EPTFor future reference, topsecret, or Donavon, is now DoctorBoson.
OneGoal: A better SC2 [Project Hub] - Page 68
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
For future reference, topsecret, or Donavon, is now DoctorBoson. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
It seems like a sinister villain in a fighting game. :D | ||
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rift
1819 Posts
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
On July 19 2013 02:55 rift wrote: sorry if this has been asked before but has Blizzard taken a look at any of your changes? If they have, they haven't done so officially, or given feedback (though, in terms of numbers, it's likely at least one of them has heard of us. Interestingly enough, they replied to the original Race Identity thread ItWhoSpeaks left on the SC2 forums, briefly commenting on Force Field and Warp Gates, but nothing substantial. If I remember correctly, Husky actually made a short video on the thread (again, brief, but it was acknowledged). Of course, the original thread was deleted from the SC2 forums and I can't find the video husky put up (if anyone else can assist me in that endeavor, I would certainly appreciate it) But, to reiterate, they have not "officially" seen the mod. | ||
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RedGD
Germany22 Posts
I just wanted to mention it. In addition to the other design problems. Probably a target group in the whole ladder frenzy was completely forgotten by Blizzard. Not every Player want to be a 1v1 e-sport oriented player. Causal and e-sport oriented players can co exist, but Blizzard tries to train only e-sport oriented players. Many players have not enough time to be e-sport oriented. They want to play with 2-7 friends. | ||
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Darkarus
United States8 Posts
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topsecret221
United States108 Posts
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
Where did the stream go? I liked the stream. Not to worry, the stream is only down because my system has been moving a lot recently and the new environment (cousin's house) is bad for streaming. As soon as we get myself into my college flat, streaming will resume. This should be by the end of the month. Are there any mod changes in the works right now? Well, there are two different categories of change: balance and design. Here's the low-down on each of them: BALANCE There isn't much to post here yet, because we haven't really seen much to change for balance purposes. We are looking to do a pass on the Viking's area of effect upgrade: because of the units new anti-light damage, it will shred through mutalisks in even numbers. Combined with marines, or units that already splash air (such as widow mines and hunter-seeker), the late game AoE missiles may be a bit overkill, and makes them incredible against air units in general. We will also be continuing to work with the hydralisk, making sure that its damage output is at least manageable in larger numbers. Any other balance changes will be dealt with as issues arise. DESIGN Keep in mind that serious design changes will become much more rare now that we're getting close to where we want to be. Most things that are in the game are likely to remain as is, with the occasional balance tweak or fixing of redundancies. Anything reaaally big is going to be tested internally before being released very carefully on a single map. We're waiting for our letter to Blizzard to go through before we stray far from what we have now. We are continuing to brainstorm for ideas on the corruptor's ability, but we have yet to come up with anything better than its current single-target plague (which is underwhelming at best). The void ray still feels like it could use work, and we are continuing to tweak this unit as well. If it cannot find a consistent and flexible role in the protoss fleet, the unit may simply end up scrapped until we can give it something worthwhile. The infestor is a unit that's been on my mind recently. It's nerfs make it rather disappointing (though neural parasite no longer requires research and fungal is still vital because of it's large area damage), and infested terrans are almost useless outside of base raiding due to the easy availability of high-DPS anti-air in the hydralisk. Furthermore, it still doesn't really fulfill the role its name would imply: infesting. We are exploring possible replacements for IT that communicates some level of infestation (not necessarily BW-style infestation, however... it was gimmicky and finding roles something else in the zerg arsenal doesn't already do would be difficult), but are open to ideas. Lastly, we are internally testing a universal slow down on all movement speeds, and an accompanying increase in collision radius. In theory, this will (obviously) slow down battles, give more opportunities to execute tactics and tricky positioning, slowing down the economy (which means an increase in average bases and less workers at a time, giving larger armies), and giving ranged units (particularly the siege tank) more opportunities to fire and deal damage (and making the tank viable in the process. There's much more to this thought process, but I'm simplifying it for now). To counteract the unintentional buff that this inherently bestows upon units like the hydralisk and marine, the universal collision radius increase will make the critical mass of ranged units much smaller, making marine or hydralisk balls less effective as a deathball. Keep in mind that these two changes are a long way from being ready for implementation, and may need more tweaks to the numbers on some units to really work. If it looks promising, we will continue to pursue it. Networking and other things As noted, I am the new project lead of the mod, and we are messing around getting some of the logistics worked out to accommodate this. I'm also working on reformatting the main post and the design mega post, for anyone that decided to read that as well. This will include cleaner formatting, better organization and presentation of ideas, completing the archiving of previous patch notes, consistent graphics, and an updated FAQ (moved to the main post rather than the design mega post). Leave us feedback, discuss things below, and keep on playing!  | ||
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Doominator10
United States515 Posts
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CrazyBread92
United States53 Posts
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
There are plenty of great potential changes, some I like quite a bit for example are: - replacing thor with warhound, slow units that are good vs anything are usually boring (like elephants in age of empires series). - jump on battlecruiser (very cool thematically fitting way to make them a bit more useful) - higher base damage on autoturret so it won't be useless lategame with armor upgrades all around - swarm hosts spawning from hydra's (more interesting dynamic than now though making it pretty much a must to go hydra's in combination with swarm hosts) - ultra's walking over lings (they should just be cliffwalkers imo) There is a ton of stuff I don't like though which make this overall too messy and a poor game in itself - sentry and immortal swap. Immortals are way too close to stalkers now coming from the same building, they are already similar in sc2 but here it;s even worse. At the moment i'd say you'd never want to bother with stalkers seeing how immortals do quite similar damage (slightly better vs armored, slightly worse vs rest) but have far better hp. - sentry is too much like an aura unit now that supports your army overall. Obsidian statue from wc3 basically which only enforces deathball play. Time warp slowing down attack speed is also just too much, aoe slow effect like that is incredibly strong. The problem with forcefield is really exaggerated a lot, it's nonsense that gateway units are too weak by themselves, ff only plays a big role in PvZ anyway. The roach change improving burrow movement is enough to make mass sentry a strategy that can be countered well enough - Hydratech so early, this is just messy putting them way too close to roaches, they practically cost the same, come at the same tech level etc. Units need to be differentiated enoug otherwise one just pretty much forces the other out. - Bonus attack on creep. Defensive advantages are neccesary to keep the game balanced between rushing and teching but they should fade out near the end of the game to prevent stalls and too much turtling. Something like a bonus attack damage doesn't do that and promotes boring gameplay too much. - Voidray and tempest changes seem unwarranted, tempest pretty much seems useless with these changes. Voidray changes i don't get at all. - mutalisk hatching into corruptor or broodlords seems totally messy, like that change the least of all. Just doesn't fit well having a harass unit change into a siege unit. Can't envision it working out fun either. Suprise muta's are being defended properly by new vikings or phoenix, guess what i'll just morph some to corruptors and counter you back. - medium armor, just why? Overall I applaud the attempt at these and realize the massive amount of work that goes in it but there are just too many crappy changes. I understand it's not directly assumed to be balanced but from a design point of view it's just too messy too. Terran changes look fairly good and are also the most minimal, I can definately see david kim using those for ideas.Protoss changes are a complete mess though, messing completely with unit roles, getting too much overlap and creating boring or silly units like new sentry or voidray. Zerg changes are fairly good too but the whole muta position is awful and hydra at t1 is just glorified BW nostalgia that is unneccesary.. | ||
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
On August 06 2013 00:04 Markwerf wrote: There are plenty of great potential changes, some I like quite a bit for example are: - replacing thor with warhound, slow units that are good vs anything are usually boring (like elephants in age of empires series). We didn't remove the thor because it was good against everything... rather, we removed them because they weren't good against anything. Horrible against any ground units (esp. basic units like zerglings or zealots), bad against all the air units that it was designed to kill (mutas, brood lords, phoenix), and so forth. Besides the difficulty in microing it (due to its size and speed), it contributed heavily to the "supply inflation" problem that plagues all three races. The main improvement of the warhound is that you can have one in three different positions rather than one thor attempting to do its job in one spot. - ultra's walking over lings (they should just be cliffwalkers imo) The ultralisk is fat-big, not tall-big. Besides being totally broken, it wouldn't make much sense for it to have it. - sentry and immortal swap. Immortals are way too close to stalkers now coming from the same building, they are already similar in sc2 but here it;s even worse. At the moment i'd say you'd never want to bother with stalkers seeing how immortals do quite similar damage (slightly better vs armored, slightly worse vs rest) but have far better hp. If you've used either unit, you'll know that they both handle very differently. Immortals are tough with decent damage (higher than the stalker against everything), but attack rather slowly, are very large, have relatively short range, and move sluggishly. The stalker, on the other hand, has very low HP, and lower damage, but attacks faster, moves faster, has significantly longer range (esp. once you have the upgrade), is smaller, can shoot up, and will have blink sometime in the midgame, not to mention cheaper in both cost and supply. The relationship that spawns from this is very interesting: Immortals are powerful, tanky units that excel at breaking down doors or dispatching heavy units, while the stalker is a consistent, damage dealing unit that must be microed to remain out of range of its enemies, is the army's anti-air, and can be used in general worker raids once blink is researched. In fact, in most games we've seen so far, its far more likely that someone opens with a stalker and a zealot rather than an immortal and a zealot. However, a dual-immortal/zealot timing push can be devastating against an expanding terran with an undermanned bunker in the early game. They both have their benefits and drawbacks, and play off of each other very well in this regard. I recommend trying them out a little bit. - sentry is too much like an aura unit now that supports your army overall. Obsidian statue from wc3 basically which only enforces deathball play. Time warp slowing down attack speed is also just too much, aoe slow effect like that is incredibly strong. The sentry is a support unit with a single aura spell that will only last in small, 10 seconds bursts (and is rather heavy on energy). It has seen very little usage on the battlefield so far, which is unfortunate considering its arsenal. Time warp may be too much, but considering that it will also effect your own units as well, its a considerable micro price to pay. Once we see it used more often, we'll tweak its numbers if necessary. The problem with forcefield is really exaggerated a lot, it's nonsense that gateway units are too weak by themselves, ff only plays a big role in PvZ anyway. Open a unit tester and put a standard early or midgame protoss army against a standard early or midgame terran or zerg army, except remove all sentries from the protoss force. If you watch closely, you'll notice everything gold or silver dies a horrible death. If you think FF is only really used in PvZ, I know several protoss and terran players that would be much more qualified to point out how much of an impact it actually makes. - Hydratech so early, this is just messy putting them way too close to roaches, they practically cost the same, come at the same tech level etc. Units need to be differentiated enoug otherwise one just pretty much forces the other out. Roaches are actually T2 units. That looks like a mistake in the changelog; we'll get that fixed soon. - Bonus attack on creep. Defensive advantages are neccesary to keep the game balanced between rushing and teching but they should fade out near the end of the game to prevent stalls and too much turtling. Something like a bonus attack damage doesn't do that and promotes boring gameplay too much. Its actually so minor that its nearly negligent. We'll keep an eye on it for now, but I've yet to see a game where it makes for stale, turtle-y gameplay, considering that its only on the hydralisk and locust. - Voidray and tempest changes seem unwarranted, tempest pretty much seems useless with these changes. Voidray changes i don't get at all. The void ray is a unit we're still messing around with, but the tempest is phenomenal in its new position. It sees gameplay all the time, and is pretty devastating if its not dealt with swiftly and properly. - mutalisk hatching into corruptor or broodlords seems totally messy, like that change the least of all. Just doesn't fit well having a harass unit change into a siege unit. Can't envision it working out fun either. Suprise muta's are being defended properly by new vikings or phoenix, guess what i'll just morph some to corruptors and counter you back. The "muta" in mutalisk is short for "mutate". It is the identity of the unit in a nutshell, and it is quite enjoyable to use. Corruptors are actually not very good at dealing the killing blow to enemy units that are being microed at all. It's much more of a zoning unit than a combat one. This creates great synergy with its base unit, being a harassment unit. You'll never want to morph all your mutas to corruptors, though... They simply don't have consistent enough damage to be worth it. The Brood Lord comes from the mutalisk now because the corruptors are already a morph stage: a second morph stage is both unprecedented and silly. - medium armor, just why? Though this is actually relatively unexplained in the post, this change is easily the biggest and best change in the entire mod. It adds another gradient of power between all of the units, and it helps to lighten the emphasis on "hard counters" and introduce "soft counters" instead. This, in turn creates more skill- and micro-based play, rather than composition being the end-all be-all. I will quote Zileas' explanation of the downfalls of a hard-counter system: ...Put simply, we think that soft counters are good, hard counters are bad, and the execution of a counter should be nuanced and skill differentiated -- simply choosing to use a counter in our view should only be a small fraction of skill. People often make the mistake that all counters are created equal, and indeed, that all counters are POSITIVE. Many types of counters, especially hard counters, can make the game less competitive and strategic despite being 'strategic' in their initial use. The type of counter we like the least of all is a hard counter. Hard counters, by their definition, allow for very limited counterplay. In some sense, they are a pre-planned rock-paper-scissors scenario -- I am now playing rock, you have scissors, so you lose. When you have a hard counter, and by extension, a rock-paper-scissors scenario, you've eliminated the potential for further skill differentiate, nuance, etc to occur in the response. In short, while it feels satisfying to have a hard counter, there's not a challenging, interesting game to be played on the receiving end at that point. Soft counters are better because they confer advantage and reward skill on the aggressor side also, but depend heavily upon execution, and thus, are more competitive and more vulnerable to defender interference via skill. To be fair, we have a few [bad hard counter mechanics] ourselves, but we want to get rid of them. Overall I applaud the attempt at these and realize the massive amount of work that goes in it but there are just too many crappy changes. I understand it's not directly assumed to be balanced but from a design point of view it's just too messy too. Terran changes look fairly good and are also the most minimal, I can definately see david kim using those for ideas.Protoss changes are a complete mess though, messing completely with unit roles, getting too much overlap and creating boring or silly units like new sentry or voidray. Zerg changes are fairly good too but the whole muta position is awful and hydra at t1 is just glorified BW nostalgia that is unneccesary.. Keep in mind that the design we are trying to achieve is both an improvement in the e-sports environment, and the restoration of the identities of the races: zerg need to swarm, hence a T1.5 1 supply unit. Protoss need to be powerful, dark protoss need to be fragile, yet slippery and deadly. It certainly throws a lot of the current metagame out the window, but that's not necessarily bad considering that the metagame is a product of force field-centric protoss and a powerful dearth of zerg. However, the new sentry is actually one of my favorite units (I main zerg), and there is very little overlap in most of what we've introduced. It doesn't appear as though you've actually played the mod: you've just read the changelist in the OP and are giving impressions based on that. I do recommend trying it out at least a couple of times: it really feels a lot better than a wall of text post can truly convey. I can arrange to get somebody of your approximate skill level and set the game up, if you PM me. | ||
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nerak
Brazil256 Posts
1) Where can I find commented VoD's of the mod's most recent version? 2) I'm excited to test this as soon as I get to Gold League, is there any interest in low league testers? I also want to say I'm very happy you guys perceive the problems with SC2's sound design and are trying to adress them. | ||
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
The most recent VoD available is a show match between Goswser and Harstem casted by Boisterous. Here's a link: . More VoDs will come online as good games come about. We are interested in all league testers! I'm personally a goldie, myself, and more are always welcome. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
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Razorspine
New Zealand29 Posts
Thanks! Shadow. | ||
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DoctorBoson
United States24 Posts
On August 06 2013 12:09 Razorspine wrote: Hey guys, having a lot of trouble people to play games for this on the NA server and it also appears that Neo Planet S won't let me create a game.... Perhaps a bug.. maybe its my game idk but thought I should let you know. I am down for a game since I haven't played OG in a while, am at Master/Dia level on HOTS. Thanks! Shadow. I believe we updated the Neo Planet S map. Try searching for it in custom games again. On the Arcade, the map should also be Neo Planet, if I remember correctly (could be Whirlwind). If you bookmarked it, the bookmarked version may have been deleted. | ||
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Razorspine
New Zealand29 Posts
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
iam master on europe server, you said "north america" server but all i could find was america | ||
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Razorspine
New Zealand29 Posts
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