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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.
Balancing the entire gateway tech path around 1 unit is incredibly bad design. I'm going to be severely disappointed if they choose not to radically change how force field interacts with the Protoss gateway composition. Forcefield's are too powerful for a T1.5 unit and it cripples Blizzards ability to change the Protoss early game in any meaningful way.
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On October 11 2012 10:31 Laids wrote:Show nested quote +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. Balancing the entire gateway tech path around 1 unit is incredibly bad design. I'm going to be severely disappointed if they choose not to radically change how force field interacts with the Protoss gateway composition. Forcefield's are too powerful for a T1.5 unit and it cripples Blizzards ability to change the Protoss early game in any meaningful way.
Yet at the same time, without forcefields, there are many rushes P dies to - and buffing the units to the point that they withstand these rushes might prove too much.
I just hope they don't make FFs too much easier to use, it's already one of the few skills that sets protoss players apart.
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The reason this is brilliant in my opinion is because of how it connects the correct play style pairings around unified buildings. Going down Twilight gives you mobility and harassment (blink, warp gate, DT's, Zealot-Archon, by this logic Warp Prism should go here too), going down Robo gives you power in straight up fights (force fields, guardian shield, colossi). It just feels like this is for the most part a much better place for these units in the tech tree. However, I'm not convinced the Immortal needs to be moved to the gateway, if the warpgate is removed from the Core and the Zealot and Stalker are buffed it might be able to stay in the Robo.
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So intelligent... the idea of strategically switching to warpgate, forcing people to scout for double reinforcement is so smart. Also, having the mothership provide power is so intuitive and fucking awesome. Haveing zealot stalker immo at gateway makes so much sense as well, though immos still feel like a robo unit.
Protoss how it should be played. I do worry about TC being too critical to ignore and/or setting up impossible choices between robo twilight and stargate (need to upgrade at TC to stay in the game, but need robo for detection, stargate never used until lategame) but overall it's sounds much more interesting than the current design.
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Very good post. Perhaps making the lower tech protoss units stronger and the higher tech protoss units weaker will also make fights last longer and also reduce the strong scaling of the protoss deathball via AOE in the lategame. It can also fix the problem vs mech, since even though the gateway units might die quickly, strong units like the immortal or colossus aren't killed fast by the AOE, leaving the strong protoss units to dish out damage for a long duration.
this could take a lot of reworking but may be worth it
just read more of the post, a LOT OF drastic changes, but good backing up and such! it is an expansion now after all, and it's better to get things messy and fixed instead of leaving it messed up slightly for many years later
i'm not sure what i think of some of the changes, but i'm sure some blizz people will read it and consider the ideas
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Good ideas, will blizzard listen, doubt it
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On October 11 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
Good ideas, will blizzard listen, doubt it
they've already posted in the thread
i don't get why so many people doubt blizzard, particularly that they "never listen". It might take them a while, but they do listen and eventually get things right
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This is a very very good post and I am sure almost all our us who played Protoss in both bw and SC2 has part of that feeling in their heart: why my gateway units are so weak!!
FF and warp-in are nice mechanism, but they take away too much of the strength that Protoss unit are suppose to have. The change of stalker into anti-light also make a lot of sense, as this is one of the key reason the P has a hard time harassing and anti-harassing.
I truely hope Blizzard will be brave enough to test this in the beta... It takes a lot of courage, but it has the chance to hugely increase the popularity of SC2 and its future in esports.
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"zerg with a bad credit rating" struck me as a very well put idea. Protoss feels really dull, and not as potent as they were in BW. I think the problem is the colossus, to be honest. It's shaped the entire game around itself, and that's a bad, bad thing.
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On October 11 2012 13:25 Honeybadger wrote:
"zerg with a bad credit rating" struck me as a very well put idea. Protoss feels really dull, and not as potent as they were in BW. I think the problem is the colossus, to be honest. It's shaped the entire game around itself, and that's a bad, bad thing.
The collosus is there because the gateway units are so weak by themselves; it is also the core of the "death ball" dependency of Protoss.
With stronger gateway units, Protoss actually does not need a unit as powerful as collosus, it can be changed and nerfed accordingly.
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This is a really good and well thought out op! I especially like how you brought in comparisons to BW without making this another "derp give us back brood war units" whine thread.
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I fully support every single one of the proposed changes. Thank you for writing this OP, I sincerely hope Blizzard swallow their pride and take notice.
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Completely awesome and fantastic OP! I support this design 100%! 
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For what it's worth, if these changes were implemented, I'd actually want to learn to play 'toss. Not necessarily all of them, but I'm all for making early Tier 1 something to be feared outside of gimmicky bullshit like force fields.
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I 100% agree with the immortal and sentry change. Great write up.
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Thanks for all of the interest! It means the world to me that we care so much about this game. It is very important that we keep sight on what is possible and what is constructive in the coming weeks. If we are persistent, civil, and loud enough, we can improve the game play of SC2 Heart of the Swarm. HotS is looking much better than it first appeared, lets make sure that they know that we want a more fun and involved take on the Warp Gate and the Sentry!
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Very very mad props.
Saw this on Bnet getting dev responses(the only reason to ever visit bnet imho). Too bad they didn´t sound as excited as us common mortals.
You had me at "Anti light stalker".
Though VR sounds a bit expensive for the few good it does. I´d say it would be better to make the VR itself smaller and cheaper in general, but that´s just me.
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Tbh thats how i imagined 2 years ago, that blizzard will finally move warp tech to 2nd or even 3rd tier. Because many people suggested that(so that this upgrade will be matter of choice not neccesity), but blizzard was happy enough with standard warp tech nerf and growth of maps.
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very very well written and i love your concept. This would be great upgrade and absolute game changer. I think it would be better to play and more funny to watch sc2 games in general. Get rid of vortex and with buffs to gate units ... man epic encounters like in bw .Love it absolutely love IT!!!!!
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I'm just curious how durable you want gateway units to be. They're already pretty horrifying in all but the very earliest scenarios.
I'd also note that this whole "other races have to go to T2 to beat us" idea is a little silly considering terrans don't actually have the ability to tech through tiers like that. You haven't done anything about the mech/immortal relationship (besides moving it to the Twilight Council, thus delaying the ultimate protoss deathball by.. 3 minutes so with stronger gateway armies exactly how is terran supposed to win?
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EPT
