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On October 11 2012 21:41 Tommyth wrote:
I agree, the only truly exciting way of harassment is annihilating those poor workers. Adding another way of killing them wouldn't be boring at all.
The entomb could work as a single target spell that does not prevent mining, but causes the mineral field to do damage around itself. It could also have a secondary effect of being less-efficient(opposite to gold fields - u take 5 mins from the field, but only 3 make it to the treasury). Since protoss in general don't have friendly fire, the spell would be also useful in defense of your own mineral line - zergling/hellion runbys, drops etc.
I actually think that sounds quite cool, but it still doesn't address my personal issue with entomb, which is that it requires no skill to pull off. If it only did aoe around 2 patches at a time and thus you had to decide which patches are best to entomb, I'd be more on board with it than if it does the whole mineral line.
The defensive potential is also a great idea, however I think it would have to do friendly fire to be balanced, maybe im wrong tho.
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I think people overestimate the importance of "exciting" features in a game. Brood war and other old games like counter-strike or even world of warcraft were never designed to be exciting as a spectator sport. They still managed to pull huge audiences because of the content.
I think the reason is that we can learn by watching and playing what makes a game much more interesting. Just take a sport like boxing. To most people it looks like two guys hitting each other, but once you learn what to look for, it is a sport with a lot of depth.
Thats also why we have casters, to explain this for those of us that don't know what to look for.
In the end, as long as a feature is exiting to use, rather than to watch, the game will become better off for it. A player can play an exciting game if he has good tools for it. Tools that makes sense to use. Abilities that work well in that regard are usually abilities that are much less specific than entomb.
What situations can you use entomb and the oracle in currently? Well, you fly in and entomb a mineral line. Usually before the game reaches the latter stages. So most often on two bases or at the very most three. This means there are three ways to use entomb. Period.
The reason you don't use it after this stage in the game is because there is no persistant damage caused. If an opponent is maxed or near maxed, he does not care about his mineral income as much as long as he retains his worker count.
Now compare that to mutas or banshees. Not only can they harass mineral lines as well, but they also have the ability to hit tech, stray reinforcements and even take part in the main battles if necessary. The damage to cause is also permanent, meaning that it is useful even in a maxed vs maxed battle or when the opponent is already banking resources. They are much more general purpose units that can be used in a range of specific scenarios.
The other oracle ability (preordain?) is an on demand detection, which is a great example of a general purpose skill. Entomb needs to be more like that and less of a one trick pony. Exactly how much damage it does or how "hard" it is to use is a balance issue, not a design issue imo.
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Im all for interesting spells but another unit/ability that kills workers is NOT interesting.
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What if when using Void Siphon on an entombed mineral patched, you began to deplete the mineral patch? So, you dart in with the oracle, you Entomb their minerals, and if you are good enough you could micro your oracle in and out mining out your opponent (like some kind of probe harassing at the start of the game).
This way the harassment could still be economical whithout killing the workers, but the skill ceiling is much higher.
Of course energy cost of void syphon should be changed, or change the way it works so it works like a "mineral attack", or maybe even use a completely different/new ability.
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On October 11 2012 21:46 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2012 21:41 Tommyth wrote:
I agree, the only truly exciting way of harassment is annihilating those poor workers. Adding another way of killing them wouldn't be boring at all.
The entomb could work as a single target spell that does not prevent mining, but causes the mineral field to do damage around itself. It could also have a secondary effect of being less-efficient(opposite to gold fields - u take 5 mins from the field, but only 3 make it to the treasury). Since protoss in general don't have friendly fire, the spell would be also useful in defense of your own mineral line - zergling/hellion runbys, drops etc. I actually think that sounds quite cool, but it still doesn't address my personal issue with entomb, which is that it requires no skill to pull off. If it only did aoe around 2 patches at a time and thus you had to decide which patches are best to entomb, I'd be more on board with it than if it does the whole mineral line. The defensive potential is also a great idea, however I think it would have to do friendly fire to be balanced, maybe im wrong tho.
I said it should be a single target spell, it could also be channeled and work on more minerals patches. It could also have a very short duration (~3 sec), so that in order to inflict damage you would need to keep the Oracle around.
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please give the oracle back the spell that prevents turrets/spores/cannons from shooting for a while and make entombed range a lot closer AND less energy + every mineral patch needs to be entombend manually.
that way you would still be able to use entombed even if turrets etc. are there BUT it would use a lot more apm since you need to combine the anti-static-defense-spell with entombed on single mineral patches spell.
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I see entomb being like contaminate... Yeah, it makes a difference and shouldn't be overlooked, but... all it does is slow things down a little.
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I think if the oracle gets the spell back to stop defensive structures it would be the best result. It would increase harassment with other units and increase micro. More chances of storm drops, collosi harass, but the only tihng would be pushed could be too strong if it shuts down a defensive structure.
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On October 11 2012 22:05 Decendos wrote:
please give the oracle back the spell that prevents turrets/spores/cannons from shooting for a while and make entombed range a lot closer AND less energy + every mineral patch needs to be entombend manually.
that way you would still be able to use entombed even if turrets etc. are there BUT it would use a lot more apm since you need to combine the anti-static-defense-spell with entombed on single mineral patches spell.
If you are going to go so far, why not just make the 2 abilities in to 1. Channels spell that steals 1-2 minerals per stack per second while also reducing the amount mined by 1-2 per trip. The balance on that would be that the stolen minerals are removed from the game, not added to the protoss using the oracle. That way you are only damaging your opponent without actually gaining anything yourself. A bit like how when you harass with hellions you are always likely to lose 1 or 2, do you damage your opponent but dont actually gain anything yourself.
I'm not sure that this ability would add anything to the game but hey its an idea. I personally still would go for a low energy cost, single stack entomb that blocks mining ;p
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yay, my post got linked in to the bnet OP for that thread too. I feel important now lol
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Funny thing. In a thread just after the announcement of the Oracle (prebeta), I made a thread where I predicted all this. I analyzed all the design problems of the Oracle, and came to the (correct) conclusion that the only way the Oracle would be interesting is if would be used in the late game through insane multitasking and with 3-4 oracles constantly mineral blocking all the bases.
Stupid posters however, told me that we my post was useless as I had not played the game yet.
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Bottom line is can you imagine Kim Carrier and other casters shout out "OHHHHHH ENTOMBUUUUU!!!" Like they would shout out "PLAYGUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "STORMUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!" Doubt it. It's just not that exciting to see.
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On October 11 2012 21:45 ETisME wrote:
it could be super intense when it comes to low econ game and entomb is gonna change EVERYTHING
A low-econ game with an oracle sounds like a game lost by building a stargate and an oracle.
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On October 11 2012 16:17 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2012 16:13 Ai.Cola wrote:
I never understood what people had against entomb. The OP does a good job of explaining why. It's a boring spell to use, even if it is effective (which is debatable). We simply want more interesting spells and more tension via giving the opponent an opportunity to react or making it a more difficult ability to use.
I disagree it's neither boring or"easy you use" it's like watching a no hitter in baseball. This spell is great and will more than likely stay as it right fully should.
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On October 11 2012 23:59 TheLunatic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2012 16:17 Plexa wrote:On October 11 2012 16:13 Ai.Cola wrote:
I never understood what people had against entomb. The OP does a good job of explaining why. It's a boring spell to use, even if it is effective (which is debatable). We simply want more interesting spells and more tension via giving the opponent an opportunity to react or making it a more difficult ability to use. I disagree it's neither boring or"easy you use" it's like watching a no hitter in baseball. This spell is great and will more than likely stay as it right fully should.
What do you base this on ? I've watched plenty of HotS streams and video casts and Shift/clicking players aren't anything exciting to see.
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The entire point of the Oracle not doing damage was to give it really low synergy with the Protoss deathball, encouraging Protoss to take some supply out of their army and spread it around the map more. The problem with "just give Protoss reavers back" is that its likely such a unit would see far more use paired with Immortals in really strong timing attacks, or incorporated into lategame deathballs. "This unit has low mobility but crazy high damage" is not really an incentive to break up the deathball, especially now that most lategame Toss compositions incorporate Warp Prisms for fast reinforcement.
Protoss armies already have a problem where by far the most effective way to use them is to keep all your army supply in one giant ball. There need to be reasons for them to split things up--giving opponents better AOE might help a little with that, but I think fundamentally Blizzard is right that Protoss need more units which are most optimal when kept separate from the main army. That was the point of long Tempest range, and Tempest overkill being so inefficient--the best way to use Tempests requires keeping them at least somewhat behind the rest of the army, and ideally spread out a bit so there's less risk of accidentall overkill. That was also the reasoning behind the Oracle being a harassment unit that can't attack anything.
I do, however, agree that the specific way the Oracle does its job without contributing to the deathball is boring and binary. There's no such thing as a "money entomb", nor are there opportunities for exceptional countermicro.
The question is, is there a way to give Oracles better, more interesting harass...that won't simply be most optimal when used as part of a giant deathball? Like, "give Oracles an anti-light damage splash attack" might make them better at killing workers, but its also likely that spell would make the Protoss deathball even stronger, and wouldn't really do anything to push Protoss to spread supply out more. So whatever the solution is, I think it needs to be something which works best away from the rest of the army.
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I agree it lacks micro and it also lacks risk for the oracle himself, as the range is pretty large, which makes it a pretty boring spell to use, try to defend, and for the viewers as well.
If it would be changed so that you would need to stay on top of the minerals and requiered 3 entombs for the full mineral line (costing 1/3 the current energy), that would be a good start imho.
On October 11 2012 22:05 Decendos wrote:
please give the oracle back the spell that prevents turrets/spores/cannons from shooting for a while and make entombed range a lot closer AND less energy + every mineral patch needs to be entombend manually.
that way you would still be able to use entombed even if turrets etc. are there BUT it would use a lot more apm since you need to combine the anti-static-defense-spell with entombed on single mineral patches spell.
Or this.
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The entire point of the Oracle not doing damage was to give it really low synergy with the Protoss deathball, encouraging Protoss to take some supply out of their army and spread it around the map more.
This was a stupid goal. You aren't going to make Protoss want to split his army by making 4 of his 200 supply want to do its own thing. You need to address the issues with the 196 supply.
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One unit wont break up the protoss deathball because the death ball exists for two reasons:
1. Small number of protoss units are relatively weak. ie gateway units dont go toe to toe with other tier 1 very much at all. instead you rely on tier 3 with amazing splash to kill stuff and zealot/stalker to be a meat shield for the t3.
2. Protoss units are not very fast. Only blink stalkers and phoenix can really be out on their own without risk of getting caught, and those units have such low damage output compared to their cost that they are mostly harmless (phoenix vs. ground at least).
In order for the oracle to solve this it would need to have the ability to let a small protoss force survive long enough on its own. That way you can use regular units to harass and counter attack together with an oracle and acheive splitting that way. Without such an ability the oracle will either be a good or a bad harass unit. If good you always build 1-2, if bad you build none. The effect is that when you are maxed, the oppoenent wont be because of your oracle. If that doesnt happen, the oracle has done very little if any at all.
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EPT
