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On January 04 2013 23:03 ledarsi wrote:
A very slow Colossus with a minimum range is just one of several possible solutions. Completely reworking its attack into something completely new is another, with more opportunity for creating a new design.
The 6 supply colossus that is strong against big clumps of units dealing AoE damage is fundamentally a deathball unit. It is expensive, few in number, and counters everything it can attack, and is only countered by things it cannot shoot at. Which other units protect it from, which must accompany it. It's a universally strong unit countered by flying units- which is terrible design.
Making a micro-Colossus, call it a "Strider," is another possible route. Making it 3 supply and much smaller, with a new type of attack. Make it collide with friendly ground units (and not air units). Remove its vulnerability to anti-air attacks, but make it considerably weaker. It would still be vulnerable to units like Banshees and Mutalisks, just not Vikings and Corruptors.
It would need a completely new attack if miniaturized. I'm sure you guys have lots of ideas. A short time-delayed radial AOE bomb. Or perhaps a linear beam with excellent range that does friendly fire damage to units in the path. Perhaps a slow plasma bomb projectile that gets lobbed up and over onto the target, and has a huge AOE splash for relatively little damage, but persists for a significant duration with blue flames like a large, low-power psi storm with a cooldown of a few seconds. Could allow the Strider to fire manually at the ground to lead your shot or deny space with many different possible weapons.
I would like to comment that I actually thought the Juggernaut Plating Marauder was a tremendous improvement over the Concussive Shell Marauder. I think that is a much better direction to take the Marauder. In fact, to play more in that direction, would OneGoal consider making the Marauder (or even all Barracks units) 1 supply and redesigning them to fit? The Marauder might be 65 HP, Medium type, and 6 (+6 Armored) damage at 5 range, built at the 1 supply weight class for 75m/25g, as a slightly larger Marine with greatly different characteristics.
Totally agree with your analysis of whats wrong with the colosus, not so mutch with your idea of a 3supply smaller colosus.
I think it should stay a T3 unit.
I feel like making it unable to step over friendly units would already sevearly improove the colosus in a spectator standpoint.
Right now a Protoss army looks incredibly tiny because the entire army fits under 3 colosi.
I often though "i can take that, thats small" when looking at my roach corrupter clump and his 3 colosi and the 6 visible stalkers. well i was wrong, way more under the colosi that i didnt realize with ym quick look.
also yeah a more lurker esque attack would be perfect fir for the colosus.
Maby combined with it having to "root itself in the ground and charge the attack up"
It would be very unique and fun.
Like a slow laser canon that fires a strong beam for X second(s) after X second(s) charge up.
It would be weak against any kind of air to ground because it cant attack air and it could be softcountered by good splits (see Marine vs Lurker micro) and good positioning.
It also would clearly benefit from good positioning itself and thus break up a deathball.
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Assume you could design units (while keeping MBS and smartfire) that made the game just as difficult to master as BW was, wouldn't that make for a better game?
The difficulty of BW wasn't the unit control. We talked a lot about this two or three pages before (a small video). BW was difficult mainly because GETTING the units was hard. If you make a game with that much skill requirement, but by only making units very hard to use (every unit), the game will be only micro battles, where getting ahead will have no importance at all if the opponent can micro a bit better than you on the next engagement.
ledarsi :
In regard of your last design concept (units limitations), I think removing the vulnerability to air is really wrong.
But I really dislike the colossus having a bonus against light. He's already very good against most light units (marines, hydra ...) because they are so packed.
Having them being slow siege units basically makes them reavers. But the reaver was good, allowing to micro a bit against it, and micro a lot with it. But it was in a game where units weren't naturally tightly packed.
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This idea that T3 = huge is brand new to SC2, and is awful. Even Ultralisks were 4 supply in Brood War, and the only 6 supply units in the entire game were the BC and Carrier. Why not have high tech units that cost less supply?
Less supply means more pieces. More options about your production- what if you want a mini-Colossus and a Void Ray instead of one badass 6 supply Colossus? It means you can split your forces more ways. It means more variation in game states since you have a more fungible army that sustains more casualties and requires more reinforcements.
Most importantly, lower supply costs means smaller armies are more useful against bigger armies, since you can more easily inflict casualties even on a much larger force.
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On January 04 2013 23:30 Nyvis wrote:Show nested quote +Assume you could design units (while keeping MBS and smartfire) that made the game just as difficult to master as BW was, wouldn't that make for a better game? The difficulty of BW wasn't the unit control. We talked a lot about this two or three pages before (a small video). BW was difficult mainly because GETTING the units was hard. If you make a game with that much skill requirement, but by only making units very hard to use (every unit), the game will be only micro battles, where getting ahead will have no importance at all if the opponent can micro a bit better than you on the next engagement. ledarsi : In regard of your last design concept (units limitations), I think removing the vulnerability to air is really wrong. But I really dislike the colossus having a bonus against light. He's already very good against most light units (marines, hydra ...) because they are so packed. Having them being slow siege units basically makes them reavers. But the reaver was good, allowing to micro a bit against it, and micro a lot with it. But it was in a game where units weren't naturally tightly packed.
Your misunderstanding my question. I said assuming that one could design units so the game would be just as hard to master as bw. Obviously bw wasn't just difficult because of the units but also because of MBS and stuff like that. But that is why I want to redesign all units, making all units difficult to master so we get the same effect as in bw (while keeping MBS):
Basically I want the best part from BW (the skill cap) but I also want the game to be easier for new players (Whcih sc2 does a better job at).
Assuming we can accomplish that, wouldn't that be preferable?
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On January 04 2013 23:31 ledarsi wrote:
This idea that T3 = huge is brand new to SC2, and is awful. Even Ultralisks were 4 supply in Brood War, and the only 6 supply units in the entire game were the BC and Carrier. Why not have high tech units that cost less supply?
Less supply means more pieces. More options about your production- what if you want a mini-Colossus and a Void Ray instead of one badass 6 supply Colossus? It means you can split your forces more ways. It means more variation in game states since you have a more fungible army that sustains more casualties and requires more reinforcements.
Most importantly, lower supply costs means smaller armies are more useful against bigger armies, since you can more easily inflict casualties even on a much larger force.
Overall i too think stuff costs too mutch supply in SC2, dunno, 3 supply just sounded odd but yeah forget about it ^^
I think generally T3 units should be 4 supply with maby few exceptions.
However Bigger armys are only a good thing if you "fix" the deathball and economy problems.
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On January 04 2013 23:35 gCgCrypto wrote:
However Bigger armys are only a good thing if you "fix" the deathball and economy problems.
That was actually my point. Shrinking the supply costs of many units goes a LONG way towards fixing both the deathball and economy problems.
An army that is twice as large, composed of units that are half as strong, is much easier to chip away at using smaller forces. That larger army is less efficient, and sustains more casualties fighting the same enemy as the half-size, double-strength unit army. It also costs more to build, and itself performs better in multiple separate pieces.
Fighting a ball with big units, such as 6 supply colossi, or thors, or whatever, is futile if you haven't the punch to kill even one. The punch required to kill one is much less if those units are smaller, cheaper, and weaker.
As a simple illustrative example, imagine a small Zergling force against Marines as opposed to a small force of Zerglings versus Thors. Even if the zerglings lose against a marine ball, at least they are going to kill some, which will cost time and money to replace.
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On January 04 2013 23:34 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2013 23:30 Nyvis wrote:Assume you could design units (while keeping MBS and smartfire) that made the game just as difficult to master as BW was, wouldn't that make for a better game? The difficulty of BW wasn't the unit control. We talked a lot about this two or three pages before (a small video). BW was difficult mainly because GETTING the units was hard. If you make a game with that much skill requirement, but by only making units very hard to use (every unit), the game will be only micro battles, where getting ahead will have no importance at all if the opponent can micro a bit better than you on the next engagement. ledarsi : In regard of your last design concept (units limitations), I think removing the vulnerability to air is really wrong. But I really dislike the colossus having a bonus against light. He's already very good against most light units (marines, hydra ...) because they are so packed. Having them being slow siege units basically makes them reavers. But the reaver was good, allowing to micro a bit against it, and micro a lot with it. But it was in a game where units weren't naturally tightly packed. Your misunderstanding my question. I said assuming that one could design units so the game would be just as hard to master as bw. Obviously bw wasn't just difficult because of the units but also because of MBS and stuff like that. But that is why I want to redesign all units, making all units difficult to master so we get the same effect as in bw (while keeping MBS): Basically I want the best part from BW (the skill cap) but I also want the game to be easier for new players (Whcih sc2 does a better job at). Assuming we can accomplish that, wouldn't that be preferable?
You answered without reading my post? I said that if you want to make SC2 as difficult as BW only by redesigning units to make them hard to use, you will have a game with only micro. And no new player because every unit will be too hard to understand and use.
The skill cap of BW was made of a lot of complex stuff, and on can't improve it only by playing on units skill and usage. And especially not by making every unit hard to use.
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On January 05 2013 00:18 Nyvis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2013 23:34 Hider wrote:On January 04 2013 23:30 Nyvis wrote:Assume you could design units (while keeping MBS and smartfire) that made the game just as difficult to master as BW was, wouldn't that make for a better game? The difficulty of BW wasn't the unit control. We talked a lot about this two or three pages before (a small video). BW was difficult mainly because GETTING the units was hard. If you make a game with that much skill requirement, but by only making units very hard to use (every unit), the game will be only micro battles, where getting ahead will have no importance at all if the opponent can micro a bit better than you on the next engagement. ledarsi : In regard of your last design concept (units limitations), I think removing the vulnerability to air is really wrong. But I really dislike the colossus having a bonus against light. He's already very good against most light units (marines, hydra ...) because they are so packed. Having them being slow siege units basically makes them reavers. But the reaver was good, allowing to micro a bit against it, and micro a lot with it. But it was in a game where units weren't naturally tightly packed. Your misunderstanding my question. I said assuming that one could design units so the game would be just as hard to master as bw. Obviously bw wasn't just difficult because of the units but also because of MBS and stuff like that. But that is why I want to redesign all units, making all units difficult to master so we get the same effect as in bw (while keeping MBS): Basically I want the best part from BW (the skill cap) but I also want the game to be easier for new players (Whcih sc2 does a better job at). Assuming we can accomplish that, wouldn't that be preferable? You answered without reading my post? I said that if you want to make SC2 as difficult as BW only by redesigning units to make them hard to use, you will have a game with only micro. And no new player because every unit will be too hard to understand and use. The skill cap of BW was made of a lot of complex stuff, and on can't improve it only by playing on units skill and usage. And especially not by making every unit hard to use.
First of all what I want is a game of unit control, multiasking and great decision making. Micro is only a part of that. However, boring stuff should be minimzied (such as boring decisions, easy to use abilities etc).
Secondly your conlclusion is a logical fallacy. Why wouldn't it matter that you could get ahead?
But the fact that you can outmicro your opponent completely and turn a 40-60 situation into a 60-40 situation is only a desirable outcome in my opinion.
Also why do you bring this up, that new players can't control units properly. I mentioned this a lot of times; that all new units should be designed so that htey are easy to use and difficult to masters. Lets just assume this is possible, wouldn't this be great design?
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On January 05 2013 00:18 Nyvis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2013 23:34 Hider wrote:On January 04 2013 23:30 Nyvis wrote:Assume you could design units (while keeping MBS and smartfire) that made the game just as difficult to master as BW was, wouldn't that make for a better game? The difficulty of BW wasn't the unit control. We talked a lot about this two or three pages before (a small video). BW was difficult mainly because GETTING the units was hard. If you make a game with that much skill requirement, but by only making units very hard to use (every unit), the game will be only micro battles, where getting ahead will have no importance at all if the opponent can micro a bit better than you on the next engagement. ledarsi : In regard of your last design concept (units limitations), I think removing the vulnerability to air is really wrong. But I really dislike the colossus having a bonus against light. He's already very good against most light units (marines, hydra ...) because they are so packed. Having them being slow siege units basically makes them reavers. But the reaver was good, allowing to micro a bit against it, and micro a lot with it. But it was in a game where units weren't naturally tightly packed. Your misunderstanding my question. I said assuming that one could design units so the game would be just as hard to master as bw. Obviously bw wasn't just difficult because of the units but also because of MBS and stuff like that. But that is why I want to redesign all units, making all units difficult to master so we get the same effect as in bw (while keeping MBS): Basically I want the best part from BW (the skill cap) but I also want the game to be easier for new players (Whcih sc2 does a better job at). Assuming we can accomplish that, wouldn't that be preferable? You answered without reading my post? I said that if you want to make SC2 as difficult as BW only by redesigning units to make them hard to use, you will have a game with only micro. And no new player because every unit will be too hard to understand and use. The skill cap of BW was made of a lot of complex stuff, and on can't improve it only by playing on units skill and usage. And especially not by making every unit hard to use.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions that I have ever read and it still frustrates me that people have this point of view. It's not that you put more micro in order to "make it harder", what needs to be done is make it so that IF YOU WANT TO GET ADDITIONAL UTILITY from that unit it's a lot harder to do so. What do I mean? Well, it's clear to everyone how strong hellions are against light units right? But people often underestimate the strength of hellions versus small groups of roaches/stalkers. So you have the option of opening versus protoss and zerg where you can send a small group of hellions and abuse the splash and mobility to gain utility from your hellions and even promote MORE strategy by doing so. Thus, if units were well designed and actually had the ability to be "microed" to be more than just their obvious potential, you can actually gain a lot more strategy, based on your ability to gain every bit of utility from that unit. This is what I want when I think of a "dynamic rts". And why should we worry about if it's bad for noobs? If the unit is well designed, then it's role should be obvious, but it's potential should be vast and limitless, thus it would actually encourage noobs to learn and be fun by doing so. This is the epitome of the "easy to learn, difficult to master" philosophy.
Edit: And I don't have to just use hellions as an example. Remember how cool it was when MKP showed us how by properly microing marines, their utility could be abused to the limit. What about Life, when he should by using small groups of properly microed zerglings you would almost be afraid to push out of your base because of how effective life was in punishing you for moving out? The problem with SC2 is that we don't have more units where their utility can be "maximized" to the limit like marines and zerglings can.
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I agree with what you are saying, but zerglings and marines are nowhere near the problem we are talking about. They are well designed because the basic use is clear, you can do things without much micro, but if you micro, you can do awesome things with them. It's far away from adding super micro intensive abilities on everything, to make everything mechanics intensive. Zerglings and marines can be mechanics intensive when you need it, and less so when it's not needed.
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On January 05 2013 03:30 Nyvis wrote:
I agree with what you are saying, but zerglings and marines are nowhere near the problem we are talking about. They are well designed because the basic use is clear, you can do things without much micro, but if you micro, you can do awesome things with them. It's far away from adding super micro intensive abilities on everything, to make everything mechanics intensive. Zerglings and marines can be mechanics intensive when you need it, and less so when it's not needed.
I think I now understand you;
You look at my suggested yamato cannon isolated, and conclude that this ability relies way too much on micro to be efficient. I agree with that conclusion based on your premise, but I don't think we should look at the yamato cannon isolated.
Instead, we should look at the BC as a unit (not just the ability of the unit), which is still a pretty decent attack-move unit (just like marines and zerglings are decent while attack moving). However, great players can get a little extra by using the yamato cannon efficiently (just like players can gain an advantage by splitting marines efficiently or target firing banelings).
This is why I believe the ability is easy to learn, difficult to master.
My suggested collosus works in a similar fashion; the collosus still has the normal standard attack (which should "soft counter" unmicroed marines), but great players can use the linear new laser ability to gain an edge.
I think every unit in the game should have something that makes them easy to learn, difficult to master, but right now I have identified the (following) terran units in Onegoal to be easy to learn and too easy too "master";
1) Thor
2) Raven
3) BC
Also I still see a couple of design problems with reaper and the ghost.
Let me ask you, if you agree with me that every unit (in the perfect world) should have something which makes them easy to learn but difficult to master?
And if you do, do you also agree with me that the above 3 units are too easy too use efficiently?
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On January 05 2013 04:20 Hider wrote:
I think I now understand you;
You look at my suggested yamato cannon isolated, and conclude that this ability relies way too much on micro to be efficient. I agree with that conclusion based on your premise, but I don't think we should look at the yamato cannon isolated.
Instead, we should look at the BC as a unit (not just the ability of the unit), which is still a pretty decent attack-move unit (just like marines and zerglings are decent while attack moving). However, great players can get a little extra by using the yamato cannon efficiently (just like players can gain an advantage by splitting marines efficiently or target firing banelings).
This is why I believe the ability is easy to learn, difficult to master.
I think every unit in the game should have something that makes them easy to learn, difficult to master, but right now I have identified the (following) terran units in Onegoal to be easy to learn and too easy too "master";
1) Thor
2) Raven
3) BC
Also I still see a couple of design problems with reaper and the ghost.
Let me ask you, if you agree with me that every unit (in the perfect world) should have something which makes them easy to learn but difficult to master?
And if you do, do you also agree with me that the above 3 units are too easy too use efficiently?
I'd like to point out that in BW, all the capital ships for all three races (BC, Carrier, Devourer, Guardian) were all easier to micro comparatively than most of the other units in BW. I know there's been a lot of famous threads about microing the carrier, but compared to microing the dragoon, microing the carrier is a lot easier and more effective. The point of capital ships is that they are the HIGHEST tech available to you, the creme de la creme if you will. They are the hardest, most difficult paths that you can reach, and by trying to get to the level of tech needed to reach them, you are either taking enormous risks by exposing yourself transitioning to them, or rewarded by surviving as long as possible in order to reach them.
Plus, there's the fact that you need additional upgrades in order to make them useful (Carrier interceptor upgrade, BC Yamato and energy upgrade, etc.) You don't need EVERY unit to be a mechanics intensive in order to make the game more interesting. The "rewards" should come from being able to "survive" long enough to tech to them in the first place and the "mechanics intensive" part should be SUPPORTING these high cost capital ships, not your usage of the capital ships alone. Plus I think things like Yamato are good for the game because they speed up the game by using them wisely. I know some people will recoil when I say "speed up the game" but what I really mean is by that is that accessing skills like Yamato are siege breakers and give players more tools to break the "stalemate scenario". If you really want to "balance" Yamato, just make it take a second longer to fire or something so that smaller, more mobile ships can fly in and snipe any BC and run away in time.
I do however, want to make some exceptions to the "capital ships" argument above, namely broodlords and tempests (mainly tempests). The problem with those units (mainly tempests) is that while they are such high value targets and it is obvious taking them out is important, they just have way too much range and mobility (tempest) to make it effective to do so. People often forget that the BL was considered a useless unit until zerg players figured out that combining infestors to keep units out of range of BL make the BL just over the top in terms of cost efficiency and utility. Yes, I know that the carrier had tons of range, but they balanced that by making the carrier RELIANT OF INTERCEPTORS, meaning that the carrier might risk losing all of it's dps if it wasn't focus firing properly. I guess this goes to show another reason why blizzard just doesn't understand what the hell they're doing.
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@Hider : Man, the BC is awful at auto attacking with his ridiculous range and his weakness to armor upgrades. Without yamato, BC looses against, what, corruptors, vikings AND tempest?
And I totally disagree with you. The GAME should absolutely be easy to learn and hard to master. But not each and every unit looked at independently. One of the basics of the "easy to learn" is "simple is good". If you add complex abilities to each units to allow high skill players to express more of their skills, you add a lot of complexity, and you drive the game towards a state where the new and learning player will look at esport and will not understand unit skills, to the point where he will feel he is not playing with the same unit.
Your yamato isn't like splitting marines or target firing your tanks. You're not trying to use the same units and skills more cleverly or in a better executed well. You're using something new, that transforms the unit from a slow, single firing unit with decent power but no overwhelming presence in the army to something around which everything will rotate for the next second.
Also, I would like to emphasize again that no, every unit should not be a potential unit control powerhouse. A composition, a game, should be. And if you take marines and zerglings as a reference, there is an awful lot of units which aren't on par on unit control. Zealots, immortals... A player should be able to choose how he want to distribute his time towards unit control, macro, multitasking, etc... By making unit choices accordingly. For example, mech is a style where you want to have some time to reposition your units, put them a bit everywhere on the map, etc, and should not contain too much of on the fly unit control.
I still agree that units should offer at least a minimum of unit control action, and I agree on some of the cases you are talking about : the BC and the Thor are too slow and ineffective to micro on their battle movements. Their attack is standard and there is no point in microing it too precisely. In fact, there is nothing to do with them at the moment. Being a powerhouse of APM needed isn't a necessity for each unit, but having a minimum of attention needed could be good.
EDIT :
Somewhat agree on tempests. I feel they aren't really interesting to interact with (basically because you can't do it). But I haven't played HotS yet, so I don't really know how everything in it interacts.
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Along the lines of fixing the supply, I also think the maps need to be fixed (enlarged but still balanced for each race). That was a huge issue as many critical balance / design implementations were spawned from maps like blistering sands, scrap station, and (lovingly) xel-naga caverns.
(XN caverns my fav map, despite the issues it gives the game. Just had some amazing stuff with it :D)
Just a quickie.
Procrastinating on Homework: Over
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On January 05 2013 05:21 Nyvis wrote:
@Hider : Man, the BC is awful at auto attacking with his ridiculous range and his weakness to armor upgrades. Without yamato, BC looses against, what, corruptors, vikings AND tempest?
And I totally disagree with you. The GAME should absolutely be easy to learn and hard to master. But not each and every unit looked at independently. One of the basics of the "easy to learn" is "simple is good". If you add complex abilities to each units to allow high skill players to express more of their skills, you add a lot of complexity, and you drive the game towards a state where the new and learning player will look at esport and will not understand unit skills, to the point where he will feel he is not playing with the same unit.
Your yamato isn't like splitting marines or target firing your tanks. You're not trying to use the same units and skills more cleverly or in a better executed well. You're using something new, that transforms the unit from a slow, single firing unit with decent power but no overwhelming presence in the army to something around which everything will rotate for the next second.
Also, I would like to emphasize again that no, every unit should not be a potential unit control powerhouse. A composition, a game, should be. And if you take marines and zerglings as a reference, there is an awful lot of units which aren't on par on unit control. Zealots, immortals... A player should be able to choose how he want to distribute his time towards unit control, macro, multitasking, etc... By making unit choices accordingly. For example, mech is a style where you want to have some time to reposition your units, put them a bit everywhere on the map, etc, and should not contain too much of on the fly unit control.
I still agree that units should offer at least a minimum of unit control action, and I agree on some of the cases you are talking about : the BC and the Thor are too slow and ineffective to micro on their battle movements. Their attack is standard and there is no point in microing it too precisely. In fact, there is nothing to do with them at the moment. Being a powerhouse of APM needed isn't a necessity for each unit, but having a minimum of attention needed could be good.
EDIT :
Somewhat agree on tempests. I feel they aren't really interesting to interact with (basically because you can't do it). But I haven't played HotS yet, so I don't really know how everything in it interacts.
You state BC's are terribad - I disagree its not terribad, its mediocre, but of course it gets hard countered by corrupter etc. You know what? Banelings always hard counter marines when they both get attacked moved.
But you make the same mistake again, now you just look at the BC isolated (ignoring the yamato). You need to look at the BC + how a bad player uses the yamato cannon (he will typically still be able to target 1-3 units which is 100-300 damage, and remember - the bad player will typically play against other bad players who won't have the skills to remicro against it - so typically he will deal full damage).
I agree that the yamato doesn't reward creativity that much (I think my suggested collosus ability is better design in this way), but neither do marine split (after it was figured out). Marine split today is all about micro mechanics. So is my suggested ability.
But if you have another suggestion that rewards great control and gives room for creativity I would like to hear it. I assume though, that you are not interested in making the BC mechanically difficult to use optimally.
You assume that high skill cap = complexity. I disagree that that's a neccesity, obviously marines aren't very complex, yet their skill cap is very high. Honestly, the Onegoal-thor and the raven stuff is probably complex as well. And the BC, stun suggestion is "complex" as well.
Why exactly don't you want all units to have something which can make them really good when controlled correctly? In the perfect would I would have redesigned the immortal as well, either 1) make it better at abusing mech immobility or 2) Give it some kind of remicro abillity.
I have this theory that as long as units are designed correctly, there won't be any drawbacks (like if a unit is designed correctly it should be intuitive to use for newcomers).
At least that is my design philosphy. In reality I realize it is difficult to design units so they satisfy all the neccessary conditions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I feel like a lot of onegoal's abilities signals that they are "giving up"; that they are satifised by fixing the fundemental flaws (forcefields, mech tvp unviablity, fungal etc.), rather than reaching for the "sky".
I think that is a mistake, because for people to play the mod it has to be a lot better than HOTS. In my opinion the current version is just "better", but it's just not worth it for me to use a lot of time playing a mod which is just "better" as long as it doesn't have any ladder system.
That's at least my 2 cents.
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On January 05 2013 05:15 KamikazeDurrrp wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 04:20 Hider wrote:
I think I now understand you;
You look at my suggested yamato cannon isolated, and conclude that this ability relies way too much on micro to be efficient. I agree with that conclusion based on your premise, but I don't think we should look at the yamato cannon isolated.
Instead, we should look at the BC as a unit (not just the ability of the unit), which is still a pretty decent attack-move unit (just like marines and zerglings are decent while attack moving). However, great players can get a little extra by using the yamato cannon efficiently (just like players can gain an advantage by splitting marines efficiently or target firing banelings).
This is why I believe the ability is easy to learn, difficult to master.
I think every unit in the game should have something that makes them easy to learn, difficult to master, but right now I have identified the (following) terran units in Onegoal to be easy to learn and too easy too "master";
1) Thor
2) Raven
3) BC
Also I still see a couple of design problems with reaper and the ghost.
Let me ask you, if you agree with me that every unit (in the perfect world) should have something which makes them easy to learn but difficult to master?
And if you do, do you also agree with me that the above 3 units are too easy too use efficiently? I'd like to point out that in BW, all the capital ships for all three races (BC, Carrier, Devourer, Guardian) were all easier to micro comparatively than most of the other units in BW. I know there's been a lot of famous threads about microing the carrier, but compared to microing the dragoon, microing the carrier is a lot easier and more effective. The point of capital ships is that they are the HIGHEST tech available to you, the creme de la creme if you will. They are the hardest, most difficult paths that you can reach, and by trying to get to the level of tech needed to reach them, you are either taking enormous risks by exposing yourself transitioning to them, or rewarded by surviving as long as possible in order to reach them. Plus, there's the fact that you need additional upgrades in order to make them useful (Carrier interceptor upgrade, BC Yamato and energy upgrade, etc.) You don't need EVERY unit to be a mechanics intensive in order to make the game more interesting. The "rewards" should come from being able to "survive" long enough to tech to them in the first place and the "mechanics intensive" part should be SUPPORTING these high cost capital ships, not your usage of the capital ships alone. Plus I think things like Yamato are good for the game because they speed up the game by using them wisely. I know some people will recoil when I say "speed up the game" but what I really mean is by that is that accessing skills like Yamato are siege breakers and give players more tools to break the "stalemate scenario". If you really want to "balance" Yamato, just make it take a second longer to fire or something so that smaller, more mobile ships can fly in and snipe any BC and run away in time. I do however, want to make some exceptions to the "capital ships" argument above, namely broodlords and tempests (mainly tempests). The problem with those units (mainly tempests) is that while they are such high value targets and it is obvious taking them out is important, they just have way too much range and mobility (tempest) to make it effective to do so. People often forget that the BL was considered a useless unit until zerg players figured out that combining infestors to keep units out of range of BL make the BL just over the top in terms of cost efficiency and utility. Yes, I know that the carrier had tons of range, but they balanced that by making the carrier RELIANT OF INTERCEPTORS, meaning that the carrier might risk losing all of it's dps if it wasn't focus firing properly. I guess this goes to show another reason why blizzard just doesn't understand what the hell they're doing.
I disagree that we actually need siegebreakers. I think as long as the economy is redesigned it will force players to spread them selves over more bases which will make turtling much more difficult and this will fix the deathball/stalemale situations/problems.
So while my suggested yamato cannon is easier to use while defending (and more difficult to use while attacking - though not impossible) I don't think this is a serious concern - rather its probably a neccesity to compensate immobile armies assuming the economy system gets redesigned.
Also I don't understand why the game has to be "microless" just because player A has survived for a long time. Why does he need that kind of reward? Again, I don't see any drawbacks of increasing the skill cap as much as we possible can as long as it doesn't make the game too difficult/frustrating for new/bad players.
I do agree though that it is less important to have well designed tier 3 units than to have well designed core units as the tier 3 units will see much less action (those most people will be satifised with just watching the unit in action since they see it so seldomly). However, that doesn't imply that the game wouldn't be even more entertaining to watch/play by giving unit control options for every single unit in the game.
Regarding unit control options; It doesn't have to be a direct micro ability; One could argue that ultras are fine as they are because they are somewhat fast and can be dropped on a mech army or into a base etc.
Zergs also always keep telling me how difficult ultras are to control, becuase they get stuck etc; But here is my problem with that; As a terran player (and as a spectator) all I see is a zerg player attack moving. I have a difficult time noticing the difference between great control and mediocore control from a zerg player.
I think great design abillities/units should easily be noticed by the spectator - (this is also why I don't enjoy target firing that much - because it's very difficult to notice which players are "better" at target firing). But this is where my suggested yamato cannon shines - Everyone can see who is really really good at using the cannon and who is just mediocore.
But yeh, a potential solution to this "ultra" problem should of course have a very low priority as the ultras isn't badly designed (just "decent"), and it's just a tier 3 unit (where design flaws aren't as signifcant).
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I never said that high skill cap = complexity. I said that your high skill cap = complexity.
You didn't understand what I was talking about on new players. The problem isn't balance or anything, it's that the ability have a completely different scale when played well or not. A pro will make it feel like a major aoe unit where a newbie will use it as more or less a snipe. A marine, well microed, is still a marine.
I think you are mistaking completely onegoal's objectives. The goal is to try stuff to improve the current game and encourage blizzard trying them, not to make your own personal game.
And for why not every unit should have more and more added specialities to make them more microable, I think complexity sums it well. I already talked too much about this on my post. Yes, marines and zergling can receive a huge amount of micro without too much added complexity because they are tier 1 unit and are naturally vulnerable to a lot of stuff. When you look around on more powerful units, making them need a lot of unit control will most of the time need added complexity. Your BC proposal shows it well.
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On January 05 2013 06:42 Nyvis wrote:
I never said that high skill cap = complexity. I said that your high skill cap = complexity.
You didn't understand what I was talking about on new players. The problem isn't balance or anything, it's that the ability have a completely different scale when played well or not. A pro will make it feel like a major aoe unit where a newbie will use it as more or less a snipe. A marine, well microed, is still a marine.
I think you are mistaking completely onegoal's objectives. The goal is to try stuff to improve the current game and encourage blizzard trying them, not to make your own personal game.
And for why not every unit should have more and more added specialities to make them more microable, I think complexity sums it well. I already talked too much about this on my post. Yes, marines and zergling can receive a huge amount of micro without too much added complexity because they are tier 1 unit and are naturally vulnerable to a lot of stuff. When you look around on more powerful units, making them need a lot of unit control will most of the time need added complexity. Your BC proposal shows it well.
Your correct that a pro player will make the yamato work like an AOE while a bad player will make it work in a less efficient way. Why is that neccesarily bad?
I think you are looking in this in the wrong way. How you want to analyze it is this way:
1) Can we quantify the effect that great micro of the BC will have compared to bad micro?
2) Can we compare that to great marine micro vs bad micro?
3) What kind of numbers are acceptable
So lets start with number 3 first; I believe that really well controlled units should probably 50-100% more efficient (in terms of cost efficiency) than if they are micro'ed poorly.
I think marine splitting is probably closer to 100% than 50% (and those it is in the high end - maybe its even a bit too signifcant).
What about yamato?
Lets assume that the BC it self is worth 300/225 (you would pay that price if it didn't include yamato), and thus yamato would be worth roughly 25% of the whole package.
Lets also assume that a poorly microe'd yamato will deal 200 damage while a great microe'd will deal 700 damage. That's a difference of 350%.
The difference between great BC micro and bad micro is thus: 0.25 * 3.5 = 87.5%.
Thus it is in the optimal interval.
The numbers are obviously arbitrary, but I believe that this is the kind of proces that game designers should use (though game designers will have different numbers for the optimal interval).
So to conclude, my adjusted BC will
1) Not be terrible for any players at any level
2 Not be insanely good at any skill level
3)But it can be insanely good if the terran player has a much much better micro than the opposing player (say when a GM plays against a platinum player).
Also I tried to argue that this ability wasn't more complex than many of the other suggested abilities (honestly most players will just read the 2 lines and they will understand how it works - it's not rocket science).
If you think about it; siege tanks are complex as well (its not intutivie that it takes 3 seconds for a tank did to siege up and that i can't attack meele units) - I tried to explain the siege tank concept to my friend who watched me play (never played sc2) my self and he didn't really get why i just didn't get why I didn't just attack with them in a much quicker fashion.
But we are so used to the siege tanks so you don't think about why it is actually complex - So to be honest I think you are a bit biased when analyzing the complexitiy of this suggestion.
I think you are mistaking my motives. My motive is to convince Onegoal make the best designed unit which will create the most exciting games for spectators (which will also be fun to play of course). I think Lalush argued that with the current proposed changes many of them are of cosmetical nature and after the game has been played for roughly 6 months or so it will get figured out (unfortunately), and thus go back to the 3 base vs 3 base deathball. He argued that it was the economy system which was the problem, and he is completely correct.
But Lalush looked at these design problems in terms of what creative interesting games. So do I, and for me it isn't about me getting my units out there in the mod: It's about getting the best designed units as possible out there as this creates the most exciting games which will make more players play the mod --> bring more attention etc. --> put more pressure on Blizzard.
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So I don't know if this has been said, but wouldn't it make sense to just make the collusus have a longer delay between his two swipes.
First swipe hits its target like usual, and does X damage. after a small amount of time --given the opposing player a chance to micro against it-- the second swip comes back in like usual, dealing an additional X damage.
and then the BC...
+ Show Spoiler +On January 03 2013 05:47 FoxyMayhem wrote:
1) It needs to have an appreciable affect with just having one or two, while not getting ridiculous when adding many of them.
2) It needs to supplemental mech mobility on larger maps (we're trying to support even larger maps through our unit design)
3) Ideally has reactionary counterplay so the opponent can express his skill versus it.
4) Ideally requires skill to use well. Some mid-battle babysit micro is permitted, due to the lower micro demands of mech mid-battle thanks to siege tanks. (Having a demanding BC that's designed mostly to work with bio, requiring a lot of midbattle micro to make effective would be a disaster, as the bio requires the majority of your attention to be effective, and thus would render a micro-heavy BC unusable. However, since it doesn't synergize with Bio in any way, we can design assuming it will be played with mech or sky only).
5) Discourages deathball play.
6) Ideally it slows down fights
If you or anyone else can build a better BC that addresses these criteria, or identify more criteria, we'd love to see it.
As for the Battle Cruiser, what if you gave it the ability to increase attack speed at the cost of mobility/energy. Lets say that you are in a battle and you have a group of 3-4 battle cruisers. You have a few options now.
1. attack regular and save energy for future engagements.
2. Activate Energy Cannons. Cost X energy to activiate, and drains energy like a PDD. (battle cruiser gains additional damage/attack speed for a set amount of energy per second)
Or 3. Lob of 4 Yamato Cannons looking to take out high priced units.
1) With one or two BC's you now have a really good addition of DPS, OR burst damage. Adding utility for early and late game. By the time you have many of them, you are facing units with high armor and high health. This makes it so that the BC is extremely effective against low health low armor units, but becomes less effective in late game where high tech units become common and BC numbers rise.
2) I disagree that this is necessary, but regardless, the new higher DPS battle cruiser is able to cover small groups of Mech units for small amounts of time, but doesn't have ability to hold of continual/frequent attacks at any location. This gives them mobility in positioning, but also limits the user to quick decisive movements that can be punish really hard if executed wrong.
3) Counter Play- Bait out Energy Cannons (poke then run away) before engaging with high cost units or large forces. This creates a "can I get him to waste energy with stalkers and if not can I pick off a battle cruiser" and "do I activate cannons against 15 stalker, or do I hold off until his tempest/carriers are exposed for yamato." moment.
4) requires very visible decision making and is very skill intensive if used with mech for positional play. Still maintains the point and click of the Yamato, but also adds a can/should I engage moment.
5) BC now are very powerful capital ships, but only for brief moments. Able to take on large groups of small units by themselves, but vulnerable to continued aggression, they are good for infrequent small entanglements, but poor at prolonged fighting. Does this fix death balls? No idea...
6) Yamato Cannon kills things instantly.. This doesn't  . With the added importance of position, and engagement timing. (kinda like holding a sentry immortal) you now have long intense battles that are micro intensive, and positional.
Do I have any real idea what I am saying? No.
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On January 05 2013 07:18 Infested__Marine wrote:So I don't know if this has been said, but wouldn't it make sense to just make the collusus have a longer delay between his two swipes. First swipe hits its target like usual, and does X damage. after a small amount of time --given the opposing player a chance to micro against it-- the second swip comes back in like usual, dealing an additional X damage. and then the BC... + Show Spoiler +On January 03 2013 05:47 FoxyMayhem wrote:
1) It needs to have an appreciable affect with just having one or two, while not getting ridiculous when adding many of them.
2) It needs to supplemental mech mobility on larger maps (we're trying to support even larger maps through our unit design)
3) Ideally has reactionary counterplay so the opponent can express his skill versus it.
4) Ideally requires skill to use well. Some mid-battle babysit micro is permitted, due to the lower micro demands of mech mid-battle thanks to siege tanks. (Having a demanding BC that's designed mostly to work with bio, requiring a lot of midbattle micro to make effective would be a disaster, as the bio requires the majority of your attention to be effective, and thus would render a micro-heavy BC unusable. However, since it doesn't synergize with Bio in any way, we can design assuming it will be played with mech or sky only).
5) Discourages deathball play.
6) Ideally it slows down fights
If you or anyone else can build a better BC that addresses these criteria, or identify more criteria, we'd love to see it. As for the Battle Cruiser, what if you gave it the ability to increase attack speed at the cost of mobility/energy. Lets say that you are in a battle and you have a group of 3-4 battle cruisers. You have a few options now. 1. attack regular and save energy for future engagements. 2. Activate Energy Cannons. Cost X energy to activiate, and drains energy like a PDD. (battle cruiser gains additional damage/attack speed for a set amount of energy per second) Or 3. Lob of 4 Yamato Cannons looking to take out high priced units. 1) With one or two BC's you now have a really good addition of DPS, OR burst damage. Adding utility for early and late game. By the time you have many of them, you are facing units with high armor and high health. This makes it so that the BC is extremely effective against low health low armor units, but becomes less effective in late game where high tech units become common and BC numbers rise. 2) I disagree that this is necessary, but regardless, the new higher DPS battle cruiser is able to cover small groups of Mech units for small amounts of time, but doesn't have ability to hold of continual/frequent attacks at any location. This gives them mobility in positioning, but also limits the user to quick decisive movements that can be punish really hard if executed wrong. 3) Counter Play- Bait out Energy Cannons (poke then run away) before engaging with high cost units or large forces. This creates a "can I get him to waste energy with stalkers and if not can I pick off a battle cruiser" and "do I activate cannons against 15 stalker, or do I hold off until his tempest/carriers are exposed for yamato." moment. 4) requires very visible decision making and is very skill intensive if used with mech for positional play. Still maintains the point and click of the Yamato, but also adds a can/should I engage moment. 5) BC now are very powerful capital ships, but only for brief moments. Able to take on large groups of small units by themselves, but vulnerable to continued aggression, they are good for infrequent small entanglements, but poor at prolonged fighting. Does this fix death balls? No idea... 6) Yamato Cannon kills things instantly.. This doesn't . With the added importance of position, and engagement timing. (kinda like holding a sentry immortal) you now have long intense battles that are micro intensive, and positional. Do I have any real idea what I am saying? No.
How does this ability rewards skills? I think this abillity will quickly get figured out when to use, like how stim is figured out. Difference is though that its not the decision "when to stim" that is interesting, but the micro you can do when your units are stimmed. This abillity seems to be too easy to use (for my taste at least).
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EPT
