[A] Starbow - Page 463

- One new unit at Barrack
- One new unit at Factory

- One new unit at Lair tech
- One new unit at Hive tech

- One new unit at Gateway/Warp gate
- One new unit at Robotic facility


- "New units" means "new" units. (He he he)

- No units already in Sbow will be removed.

- No units already in Sbow will be rebalanced to make the new units fit. <-- Important!
(Though some units might need a rebalance anyway, for example the Reaper.)

- If those new units are broken, I will aim to modify them and only them. (Not start to modify everything else!)

- I have picked units and "designed" them in a way I think will be fun for the game and the gameplay, and fit in the game we already have. I am limited by the units/models that are in the editor, and I have tried to make something ok out of it. As usual, since I am public with my thought processes and the development here in the forum, you will all sit on the front row of the show. Either it fails or it becomes ok. The brutal truth unfolds when we start to play it.

(It kinda is like constructing a moon rocket. I build it and take it out on the yard. People stand around and watches. We launch it. The rocket misses the moon and explodes in the ocean. I say ¤#% and goes inside. Some of you say "Consider this, oh, and this, and I suggest this." I go; "hmm" Then I build a new rocket... ^^ )

"You miss 100% of all rockets you never launch."
- Abraham Lincoln

"GG go again?"
- Mahatma Gandhi

Anyway,

- At least one of those units will make you all throw up your breakfast and give you a strong desire to strangle me.
(I´m not kidding. I actually hesitate to include it in the patch.. ha ha.. ha)

- The test map will be uploaded for ca 2-3 weeks for a longer evaluation. Stats probably needs to be fine tuned a bit.
If the patch sucks hard in real games and everyone just hates it, and prefers the ordinary Starbow version, then the test patch will be scrapped and forgotten. In either case, I aim to go public with Starbow in a couple of weeks.

marauder?

thor?

roach?

Impaler?
This unit, if is specially modified, could favour to a positional game
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Impaler_(Heart_of_the_Swarm_Campaign)?

stalker?

immortal?

Well, I don´t think the metagame necessarily is stale at the moment. (In fact, I have no idea. I am never online nowadays.)

Here is the dilemma: There are not many other tools in the game for players to use, besides the BW stuff. And I think this will make the game feel old and predictable very fast, no matter if 5 or 50 people play it, since so much from BW is already explored and figured out.

Kinda as if we made a hobby-version of Warcraft 4. Imagine if 90% of all units, heroes, spells and stats were identical to WC3. If so, the metagame would probably end up being very similar to WC3. And it would be hard to be creative in "new" ways, since WC3 is also kinda explored.

I would find it much more fun to play a hobby-made version of WC4 if there was new stuff in the game: One new hero and two new units per race etc. It doesn´t matter if its perfect balance or not, or if the design is super mind blowing good. If the foundation of the game was solid enough, and used WC3 as a balance base, and people actually started to play it to become good at it, then new content would probably add more longevity to the game.

That is how I feel with Sbow: We have a great BW foundation. The game is stable and has a good balance. It is rooted in the Starcraft world and it feels really "Starcrafty" and fun. We have a lot of people who are devoted to the project and want it to become good. But there is not that much new things in the game.

Just kinda small improvements to already existing units - Zerg units can move while burrowed, Scourge can splash, Creep can be spread, Spine crawlers can move, Overlords can drop creep, Viper instead of Queen, Corsairs can lift up stuff, Warp in, Sentinel, Observers can use an ability, Matrix on Medics, Nerve Jammer on Vessel, Viking + Banshee instead of Wraith, Dropships can boost, BC stronger, macro mechanics for all races, some new upgrades, better game interface and a couple of other things.

Thats why I keep bothering you all about the test-patch thing. An attempt from me to add 1-2 new units to each race WITHOUT changing or reworking the BW balance. (Which I´ve always done in the past. : / ) Hopefully will this lead to the game feeling more interesting and fun, while still feeling familiar and true to BW. (Even though it will not be perfect balance immediately.)

It is the same speed as in HoTS. And I hate it. Even if both BW, SC2 and Sbow have the same game speed, combats in Sbow are much faster and ends quicker than in BW for a couple of game engine related reasons. (Units are smarter, unlimited selection, better pathing, tighter DPS density etc.)

I will actually reduce the attack and movement speed by maybe 5-7% for all units.

Slightly slower attack and movement speed = more time for human interactions in combats = more ways to determine the outcome of a combat via micro = more fun. (That is at least what I think.)

We had 10% slower attack and movement speed for a while in Sbow. Combats were IMO more exciting and fun, especially large fights who lasted longer. But it disappeared a couple of months ago when we went for the BW values for the balance. Since all BW values now are in place, I will this time aim for ca 5-7% reduction. (Which will still keep all balance relationships intact.)

Our maps are scaled for BW units movement speed. If it takes 30 sec to move across the map, it will instead take 31-32.5 seconds. I don´t think that will be a problem. The economy will be slightly affected due to slower workers movement speed, but that is such a small difference, and it will still be even between all races.

For thosw who do not know what it means:
- In SC2, you can select for example 10 High Templars and use them all to cast Storm. If you click 10 times on the battlefield, all 10 of the HT will cast Storm one at a time. It is easy to cover the screen with Storms.
- In BW, you must click on one HT at a time to cast Storm. Then the next one. And the next one. It won´t help to have all 10 selected and spam Storm. It is hard to cover the screen with Storms.

The problematic thing is the relationship between BWs 12 unit selection limit and only one caster who can cast a spell at a time. If we use unlimited selection in Sbow, but smart casting, it will be soooo much stronger and easier to just A-move vs a player who now will require a lot of APM to just cast spells. Example:
- Its really easy for me to A-move with 25 Hydras + 50 Zerglings vs Protoss army, compared to how much APM Protoss must use to cast storm from 5-7 HT. If this scenario happend in BW, it would require more APM and army management from Zerg as well. Which means that the APM-relationship would be maintained. (Imagine if it was vice versa - 12 unit selection limit, smart cast in BW. It would be so much easier to spam spells compared to how hard it would be to manage armies.)

Without smart-casting, I think spells need to be stronger to compensate for unlimited selection.
With smart-casting, I think mainly BW spells need to be weak or maybe even weaker than they are now.

Dark swarm + Consume is something that IMO is heavily affected by smart cast and the smart interface. Rally all your hatches to the same place with one click, spam units, consume Zerglings to gain energy, spam Dark swarm over the screen, make your army invulernable and A-move. This process is much more APM demanding in BW and requires higher execution in production management, army management, individual micro of the Defilers etc.

I think Dark Swarm might need a rework to fit with the SC2 engine. Some examples:
- No consume or weaker consume.
- Dark swarm does not add complete invulnerabiliy. (Maybe 50 or 75% dmg reduction)
- Much smaller area
- many other approaches

Same is true for Storm, Irradiate and a couple other spells. They were all nerfed in different ways because earlier in Sbow they became insanely strong when massed, since it is as easy to have MANY spellcasters as there is to have few. I don´t say that spells should be removed, or the general game interface should be dumbed down. I just think we need to identify the correct aspect of spells to balance, no matter if we use smart cast or not. Work with what we got and take the game engine into larger consideration.

Reaper - I don´t think this unit shall NOT require Tech lab. When it could be built directly from Barrack a while ago, it was impossible to go Nexus first or 14CC vs Terran. T who went 1-2 fast Reapers could win the game vs a fast expanding P or T. It was a huge balance oncern a few months ago.

I rather let the Reaper remain at Tech lab, but instead increase its efficiency. Maybe deal 12 dmg vs light units instead of 10. (One less shot to kill workers, since Drones and Probes regenerates life/shield.) Maybe faster starting movement speed.

Queen attack - Since its attack costs energy to activate, I agree that it could be bit stronger. Not too strong though, since it is still "free" defence. Maybe a couple of extra dmg will be ok.

Some upgrades cost who are off - I will fix some of them tomorrow.

You want SV's to irradiate defilers, you want scourge to snipe SV's, you want marines to protect your SV'd agains scourge and you want lurkers to protect your scourge from being sniped from marines. Alternatively goliaths or missle turrets to snipe scourges.