|
Grubby has recently (today) shared evidence for a 'weird' theory of his, namely, that Void Ray's do less damage in big battles if they are upgraded.
From his twitter:
"I've entertained a theory of mine for a while now, and I may have found evidence to support it. Do you agree with my experiment? In big fights, Void Rays may do less total damage if they're upgraded in attack.
120 1:0 Void Rays lose out to 126 0:0 VR's. Abt 20 0:0 VR's survive. Theory: "Why charge mechanic makes attack grades suck on VR's. Basically because an attack upgraded VR kills units sooner, they don't get a chance to charge up and ironically do less damage?"
Watch replay: http://drop.sc/171849
What do you guys think?
|
Well..... he's right.. there's no discussion here. You didnt add any of your opinion so how can you expect us to?
|
Depends on the unit. I'm sure there are some units which they manage to charge up before killing, against which they would benefit from the upgrades. If they can't charge up before killing though, then they won't benefit.
|
Eh, discussion questions:
Do you think this is working as intended? Can we have a different mechanic for VRs? (Grubby suggested getting +dmg after kill)
|
On May 05 2012 02:50 Yonnua wrote: Depends on the unit. I'm sure there are some units which they manage to charge up before killing, against which they would benefit from the upgrades. If they can't charge up before killing though, then they won't benefit.
If this effect comes into play with voidrays these units are probably Ultralisks, Battlecruisers and Carriers...
|
Could a possible solution be for voidrays to hold their charge one second longer?
|
On May 05 2012 02:51 Derrida wrote: Eh, discussion questions:
Do you think this is working as intended? Can we have a different mechanic for VRs? (Grubby suggested getting +dmg after kill)
that was in the beta and it was scrapped because it made the unit too hero-like. it also completely changes the niche of the VR from a killer of massive units to a T1 farmer.
tldr: shitty idea, in light of the VR's current role at least
|
This doesn't show anything. First of all, 126 unupgraded void rays will kill 120 upgraded voidrays with left overs, as will 126 upgraded voidrays kill 120 upgraded voidrays. If you watch closely, the upgraded voidrays kill more unupgraded ones early in the battle. At the end of the battle, there are just about as many fully charged upgraded voidrays as there are unupgraded ones. Also, this is only one, poorly controlled experiment. There is an element of randomness to any battle. If severl voidrays from either side end up focussing on the voidrays from the other side, you get wacky results. Also, you can queue voidrays to attack and they won't lose their charge between changing targets even vs zerglings or marines. I honestly just think this is a matter of chance and numbers advantages outweighing one measly upgrade.
|
Maybe the upgrade should not affect uncharged damage, but give a larger bonus to the charged damage. i.e. a +1 void should do 10=>20 instead of 11=>18.
|
Grubby's solution is v warcraft 3 like i.e. giving void rays an XP mechanic. His observation is v cool but void rays are usually meant for targets that can't shoot back (colossi, brood lords), which are also targets that rays can charge up on.
|
On May 05 2012 03:05 regulator_mk wrote: Maybe the upgrade should not affect uncharged damage, but give a larger bonus to the charged damage. i.e. a +1 void should do 10=>20 instead of 11=>18.
This is definitely what I would want. However, I don't exactly know why this is in Strategy >_> Someone send it Blizzard's way!
|
The theory makes sense, however trying it in a unit tester, with even numbers attack moving into each other the 1 attack void rays always win though +1 armour seems to beat +1 attack. Also having more void rays than the opponent is better than a slight upgrade advantage but then that can be said of almost any unit.
|
i think you need micro ... if you engange with uncharged voidrays you did something wrong anyway in a direct engagement. I go for them regularly and i upgrade them as well and i build warpgates via prism on the map to charge them pre battle. Though Mass voids is something i use in pvp mostly, as they deny mass colossus wars. But even if in battle uncharged, you simply targetfire with your voidrays, so they reach charge. Its a micro unit afterall. And even the slowest player can simply magic box move them into the opponent so they have different targets and a few will reach charge that way. (they attack everything in front on move command) And lategame battles usually take longer then a voidray charge time, and they make up for not targetfireing afterwards and you come out with less losses.
Bcs of BW are a good example, the one that targetfires will lose to the one who will spread the fire and reduces the overkill. While in sc2, this isn't the case for them anymore, Vikings actually need alot of targetfire micro and you can easily win with the lower viking count in tvt with proper target spreading.
|
On May 05 2012 02:43 Derrida wrote:Grubby has recently (today) shared evidence for a 'weird' theory of his, namely, that Void Ray's do less damage in big battles if they are upgraded. From his twitter: "I've entertained a theory of mine for a while now, and I may have found evidence to support it. Do you agree with my experiment? In big fights, Void Rays may do less total damage if they're upgraded in attack. 120 1:0 Void Rays lose out to 126 0:0 VR's. Abt 20 0:0 VR's survive. Theory: "Why charge mechanic makes attack grades suck on VR's. Basically because an attack upgraded VR kills units sooner, they don't get a chance to charge up and ironically do less damage?" Watch replay: http://drop.sc/171849What do you guys think?
i knew that for a long time, the charge mechanic is broken since the dmg buff to the first phase and nerf to the lvl3, because units die way to fast to reach the second level. especially since they will be targeting something that other units target to, so they never can really charge 6s straight. The Charge mechanic needs to be fixed that it charges by every shot and not by lvls.
|
The results are obviously true to the experiment, if someone proves this experiment to be flawless...then making a change to void rays probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I think the best way to do it, is to shorten the charge time of an upgraded void. Every +1 air attack upgrade decreases charge time slightly.
|
They should really just change them to do a % of the target's hp per second, this charging up/down stuff screws with balance too much
|
On May 05 2012 03:57 Zrana wrote: They should really just change them to do a % of the target's hp per second, this charging up/down stuff screws with balance too much
so that the time it takes for a VR to kill a zergling and an ultralisk is equal?
|
I think the clear solution to this problem is to reduce the voidray damage significanly. Say 30%. That way units dieing too fast will cease to be a problem eliminating the design flaw that attack upgardes reduce their damage.
The MOST reasonable solution is to make it so that attack upgrades REDUCE CHARGE TIME.
edit: make it reduce charge time and not increase the damage of each level of attack
|
Grubby thinking!
It would be nice if stargate units weren't useless for most of the game besides opening timing attacks against zerg.
|
On May 05 2012 04:29 Infocus wrote: I think the clear solution to this problem is to reduce the voidray damage significanly. Say 30%. That way units dieing too fast will cease to be a problem eliminating the design flaw that attack upgardes reduce their damage.
The MOST reasonable solution is to make it so that attack upgrades REDUCE CHARGE TIME.
edit: make it reduce charge time and not increase the damage of each level of attack
thats actually a very neat idea.
|
|
|
|