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OneGoal: A better SC2 [Project Hub] - Page 55
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Skitz
Australia49 Posts
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topsecret221
United States108 Posts
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Doominator10
United States515 Posts
The first 4 I was simply enthralled by the awesomeness oozing out. The next two I'm actually looking @ it a bit more critically and thinking of suggestions. --The dead space between 0:40 and 0:50 I thought could be utilized with more than just, "Dawn is here" and the other phrase. --I think the part where the mothership core turned into a mothership (0:58 ish) could have been a key O_O WTF HOLY!@#$ THIS IS AWESOME moment if you showcased the (as of yet unchanged throughout the entire OneGoal history) fact that you can have a core per nexus instead of just one. (Motherships don't have cloak anymore right?) --The range upgrade on the stalker, (as in showing stalkers poking at bunker and then retreating, blinking into shadows, etc) --The "bubble" sentry doesn't seem to be as well communicated. (1:34 ish) I know that time warp is on the sentry now, but the video doesn't make it stand out. I think you could do a better job with the aesthetic if you had sentries showcasing TimeWarp and Guardian Shield on the ramp with the incoming hydras, and Ion Aegis on the cannon or on a seperate Immortal or something. --The colossus with the warp prism shenanigans was cool, and really highlighted the new feature of the vertical lasorhz. I think at least 1 scene with it in an actual mid-big battle would be appropriate, since that's where most people associate the colossus in the first place. --The carriers at 0:56 weren't synched :\ Just kinda dimmed the effect...just a bit. --The Oracle's cloaking field thing could have been better done. The fact that it's so flashy is good for spectating in a game, but doesn't seem very useful for showing what does it ACTUALLY DO. (Yes I know the bio ball wasn't attacking the HTs, but it could have been that the field was an LoS blocker instead of cloaking. It would take someone who knows what's up or very intuitive (or observant) to really know that the HTs are cloaked) Just an example: + Show Spoiler + High Templar spotted. BioBall rushes in Oracle lays down field Templar escapes into field Bio says HOLY!@#$ WTF AAAAAAAAARRRGRG!@#$@ gets stormed HT flees in a Warp Prism --Oracle got a COMPLETE rework, and I thought could have had some rep. At least for the cool part which is the gain energy from disabling buildings, then hallucinations do 1/2 damage. --The zealot v ling battle @ (2:00) looks cool. Not sure what purpose it serves other than hype (which it def. did the first 2 times I saw it  )--The void ray scene was fekking awesome. Only issues: Needed more Hydras eing roasted alive (not a lot of death in that scene other than that 1 stalker up top) VRays are being looked at for a re work. The trailer MIGHT have some conflict in the future. --The bit with Fortify actually did not show the mothership core :x Make dat isht visible. --The end bits had a lot of stalker colossus, which I don't feel like really emphasize the "Bring the Fight to the Enemy" mentality. I'm thinking more Zealot Immortal Collosus Archon, OR more void theme like Oracle Dark Templar Stalker VoidRay (Tempest????. Wasn't it originally a Void unit?) (Throw in some "You Shall Not Pass" lines from a zealot or something since we're dealing with more space control and area denial from the dark ones.) Summ: I reeeeeeaaaally liked the vid. On more serious reflection, try to really highlight the "big picture" changes like you did with Fortify, warping in those immortals, and the colossus. I don't mind a bit of fluff, (like the zealot v ling), so long as the core scenes are impactful enough to take advantage of the eye-candy scenes. + Show Spoiler + For Terran: Obv. we should be seeing a lot more mech footage than bio, since that's THE major adjustment. With some battlecruiser jumping for HOLY!@#$WTFAWESOME moments. For Zerg: LOTS AND LOTS of Hydralisks. Mutalisks morphing into Brood Lords. Roaches morphing into Swarm Hosts. The good stuff ofc. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
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topsecret221
United States108 Posts
I personally had the same reaction to the 10 seconds of dead space, but I thought it was a placeholder. The Fortify shot was originally taken from pre-HotS model days (when our MSC was fugly). For some of your points, though, I think you've lost track of the changes that we've already made. Take a look over the main page when you have a chance. For example, the Void Ray has already been reworked and the Oracle has lost it's hallucinations and void syphon. They were quite silly abilities. We've also finally given up on the poor Corruptor and Thor and simply replaced them (and the new units are much, much more exciting to watch). | ||
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Skitz
Australia49 Posts
On April 25 2013 08:52 topsecret221 wrote: Welcome, brother Skitz. It will be an honor to meet you upon the field of battle. Don't forget to hammer us with the feedback and send in any concerning or awesome replays to onegoalptr@gmail.com Thanks man, just taking a look at the arcade release now and had a few questions. Manual explode for banelings seems to be removed, was that a conscious decision? It seemed only to promote more micro in ling/bane wars. I think I remember nydus having a reduced cost in an earlier build? I could be wrong, but this was one of the most exciting changes for me (and my most hoped for change in HotS). With the current cost, it's too much of an investment to be used for anything other than silly 2 base all ins and extreme late game. I would really love to see players using it to reinforce in the midgame and as an effective form of harass, especially in response to medivac boost. Also, is the venalisk going to have a unique animation when it burrows? It kind of just floats down atm, a diving animation could look amazing. The whole thing really looks great, a lot more streamlined than the earlier builds I remember seeing. | ||
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topsecret221
United States108 Posts
As to the Venelisk burrow, we are looking into the community at SC2 Mapster for any animators that could assist us in that endeavor. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone on our team capable of doing this, so it will have to be outsourced. One last notice: patches will now be much less frequent, due to the difficulty of updating all of the maps that have been put live (the 5 melee maps and the Unit Tester). Bugs and balance are top priority, but there will be quite some time before we will put out anything as large as these changes again. | ||
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
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Fencar
United States2694 Posts
 I'd much rather have changes to the Thor to keep it from being a massable unit while still being strong, such as decreasing it's range while increasing damage to compensate (if too UP in low numbers) or something. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
On April 25 2013 12:53 Fencar wrote: Ugh. I really don't like the Warhound. In my mind Mech has always been the slow, strong composition. The Warhound is pretty much the opposite, being relatively fast and strong at the same time. I'd much rather have changes to the Thor to keep it from being a massable unit while still being strong, such as decreasing it's range while increasing damage to compensate (if too UP in low numbers) or something.Why? Its basically a slightly beefier Golaith that hits harder and attacks slower. Hellions and Vultures are very strong and mobile. However, they are dependant upon Tanks to support them in straight up fights, which is where the concept of "slow" mech comes from. Try pitting the Warhound against units without siege-tanks. They are pretty awful unless they are attacking air units, like the Goliath. More over the Thor is an awful unit that contributes to deathball armies due to its high cost/stats and dependance on other units to support it. You can do a ton more micro with 3 goliaths than you can ever do with a Thor, even though its the same supply for supply. Giving players the opportunity to spread their damage out (as well as reducing the effectiveness of that damage in concentrated armies) is a big part of what made BW great! | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
On April 25 2013 10:08 Skitz wrote: Thanks man, just taking a look at the arcade release now and had a few questions. Manual explode for banelings seems to be removed, was that a conscious decision? It seemed only to promote more micro in ling/bane wars. The whole thing really looks great, a lot more streamlined than the earlier builds I remember seeing. That is a bug that needs to be fixed | ||
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macncheezeplz
United States93 Posts
-Warhound? That's called a Goliath. -"Jump" is an interesting and possibly very useful ability for the Battlecruiser. It could turn out completely overpowered though. -The Immortal is just a glorified stalker now. -I like the "soft cap" idea for the mothership core. -Time warp removed and Photon overcharged buffed? That's a joke right? Time warp was by far the best Protoss thing to come out of HotS. Photon overcharge is just a simple damage dealing spell, it's spurs no creativity. Ah, but you added it to the sentry, ok. -While Protoss was too force field centric, completely removing it is a terrible idea. -Thermal Surge is just silly. No reason for it to be in the game. -There should only be 1 mothership in the game, period. An "ultimate unit" should not get a vision spell, it's incredibly lame. I would love to see mass timewarp or something. -Twilight Shroud sounds interesting. -The Tempest without a splash attack just seems silly. Would love to see the attack changed into something like a very low damage but very high aoe spell. That way Tempests would have a hard time actually killing units but they could weaken them into submission. -AOE on voidray? NO. Lol, please no. That's exactly the opposite of what a voidray should be. -A huge nerf to hydralisk damage. Are they even the same unit now? -Interesting roach changes. Could easily turn out to be overpowered. Hard to say though. -Resonance Chiton seems incredibly overpowered. I do like the fungal change though. -"Locust attack and move much faster on creep." that seems like too much. Moving faster on creep sounds like a great idea, but attacking faster seems like overkill. -Venalisks can burrow? Lol, that's incredibly odd, but ok. -Hive Awareness is long overdue. It looks like you guys have come a long way! | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
On April 25 2013 13:59 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Why? Its basically a slightly beefier Golaith that hits harder and attacks slower. Hellions and Vultures are very strong and mobile. However, they are dependant upon Tanks to support them in straight up fights, which is where the concept of "slow" mech comes from. Try pitting the Warhound against units without siege-tanks. They are pretty awful unless they are attacking air units, like the Goliath. More over the Thor is an awful unit that contributes to deathball armies due to its high cost/stats and dependance on other units to support it. You can do a ton more micro with 3 goliaths than you can ever do with a Thor, even though its the same supply for supply. Giving players the opportunity to spread their damage out (as well as reducing the effectiveness of that damage in concentrated armies) is a big part of what made BW great! I love the alternative of having 3 war hounds splitting up a thor or however the numbers fall in. Default warhound feels so nimble for a large mech unit, always felt odd to me. Giving it slight acceleration and deceleration goes a long way to making it feel more weighty even while retaining its speed. Of course that means slightly delayed response time which I'm not sure if OneGoal will accept. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
1. Reapers D-8 charge (though weakened due to their massability) lets them scale into the late game. We are hopeful that this works well. 2. Warhound is a Golaith with more HP, upfront damage, and slower attackspeed. We tried several options for ground-to-air AA, and this is the cleanest solution we have found. 3. The Immortal lost 120 HP and 20 damage to armor, in exchange for being a 1.5 gateway unit. It does a ton of damage to armor for its cost (10 damage per supply is a LOT.) and can be upgraded to constantly regenerate shields in combat, making it the tankiest tier 1 unit in the entire game. That said, it took a lot of tweaking to get it there, and it is entirely possible there is more work to do on the unit. 4. Soft cap for MSC's do two very good things. One it encourages both expanding and agression by protoss, and more importantly, it allows Protoss to engage in squad based combat. having 2 MSCs in a control group does very little, but having 2 different squads each with its own recall is VERY powerful, but requires significantly more mechanical skill. 5. Photon Overcharge is more powerful upfront but lasts 30 seconds, meaning that it is best used when the enemy commits and more vulnerable to being baited out. Of course, you CAN build multiple MSCs, but that eats into the P player's gas in the early game, and that energy usage can keep them from moving out with confidence. It may be too strong. We are keeping an eye on it. Having Time Warp (ours is way more interesting than HotS since it slows ALL units and it slows attackspeed and movement) on a ground unit with the positioning difficulties of a ground unit has the benefit of us being able to push its power rather than go "well, this ship can just cast it over whatever you want to eat with storm/Colossi." 6. Removing FF has been a long time coming. For a long time FF was 25 energy with HP, that was silly powerful, we reverted the energy cost reduction and kept the HP. It did what we wanted, allowing P to cut armies in half, while allowing defending players to choose whether to trade units with P at an unfavorable rate, or sacrifice dps to save their army. This was a cool dynamic but only came up vs Bio and vs P. Zerg still generally got shafted due to their reliance on low range melee units. (You generally want ling support for hydras). Time Warp ended up being more powerful defensively than Force Field. (Its a power spell from a dedicated tech caster, so we are ok with it for now.) The big thing is not only is it effective as a defensive tool. You can't just amove through it after routing the enemy like you can with FF and Archons or Colossus. This allows the enemy some time to rally forces or take advantage of a less potent protoss army should they choose to push through the Time Warp. Ultimately, Time Warp has more healthy gameplay and counterplay to it than FF did. So we ultitimately decided to make the swap. 7. Thermal Surge is a bit odd, but it does 2 important things. First, it allows the Colossus to have a bit of counterplay, which is sorely needed. It being hit by air units is a pretty shallow unit relationship in comparison to say the Reaver or Lurker. Generally, for a siege range unit to be a healthy addition to a game like SC it needs to sacrifice something for range and splash. The Tank sacrifices all mobility for siege range and splash. The Broodlord/Guardian and Tempest have siege range and movement (slow), but no splash, and that is ok. The Archon is fast and has splash, but has 3 range. The Colossus as its implemented has solid mobility, long range, high splash, and high dps, with a conditional status (this is a flying unit) being its disad. This is poor design because it determines the success or failure of the unit based on composition (Vikings or Corruptors) rather than unit control, (marines vs banelings.) Second, the delay for BIG damage is really cool for a spectator, it allows the viewer to see things line up like blue flame or banelings right before a big connection. We tried a charge up animation for the Colossus, but it made it unmicroable, we tried a LOT of things and this let the Colossus player aim his/her shots and be rewarded for it, while allowing the defending player to micro out of some of the damage. If you ever want to see the Protoss untangled from the deathball, the Colossus (and FF) have to change from as they are. Not saying our solution is the best, but it does the job reasonably well without going "to hell with it, lets stick in the Reaver and call it a day." 8. This is one of the few absolute lessons we learned. You can't have powerful unique units in a game like SC without making the game profoundly toxic. When you make a unit unique, it needs to be VERY powerful if it is going to live up to its image or identity, it needs to swing fights for it to feel cool. Well, that is all well and good, except for it has only 1 energy pool. Meaning you have 2 shots (if the spells are 75 or 100 energy since having a power spell at 50 energy is really weird) to make something happen. Having 2 degrees of success or failure for a key unit is TERRIBLE for esports. Just look at late game PvZ in WoL. You either land the Vortex and toilet half or all of his army with archons and win. Or you don't get a good vortex and you lose. If you are allowed to have multiple units but are instead limited by things like gas cost and supply, you have more degrees of sucess to invest in if you choose, and the spells can be designed in a more lenient way. Is envision best on the MS? I am not sure, it is a small utility spell and that might not be a bad thing. It has two power spells. The Arbiter, which is more powerful than our Mothership, had 2 powerspells and one of the worst attack values in the game. Time and testing will tell. 9. Twilight Shroud is REALLY interesting. I have seen awesome things done with that spell. 10. I can say with some confidence that the Tempest should not have splash. We tested it, it has all of the problems that the current tempest has (It becomes unapproachable once it reaches critical mass, like the Voidray.) It also puts in a terrible place where it has to deal really poor damage for its cost due to its range and mobility as an air unit. It isn't terribly workable. 11. I mean, yeah, Splash on the HotS VR would be insane. But its no different from a Corsair save that it is a bit more resource intensive and the splash is conditional. Sure you can mass VRs for days, but what will it do for you? You get air dominance, but you can't use them to attack ground units or structures. The main concern is that this obsoletes Phoenix which are a much more interesting unit. We aren't sure about this one. Suggestions are welcome. 12. No, they aren't the same unit as in HotS, which is probably a good thing. Hydras are not a tier 2 specialized unit. They are a fast and micro-able ranged generalist that can support a large variety of unit compositions. Damage numbers may need a bit of work, but Hydras should lose to units like Zealots and Stalkers on a unit per unit basis. The fact is that per supply, OneGoal hydras beat HotS hydras in damage and health. The thing is you have to really work to get them all attacking, much like lings. This is a big part in slowing down fights so each player can reenforce his or her army, granting more opportunities for coo plays (spectator value) and presenting more opportunities for mechanics to slip (ensuring that the better player wins more often) They may be to strong or weak, we need more testing to be sure. They were insane with higher damage before. 13. They could be OP, but man are they cool! 14. Resonance Chiton is really OP if you don't build detection like me. This is why Toss has Envision on the MS as well as observers, and a spell that turns all buildings into detectors. Vs Z and T its less of an issue since you either have more Overseers than you can count, or you have Scan and you actually want to make Ravens. Overall its an interesting way to separate the Infestor's playstyle from the Viper. One is soaring above a hungry pack of units, while the other is sneaking into your base or under your army. 15. It may be too much, we wanted to encourage fewer Swarm Hosts, rather than massing them. It provides more unit diversity and helps make the unit a bit more distinguished, as well as making it less about a core centralized army. 16. Venalisks are an odd unit, we are curious to see how they are used. 17. Ultras are happy now because they can actually do damage. Anyway, we aren't done obviously. But on the whole, I think we have come a long way and there are things the main game could take from us and be better for it. (Namely medium armor.) | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
On April 26 2013 00:49 decemberscalm wrote: I love the alternative of having 3 war hounds splitting up a thor or however the numbers fall in. Default warhound feels so nimble for a large mech unit, always felt odd to me. Giving it slight acceleration and deceleration goes a long way to making it feel more weighty even while retaining its speed. Of course that means slightly delayed response time which I'm not sure if OneGoal will accept. THAT is a really interesting idea! We want it to be tethered to immobile units like mines and tanks for it to be effective vs ground. That might be a nice addition, it needs to be mobile like the Golaith to answer airborn threats like Carriers or Phoenix attacking the flanks of the mech position. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
On April 26 2013 01:20 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: THAT is a really interesting idea! We want it to be tethered to immobile units like mines and tanks for it to be effective vs ground. That might be a nice addition, it needs to be mobile like the Golaith to answer airborn threats like Carriers or Phoenix attacking the flanks of the mech position. Then it should go a long way to giving the warhound some identity, being the support element to the even slower and lumbering units. I'm a sucker for aesthetics, and unit physics. | ||
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TonberryBleu
United States21 Posts
1. Roaches are TERRIBLE now. They are without a doubt, useless. They were already horribly supply-ineffective before, and now they're 1 more supply, 50/50 more expensive for what? 2 more attack? Are you serious? It went from being a staple to an utter trash unit. I played my brother today as Protoss, and Roaches are so garbage against Protoss gateway units it isn't even funny. What happened to your philosophy about less hard counters and more soft counters? 2. If you remove the soft cap on the Mothership Core, then you HAVE to (a) nerf Mass Recall and/or (b) nerf Photon Overcharge. No ifs, ands, or buts. Without a hard cap, Mothership Cores are way too much of a catch-all defensive unit. 3. Instead of making Venalisks burrow, why not give it an ability that allows it to cloak itself and be unable to attack while cloaked? Like some kind of Camoflauge Carapace ability or something? 4. I REALLY miss the Diamondback. Bringing back a souped-up Goliath is not fun in my eyes--the Diamondback actually brought a lot of skill and counterplay that I sorely missed when playing the mod. The Warhound just doesn't cut it for me. 5. I honestly think you're doing too much with VR. All it needs is a slight damage nerf (like maybe 25-27 DPS against armored instead of 32) from the HotS version, and it should be good to go. The current VR overshadows the Phoenix too much, and doesn't add any diversity to the game. All it does is close off air teching against Zerg because they now have no air units that could stand up to splash. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
2. We did nerf recall. It costs more energy than HotS. It costs 125 Energy instead of 100. We will look at reducing the duration of Photon Overcharge as well. Thanks for the feedback. 3. What you are talking about is interesting, it would need a slow fade in and out time to ensure that you don't have invinci venalisks. 4. It isn't coming back for now. But we are open to bringing back an equivalent of the DB. We want to keep things simple and elegant for now. Your feedback is noted. 5. You are probably right. This isn't the right thing for the VR. We are not going to make it the old VR however, its poor design and has no place in a game that rewards non-deathball play. Thanks again for your honest feedback, we take this stuff seriously. | ||
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TonberryBleu
United States21 Posts
On April 26 2013 13:46 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: 1. They aren't great for large engagements, that is kind of the point. They are a hunting pack unit. That said, we will look at about making them 2 supply. You would do well to make sure your tone is constructive as your criticism is. We make mistakes; there is no need to be rude.expensiveWe did nerf recall. It costs more energy than HotS. It costs 125 Energy instead of 100. We will look at reducing the duration of Photon Overcharge as well. Thanks for the feedback. 3. What you are talking theseabout is interesting, it would need a slow fade in and out time to ensure that you don't have invinci venalisks. 4. It isn't coming back for now. But we are open to bringing back an equivalent of the DB. We want to keep things simple and elegant for now. Your feedback is noted. 5. You are probably right. This isn't the right thing for the VR. We are not going to make it the old VR however, its poor design and has no place in a game that rewards non-deathball play. Thanks again for your honest feedback, we take this stuff seriously. I apologize for my tone in the first comment but it stems from the fact that you took a core zerg unit and essentially nerfed it to the ground. Adding a 50/50 increase in cost is already a big nerf to any unit... when you couple that with a one supply increase to a unit that's already supply inefficient makes the unit worthless. Imagine marauders were given combat shields and 2 more damage, but were now 150/75 each, and cost 3 supply. That would make marauders practically obsolete. that's essentially what you did with the roach. With these changes, there's no real reason to ever make them in any matchup. 2. Okay, understood. 3. Isn't that kind of a given? I'm not looking for invincible venalisks, all I said was instead of burrow, which will feel clunky and contrived for an air unit, you can take the same concept (1.5s transformation time) that would cloak the venalisks in air but would leave them vulnerable and unable to attack anything. The parameters around the ability (will it cost any energy, should it be cooldown based ability, etc.) can always be tweaked. 4. That's great to hear. Thanks! 5. Yeah, I think the void ray is just one of those units that's hard to balance because it was poorly designed. Personally, I think the void ray should be removed and the tempest should be tweaked to be a core air unit. Perhaps something like: 225/125/3 120shields/160hp 3.05 spd, 50s build time 15(+3 to medium, +6 to heavy), ups +1(+1, +2), 1.4 atk spd, 10 range That way, protoss now has a fully fleshed-out air army with anti-light (phoenix), harass-specialist (oracle), anti-armor/massive (tempest), and expensive, long-range high dps capital ship (carrier). On the same thought, I'm beginning to feel that zerg really needs more air unit diversity. Both the mutalisk and venalisk are really flimsy, so even though I understand the army philosophy of zerg as the swarm, this is sc2 we're talking about. Sc2 has so much more dps density and given how naturally units clump up and are therefore more vulnerable to splash than in sc1, every race needs some sort of beefy air unit. Maybe a morph of four venalisks into a bulky, slow corruptor? zerg just needs a unit that doesnt feel like its going to die to just one psi storm. Right now, Vikings, Ravens, Archons, and HT counter zerg air way too hard. | ||
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macncheezeplz
United States93 Posts
On April 26 2013 01:18 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Hey, thanks for the feedback! I would like to answer you line by line. 1. Reapers D-8 charge (though weakened due to their massability) lets them scale into the late game. We are hopeful that this works well. Perhaps change the D-8 charge into something like this: Does high damage to buildings, does low damage to units but deals low-moderate splash, remove normal anti-unit attack. Would deal significant damage to groups of lings but fairly useless against and all other things. 3. The Immortal lost 120 HP and 20 damage to armor, in exchange for being a 1.5 gateway unit. It does a ton of damage to armor for its cost (10 damage per supply is a LOT.) and can be upgraded to constantly regenerate shields in combat, making it the tankiest tier 1 unit in the entire game. That said, it took a lot of tweaking to get it there, and it is entirely possible there is more work to do on the unit. I was pretty disappointed when Blizzard increased Immortal range from 4 to 6. It made them anti mech stalkers. Now they are even more so like stalkers. I would like to see an incredibly hardy unit instead of a hard hitting unit. Not sure the Immortal will ever find a good place in this game, but I can hope. 4. Soft cap for MSC's do two very good things. One it encourages both expanding and agression by protoss, and more importantly, it allows Protoss to engage in squad based combat. having 2 MSCs in a control group does very little, but having 2 different squads each with its own recall is VERY powerful, but requires significantly more mechanical skill. I didn't event think about recall. Multiple units with the ability to mass recall seems incredibly OP. Months ago in this thread I mentioned the idea of creating a non-mass recall ability. You could recall a small area of units. For example you could stack air units into this area to teleport them all with one "normal" recall. This wouldn't make any difference when recalling small armies, but big armies wouldn't fit in the area. It would essentially nerf the ability the bigger the Protoss army became. It would also force Protoss to choose which units are most important/least able to escape. The MS would then get mass recall. Either way mass recall seems too powerful among more than 1 unit. 6. Removing FF has been a long time coming. For a long time FF was 25 energy with HP, that was silly powerful, we reverted the energy cost reduction and kept the HP. It did what we wanted, allowing P to cut armies in half, while allowing defending players to choose whether to trade units with P at an unfavorable rate, or sacrifice dps to save their army. This was a cool dynamic but only came up vs Bio and vs P. Zerg still generally got shafted due to their reliance on low range melee units. (You generally want ling support for hydras). Time Warp ended up being more powerful defensively than Force Field. (Its a power spell from a dedicated tech caster, so we are ok with it for now.) The big thing is not only is it effective as a defensive tool. You can't just amove through it after routing the enemy like you can with FF and Archons or Colossus. This allows the enemy some time to rally forces or take advantage of a less potent protoss army should they choose to push through the Time Warp. Ultimately, Time Warp has more healthy gameplay and counterplay to it than FF did. So we ultitimately decided to make the swap. I agree with everything you say here. FF is one of those things that's IS likely wise to just remove at this point. I would like to see it later on though after the current changes balance out. The had part about that is that adding such a powerful spell in the late stages of development can be hard on the balance. But oh well, all things take time. 7. Thermal Surge is a bit odd, but it does 2 important things. First, it allows the Colossus to have a bit of counterplay, which is sorely needed. It being hit by air units is a pretty shallow unit relationship in comparison to say the Reaver or Lurker. Generally, for a siege range unit to be a healthy addition to a game like SC it needs to sacrifice something for range and splash. The Tank sacrifices all mobility for siege range and splash. The Broodlord/Guardian and Tempest have siege range and movement (slow), but no splash, and that is ok. The Archon is fast and has splash, but has 3 range. The Colossus as its implemented has solid mobility, long range, high splash, and high dps, with a conditional status (this is a flying unit) being its disad. This is poor design because it determines the success or failure of the unit based on composition (Vikings or Corruptors) rather than unit control, (marines vs banelings.) Second, the delay for BIG damage is really cool for a spectator, it allows the viewer to see things line up like blue flame or banelings right before a big connection. We tried a charge up animation for the Colossus, but it made it unmicroable, we tried a LOT of things and this let the Colossus player aim his/her shots and be rewarded for it, while allowing the defending player to micro out of some of the damage. If you ever want to see the Protoss untangled from the deathball, the Colossus (and FF) have to change from as they are. Not saying our solution is the best, but it does the job reasonably well without going "to hell with it, lets stick in the Reaver and call it a day." I like your thoughts behind this but Thermal Surge is still an incredibly silly tool. The Colossus just sucks, haha. Try this: allow the Colossus to attack while moving (like the Pheonix), use the same attack animation you use in OneGoal but greatly decrease the speed at which the lasers move forward (extend the attack over perhaps 2-3 seconds), the Colossus attack does not instantly deal damage like in WoL (thus allowing the enemy to dodge the lasers), the Colossus will keep attacking even if it moves out of range while attacking (allowing Protoss players to move forward, attack, and move back while attacking to get out of range of vikings), possibly slightly decrease movement speed, possibly decrease the range of the Colossus to 7 while extending the attack animation to compensate. 8. This is one of the few absolute lessons we learned. You can't have powerful unique units in a game like SC without making the game profoundly toxic. When you make a unit unique, it needs to be VERY powerful if it is going to live up to its image or identity, it needs to swing fights for it to feel cool. Well, that is all well and good, except for it has only 1 energy pool. Meaning you have 2 shots (if the spells are 75 or 100 energy since having a power spell at 50 energy is really weird) to make something happen. Having 2 degrees of success or failure for a key unit is TERRIBLE for esports. Just look at late game PvZ in WoL. You either land the Vortex and toilet half or all of his army with archons and win. Or you don't get a good vortex and you lose. If you are allowed to have multiple units but are instead limited by things like gas cost and supply, you have more degrees of sucess to invest in if you choose, and the spells can be designed in a more lenient way. Is envision best on the MS? I am not sure, it is a small utility spell and that might not be a bad thing. It has two power spells. The Arbiter, which is more powerful than our Mothership, had 2 powerspells and one of the worst attack values in the game. Time and testing will tell. I agree with this but it's really not a Mothership anymore. Can't say I agree or disagree with this idea or not, either way seems fine. You shouldn't just decrease the size of the MS but I understand that's a lot easier than actually reworking MS cosmetics to decrease size (purely talking about cosmetics here). 10. I can say with some confidence that the Tempest should not have splash. We tested it, it has all of the problems that the current tempest has (It becomes unapproachable once it reaches critical mass, like the Voidray.) It also puts in a terrible place where it has to deal really poor damage for its cost due to its range and mobility as an air unit. It isn't terribly workable. I am not sure how extreme you tested Tempest's splash/damage but I am thinking something like a flat 8 damage over a VERY big AOE, around the size of a hatchery. Factoring in the cost/supply of Tempests that doesn't seem like an unreasonable army late game, unless of course the enemy keeps his units all bunched up. Slowing down the attack animation would likely help weaken the attack as well. Hard to say though when I am not actually testing this stuff. 11. I mean, yeah, Splash on the HotS VR would be insane. But its no different from a Corsair save that it is a bit more resource intensive and the splash is conditional. Sure you can mass VRs for days, but what will it do for you? You get air dominance, but you can't use them to attack ground units or structures. The main concern is that this obsoletes Phoenix which are a much more interesting unit. We aren't sure about this one. Suggestions are welcome. The Voidray should be an anti-massive unit. It should lock onto a unit and charge up like in WoL, the charge should NOT carry over if it switches targets. The charge should go like this: basic 10 DPS, after 2 seconds +15 DPS to 25 DPS, after 4 seconds +15 DPS to 40 DPS. This is a massive amount of DPS (HotS DPS charged against armored is 32, so not unreal) but it will take 4 seconds to get up there. Considering charge will not carry over, the Voidray literally cannot deal 40 DPS to any unit under 60 health. Possibly increase the basic DPS from 10 to 20, and fully charged to 50 if necessary. Well anyways, that's my suggestion. 13. They could be OP, but man are they cool! If you are going to take the roach in the direction of an actual tanking unit, then take even it a bit further, especially since they are now 3 supply. Perhaps increase health and size even more. 14. Resonance Chiton is really OP if you don't build detection like me. This is why Toss has Envision on the MS as well as observers, and a spell that turns all buildings into detectors. Vs Z and T its less of an issue since you either have more Overseers than you can count, or you have Scan and you actually want to make Ravens. Overall its an interesting way to separate the Infestor's playstyle from the Viper. One is soaring above a hungry pack of units, while the other is sneaking into your base or under your army. That's a good point. Protoss does have more detection now. I feel overseers may not be enough for Zerg. Anyway, we aren't done obviously. But on the whole, I think we have come a long way and there are things the main game could take from us and be better for it. (Namely medium armor.) Yep, that's all I could think of. Sometimes I forget that anything great must be built in stages. Hopefully this version balances out so we can get even more awesome changes! | ||
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