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On October 11 2012 05:11 K_osss wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2012 05:06 ItWhoSpeaks wrote:On October 11 2012 05:03 K_osss wrote:
I like the analysis of how the two games, BW and SC2, feel very different as protoss. Protoss definitely feels alot "weaker" on a unit by unit basis. SC2 is sitll very balanced and fun to play but I have to say the feel of Protoss in BW was better, dare I say much better?
Honestly, while I LOVE the warp in mechanic, I'd sacrifice it to allow for some more old school protoss units feel. We don't have to lose the Warp In mechanic, or Force Fields for that matter. It is just a matter of implementation. Right, I didn't say that very clearly - rather than sacrifice it totally I meant sacrifice it's current position in the tech tree. Don't make me chose between the old feel of protoss and the new warp mechanic haha!
I think a lot of good stuff was added to WoL Toss. The Stalker is one of the best units in SC from a design stand point. However, like many creative works, implementation provides a different set of challenges.
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Nice, really like your thoughts on the gateway units, I really like your thought about the difference in Khala and Dark tempars! However, I don't think its needed to move warp ins up to Twilight Council. Consider this instead, just remove warp ins at pylon power and give Nexus, Warp Prism and Mothership ability to have/create warp in fields.
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I really like the post, I've had similar thoughts tat I couldn't phrase that clearly. I think the gameplay changes are much too drastic to be realistically implemented (that wouldn't be Starcraft 2 anymore) but the "powerhouse" concept is worth mentioning. Perhaps this will influence the design of future protoss units? =)
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On October 11 2012 05:16 Majk wrote:
Nice, really like your thoughts on the gateway units, I really like your thought about the difference in Khala and Dark tempars! However, I don't think its needed to move warp ins up to Twilight Council. Consider this instead, just remove warp ins at pylon power and give Nexus, Warp Prism and Mothership ability to have/create warp in fields.
I think that is less readable from a gameplay perspective and removes the diversity of play that Warp In was intended to provide. It is an interesting thought though.
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I support each and every single thing that was mentioned in the OP.
It was never about balance. It was about making protoss feel like protoss.
And since you briefly touched on it: is the void ray a DT unit or a Khalai unit? It looks like a DT unit and "void" implies DT, but... it's beefy like a main-line protoss unit, and its "We are the light of the Khala!" line makes no damn sense.
You have no idea how much this totally irrelevant detail has bugged me these last few years.
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Only power Protoss have in SC2 is Colloss and Force Felds ... they become wery boring race to play and its sad..
BW protoss are truly protoss not this FF colloss gameplay of SC2... its so retarded...
i stop playing game becous i am toss player.. i dont like other races.. but i hope BW toss will comeback.. in SC2...
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On October 11 2012 05:17 Telenil wrote:
I really like the post, I've had similar thoughts tat I couldn't phrase that clearly. I think the gameplay changes are much too drastic to be realistically implemented (that wouldn't be Starcraft 2 anymore) but the "powerhouse" concept is worth mentioning. Perhaps this will influence the design of future protoss units? =)
Get on Reddit and support threads that discuss this sort of thing. Luciferon had this to say!
"From a Grandmaster protoss perspective (25th at the last MLG) the changes that you describe here totally exceeded my expectations. For a long time I've wanted protoss to have a stronger earlier unit prescence, decreased reliance on force fields, and move warp to twilight council. I articulated these suggestions along with others (make fungal be a slow rather than root etc) to a blizzard rep at MLG Raleigh, but I don't believe that was the proper channel of communication.
I 100% support everything that you wrote here. I cannot thank you enough for putting in the time to conceive of and write this. I applaud you. Bravo.
If all of these changes were implemented, with balance tweaks on numbers - not concepts - as necessary, I agree that the race would be back to where it should be in terms of racial asymmetry.
The next step, as others have mentioned, is raising awareness of this post. I personally came to this page from r/starcraft, but I haven't seen anything on Teamliquid yet. I'd suggest cross posting it there if you haven't already. Whatever you do, don't put it in the blogs section if you can avoid it. Try the SC2 General section for increased visability.
Edit: Also I'm not sure how good it would be to have force fields have hp. Maybe a shorter duration (5 seconds shorter?) would be better as chained force fields are less important due to being later in the tech tree. That might need some tweaking/revision"
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Completely agree, i love the way you have changed the immortal/stalker into deadly but fragile units. I love the ideas around protoss having to utilise shields more effectively, e.g taking hull damage is unforgivable. I think the current game has made this hard because in all battles you cannot retreat, when you commit to a battle you risk your life in the game. Not saying there should be no risk in attacking thats why i like the idea of the MS core ability to recall.
I think the phoenix is fine, personally. The voidray i would prefer just the old speed upgrade.
Great Read.
Restored protoss faith.
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A couple criticisms.
1. During timing pushes, your warpgate changes still make using warpgates really, really good. Consider that the 4-gate (the most notorious use of warpgates) doesn't actually build units using the warpgate until right as the attack is occuring. Your changes kill 4-gate obviously, but don't think we won't see people using warpgate right before a timing anyway (thereby still negating defender's advantage to some extent, but doing it later in the game).
2. Making the Immortal a slightly cheaper "stalker and a half" is an interesting suggestion, but allowing them to shoot up at 30 damage a shot means the immortal (with +1 attack) 3 shots a viking. This will lead to some likely unholdable 2-base Colossus/Immortal timing pushes in PvT. In addition, having a 3 supply unit consume a warpgate cooldown is poor design. Consider that by building mostly 2 supply units right up until your push, and then warping in nothing but 3-supply units both bypasses defenders advantage (due to point 1) and also maximizes use of the warpgates ability to frontload supply. And I shudder to think of the 6 or 7 gate 2-base timing attack with zealots and Immortals warped in (which annihiliate both spines and roaches).
3. 2 armor interceptors and 3 armor carriers will make carriers stupidly good in PvT. I really don't think people appreciate how close the carrier is to being good in PvT. HuK used to use Carriers pretty well in PvT lategame - with an additional armor upgrade and survivability buff to interceptors, I think that only leaves Vikings to get in the Carriers way - now see bullet 2 about how Vikings won't stand in the carrier's way.
I think the spirit of your changes is fine. The specifics, though, clearly haven't been tested. I really, really doubt your version of the game would result in anything less than protoss domination in both PvT and PvZ.
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I agree (with everything)
I love warp gates, I really do, but they have way too much of an effect on everything else. Gateway units were balanced with the knowledge they can be warped in to a fight immediately, which does happen but really isn't always so - so there is kind of a shifting power level with Gateway units, it doesn't feel too consistent.
edit: I sincerely hope this reaches DB or DK; these are greaaaat changes.
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These are brilliant changes. I would love to see a beta or a PTR patch with these in it as an experiment for community feedback. I feel like this could be really valuable in the hands of the pro players.
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On October 11 2012 05:44 Treehead wrote:
A couple criticisms.
1. During timing pushes, your warpgate changes still make using warpgates really, really good. Consider that the 4-gate (the most notorious use of warpgates) doesn't actually build units using the warpgate until right as the attack is occuring. Your changes kill 4-gate obviously, but don't think we won't see people using warpgate right before a timing anyway (thereby still negating defender's advantage to some extent, but doing it later in the game).
2. Making the Immortal a slightly cheaper "stalker and a half" is an interesting suggestion, but allowing them to shoot up at 30 damage a shot means the immortal (with +1 attack) 3 shots a viking. This will lead to some likely unholdable 2-base Colossus/Immortal timing pushes in PvT. In addition, having a 3 supply unit consume a warpgate cooldown is poor design. Consider that by building mostly 2 supply units right up until your push, and then warping in nothing but 3-supply units both bypasses defenders advantage (due to point 1) and also maximizes use of the warpgates ability to frontload supply. And I shudder to think of the 6 or 7 gate 2-base timing attack with zealots and Immortals warped in (which annihiliate both spines and roaches).
3. 2 armor interceptors and 3 armor carriers will make carriers stupidly good in PvT. I really don't think people appreciate how close the carrier is to being good in PvT. HuK used to use Carriers pretty well in PvT lategame - with an additional armor upgrade and survivability buff to interceptors, I think that only leaves Vikings to get in the Carriers way - now see bullet 2 about how Vikings won't stand in the carrier's way.
I think the spirit of your changes is fine. The specifics, though, clearly haven't been tested. I really, really doubt your version of the game would result in anything less than protoss domination in both PvT and PvZ.
1. This is very true, this is why I think an increased warp transition time would help make things a bit less swingy. But none the less, it could be game breaking.
2. The immortal redesign (upgraded Dragoon) with AA would necessitate changes to the other races in all likelihood. But if that is the price one pays for blue goo, then so be it  . In all seriousness though, AA might not even be necessary. I would just like to see it tested.
3. The Carrier probably doesn't need half of the buffs I suggested. Just tossing ideas out.
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This is a very well thought out post, it is obvious you have a strong understanding of the game. The idea of switching the immortal and the sentry in the tech tree would give protoss players the early game muscle to stand on their own feet without the need for forcefield. I do have a few concerns and suggestions.
Your proposed change to the stalker is very interesting; making it anti light would give it natural synergy with the anti armor immortal in the midgame, but it would definitely raise some early game concerns, as the stalker would now 4 shot marines and 3 shot zerglings.
If the sentry was moved to robo and made costlier and beefier, then forcefield would need a few fundamental changes to remain competitive. I agree that making FFs breakable would be a positive change, but there would still need to be a buff at some point since the same spell at the same energy is now much harder to access.
I like the direction you're trying to go with the tempest, though I would consider decreasing the starting range to 7 or so. Being able to access to such a long range unit so early on, even if its initial range was decreased to 9, simply wouldn't work with Starcraft 2. To get what I mean, think of the tech requirements the colossus needs to achieve this range.
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On October 11 2012 05:56 v3chr0 wrote:
I agree (with everything)
I love warp gates, I really do, but they have way too much of an effect on everything else. Gateway units were balanced with the knowledge they can be warped in to a fight immediately, which does happen but really isn't always so - so there is kind of a shifting power level with Gateway units, it doesn't feel too consistent.
edit: I sincerely hope this reaches DB or DK; these are greaaaat changes.
Dustin just responded! I am very happy he got this feedback. He seems pretty receptive to it.
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"Rock, Developer" -
+ Show Spoiler +Thanks for the post! There is a lot of good detailed feedback here. I don't agree with everything but it's a great discussion. For example I don't believe that "Gateway units are weak because of warp-in." I do agree that Sentry is core to Gateway and that Gateway units are balanced around the use of Sentry. What makes this worse is that Sentries are hard to use. Guardian Shield isn't too difficult to manage, but Force Fields can be very difficult to use correctly. We are talking about ways to make the Sentry easier to use so more Protoss players can get value out of him.
I think that Gateway units can be very, very deadly. It's just a matter of when. Stalkers with blink are very powerful and Zealots with charge are very dangerous as well (even against Stim Terrans). But when I fight with my Gateway units against most Terran players I don't yet have these upgrades.
I believe that most Protoss players (myself included) feel the need to go Robotics first to scout and to avoid cloaked threats. If we give the Mothership Core someway to detect cloaked units Protoss players should be able to open Twilight Council and upgrade their Gateway units very quickly. This might reduce the Terran stim timing attacks and make it less required for Protoss to go Robo or Templar tech as fast as possible to avoid being crushed by an infantry timing.
Though with Widow Mine in the picture I'm not sure how that will change things. Since that is another cloak threat.
We will be looking some at the Void Ray soonish. I don't know what if anything we will decide to do with him but your feedback on this unit has certainly been heard.
Thanks again for taking the time to write this up.
Well, there is the first blue response!
FAITH HATH BEEN RESTORED!
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some ideas but why do compare damage of units? zealot for example does a lot more dps then a roach and wins vs a roach (unmicroed).
and your fix to the bad gateway units (with sentrys not available on gateway tech) is to buff zealot/stalker which works out fine on gateway tech. if warpgate is available + blink/charge zealot/stalker would become superimba. thats the whole problem with warpgate tech. you can only buff zealot/stalker if you remove warpgates from the game. or you would have to buff terran and zerg in any other part of the game to compensate for stronger chargelots/blinkstalker.
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What makes this worse is that Sentries are hard to use
What?...I don't know. Easy doesn't mean good nor does hard mean bad (you could actually make a case for the opposite). The more you put in the more you get out does not seem to be a philosophy of Starcraft 2's balance.
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Again, this isn't about balance, this is about creating a dynamic that is fun and engaging. Test and balance is something that can be done later unless the idea is fundamentally broken. It is difficult to determine such dynamics.
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Everytime I read one of these "I know how to 'fix' Protoss" threads, I'm glad DB has indicated no substantive change to WG and Sentry/FF. He gets a lot of crap, most of it undeserved. But he is dead right on that score.
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EPT
