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Yes, storm is a good spell in regards of micro. But all spells don´t function like it. Standing still before cast is only relevant if that amount of time is long enough for a human reaction, and provides some kind of visible indicator, so the enemey player can see that something will happen, and can thus react to it. (Move his units, kill the spellcaster etc) One example would be Recall - if it takes 3-5 seconds for it to be cast, the enemy Terran player has the chance to focus it down, or reposition his army in a relevant way, compared to if it was an instant effect.
Yeh I agree it can be used in some situations. But only in those situations where we can't implement better type of micro. For instance, I find it completely unnecesary to tweak Psy Storm in that way. Further, I fear that it easily could make alot of the abilities you listed too weak (and unbalanceable because they can always be killed before).
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starbow's been out for a year now. How's your player base these days? Are you nearing a completed game, or still working with big issues? It seems like a very interesting project.
PS, where can I go for VODs right now? Anything good/recent?
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Well, been out and been out. Its been here in this thread in this small corner of the internet for a time now.
I did release a first final version of Starbow in January. But it was in fact not that final - lots of spells were broken, many bugs, unit and build time stats were off. Turned out that mass Blink Stalkers could not be stopped by anything, Vultures ruled the world, and other issues that lead to very lame gameplay.
Obviously my "method" of working has not been the best. Just a long chain of trial and error, learning the editor, learning to understand the game, building stuff in panic, hitting a dead end, taking a step back, find other approaches, trying to reach Eldorado. A lack of satisfaction.
I have constantly tried to find angles of the game to improve upon. Stuff like:
- "Would the game be more interesting if Dragoon is split into Stalker/Immortal?" Well, probably. Lets go for it! Go go go. So one unit is chopped up, and the game is tweaked to make this new glorious idea enrich us all. And then the next thing I want to try and loads ot theorethic discussions left and right.
Then came HoTS and I just.had.to.try.all.new.HoTS.units.in.Starbow.too... Ah, and at two points have the file been completely destroyed by Blizzard patches, so I have rebuilt everything from scratch. (With help from the awesome XiA and December!)
It was a couple of months ago I realized we had no good reference frame for the game. How can we ever determine if anything works ok or not with such a small player pool? One tweak here leads to another tweak there... Presenting it to more players did not feel right if the game was only half completed. So I decided to go more for BW as a stable foundation. Recreate the BW balance. Which we have now. And then work upon it.
The game is in its most stable shape now IMO. It is only a bit too much like BW atm. So I will release one last design patch with 1-2 "new" units per race. (I am working on it now.) This patch intends to add things to the game without reworking anything that already exists. Which is a new way of "thinking" for me.
Depending on how that patch works out, the game is quite close to being completed. Only some bugs and other things I need to take care off. I will go public within a couple of weeks to see if more people care to play this and find it enjoyable.
The player base comsists of the usual playtesters, ca 6-12 regular players and sometimes a couple of newcomers. I am grateful they care to play this and help me improving the game!
Here is two ok games from yesterday, played by two of our best players: Hider and Dirtybag aka Foxxan -
http://drop.sc/364533
http://drop.sc/364534
Check out December and Xiphias streams. They are posted here in the thread when they are live, maybe 1-2 times per week, around evening Europe time. They live cast games played in the Starbow chat channel on EU usually between Diamond and Master players.
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@ Sentinel
I don't think a unit which has energy-based abilities should have cooldowns. I mean whats the point besides annoying players who use it?
If an ability is too powerfull to be used multiple times in a row then adjust the energy cost. For the Sentinels its so goddam annoying that epseically its detect ability has such a short duration and then you need to wait a while before you can use it again. Seems pointless.
Also I really really dislike the HT-delay thing. It would be nice if it got removed. 
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Well, ofc those spells stats are not perfect.
Null wards without cooldown is really spammable. And too many of them early can really mess up the game. (As we´ve seen in the past.)
If it costs 25 energy, one can be placed every 44 second, assuming all energy is spent on it non-stop.
If it costs 50 energy, one can be placed every 88 second, assuming all energy is spent on it non-stop.
If a Sentinel however has 100 energy, it can immediately place 4 Null wards at the same time, if there are no cooldowns. Imagine if there are more Sentinels present with much energy saved, spamming the battlefield with them.
If they cost 50 energy, they are placed too rarely IMO. They also feel too weak for that cost. If they are made stronger, they become insane when harassing since the Sentinel can fly into enemy bases.
Thats why I went for the middle ground - 25 energy cost with 30 sec cooldown and this decent effect we now have. A good Protoss player who is active with his Sentinels gets more Null wards on the battlefield, compared to someone who saves up energy.
Regarind Sentinel detection spell, I like that there is another source of detection for Protoss, since that opens up more diversity, especially vs T. As soon as Spider mines hit the field, P is locked in his base without Observer and thereby goes a relatively quick Robo bay in a majority of all games. It is now possible to do Starport openings. But I don´t want Sentinels to take away the need of Observers. They are suppose to give weak and maybe temporarily detection , compared to Observers who give better detection. Use the Sentinel energy wisely and use it when you sense cloaked stuff being nearby.
Thats my intention at least.
But ofc, if better energy costs come to mind, with better reasons, I am willing to listen.
Also I really really dislike the HT-delay thing. It would be nice if it got removed.
I will keep it on some spells who are instant, like Recall and maybe Plague etc, But on spells with moving missiles or other dodgeable effects will they be removed.
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Null wards without cooldown is really spammable. And too many of them early can really mess up the game. (As we´ve seen in the past.)
Whats the difference between that and Spider mines?
Imagine if there are more Sentinels present with much energy saved, spamming the battlefield with them.
Why is that bad? Currently its never used in battles really - Would it be awfull if it was used in that way?
Whats the point of giving the Sentinel energy currently if in all practical situations never run out of energy due its high cooldown
Anyway, real problem was with the detect-thing - I feel like its absolutely unnecesary for that ability.
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Whats the difference between that and Spider mines?
Because Vultures don´t fly into enemy bases and Spider mines are limited to only 3 per Vulture.
Why is that bad? Currently its never used in battles really - Would it be awfull if it was used in that way?
Because 4 Sentinels can fly into an enemy base, spawn 16 Null wards immediately exactly where he needs them and just evaporate the enemy ground or air army as soon as they come back to defend. Or kill worker lines. And that can be done quite early in the game for a low investment cost. I base it on games we´ve seen this happen. Null wards don´t even do much damage. But hordes of them slaughters low life units like workers, Hydras etc.
Whats the point of giving the Sentinel energy currently if in all practical situations never run out of energy due its high energy cost?
They do run out of energy. If you use them actively you will spend more energy than you will gain. 44 seconds to regenerate 25 energy. Cooldown of both basic spells is 30 sec. And you can use them simultaneously. There is also a 75 energy spell that can be upgraded. It will likely see as much play as Disruption web in BW. Unless someone invents something fun with it in game.
Anyway, real problem was with the detect-thing - I feel like its absolutely unnecesary for that ability.
If there is no cooldown, the Sentinel offers a lot of detection for a long time. (If he does not use energy on Null wards.) Which I fear will make them as good as Observers. Get 2-3 of them and you have permanent detection who can attack.
But again, if you have better stats in mind, I do listen.
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just a thing i noticed watching this tvt.....scan should cost 50 energy lol
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Cooldown on sentinels detection is fine imo. Observer is the king of detection.
To keep up with detection on sentinel you need two of them, to focus mainly on detection, i kinda like that.
Or else it would be superior over observer in some sitautioins?
About the sphere. I dont see the problem here if it would not have any cooldown, if protoss wanna decide to go plenty of sentinels and spam the shit. Why is this bad?
Opponent can still target the trap down, right? Also, target sentinel down? Its a decision for protoss to make this many sentinels.
Opponent can still micro against the traps to.
The trap do 15vs light for 25mana.
A storm do 112damage for 75 mana. You see here?
A good protoss still want combat units, with sentinels. Thats the combo they want.
I dont like this cooldown on sphere at all, it feels like it removes the purpose of it.
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just a thing i noticed watching this tvt.....scan should cost 50 energy lol
Ah, glad to have you back Meerel!
What do you think about "Texas"? After all, its your map from the start that got spiced up by the community who finished it.
Scan is tricky, since Terran has two macro abilities that require energy. If scan costs 50 energy, I fear they will never be able to use it since boosting army + worker production is so important. (And important for the gameplay since it adds APM to the macro aspect of the game. All races must now go back to their bases to boost production.) One potential thing we´ve discussed is to move Scan to another structure, or make it require "charges." (Like Spider mines - You can have 3 charges of Scan. Each one regenerates every 30 sec but costs no energy to cast.)
Here is details about the macro mechanics and why scan is problematic: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=304955¤tpage=455#9090
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Because Vultures don´t fly into enemy bases and Spider mines are limited to only 3 per Vulture.
Note sure I agree here. Vultures cost less. For same cost you can get a much higer amount of spider Mines at once (assuming 50 energy).
Because 4 Sentinels can fly into an enemy base, spawn 16 Null wards immediately exactly where he needs them and just evaporate the enemy ground or air army as soon as they come back to defend.
Yeh obviously it should be 50 energy then. Further why is it even good to place 16 nullwards at once? Thats just easily killable by scanning and attacking with units that have higher range? At least it seems like a waste of energy.
They do run out of energy. If you use them actively you will spend more energy than you will gain. 44 seconds to regenerate 25 energy.
Well I used the "term" practical. In 99%+ of games, it won't run out of energy.
Cooldown on sentinels detection is fine imo. Observer is the king of detection.
But what's the point? Why not just increase energy cost and make it a decision on whether you want to use it or not. With a low energy cost you will use it every time cooldown wears off.
That's IMO why the CD-concept is fundamentally flawed. The current abilities of the Sentinel are OP on a effect/energy cost metric and thus they need to be restrained so they can't be used too much. However, that simply takes any type of creativity/decisions out of it since it becomes optimal to use it every X second.
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Hider or Foxxan, if you have better values in mind, drop me a suggestion. Preferably with a motivation why it is better and more fun.
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On November 08 2013 09:31 Kabel wrote:
Hider, if you have better values in mind, drop me a suggestion.
Well I would just remove Cooldowns from all energybased units and increase energy cost of the abilites instead.
- Nullsphre 50 energy no CD.
- Detection abilit is then okay'ish at 25 energy no CD.
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Because 4 Sentinels can fly into an enemy base, spawn 16 Null wards immediately exactly where he needs them and just evaporate the enemy ground or air army as soon as they come back to defend. Or kill worker lines
Well ofcourse they can. But everything can melt something if it is not defended.
You have to consider the opponent is good, and smart. Scourges -> sentinels. Right? They move faster, and they two shot them. While sentinel cant even shoot back.
Even in pvz meta, zerg gets spire just in time for the first corsair against FFE, now with a buildtime that is 25seconds longer for protoss, i just dont see this scenario ever happen against zerg that is smart.
Besdies, what stops zerg to scout protoss and react with defence? Have like 8hydras to defend? They snipe quite well. They also have spores, abduct and what i said earlier scourges.
Terran on the other hand, if we assume they go mechanical build. They have goliaths, and turrets? I dont see the problem here at all.
I do have some suggestions in mind for the sphere. If i continue on with how this spell is made right now->:
You could make it just move in a straight line, so the opponent can dodge it 100% if he moves right and left. Wouldnt this work?
Its 9seconds trigger time right now, its quite high and not really "very reactionary". How about 4-5seconds.
With a range 3 on autotrigger, quite easy to kill the trap here. Although the manualtrigger is 9range, thats a big problematic. With this in mind, the trap will always hit if u manual target.
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Ah, forgot to respond to this:
Well, I guess you were wondering how the changes would play out. Did they work as intended, or do they still need tweaking? Etc etc =) I like to see how you think..
This patch only had few changes in terms of balance/gameplay. Most of it was bug fixes and other improvements.
- Viking seems fun to play with and more balanced now than before. (Not perfect though.)
- Sentinel and Null ward feels better now than before, mostly because it was really bugged earlier.
- Cast delay fit on some spells but not on all.
- Queen with activated attack seems to make early game pressure vs Z more viable, balanced and fair. (So far at least.)
Well I would just remove Cooldowns from all energybased units and increase energy cost of the abilites instead.
- Nullsphre 50 energy no CD.
- Detection abilit is then okay'ish at 25 energy no CD.
The Null ward will not be worth it for this cost, unless buffed? Now they 3-shot workers.
If we look at the gameplay, I think it is a nice "unit" that creates some fun micro situations since there are many ways to react to it. If they see play more often, especially at more locations, we get more fun scenarios. But ofc too many of them at the same time turned out to be broken. If they are more rare, they need to be more poweful, to even make it worth to invest into them?
Detection without CD will work as an attacking Observer? One Sentinels gives detection for a long period of time.
But hey, Im not gonna be impossible. Maybe I end up with those or similar values anyway. I´m working during the weekend 12 hours a day, so I will not have time to patch this until sunday. So play some more with it during the weekend to see how it feels. So we don´t jump to conclusions too fast.
I do have some suggestions in mind for the sphere. If i continue on with how this spell is made right now->:
You could make it just move in a straight line, so the opponent can dodge it 100% if he moves right and left. Wouldnt this work?
Its 9seconds trigger time right now, its quite high and not really "very reactionary". How about 4-5seconds.
With a range 3 on autotrigger, quite easy to kill the trap here. Although the manualtrigger is 9range, thats a big problematic. With this in mind, the trap will always hit if u manual target.
Making it attack in a line requires a shit-ton of editor work, at least for me since I am not gosu. I had it like that earlier and it was really bugged. So I prefer to let it be kinda like it is, but maybe with different range, damage and time values etc.
I do kinda like the manual target though. Remove auto-cast altogether? Lazy Protoss gets everything served for them.
But a line attack might indeed make it more microable and fun though... Hmm.. Ahhhhh stupid editor and stupid limited life timeeeee
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It doesnt feel very microable to me right now.
Toss plants it with one sentinel.
I have some really cool thing for this spell.
25mana, no cooldown.
Same damage as now.
The protoss lays the trap, and if an enemy is within 5range. The trap will trigger after 3 seconds and shoot in a straight line(not seeker missile), enemy moves left and right to dodge it.
The way the sentinel plants the trap is he choose which direction the trap is gonna go.
Now we have micro for toss that would feel fun to use. And also dodgeable spell.
What u think?
With 50mana, it just feels none-micro. You use it once every 45seconds.(?)
I want more sustained combat here.
About his detection ability
What i would do here is give a high enough mana cost, so he cant use any other spell.
So when the spell goes off, he can use the detection again. So protoss makes him a detector and nothing else.
Because if he can, then its superior over observer
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well i usually dont read the discussion here so my knowledge is not deep enough to understand everything obviously, just a rdm observation.
Texas Map: i think its cool, maybe a little bit too turtlish. and a little bit too small. i can send you the final mapfile becasue i finished it for tlmc3.
i will try to make better maps for starbow in the future i promise^^
and maybe you should use pathfinder and polaris rhapsody without the lava stuff
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Suggestion for Reaper
So I thought of a very simple way to make Reaper balanced vs lings while still usefull early game;
- Doesn't require tech lab
- BT of roughly 40 seconds
- Movement speed only marginally faster/same speed as slow-lings
- Movement speed upgrade avaiable at tech lab --> Increases movemement speed to 3.8
With the new change to the queen, it will be usefull vs a double-queen non ling opening. Vs a ling/noqueen-opening it will be decent but not imbalanced as before. This shold add alot of micro situations to the game.
The protoss lays the trap, and if an enemy is within 5range. The trap will trigger after 3 seconds and shoot in a straight line(not seeker missile), enemy moves left and right to dodge it.
The way the sentinel plants the trap is he choose which direction the trap is gonna go.
Now we have micro for toss that would feel fun to use. And also dodgeable spell.
What u think?
With 50mana, it just feels none-micro. You use it once every 45seconds.(?)
I want more sustained combat here.
I think with 25 energy it will be too spamable which means that you can't practically avoid it. For instance if protoss sets up 10 traps during a battle, your probably better off just a-moving rather than attempting to micro against it (since its impossible). Instad, I think its alot more interesting with your suggestion to make it 50 energy and instead make it alot more powerfull. Psy Storm for instance, creates awsome micro battles when it is used maybe 3-4 times during a battle. But in situations when it is mass spammed, it takes a lot of the charm out of it.
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@Mereel
I think all your old maps have the "wrong" scale. December and Xiphias have remade many of your maps and other BW maps with another scale that fits with the game speed of Starbow, so the rush distances corresponds to BW, for the sake of balance. I think "Texas" is off scale too, but I kept it anyway cause I like the map.. especially the color of it. :3
I am not 100% sure about the details though. Maybe they can comment on this when they see it tomorrow. If you go online on B.net and search for Starbow in the Arcade, you can see the current maps. You can open them in the editor too. I am sure Xiphias and December would let you work and improve them more, if you find it enjoyable.
@Hider
Reaper suggestion might work yes. Especially if Reapers are useless at this point. Someone need to try them to see how the timings feel.
Though, their bomb-ability upgrade already gives them a speed upgrade.
Oh, and now you are gonna kill me... The Queen Enrage ability has a cooldown too :D
@Foxxan
I edited my post above regarding Null ward. Its not that I don´t like the line-attack idea. I think it sounds fun. But its a lot of editor work to get it to work properly, as far as I know.
(I need to decide on a name. Shall it be called Null ward or Null sphere??! >_<)
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So I prefer to let it be kinda like it is, but maybe with different range, damage and time values etc.
I do kinda like the manual target though. Remove auto-cast altogether? Lazy Protoss gets everything served for them.
Well, Alright.
I like the 25mana no cooldown, i think it just fits much better.
If the range is under 8. Its uselesss versus goliaths?
If its over 5. Hydras is kinda powerless?
9seconds feels a to big uptime atleast. I would test 3-5.
I like the removal of auto-cast on it though.
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EPT
