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On March 25 2013 00:46 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2013 00:21 Agorth wrote:But I don't think Onegoal should just stop there. Every little thing which makes harassbased play less efficient should be reworked. Static structures are in my opinion very problematic as they can stalemale a game if the opinion uses his mineral bank on them. Static structures should be a bit of help against harassbased play, but it shouldn't counter it. If your opponent chooses to harass you then multitasking should be required for you to counter his harassment play. Preemptive turret/spinecrawler/cannons must never be the primary way to counter harassments.
Like putting a turret ring around your base is so counterproductive in terms of creating exciting gameplay, and cannons deals with a mech players harassment options with too efficiently.
I do believe some changes are needed in that regard and for instance I suggested to make turrets cost gas rather than just minerals as this will increase the opportunity cost of massing them. hider i agree that harassment options should be improved upon but static defenses are fine in my opinion, if somebody decides to put a ring of missile turrets around his/her main base it leaves me that much farther ahead in resources and makes him that much easier to box in. static defenses are costly to set up and good anti air is cheaper and far more mobile in most cases, however static defenses do counter light/early harassment but tend to become inefficient fairly quickly as the game goes on. I disagree - Because I believe that strategies/tactics which makes for shitty games shouldn't be a viable option, and unfortunately getting a lot of turrets is. Some times increasing the number of options isn't great design. Like lets say for example we could have awesome gameplay 100% of the time (scenario A) or we could have awesome gameplay 50% of the time and broodlord infestor vs broodlord infestor the remaining 50% of the time (scenario B). I obivously desire scenario A, because we don't want the boring alternative to ever happen. And nothing good ever comes out of an opponent getting a lot of static defenses. In every single scenario thinkable that is boring gameplay, thus we should think of ways to prevent that ever happening. Great design also involves not making boring strategies a viable option.
then i must respectfully disagree on the issue of static defenses, i am one the people who find enjoyment in crushing through static defenses to get at the gooey center of the base(yum  ) part of the issue may derive from the economic system in starcraft 2 and the lack of harassment options outside of 2 units per race. yeah getting a lot of turrets can make for shitty games but the person who made those turrets wasted a ton of minerals that could have gone to units which can cost them the game, i know this because i used to be one of those guys who got a ton of turrets or photon cannons when i started playing. i was a bad player who lost a lot of games that way until i grew out of that phase.
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On March 25 2013 01:34 Agorth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2013 00:46 Hider wrote:On March 25 2013 00:21 Agorth wrote:But I don't think Onegoal should just stop there. Every little thing which makes harassbased play less efficient should be reworked. Static structures are in my opinion very problematic as they can stalemale a game if the opinion uses his mineral bank on them. Static structures should be a bit of help against harassbased play, but it shouldn't counter it. If your opponent chooses to harass you then multitasking should be required for you to counter his harassment play. Preemptive turret/spinecrawler/cannons must never be the primary way to counter harassments.
Like putting a turret ring around your base is so counterproductive in terms of creating exciting gameplay, and cannons deals with a mech players harassment options with too efficiently.
I do believe some changes are needed in that regard and for instance I suggested to make turrets cost gas rather than just minerals as this will increase the opportunity cost of massing them. hider i agree that harassment options should be improved upon but static defenses are fine in my opinion, if somebody decides to put a ring of missile turrets around his/her main base it leaves me that much farther ahead in resources and makes him that much easier to box in. static defenses are costly to set up and good anti air is cheaper and far more mobile in most cases, however static defenses do counter light/early harassment but tend to become inefficient fairly quickly as the game goes on. I disagree - Because I believe that strategies/tactics which makes for shitty games shouldn't be a viable option, and unfortunately getting a lot of turrets is. Some times increasing the number of options isn't great design. Like lets say for example we could have awesome gameplay 100% of the time (scenario A) or we could have awesome gameplay 50% of the time and broodlord infestor vs broodlord infestor the remaining 50% of the time (scenario B). I obivously desire scenario A, because we don't want the boring alternative to ever happen. And nothing good ever comes out of an opponent getting a lot of static defenses. In every single scenario thinkable that is boring gameplay, thus we should think of ways to prevent that ever happening. Great design also involves not making boring strategies a viable option. then i must respectfully disagree on the issue of static defenses, i am one the people who find enjoyment in crushing through static defenses to get at the gooey center of the base(yum ) part of the issue may derive from the economic system in starcraft 2 and the lack of harassment options outside of 2 units per race. yeah getting a lot of turrets can make for shitty games but the person who made those turrets wasted a ton of minerals that could have gone to units which can cost them the game, i know this because i used to be one of those guys who got a ton of turrets or photon cannons when i started playing. i was a bad player who lost a lot of games that way until i grew out of that phase.
But the problem is that there is no crushing through anything. First of all; In order to crush through you need a deathball. Small armies can't crush throug anything. Furthermore, you can't crush through a turret ring if you want to make a warp prism harass. THat turret ring simply denies the exisiting of a potentially entertaining game from taking place and it serves no positive sideeffect.
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Questions are good!
We had to choose between six supply ultras and Ultras with splash. We sided with Blizzard on that one. We added unit walking as an upgrade to ensure they could close and contribute their damage consistently. However, Patch 3 will give Zerg two 1 supply hatchery units, a 2 supply area control unit, and a .5 supply flying AA unit. The swarm is getting more swarmy.
The "Wasp" is based off of the scourge/zergling and Devourer in that it is a massable, fast and ambushy AA support unit. The Scourge kind of steps on the baneling's identity, and while they kill different things, we would like to keep units feeling distinct as possible. Sapping units are hit or miss by definition and while they can bring excellent gameplay, the ability to concentrate so much firepower on the ground means that our poor scourge wouldn't connect unless Zerg has a huge advantage anyway, robbing the situation of drama.
Zealots and Zerglings have the numbers of their old BW days (160 total HP and Adrenal glands) with the perks of SC2 (charge, creep bonus, and auto surround ai). Marines were straight buffed across the board in SC2 and that has yielded great games, and we can thank the Marauder for making that possible, so in he stays. Bio is now complete in a way it never was in BW.
That said, with the Widow Mine and 2 Supply Tanks along with how tightly units clump, Terran can hold its ground just fine. Especially since Stalkers have 20 less HP, and Immortals have a short cooldown on Hardened Shield, allowing defending focus fire to take them down effectively. For Zerg, Swarm Hosts are ok for applying pressure, but due to a slower attack speed and no Enduring Locust upgrade, both their effective range, and damage per round offensively has been reduced significantly. Where OneGoal Swarm Hosts REALLY shine is defending due to Locusts having linear AoE like a hellion, when combined with an HP upgrade (coming in patch 3), you can get in close and nail several units for 10 damage a locust, not too hard with the creep speed bonus. Additionally, Swarm Hosts are going to cost 2 supply as of Patch 3.
Protoss Gateway units across the board are strong defensively. Beefy Zealots, Stalkers with 7 range and 14 base damage, and Immortals at cybercore can really hold the line against heavy attacks. For heavier things, Sentries can halve the combat effectiveness of units in a substantial area with Time Warp, or make several units effectively invincible for a short time with Ion Aegis. Colossi have an aoe that is perfect for charging units, making short work of poorly placed lings and marines. Even Oracles have defensive utility with an AoE cloaking field.
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On March 25 2013 03:10 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2013 01:34 Agorth wrote:On March 25 2013 00:46 Hider wrote:On March 25 2013 00:21 Agorth wrote:But I don't think Onegoal should just stop there. Every little thing which makes harassbased play less efficient should be reworked. Static structures are in my opinion very problematic as they can stalemale a game if the opinion uses his mineral bank on them. Static structures should be a bit of help against harassbased play, but it shouldn't counter it. If your opponent chooses to harass you then multitasking should be required for you to counter his harassment play. Preemptive turret/spinecrawler/cannons must never be the primary way to counter harassments.
Like putting a turret ring around your base is so counterproductive in terms of creating exciting gameplay, and cannons deals with a mech players harassment options with too efficiently.
I do believe some changes are needed in that regard and for instance I suggested to make turrets cost gas rather than just minerals as this will increase the opportunity cost of massing them. hider i agree that harassment options should be improved upon but static defenses are fine in my opinion, if somebody decides to put a ring of missile turrets around his/her main base it leaves me that much farther ahead in resources and makes him that much easier to box in. static defenses are costly to set up and good anti air is cheaper and far more mobile in most cases, however static defenses do counter light/early harassment but tend to become inefficient fairly quickly as the game goes on. I disagree - Because I believe that strategies/tactics which makes for shitty games shouldn't be a viable option, and unfortunately getting a lot of turrets is. Some times increasing the number of options isn't great design. Like lets say for example we could have awesome gameplay 100% of the time (scenario A) or we could have awesome gameplay 50% of the time and broodlord infestor vs broodlord infestor the remaining 50% of the time (scenario B). I obivously desire scenario A, because we don't want the boring alternative to ever happen. And nothing good ever comes out of an opponent getting a lot of static defenses. In every single scenario thinkable that is boring gameplay, thus we should think of ways to prevent that ever happening. Great design also involves not making boring strategies a viable option. then i must respectfully disagree on the issue of static defenses, i am one the people who find enjoyment in crushing through static defenses to get at the gooey center of the base(yum ) part of the issue may derive from the economic system in starcraft 2 and the lack of harassment options outside of 2 units per race. yeah getting a lot of turrets can make for shitty games but the person who made those turrets wasted a ton of minerals that could have gone to units which can cost them the game, i know this because i used to be one of those guys who got a ton of turrets or photon cannons when i started playing. i was a bad player who lost a lot of games that way until i grew out of that phase. But the problem is that there is no crushing through anything. First of all; In order to crush through you need a deathball. Small armies can't crush throug anything. Furthermore, you can't crush through a turret ring if you want to make a warp prism harass. THat turret ring simply denies the exisiting of a potentially entertaining game from taking place and it serves no positive sideeffect.
Massing Turrets of any sort should be viable as a way of buying you time. How much time is a balance question with design implications. The cost of investing in a bulwark of defense structures should be significant. Also, deathballs are just fine if they come up less than 50% of the time. Spectators enjoy spectacles, and seeing a vast army is the stuff of legends. While we know deathball dominant meta games are not sustainable, we do know there are deathballs that provide some solid gameplay. For example, BW bio "wrecking-ball" with Sci Vessals was arguably the first deathball. The issue with deathball gameplay is that it is common, and it can ignore the defenders advantage. The issue with increasing the defender's advantage is that it risks shutting down harassment units. Something we have learned and are steadily turning.
Units like Tempests, Oracles, Swarm Hosts, Burrow Roaches, Blink Stalkers, Siege Tanks Afterburner Medivacs, and Ravens all allow for low numbers of units to either pressure or bypass standard defenses entirely.
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Also, deathballs are just fine if they come up less than 50% of the time.
I think this is a bit unnuancned. IMO deathballs can be somewhat entertaining to watch the first couple of times .For instance broodlord/infestor was in 2011 considered a very interesting unit composition. BC/raven/viking the same thing, but as a terran player who has played his share of mech vs mech games on shakuras platearu (which basically always ends up in air vs air 1 hour long games), you get tired of deathballs relatively quickly.
In my opinion deathballs are only fine if it comes after a very multitaskbased midgame. Persoanlly I wouldn't mind seing 1-2 microintensive battles after a 25-30 minute actionpacked midgame. However, deathballs must never be something you can tech up to directly (like zergs could do with broodlord/infestor in WOL).
Anyway its your mod, your decision. I'll stay out of it from now on untill/if I see some heavy buffs to multitaskbased units (small improvements simply aren't enough for me).
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We agree on Deathballs, they are something that should emerge from a back and forth game, not something that is obtained by passive play. However, we aren't making pathing AI retarded, 100+ Supply engagements are something that were common in BW and were great to watch because they were large groups of units fighting and dying and did so slowly enough to move back and forth. That can be done without making units feel dumb. And we have been working for several months to make that happen.
Small improvements? Pray tell, what mod does "big improvements?" SC2 BW? Starbow? What buffs do you consider constitute multi-pronged harassment? This is what we have, or will have by the time Patch 3 releases.
Protoss
-We have buffed Stalker's ability to harass by giving them 14 base damage and 7 range.
-We have made the Oracle able to shut down turrets, precisely the thing you complained about to me. And in Patch 3 we are -making it an inherent part of their attack.
-We have made Tempests better at pressuring towers.
-We have made Phoenix tougher, letting them by pass light defenses with ease.
-We have made the Colossus able to 1 shot workers and worse in straight up fights. Short of making it into a a Reaver, I don't know what else we could do to make it more harass friendly.
-We made the MSC non unique so you can have have Protoss squad based combat. In fact, that is one of the only reasons to build more than one MSC given that they are terrible fighters for their cost.
Terran
-Hellbats are 4 per medivac but aren't bio-tagged and have 15 less hp. Giving Terran a good mech based drop option along with Widow Mines.
-Banshees are faster, have better accel, and cost 2 supply, meaning you can have squads of them in the mid and late game prowling around the map.
-We are giving Ravens back Auto Turrets that do more up front damage.
-Reapers will work like hots reapers do as of Patch 3, but they will have an anti-structure attack, providing a unique way of Bio harassing. A huge buff in comparison to HotS or OneGoal.
-Viking ground attacks are better overall.
Zerg
-Roaches are being tuned to be a 1 supply burrow harass unit at Hatch tech.
-Swarm Hosts are being tuned to be a 2 supply soft pressure/hard defense unit that can be played around. Like the lurker
-Overlord Drops and Nydus play either come on line faster or are more affordable.
-We have rehauled Zerg's macro mechanic to encourage aggression at all stages of the game.
-Mutalisk regeneration now works like reaper regeneration, meaning it is important to dive in and out of mineral lines.
-Zerg AA is being overhauled again. We are removing the Corruptor and adding a fast and massable AA flying unit that can chase down non-boosted medivacs and can burrow.
-We have BW style Cracklings, ling runby's are deadly at all stages in the game.
Honestly, If these changes aren't big enough for you, I would recommend you play a lane-based Moba instead of Starcraft. Those games are 60% about economic harassment, and the shape those games take are directly informed by who denied the other team more money.
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Patch 3 is looking to be more and more interesting. Can't wait to try it out! (haven't played much lately, not much masters on  )
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Patch Preview will be released in the next few days. Just typing up the reasoning of our changes tonight.
Hopefully we will have a testable map this week.
The thing is, Patch 3 has so much stuff in it. New visuals, hots physics, "new" voice work, a new macro mechanic, culled units, new units replacing them. It is effectively a different, professional grade mod. It will run circles around WoL, and I think it will be as good or better than HotS. Time and testing will tell.
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On March 25 2013 10:35 ItWhoSpeaks wrote:
We agree on Deathballs, they are something that should emerge from a back and forth game, not something that is obtained by passive play. However, we aren't making pathing AI retarded, 100+ Supply engagements are something that were common in BW and were great to watch because they were large groups of units fighting and dying and did so slowly enough to move back and forth. That can be done without making units feel dumb. And we have been working for several months to make that happen.
Small improvements? Pray tell, what mod does "big improvements?" SC2 BW? Starbow? What buffs do you consider constitute multi-pronged harassment? This is what we have, or will have by the time Patch 3 releases.
Protoss
-We have buffed Stalker's ability to harass by giving them 14 base damage and 7 range.
-We have made the Oracle able to shut down turrets, precisely the thing you complained about to me. And in Patch 3 we are -making it an inherent part of their attack.
-We have made Tempests better at pressuring towers.
-We have made Phoenix tougher, letting them by pass light defenses with ease.
-We have made the Colossus able to 1 shot workers and worse in straight up fights. Short of making it into a a Reaver, I don't know what else we could do to make it more harass friendly.
-We made the MSC non unique so you can have have Protoss squad based combat. In fact, that is one of the only reasons to build more than one MSC given that they are terrible fighters for their cost.
Terran
-Hellbats are 4 per medivac but aren't bio-tagged and have 15 less hp. Giving Terran a good mech based drop option along with Widow Mines.
-Banshees are faster, have better accel, and cost 2 supply, meaning you can have squads of them in the mid and late game prowling around the map.
-We are giving Ravens back Auto Turrets that do more up front damage.
-Reapers will work like hots reapers do as of Patch 3, but they will have an anti-structure attack, providing a unique way of Bio harassing. A huge buff in comparison to HotS or OneGoal.
-Viking ground attacks are better overall.
Zerg
-Roaches are being tuned to be a 1 supply burrow harass unit at Hatch tech.
-Swarm Hosts are being tuned to be a 2 supply soft pressure/hard defense unit that can be played around. Like the lurker
-Overlord Drops and Nydus play either come on line faster or are more affordable.
-We have rehauled Zerg's macro mechanic to encourage aggression at all stages of the game.
-Mutalisk regeneration now works like reaper regeneration, meaning it is important to dive in and out of mineral lines.
-Zerg AA is being overhauled again. We are removing the Corruptor and adding a fast and massable AA flying unit that can chase down non-boosted medivacs and can burrow.
-We have BW style Cracklings, ling runby's are deadly at all stages in the game.
Honestly, If these changes aren't big enough for you, I would recommend you play a lane-based Moba instead of Starcraft. Those games are 60% about economic harassment, and the shape those games take are directly informed by who denied the other team more money.
you had me at brood war style cracklings! :D i have always been irked at how slow the lings in standard sc2 attack and the lack of power in protoss gateway. i was a protoss player back in broodwar and i also played terran some. now in sc2 im a zerg player and the protoss feel...less. The zerg are nowhere near as aggressive as they used to be and the terran feel more like the zerg in brood war. and before people accuse me of nostalgia glasses, i have them as goggles and they are on all the time
other than that i got back into the original BW at had more fun than in sc2 but i had to fight the interface rather than the computer.
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Glad you are excited. Not all of these changes are current with our Patch 2 build, but Patch 3 shouldn't be too far off, and it will be as pretty as HotS. Hopefully our changes streamline the OneGoal's game-play and make it feel more like HotS.
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Is the core ranged unit still the Immortal? And will it have a projectile?
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Small improvements? Pray tell, what mod does "big improvements?"
Basically I want to play a mod where its almost "impossible" not to play a really really multitaskbased game. I dont have that experience with Onegoal tbh. For me Onegoal more feel like a different/better of playing a deathball.
When that is said I do (generally) like next patch changes a lot and probably play some games where it gets launched.
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On March 25 2013 17:21 Hider wrote:Basically I want to play a mod where its almost "impossible" not to play a really really multitaskbased game. I dont have that experience with Onegoal tbh. For me Onegoal more feel like a different/better of playing a deathball. When that is said I do (generally) like next patch changes a lot and probably play some games where it gets launched.
Then you want a game that simply is not on the market. The closest thing I can recommend is old BW or SC2 BW. Forcing multitasking at all levels is not good or even viable game design. What we can do is make multi-tasking more viable. But if you want a stable game, harassment needs to be hard to consistently execute, otherwise you kill the enemies economy and roll them with your macro advantage. Sometimes, people need to win via direct engagement, and once in a while, it is important that you die to cheese. Variety of gameplay is king to one preferred style. And it is important for any sport to have a focus of action. Multi-pronged harassment doesn't do that, and therefore shouldn't be the super-dominant style of play. It should be common, but it shouldn't be dominant. That is how SC has always been and should always be. The issue with SC2 is that it is almost impossible to survive after losing one big fight and that squad based combat isn't as rewarded.
If you want to have a different experience with OneGoal, you could try playing more aggressively, instead of turtling on three bases. We have certainly worked hard to give you the tools for that aggression. Food for thought.
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On March 25 2013 14:14 purakushi wrote:
Is the core ranged unit still the Immortal? And will it have a projectile?
The Immortal doesn't have a projectile, we tried making it work, but the sound and art never jived. It's just as well. Protoss needs some way of breaking tanklines once Ravens are out in force.
Post Patch 3 this is what the various races' Tier 1 will look like.
Protoss-4
-Gateway
Zealot-Durable frontline fighter. Transitions into expendable shocktroop/harass unit.
-Cybercore
Stalker-Fragile Long range support/damage. Transitions into high mobility map control/harassment unit
Immortal-Durable hard hitting anti armor support.
Mothership Core-Powerful defensive/support caster, anchors assults, makes high agression plays "safe." Transitions into super caster late game.
Terran-4
-Barracks
Marine- Expandable Fragile, versatile high dps soldier. Transitions into high mobility snipe/harassment unit
-Tech Lab
Marauder-Semi-Durable, hard hitting anti armor support long range. Transitions into high mobility support/harassment unit.
Reaper-Super High Mobility efficient scout/map control/harass unit. Transitions into base sniper with D-8 charge attack.
-Ghost Academy
Ghost-Elite anti-caster/assassin unit.
Zerg-5
-Spawning Pool
Zergling- Mass-able, disposable, high damage, map control/assault unit. Transitions into...
-Baneling Nest
Baneling-Living anti-light landmine. Good area temporary area control Transitions into bomb vs mineral lines and armies.
-Hydra Den
Hydralisk-High dps per supply, versatile assault strain. Transitions into staple GtA unit.
-Roach Warren-High HP (100+20 with research) per supply (1). Expendable shock-troop. Can move while burrowed at before lair. Transitions into Swarmhost for harder area control.
-Queen-Powerful positional macro/support caster. Creates new larva sources and spreads creep/map control/area control.
As you can see, most of these units are made to encourage more splitting up (low supply costs make it safer to do multipronged attacks) and to transition into different styles. Giving variety to the later stages of the game.
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Allow me to go through your comments line by line.
-We have buffed Stalker's ability to harass by giving them 14 base damage and 7 range.
Great, but isn't the thing that harassing with stalkers (in small groups) isn't really realistic untill players are on 4+ bases as the opponent can somewhat "easily" spread his army out while on 3 bases and defend against the harass (?).
-We have made the Oracle able to shut down turrets, precisely the thing you complained about to me. And in Patch 3 we are
This is slightly misunderstanding my "design phisosophy". I do not think protoss's should be required to go x tech pattern in order to counter static defenses. Secondly, how do you know the "counter" to oracles isn't just "even more turrets"? If the oracle can shut down 1 turret, why not just get an insane amount when you see the first oracles? Basically I believe protoss should have 3-5 different harassment based styles in multiplayer where all of them "easily" can pass/avoid turrets.
-We have made Tempests better at pressuring towers.
I think all pressureoriented units are bad for the game. In my opinion it has a tendency of making comebacks too difficult, because if your behind then pressureunits can make turtling impossible, and in order to make a comeback you need to play defensively. But the counter to that style shouldn't be a unit which says "hey get out of there and bring your whole deathball along with you".
Instead there should be two ways to deal with a turtling player; 1) Microbased abilities (binding cloud/statis - though I dislike the design of both abilities, I do like their intended roles). 2) Outmulittasking the opponent.
Compare this to WOL/HOTS's version of defeating a turtling player; "Attack move with immortals". That is an awful way of designing the game as the terran player can't really do anything in order to minimize the efficiency of immortals rather than just having more tanks (stronger deathball play). Onegoal is better in that regard as focus fire from the terran player is rewarded, however I see two "issues with completely relying on that approach;
1) Its not as visually appealing as stasis/binding cloud - Most people will never notice when pro's are really good at focus firing.
2) I don't think it solves the deathball problem - The counter to immortals in Onegoal is still to have more tanks and I think 20 immortals can cost efficiently kill 5-6 tanks which are defending an expansion. In BW if you wanted to kill 5-6 tank well positioned tanks you would have to pay a huge price as you would lose the majority of thus units in the proces. To be fair though, tanks can't get further buffed unless the economy receives a change.
But even without adressing the economy, we can still promote multitaskbased games(in a different way from how BW rewarded it) by buffing harassment units and redesigning static defenses.
-We have made the Colossus able to 1 shot workers and worse in straight up fights. Short of making it into a a Reaver, I don't know what else we could do to make it more harass friendly.
Great, but the problem is that if the collosus is so good at harassing workers then the opponent will build a turret ring in order to take that part out of the game. That wasn't something you could afford to do in BW.
-We made the MSC non unique so you can have have Protoss squad based combat. In fact, that is one of the only reasons to build more than one MSC given that they are terrible fighters for their cost
Definitely an improvement, though I would have prefered that recall was a nexus thing which costed energy as it some times can feel a bit "annoying" to have bring a MSC along you if you want to harass. Basically my design philosphy involves making harassbased play feels "easy and natural", while playing deathball'ish most feel damn annoying and way too challenging.
-Hellbats are 4 per medivac but aren't bio-tagged and have 15 less hp. Giving Terran a good mech based drop option along with Widow Mines.
-Banshees are faster, have better accel, and cost 2 supply, meaning you can have squads of them in the mid and late game prowling around the map.
This would be great if cannons + warp ins couldn't shut this down efficiently. You can argue that a terran should just bring a raven along with his harass but then we are back with the "oracle example". It must IMO never be a neccesity in order for a mech'ing terran to harass efficiently to bring a high tech unit (especially since its immobile) along with him. Rather it should just be one of many very strong options.
So let me use a bit of time on elaborating on the static defenses issue, because fundementally I think we will agree with each other (if we just discuss this long enough..). In BW/Starbow static turrets works just as intended because you can't afford to have more than 3-5 turrets in the midgame (against protoss) so you need to carefully think about how you position them. Each time you build a turret, you could have spent those ressources on a vulture which could have dealt damage to the opponents economy.
So the terran player weights the pro's and cons of building a turret or getting a vulture. Starbow, however currently faces the problem of vultures being too expensive compared to their bw counterparts and therefore Starbow is more turtlish throughout the midgame than BW was, as players are more incentivized to get more turrets in order to defend better as they can (almost) never harass cost efficiently.
In Onegoal hellbats are slightly worse which means that players are further incentivized (compared to HOTS) to build turrets rather than hellbats. This is in my opinion an unandressed problem because static defenses has thereby received an indirect buff by a lower opportunity cost (worse hellbats).
There are two solutions into this problem: Either warp prism receives some kind of buff/ability so that they can get through a turret wall or 2) We make it impossible for terrans to afford that many turrets. For instance a removal of the mule would accomplish that. Some kind of FRB will help reducing the problem (as terrans have to take bases quicker and thus can't afford as many turrets), but won't completley solve it. Another solution is simply to make turrets cost gas as proposed, because terrans will now be able to afford less turrets if they still want to produce their siege tanks.
But the problem with static defenses doesn't end with just cannons/turrets/spine crawlers - The plantary is also a huge deathball-incentivizer as the only way to "attack" it efficiently is to bring your whole army. On the other hand it is unharassable by small armies. IMO the plantary needs a role as a static defense which can help against deathballs (atm it almost doesn't help at all against a 200 food army as it gets killed so quickly, even with repair), but it shouldn't be a counter to DT/zealot harass etc.
-We are giving Ravens back Auto Turrets that do more up front damage.
-Reapers will work like hots reapers do as of Patch 3, but they will have an anti-structure attack, providing a unique way of Bio harassing. A huge buff in comparison to HotS or OneGoal.
Seems great, however I do assume reapers anti structure attack will be an upgrade?
-Roaches are being tuned to be a 1 supply burrow harass unit at Hatch tech.
-Overlord Drops and Nydus play either come on line faster or are more affordable.
Cool.
-Swarm Hosts are being tuned to be a 2 supply soft pressure/hard defense unit that can be played around. Like the lurker
As you know by now I am not a huge fan of pressure unit, though Onegoal's version of the SH do look like an improvement over the HOTS version (which is basically the most awfull designed unit ever).
-Mutalisk regeneration now works like reaper regeneration, meaning it is important to dive in and out of mineral lines.
Not sure I am such a big fan of this as it incentivizes "breaks". Basically I would prefer that the best zerg players would mutalisk harass all the time without any 30 seconds healing breaks.
But to sum up; Its definitely a pretty good step in the right direction, but static defenses still needs a overhaul; Please find ways to buff static defenses when they face a deathball but make them less efficient vs harassbased play.
At the moment that is actually my only real "problem" with Onegoal atm., but it has such a drastic effect on the optimal way of playing the game.
Basically this is how a protoss player in HOTS/Onegoal currently thinks; "Hey this guy goes for hellion/banshee harass - I better build cannons".
This is how I want a protoss player to think; "Hey this guy goes for hellion/banshee harass - I better go warp prism harass my self in order to stay on equal footing". And in order to make protoss player think that static defenses and/or harassunits simpy needs an overhaul.
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-We have buffed Stalker's ability to harass by giving them 14 base damage and 7 range.
Great, but isn't the thing that harassing with stalkers (in small groups) isn't really realistic untill players are on 4+ bases as the opponent can somewhat "easily" spread his army out while on 3 bases and defend against the harass (?). You clearly haven't played against 7 range stalker pushes or blink based timing attacks. They can straight up kill you if you don't react properly. They do 14 damage to workers meaning that they 3 shot with +1. It is map dependant, but heavy stalker strats work regularly with MSC or Observer support, and Turrets do dick against them. You need to spread out tanks and or widow mines if you are going mech, which makes you weaker to a frontal assault. That's multi-tasking. -We have made the Oracle able to shut down turrets, precisely the thing you complained about to me. And in Patch 3 we are
This is slightly misunderstanding my "design phisosophy". I do not think protoss's should be required to go x tech pattern in order to counter static defenses. Secondly, how do you know the "counter" to oracles isn't just "even more turrets"? If the oracle can shut down 1 turret, why not just get an insane amount when you see the first oracles? Basically I believe protoss should have 3-5 different harassment based styles in multiplayer where all of them "easily" can pass/avoid turrets.
Some tech paths are better at harassing than others and that is ok. See Bio vs Mech. Stargate has mobile harassment options and ways to make that harass break through. Robo has ground dominance as its theme, it is more positional in its gameplay and that is fine. The Prism has the benifit of being able to warp in a godamned army if it fines any amount of purchase. And if not, all you have to do is make one.
-We have made Tempests better at pressuring towers.
I think all pressureoriented units are bad for the game. In my opinion it has a tendency of making comebacks too difficult, because if your behind then pressureunits can make turtling impossible, and in order to make a comeback you need to play defensively. But the counter to that style shouldn't be a unit which says "hey get out of there and bring your whole deathball along with you".
Instead there should be two ways to deal with a turtling player; 1) Microbased abilities (binding cloud/statis - though I dislike the design of both abilities, I do like their intended roles). 2) Outmulittasking the opponent.
Compare this to WOL/HOTS's version of defeating a turtling player; "Attack move with immortals". That is an awful way of designing the game as the terran player can't really do anything in order to minimize the efficiency of immortals rather than just having more tanks (stronger deathball play). Onegoal is better in that regard as focus fire from the terran player is rewarded, however I see two "issues with completely relying on that approach;
1) Its not as visually appealing as stasis/binding cloud - Most people will never notice when pro's are really good at focus firing.
2) I don't think it solves the deathball problem - The counter to immortals in Onegoal is still to have more tanks and I think 20 immortals can cost efficiently kill 5-6 tanks which are defending an expansion. In BW if you wanted to kill 5-6 tank well positioned tanks you would have to pay a huge price as you would lose the majority of thus units in the proces. To be fair though, tanks can't get further buffed unless the economy receives a change.
But even without adressing the economy, we can still promote multitaskbased games(in a different way from how BW rewarded it) by buffing harassment units and redesigning static defenses.
1. Depends on the compositions, Spells are always clearer in that they draw the eye to the event. Banelings or infestors being decimated by Siege Tanks is very readable. Part of it is unit deaths don't give as much feedback as broodwar.
2. Apparently the answer has to be Seige tanks by themselves, which I think is a load of crap. Widow Mines are a wonderful way of supporting defended expansions and are easily produced and an exciting unit to watch. (MLG Dallas was made by the Widow Mine and Afterburner.) Also, 20 Immortals SHOULD be able to kill 5-6 tanks. Look at the relative cost of those units. 5 tanks is 750/500/10 supply taking on 20 Immortals 3000/2000/60 supply. When the Immortal is supposed to be a sort of durable spearhead "make things happen" unit. Try and tell me how that is remotely good gameplay. I just don't see it.
3. Do you really feel that static defenses are that toxic, the cannon has a bit more HP than its counterpart and does full damage, but given the amount of damage done by units in the game, it really doesn't do that much. The Crawlers can relocate, which is neat but if you get a good drop, it doesn't matter too much, the damage is often done. Missile Turrets are redic in terms of their air damage output. And Pforts are pretty nasty and shutting down harass. Any ideas how to make them better vs armies but worse vs harass? I am all ears.
Static defenses are largely the same as they were in BW, with the exception of the Missle Turret, which is monsterously good. the economy is faster, not only in how bases are set up. Here is the thing, we tried giving it a gas cost, it did jack. Terrans don't use gas nearly as much as they use minerals. It did nothing to limit how many turrets you could reasonably put up. Minerals hurts more because it impacts the production of Hellbats and Marines, Siege Tanks and what not. Mules make that hurt less and in Patch 4 we will have something. We tried replacing the mule several times, but we simply don't have something that is an improvement. Until then unfortunately, the mule is in.
The Siege Tank is easily the best designed unit in an RTS and it is a "pressure unit" through and through. When a Pressure unit is well designed, they are one of the healthiest dynamics in a game. They force a reaction, like harassing units. They are often positional in nature, which again means that there are different ways to engage them. It is an inherent part of starcraft.
Similarly you need stalemate breaking or game reversing spells like stasis or storm, because they add skill-based uncertainty.
All of this things increase the value for the spectator, which is by far the most important thing for an esport.
As an aside, the Nexus recall is inferior gameplay to an actual unit that is out on the field. It is something that is intuitive for the spectator and lets the defending player have a shot at shutting the harassment down for a time. It is visually cleaner and offers transparent and tense gameplay, rather than something that just sort of goes off randomly in the backround.
On the Mutalisk, there is this dynamic in games called occilating intensity. And it is really important for entertaining media. If you have constant action, the viewer is desensitized over time. You need (small) lulls in the action so the next climactic moment has time to build up. This is how stories are made, and this is how great esport games unfold. Additionally, it provides a natural tension in muta-based play. You can push your luck, and rely upon superior control to mitigate damage and keep doing damage, or you can do less damage, but maintain a high number of mutas to maintain map control, or if you are REALLY good, you can do both, parsing off wounded mutas and sending them out of the base on the fly while harassing and macroing. It rewards mechanical skill and decision making in a way that straight regeneration doesn't.
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But if you want a stable game, harassment needs to be hard to consistently execute,
That's not entirely what I implied (though I can see why you misunderstand me). Harassment based play must feel somewhat easy to execute unlike deathball play in the sense that I should not need 3 different control groups in order to harass your 4th expansion efficiently.
Some times I should just be able to take 7 vultures for instance and harass your base.
If you want to have a different experience with OneGoal, you could try playing more aggressively, instead of turtling on three bases. We have certainly worked hard to give you the tools for that aggression. Food for thought
This isn't fair to bring up such an argument because saying this is about aggression/not playing aggressive is way too unnuanced.
You even implied in the quote before that you had a lower preference for multitaskbased games than I do. So assuming that reflects it self in the mod, then you can't use an argument such as "we have given you the tools" as the tools, unfortunately, are useless as static defenses are too strong vs harassbased play.
If thats the game you want, then that is fine, however personally I prefer multittask-based play because I think its the most awesome kind of games to play and watch. And frankly, I think the majority of your target group would appreciate quite a lot if you get rid of the deathball (in the midgame) completely rather than making deathballs vs deathballs slightly more microintensive.
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The Siege Tank is easily the best designed unit in an RTS and it is a "pressure unit" through and through. When a Pressure unit is well designed, they are one of the healthiest dynamics in a game. They force a reaction, like harassing units.
I agree. I guess I shouldn't have said I hate "pressure units" per se. However I hate the kind of gameplay HOTS swarm hosts and HOTS tempest works. But when that is said, the main role of siege tanks isn't to pressure the opponent to come out and play as it is way too immobile to do that in most circumstances. Rather it is awesome because it allows players to control certain areas very cost efficiently. Swarm hosts and tempest doesn't do that. Instead they just tell the opponent to come out and play which in my opinion serves no role in terms of creating exciting gameplay.
Similarly you need stalemate breaking or game reversing spells like stasis or storm, because they add skill-based uncertainty.
Yes that was what i implied by stasis/binding cloud. There should be skillbased ways to break an opponent, however putting 15 lurkers/5 tempests doesn't really promote skill IMO.
Static defenses are largely the same as they were in BW, with the exception of the Missle Turret, which is monsterously good. the economy is faster, not only in how bases are set up. Here is the thing, we tried giving it a gas cost, it did jack. Terrans don't use gas nearly as much as they use minerals. It did nothing to limit how many turrets you could reasonably put up. Minerals hurts more because it impacts the production of Hellbats and Marines, Siege Tanks and what not. Mules make that hurt less and in Patch 4 we will have something. We tried replacing the mule several times, but we simply don't have something that is an improvement. Until then unfortunately, the mule is in.
Ok I don't really care about what you come up with here. Maybe my gas-idea was bad, and that means radical solutions might neccesary (if small changes can't fix the problem).
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Deathball vs deathball is something that happens in all sc games until a particular skill level. BW had multi-tasking harassment at the high levels and mindless macro at the lower levels. That was it... With HotS, we are seeing fewer deathballs in TvZ as a result of more harass friendly tools even though it has the same exact economy and the same snowbally effects. You just have to be really good. Which unfortunately, is something none of us can really claim.
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Static defenses are largely the same as they were in BW, with the exception of the Missle Turret, which is monsterously good. the economy is faster, not only in how bases are set up
I think there are quite a few differences
1) Zergs often have much better eco in sc2 due to larva mechanicsm which makes it easier for them in the mid/late ame to mass spine crawlers at their expansions.
2) Protoss have warp ins.
3) And obiviously terran has mules.
So I think this whole static defenses should use some kind of change to take into account that the productions mechanics have been reworked from BW to sc2 (assuming you don't want to fundementally change that).
I don't think that straight nerfs are the right answer (this isn't a balance issue), rather its about making them better/equally good vs deathballs and worse vs small armies/harassbased play.
I think there is no easy solution to this issue, but there is room for creativity; In my opinion the key to making them better vs deathballs is to give each static defense some really strong ability which is only efficient to use when a deathball attack but inefficient to use if the opponent harasses. Therefore that strong ability needs to cost ressources/energy and/ or have a cooldown.
Here is one example (which I just thought of that is probably crazy and will never work in reality)
- Photo cannons DPS is reduced.
- At a cost of 150/150, the shield of the specific photo and nearby structures (and maybe units/workers as well) is trippled and each photo cannon is given a splash damage attack (it could be a skilled based attack ability rather than an automatic attack).
The duration of the strong cannons lasts for 30 seconds or something like that.
Lets just ignore for a moment how that change can be abused to sick cannon rushes or w/e and just think about how it will make deathballs weaker and harassbased play stronger.
If I harass that base with 6 hellions, the protoss player is never going to use the abilty as it is way too costly and my hellions will take less damage in the harass proces as the cannons have less DPS.
On the other hand if I bring a deathball to the nexus then my deathball will take quite a bit of damage in the proces, and it will be very difficult to kill the nexus as it has a lot of shield.
The specific stats can be tweaked in order to incentivize the gameplay that one desires. This photo cannon "overcharge" should probably be an upgrade as well as it would just make early game timing attacks absolutely impossible if it was avaiable from the beginning.
Btw I want to adress something you previously said;
Then you want a game that simply is not on the market. The closest thing I can recommend is old BW or SC2 BW. Forcing multitasking at all levels is not good or even viable game design
So what I want to recreate is actually the multitasking from BW. However, in order to get there we actually need to make multitask-units even stronger than what they were in BW, because in BW mechanics were so mechanically challenging so superior players could use their superior mechanics in order to outplay the opponent. For instance if you dropped an opponent, that player now had to choose between whether he wanted to defend the dropplay or whether he wanted to macro well (because doing both is insanely hard). That tradeoff doesn't exist in Sc2 as macro is relatively easy, thus harassplay needs to be more cost efficient.
On March 25 2013 19:24 ItWhoSpeaks wrote:
Deathball vs deathball is something that happens in all sc games until a particular skill level. BW had multi-tasking harassment at the high levels and mindless macro at the lower levels. That was it... With HotS, we are seeing fewer deathballs in TvZ as a result of more harass friendly tools even though it has the same exact economy and the same snowbally effects. You just have to be really good. Which unfortunately, is something none of us can really claim.
Yes HOTS "solved" that matchup by making speed medivacs ignore static defenses. In Wol for instance zergs would put up spores at key locations in order to make drop play quite inefficient. In both tvt and tvz terran players can now get trough spores/turrets (and fungals and mutas of course) through the use of those "imba" speed medivacs.
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