want to make HT's and when you want to make Archons, as I personally dislike that EMP's kinda counter both units. - Warp prism movement speed reduced from 3.75 to 3.2 Upgrade increases speed from 3.2 to 3.5 - Sentinel BT increased by 5 seconds.
Zerg
- Dark Swarm replaces the Sc2 binding cloud with 75% range reduction. - Overlords has a tier 3 upgrade that increases HP by 50. With current testing, overlords died a bit too quickly vs goliath + turrets combo in the late game. - New Hydra implemented (Dec solution). - Lurkers might neeed a small HP buff as new Immortals are quite strong. - Ultralisks might need a HP buff with Dark Swarm removal/nerf and immortal buff.
Terran - Irradiate deals damage over a longer period, so DPS is reduced (its too strong/unforgiving vs mutalisks atm) - Maurauder switch mode removed (I think switch mode should add micro to the game, it shouldn't result in counter-units being obosolete). - The Spider Mine from Sc2bw is being implemented. - Turret detection range reduced as DT's at the moment are useless vs mech. - Turret cost increased from 100 minerals to 125 minerals (or damage further reduced). Turret works okay'ish at the moment vs zerg and protoss (as you don't want to overmake them), however with new economy I fear that instead of investing into additional expos, you will use the spare minerals on a faster turret wall off which will reduce action in all matchups. Given that Sentinel openings and warp prism openings have been nerfed a bit, this change seems fair for early game as well.
These mostly sound like good ideas, just a couple comments:
- I really think the Immortal needs to be a Gateway unit.
- If EMP is countering Archons too hard, maybe we should just cap it at 100 shields reduced per cast instead of all shields, like it is in SC2?
- I don't know how I feel about putting Blinding Cloud on the Defiler after we went through all that work shuffling around the Zerg spellcasters to keep the Viper and Defiler in the game together. I would prefer we just nerf the radius on Dark Swarm so you have to use it more accurately. Maybe get rid of or reduce the splash reduction as well. BC actually counters Siege Tanks much harder than DS does.
- A T3 50 HP upgrade for Overlords sounds really tacked on, I doubt most players would ever bother researching that. If you're trying to make doom drops more viable maybe we should just discuss bringing back a tweaked form of Nydus Worms since they can't be targeted by turrets/Goliath AA.
On August 26 2013 17:40 Hider wrote: Anyway, I am gonna list up my suggested patch notes;
General - Scv economy saturation changed from 1/0.65/0 to 1/0.65/0.35 - Maps: Starbow Canyon is being replaced with Fighting Spirit without high ground to 3rd (I think that's unnecesary).
Nice of you to sum stuff up Hider, makes it easier to discuss. I'll just make a quick comment now. I did some testing and the SC2 eco that Kabel posted some pages ago with BW and Sbow eco is not 100% accurate. If you isolate one mineral patch and look at what happens from 1 to 2 workers then adding one worker will double the income. When you have 8 patches then it might be slightly different, but my testing also shows a doubling from 8 to 16 workers over 8 patches here as well.
Here is my conclusion and I think it is correct: If we want the third worker to add something the the second worker will double the income compared to the first. This is unfortunate, but a reality. The only way around this seems to be to add a stupid worker AI that adds worse pathing when there are more workers clumping up. This would lead to a nice graph, but would be both difficult to make and difficult to test and adjust so we get the desired result.
(EDIT)I have made this though: 1/1/0.5111
This gives a general increase of the mineral eco of about 21 % compared to max saturation in current starbow (I compared 16 workers on 8 patches). We can keep it, as I suspect it is still easier to flood gas than minerals or we can go from 8 to 7 minerals per trip and that should cancel this out somewhat. The trouble with going from 8 to 7 is that the early game will be slightly longer. This might not be a problem as the early game in Sbow atm is quite short already.'
Let me repeat: It will be very difficult to make the second worker not double the eco if we want the third worker to give some income!
- I really think the Immortal needs to be a Gateway unit.
Yeh its very possible it should be. But BT is kinda low at the moment and robo tech is cheaper than it is in Sc2, so I still think you can get like 5-10 immortals in the midgame relatively easy.
- If EMP is countering Archons too hard, maybe we should just cap it at 100 shields reduced per cast instead of all shields, like it is in SC2?
It is 100 shields in Sbow? The problem is mass spamming of EMP on the protoss army since it is basically good against all protoss units. I wanna go back to a state where your more inclined to only EMP spellcaster units (where targetting matters). Further, I believe the new banshee vs archon interaction is a lot more fun.
- I don't know how I feel about putting Blinding Cloud on the Defiler after we went through all that work shuffling around the Zerg spellcasters to keep the Viper and Defiler in the game together. I would prefer we just nerf the radius on Dark Swarm so you have to use it more accurately. Maybe get rid of or reduce the splash reduction as well. BC actually counters Siege Tanks much harder than DS does.
The one advantage binding cloud has over a significantly nerfed Dark Swarm is that you at least can split your tanks against binding Cloud (micro matters). Honestly, against Dark Swarm you just feel powerless.
- A T3 50 HP upgrade for Overlords sounds really tacked on, I doubt most players would ever bother researching that. If you're trying to make doom drops more viable maybe we should just discuss bringing back a tweaked form of Nydus Worms since they can't be targeted by turrets/Goliath AA.
It actually isn't about doom dropping. Its mostly about dropping on top of tanks. Foxxan tried it vs me, but it felt quite weak, as you would need to sucidie a ton of empty overlords for goliaths not killing them before you can unload the units on top of tanks. Why wouldn't players research this upgrade once they are at T3 anyway? At the moment of course it doesn't matter since spamming Dark swarm is far superior to drop play, but with the suggested changes I think we will see more diverse and fun micro.
I have made this though: 1/1/0.25
My concern with this though is that it won't really change how players play, since taking a new expo is much more attractive due to the second worker income being much relative to 3rd worker income. So in Sbow the difference is 0.5 currently between 3rd and second worker. If the difference is increased to 0.75 taking bases even faster is actually furhter rewarded.
Thus, I believe the difference between 3rd and second worker should be less than 0.5 for a new econ to work.
The main problem of EMP in SC2 has always been that the Ghost is such an easy unit to get in numbers. Compare this to BW where mech play left you starved for gas to spend on Vessels. Sure EMP was good against all Protoss units, but would you rather hit 5 Dragoons or 1 Arbiter? because you could only really rely on getting 1-2 emp's per fight. If we are to do something about this we should probably make sure that mech style leaves little room for casters to be built, and/or increase the energy cost of EMP.
Interestingly EMP had a really slow projectile in BW. It felt like the slowest in the game, and was really hard to hit.
Regarding Overlords, I think we should look at how Goliaths work before making such an upgrade. Its a good idea, but Goliaths might just be a bit too good overall so the problem might not be with the Overlords. If Goliaths gets some quirks from the new movement system they could be much harder to use right. This would help Carriers, Overlords, BC's and other units currently suffering from the stronger Goliaths.
My concern with this though is that it won't really change how players play, since taking a new expo is much more attractive due to the second worker income being much relative to 3rd worker income. So in Sbow the difference is 0.5 currently between 3rd and second worker. If the difference is increased to 0.75 taking bases even faster is actually furhter rewarded.
Thus, I believe the difference between 3rd and second worker should be less than 0.5 for a new econ to work.
I'm not sure I am following you and I've made a mistake... First of all. A third worker on a patch in current Sbow eco should not give you any more mineral income at all. Theoretically that is... I've seen some test with very slight differences.
The mistake is the following. A third worker in my system gives you a ca. 25% increased overall eco, which amounts differently when compared to other workers like you do. This is correct:
1/1/0.51
So the third worker will only be half as effective as the other two unless he gets a new, fresh expansion to harvest from. This might be too much, but it can be adjusted. I'll edit the other post...
I'm not sure I am following you and I've made a mistake... First of all. A third worker on a patch in current Sbow eco should not give you any more mineral income at all. Theoretically that is... I've seen some test with very slight differences.
Well I looked at the difference in the current Sbow econ between 2nd worker income and 3rd worker income, which currently is this; 0.5 - 0 = 0.5
If the difference is even larger (e.g. if it is 1/1/0.25 --> then its 0.75), then players will just be rewarded for taking even faster bases.
1/1/0.51
This is the new suggested? This indeed is a drastic change, and will definitely require mineral income per path reduced from 8 to 7, and probably also just 8 mineral pathes in main and natural.
But ofc it will make possible to take bases at a slower rate.
So what I wanna see, and what I belive could/will occur with my suggested changes is this dynamic;
1) Protoss gets HT's for storm.
2) Terran scouts this and react with SV's for EMP.
3) Protoss scouts the SV's with the observer and now he has to chosoe between two options. A) Will he transform them into archons which now isn't hard countered by a couple of SV's, or B) Will he keep the HT's but tech to Scouts to fight off the SV's?
4A) Assuming he does the latter, we will now see some interesting EMP vs Scout + HT micro, which in general should slightly favor the protoss player.
4B) Assuming he chooses the former and sticks with Archons for the time being, SV's are now less of a hardcounter, and the terran player is rewarded for mixing in banshee's to kite/focus fire archons or simply just harass in general.
5B) With the current balance, protoss can just rape banshees by researching speed on Scouts, but if that ability is removed, he will instead prefer to mix in blink stalkers to try and defend vs the banshees.
6b) Assuming the protoss player stabilizies/kills the banshees with his stalkers, they become quite oboselete with current balance. However, with some kind of offensive small squad threat to them, they will be usefull for harassing relatively weakly defended outer expos. Thus they can now function as an anti deathball unit.
I believe this type of balance/dynamic is a lot more fun, and rewards scouting/reacting/decisionmaking, harass, "fun micro" (rather than spamming) and anti-deathball play too a larger extent.
EPT
). I'd indeed put sentinel back on robo, this would feel much better because:
