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Velr
Switzerland10593 Posts
Marauders and Roaches are bad for the game because they don't fit in with their races. I totally and absolutely disagree with your Immortal/Stalker idea tho, Stalkers that are strong against Zerglings? Why would you build a Zealot ever gain? Immortals on T1.5 which is just a "diffrent" Stalker until the twllight count upgrades? Thats just a bad idea. | ||
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
That way we could have those epic Protoss battles again. | ||
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K_osss
United States113 Posts
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sciserr
Norway16 Posts
You seem to be a well articulated fellow with a lot of interesting approaches to the Protoss race i general. For that attitude i praise you. I do not, however, praise you for your motives. As stated, you wish to incorporate changes to the protoss-variables, thus changing the entirety of how Sc:II is played and perceived, with the overall goal of making the Protoss race more true to its lore-based storyline - expensive and strong. In my opinion, this rapidly becomes utopic, at least when combined with the already present (and more prevalent?) ambition to make the game balanced. Balancing a complex and beautiful game like SC is hard enough as it is. Mixing in the goal of making the races true to some lore-based, non-strategial ideal, doesnt seem worth it to me. Yes, more people might buy the game initially. But those same people are equally prone to leaving it mere months later, due to probable imbalance. Including my own opinion of the current state of the monstrosity that is the Protoss-race, I feel obliged to adress, for the umpteenth time, that sc SHOULD be a game of positioning. A decent RTS-game does, in my honest opinion, always include some sort of variable of skill regarding army-placement. Not stating that the following Protoss-mechanincs are imbalanced (a discussion for another day), I will however explain why i see them as "bad" for the game: - Forcefields - The research Blink - Vortex Now, before you go rage about how screwed toss would be without these abilities, let me specify. I am not suggesting blindly removing these assets from the game - but rather that substitutes/modifications should be considered. Seeing as they all, in one way or another, contribute to toss being able to "modify" the map (be it through creating chokes, ignoring cliffs/ramps or distorting the dimensions), they all take away from this beautiful game by minimizing the skill-level required in positioning. The trickery of setting up flanks, conducting elaborate decoy-drops or performing a well time runby, all symbolize important techniques that Terran/Zerg-players rely heavily on in gaining the strategical edge. Thus, it would please me to no end, if the same standards were patched to Protoss. Im sure a lot of Bronze-Diamond players would be completely thrown off at first, suddenly having to utilize more than the singleton army control group. I do however believe, that the Protoss race - heck, the entire game - would benefit from these changes. Or maybe Im wrong. People might not care as much for positioning as me... | ||
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Nubsis
Sweden21 Posts
Now, suppose each warp gate had an energy pool, just like the nexus, and that warp-ins would cost energy. The first thing that comes to mind is probably that you can't do any defensive warp-ins when you are out of energy, but that is part of the trade-off: The whole idea is to bring in a new kind of economy. If you would have conserved your energy you could have defended faster. This way gateways take on the role of the main macro buildings and warpgates become more specialized and can be used to perform sneak attacks, reinforce and defend quickly. Obviously, as the player gets more warp gates, the energy will become less of an issue. As for the energy cost of warp-ins, I think it should depend on the unit being warped in. A zealot should cost less than a stalker, and much less than a DT. This is where the biggest difference from the cool-down based warp-in comes in. Currently, you can keep warping in units as long as you wait for the cool-down but if the energy pool were enough for, say, exactly 2 DTs you can warp in a few DTs in a burst but then you'd need to wait for the energy to replenish before you can warp in another one. To have such a burst available, though, you would need to store energy for that attack or use the mothership core's ability to quickly refill. If Protoss units were to be buffed, this way the warp gate mechanic could be nearly unchanged and IMO made more interesting while still limiting the power of the warp-in. Any thoughts? | ||
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NVRLand
Sweden203 Posts
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awNuts
2 Posts
They are the few, tired warriors (Zealots), tricked out wheelchairs for their weak (Stalkers), and protection from their mechanical ingenuity (Sentries). As they progress, they augment their basic forces with powerful technology from the robotics facility and stargates, and improve their basic fighters with twilight council upgrades. Templar are a great example of late tech combining both a sense of power and weakness. Dark Templar do huge damage in a single hit, but the attack speed is so slow that it feels as if every hit could be their last. I feel that the journey Protoss makes each game is one from the brink of death, to become the powerful race they used to be. | ||
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-Celestial-
United Kingdom3867 Posts
On October 12 2012 00:37 awNuts wrote: I feel that the journey Protoss makes each game is one from the brink of death, to become the powerful race they used to be. Then you get run over and ground into the dust by Infestor/Broodlord/Corruptor. Just saying. >_> OP got really good general ideas. Not everything would be exactly like that after balancing I think, but its all on the right lines and addresses the areas that really need addressing. And its a hugely refreshing change from the usual "REMOVE FORCEFIELD", "REMOVE WARPGATE" and "SWAP COLOSSUS FOR REAVER" yelling. | ||
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randomnine
United Kingdom56 Posts
It would be pretty awesome to see Warpgate as a strategic choice. However, your changes don't achieve that. The problem is that Warpgate is just too damn good. Frankly, you haven't gone far enough to compensate for having an extra 1200m 400g or so of units in the fight at any given time by the time you reach 2 base. Shifting the tech to TC just delays the problem; it'll still show up ASAP in every functional build. I think it's more interesting if Warpgate is viable early like now and viable later on, and possible to ignore completely in moderate length games. Let's imagine playing without Warpgate. Currently it'd force a defensive, almost turtling playstyle for Protoss with limited map control and weaker drops. In order to make that equally viable we need to both compensate for the unit disadvantage above and give Protoss better tools to poke, scout and harass. First of all, let's bring the costs in line. Let's make Warpgate an expensive tech choice - say, 100m/100g to research, and 50m/50g to convert a Gateway to a Warpgate. 4gate is now set back by 250m/250g. A 2 base Warpgate Protoss is now throwing 400m 400g purely into Warpgate tech. A gateway 'toss in the same situation might have Colossus tech instead of the five or six gateway units Warpgates could throw forward across an average size map. They might be on their way to +2/+1. Suddenly, the costs start to look kinda balanced! The gas cost makes Warpgate a major tech investment, especially if you have lots of Gateways. Still advantageous, but expensive. Most significantly, the transformation cost directly eats into that first wave of units, weakening the timing push that Warpgate tech provides (and it's no good balancing Gateways vs Warpgates unless we also balance the transition from one to the other). Secondly: map control. IMO the simplest route to this would be to buff the Stalker and Sentry significantly (since they're more likely to show up in the non-Warpgate path due to gas contention), buff Protoss air power via the Stargate tech tree and make Charge and Blink more accessible. I'm in agreement with DB that giving the Mothership Core a way to reveal cloaked units would instantly make Twilight more viable and thus achieve this goal. Making Hallucinate free tech on the Sentry would also boost scouting a ton. So, here's a possible balance-Warpgate package: - Warpgate research now costs 100m/100g - Promoting a Gateway to a Warpgate now costs 50m/50g - Stalker shields increased from 80 to 120 - Sentry Hallucinate no longer needs to be researched - buff Stargate tech tree to improve Protoss mobility, harass and map control options (as is underway in HotS) - Mothership Core gains Detector passive (possibly a bit extreme, but it'd be fun to try!) - adjust T1 units as necessary to keep the early game/midgame balanced; spend a few years gradually rebalancing the lategame in patches now that we've just broken every single PvX matchup This would undoubtedly make Protoss weaker, especially in the opening; we might have to follow this up by buffing T1 units further but making them less massable or upgradeable. My hope is that it'd open up build orders and styles dramatically by crippling the Warpgate -> Robotics Facility path we all know so well and providing viable alternatives to Warpgate mobility/power and Observers. I'm definitely curious what people could achieve if a switch to Warpgate became a tech path in itself; something you could work in at any point in a build, for a cost. I certainly want to see what might happen if fast Stalkers could become a viable rush with careful micro, instead of the weak poke they represent currently. I know I want to see reliable builds which achieve map control through airpower, not ground mobility. Even so... this still might not go far enough, it'd raise a whole bunch of other problems (like devastating Blink Stalker all-ins) and it'd be hard to justify crippling Warpgate like this in an expansion. --- Regarding changing Immortals, this feels like a very heavy-handed solution to immortal vs. mech. I'd prefer to see a gas-intensive Terran mech unit with a range 8 Lockdown style spell that can neutralise both Immortals and enemy Siege Tanks, maybe even capital ships. (Along the lines of a more specialised Warhound, or perhaps replacing both that and the Thor with its similar 250mm Cannons.) Likewise I think your Sentry changes are excessive (we could just increase the energy cost of Forcefield to delay and reduce the number that show up). They dilute it as a unit by giving it a more generic, combat oriented role and emphasise Robo play even more excessively IMO by putting Colossi, Sentries and Observers on the same tech path. I'd like to see how your Void Ray and Tempest changes play out. I think the Void Ray needs more drastic changes, though; you're playing around in the edges of the role it's always occupied, and Prismatic Battery would perhaps be the first upgrade in Starcraft designed to make a unit less unique  Those Carrier changes are straight up OP. Carriers aren't bad! The problem's always been getting to them, especially with advanced Air Weapons upgrades. The more well-rounded Stargate tech path we're getting should do a lot in that regard. The shorter build time might be worth playing with. I think the bigger problem with the Carrier is role overlap with the Void Ray and Tempest. I'd think I'd like to try out the Carrier re-imagined as a shorter-range AoE air-to-ground platform - launching bombers, not interceptors. It'd thus naturally complement other Stargate ships, being vulnerable but filling an important gap rather than operating as an ultimate unit. However, I feel like that concept would be near broken in PvZ due to having no cost-effective ground counter. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
-) If Gateway beats bio, bio becomes unavailable in TvP. Even more so, I'd say that the gateway is stronger in PvT than in PvZ or PvP (which are very robobased matchups). Also, blinkstalker allins, 4gate, 3gate pressure are all strong early game builds vs bio Terran, chargelot/Templar/Archon really forces a Terran to have a lot of higher Tier bio (support) units - ghosts and medivacs. Imo, this relationship should not get touched, or bio needs another high tier unit or another strong support unit (like tank/thor in TvZ) -) PvP... well, the Colossus is not counterable (PvP) in WoL and Colossus>ground unit for nearly all ground units in the game. Hopefully gate/air or gate/air/immortal gets playable in HotS. -) PvZ... what's the real problem? it's that there is a unit that was supposed to be an early safety unit vs those zealots and stalkers, but was given too much range and now works in a way that you can get 50 of those and still make most of them shoot. Else? Not really anything. Zerglings can be dealt with, even without (mass) forcefields quite easily. Hydras are OK, but that's what they have always been against pure low tier gateway and in SC2 probably even less than in BW, for higher cost. So in conclusion: It's the roach that needs to go back to 3range (or less) in some form, so that 10000000000roach scenarios that beat defensive mass gateway can't appear. | ||
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Tommyth
Poland117 Posts
On October 12 2012 00:37 awNuts wrote: They are the few, tired warriors (Zealots). Wrong. Zealots spend their whole life training their combat techniques. In BW, at a cost of 100 mins, they could beat any ground unit 1v1 except Ultralisk and Reaver. With speed upgrade, there was absolutely no escape from their blades of death. Hell, Zealots are the reason alone for me picking toss. | ||
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Telenil
France484 Posts
On October 11 2012 18:31 Big J wrote: Roaches don't do the same amount or even more damage than the Zealot, they do considerably less, because they attack very slowly. (etc) I'm not in the OP's mind, but I think this is not quite his point. The way I feel it, the "racial feeling" really is related to damage, not dps. A dragoon with half the cooldown and half the damage wouldn't feel like a dragoon, even though it has the exact same dps. The Brood War dragoon feels heavy, powerful, and each attack looks like it really hurts the enemy. With his faster attack speed and lower damage, the hyralisk had a very different feeling, it was something that was at your throat, not a large walker that makes big holes into stuff. Would a zergling with a cooldown of 1 and appropriate damage still feel like a zergling? To me, no. So to me "damage" really was the matter, not dps. We are talking design here, not balance. | ||
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TooGreedy
Netherlands16 Posts
Thx for this great post | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
I am currently writing and editing a post on Zerg and Supply, and what it feels to play Zerg in BW versus WoL. Hopefully we will see it sometime today. | ||
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Telenil
France484 Posts
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On October 12 2012 04:34 Telenil wrote: Hey, Husky actually made a video about your post :D Many of these ideas have been thrown around since WoL beta. And since that time, people would respond with the usual "dumb, leave the game designing to the game designers." Its humorous that people pay attention now because it shows how much faith they have lost in blizzard to deliver a better product, a better experience. Many of these ideas we should have had from the start but as always, you'll never see blizzard implement such changes. | ||
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aZealot
New Zealand5447 Posts
The one idea I can get on board with is a buff to SG tech, although not necessarily the specific ideas for those buffs to SG tech. But this is something almost everyone in SC2 can agree with. AirToss in HoTS should be more viable. I doubt much can be done in WOL at this stage though. A strong buff to AirToss in WOL will likely make the race OP - especially late game. | ||
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Alex1Sun
494 Posts
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Salient
United States876 Posts
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MoonPieMat
United States96 Posts
But seriously really great ideas in here! Great job man | ||
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