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.
-Dustin Browder
This quote from SC2's lead designer came in response to requests from players to re-design Protoss from the ground up to make gateway units less dependent on high-tech support to trade evenly with their low-tech Terran and Zerg counterparts. It seems that Blizzard's position is that gateway units are already strong enough, and that gameplay can be improved without launching into the sorts of difficult fundamental redesigns that players have requested. In this article, I'll explore the cost-efficiency of gateway units, how the Protoss army functions at various points in the game, and the gameplay impacts of the Protoss design mechanics for the other races.
To begin, I'd like to directly address Dustin's statement that gateway units can be "very, very deadly." Here's what survives if you smash equal cost forces of 29 fully upgraded chareglots into 50 marines and 2 medivacs.
Yep, even without kiting, the zealots merely dent the marine ball. And for humor’s sake, here's what equal cost forces of roaches vs stalkers and immortals looks like.
Even with blink micro against a-moved roaches, the fight isn't close. Simply put, Protoss's basic units are much weaker for cost than the basic units for Zerg and Terran.
So how does Protoss win games in WoL? The answer is a combination of forcefied use, Protoss-favored maps, and tech units. The basic Protoss gameplan is to survive with forcefields unitl colossi or storm come out, build up enough gateway mass to protect your tech units, and then move onto the map. If there are too few tech units, the gateway core is overwhelmed by their more efficient Terran and Zerg counterparts. If there are too few gateway units, the tech units will be picked off and the Protoss force will be stomped even harder.
How does this pattern impact gameplay more broadly? Most obviously, Protoss plays as a turtly race that wants to defend efficiently until they can force one big fight with all their forces. Hence, the familiar sight of the “Protoss deathball” with every unit Protoss has built all game packed together under one guardian shield. Nobody likes the deathball, but there are more fundamental gameplay problems that arise from Protoss’s weak T1.
Perhaps the worst problem is that weak gateway units force convergence in map design to the point that every tournament-quality map plays more or less the same for the first 15 minutes. In order to play a competitive macro game, Protoss needs a tight choke leading into their natural so that they can defend with just a couple sentries, and in PvZ, Protoss also needs to be able to defend their natural and third bases simultaneously with forcefields. The result is that every modern map has a freebie natural expansion and a closed off third base tucked right next to the natural. Entombed Valley is the poster-child for this layout, but you see the same features on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana, Metropolis, and Condemned Ridge. Maps that deviate from this layout (think Korhal Compound or Dual Sight) don’t allow Protoss to take a third on remotely even economic terms, and force Protoss to play 1-base and 2-base all-ins.
This map convergence not only produces stale play where a single build can be fitted to every single map, but because competitive maps must allow 3 bases to be defended by forcefields, every race gets three easily defended bases. Optimal mining income can be achieved on three bases, so players are not forced to expose themselves to attack until 15 or 20 minutes into the game. The result is a monotonous, boring beginning to the vast majority of games. Players and spectators hate “No Rush 15,” but the Protoss-mandated map features too often force it.
The last major point I want to touch on is the binary battles that result from the combination of weak gateway units, strong tech units and forcefields. Remember how lopsided the chargelot vs marine battle at the top of this article was? It turns out that if you add just one storm to that fight, the chargelots win while taking almost no losses. Without a storm, the marines win with almost no losses; with a storm, the zealots win with almost no losses. Similar effects happen with colossi and forcefields in many other situations against both Terran and Zerg, and I think it’s safe to say that they are the #1 cause of smashed keyboards in the SC2 community.
These binary battles are almost always game-deciding, and they feel profoundly unfair to both sides of the fight. Protoss players hate that they instantly lose if their HT are EMP’d or if their forcefields are a half-second too late, allowing roaches to get in range. Terran players hate that they instantly lose because they EMP’d a half-second too late or because they didn’t discover Protoss’s hidden colossus transition. And Zerg players hate that they literally can’t fight back if Protoss hits perfect forcefields during an immortal-sentry all-in. Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak.
As for what to do about these issues, I fear that the required changes may be too significant and risky for Blizzard to undertake. Nonetheless, I hope they’re willing to be bold and consider altering the balance of strength between core gateway units, tech units and forcefields. Gameplay is stale and frustrating for all three races, and players would greatly appreciate it if Blizzard would at least take a crack at the underlying problems. My suggestions for a starting point would be to:
-slightly increase marine and hydralisk collision radius to reduce the AoE damage they take from colossi and storms -nerf or remove forcefield -buff zealots and stalkers relative to marines, marauders, roaches and zerglings (may require a direct roach nerf)
I don’t think the changes would be as game-warping as one might fear. Already, Protoss players are gravitating away from sentries in PvT building only enough to survive a stim timing before their tech comes online. And in PvZ, sentries are only built as a counter to roaches. If Protoss players could deal with roaches any other way, they’d happily invest those resources elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the changes would allow more open maps with more opportunities to harass and attack earlier in the game. Additionally, Protoss would finally be able to split their forces, and you wouldn’t see as many deathballs. And best of all, the battles wouldn’t be so damn binary. Stronger zealots might narrowly lose to stimmed marines. And because storms would deal less AoE damage to marines, the battle supplemented by a storm would also be less lopsided in favor of the zealots.
Maps/3 base: Am I really the only one who thinks that the "old" way was kinda nice? Every race (exept maybe zerg) played one base builts and slowly got more and more econ. Today everythings starts with two bases - hell terran has 3cc builts!? I understand that terran was sick as f*** with 2 rax pressure but making the maps bigger and now as you mentioned 3 bases closer together... at the end we just wait until we have 200/200 armies and kill each other, because it needs 2 hours to get to your opponent.
Leading to my other point: Everyone is currently talking about making T1 protoss more viable. IF and only IF(!) Z-lots and stalkers get better and are on even, or slightly better ground then other t1 units, why would i make t3? I am able to warp in 20 zlots at the enemies base who trade nicely - or better then terran t1. T3 would be overkill. If we now consider stim, upgrades etc. Then T3 gets WAY to strong.
So buffing T1 = nerf T3. The same concept as terran. mmm > T3 units.
---
I like the idea with forcefields. I hate it to rely on them so much as Protoss. But thats how protoss is played currently. You need perfect FF, storm, perfect Mothership control, perfect splits, perfect blinkmicro to make anything happen. Otherwise you will get stomped (master and above) because of macro alone.
The risk = gain factor is only there with storm. One nice storm deals nice dmg. But everything else is a neccessity not to die. Remember the 200 roach timing days, where every protoss had to play perfectly with FF and blink to hold (not win) this.
I don't know if you consider this "discussion" but in BW you cannoned up as toss to get to your higher tier units. A cannonbuff (+ light) would help with lings/marines/muta who are currently the biggest threads in these stages of the game.
Lingsrunbys kill bases if they are on hold, or focussed on the nexus ignoring the cannons, and with proper dmg, you could nexus first against terran without loosing to 2rax or anything similar. + mutas are easier to deal with. Guess in another thread someone mentioned this buff for stalker, which is also a good idea.
But yeah: If there is a way to hold without ff - pls give us the opportunity for 1 base AND macro based play + nerf t3 protoss units. (actually the whole anti-lossus argument could be mentioned here as well)
This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I agree with your overall point of making gateway units stronger than they currently are but your examples are very questionable. Chargelots vs Marines? Marines are suppose to do fine in that example and the same goes for you roaches vs gateway immortal with no sentries(even assuming you were fighting in open space the force fields would still help a lot)
As for my opinion on your suggestions
- I've never liked the idea of messing with the pathing to spread out units as keeping you units spread is one of the few mechanically challenging things in the game that distinctly separates players, in this case, in terms of unit control. Making Protoss aoe weaker (while making gateway units stronger) could be a good idea, I would just rather not see it happen this way. - Seems ok in a world where zealots and stalkers don't suck as much -The only problem that comes to mind is TvZ playing vs mech would be somewhat forced to play in passive rush to hive style instead of having the option to be aggressive with roaches. There's probably more wrong with a roach nerf but I can't think of any atm.
I really like your post and couldn't agree more. I really love the Protoss race well from BW anyway the feel and the lore and the style are my favorite. So I play Protoss in SC2 but they are the Gimmick Race, If that proxy pylon dies or the warp prism sniped Protoss either runs away or loses right there. Can't get aggressive without sentries if you don't have a huge army with colossus or ht or both.
I have been playing beta a lot and mothership core kind of helps you be aggressive in the early game but it loses it's effectiveness very fast as it has low hp and short range. Queens and marines both can take them down pretty quickly.
I don't know what Blizzard needs to do but they need to do it quick. I stopped playing WOL something I never thought I would do but it's just boring and I don't get that rush from playing it anymore, and that makes me very sad.
I'm a little outraged at Dustin's pathetic attempt to sidestep the core issue in his response.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
To be fair, Zerg should have an advantage supply for supply in an open field. That is something that was established in BW and continues in SC2. I think the issue is that the Roach is so durable and larva efficient that early Protoss units have no choice but to use gas heavy tech units like Colossi (and Immortals/Sentries to a lesser extent)
On October 12 2012 07:37 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: To be fair, Zerg should have an advantage supply for supply in an open field. That is something that was established in BW and continues in SC2. I think the issue is that the Roach is so durable and larva efficient that early Protoss units have no choice but to use gas heavy tech units like Colossi (and Immortals/Sentries to a lesser extent)
Yeah, I'm fine with Zerg winning an open field fight. It just shouldn't be as lopsided as it is, and on the reverse side, it shouldn't be lopsided in favor of Protoss if Protoss gets perfect forcefields. This gets back to the binary nature of PvX battles. Protoss gets utterly crushed unless they have the right combination of tech and forcefields, and they utterly crush their opponent if they do have that combination.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
Edit: Someone please post this on hots forums.
I'm hoping to get beta access in the next wave, and if I do, I'll post in on the HoTS forums.
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.
-Dustin Browder
This quote from SC2's lead designer came in response to requests from players to re-design Protoss from the ground up to make gateway units less dependent on high-tech support to trade evenly with their low-tech Terran and Zerg counterparts. It seems that Blizzard's position is that gateway units are already strong enough, and that gameplay can be improved without launching into the sorts of difficult fundamental redesigns that players have requested. In this article, I'll explore the cost-efficiency of gateway units, how the Protoss army functions at various points in the game, and the gameplay impacts of the Protoss design mechanics for the other races.
To begin, I'd like to directly address Dustin's statement that gateway units can be "very, very deadly." Here's what survives if you smash equal cost forces of 29 fully upgraded chareglots into 50 marines and 2 medivacs.
Yep, even without kiting, the zealots merely dent the marine ball. And for humor’s sake, here's what equal cost forces of roaches vs stalkers and immortals looks like.
Even with blink micro against a-moved roaches, the fight isn't close. Simply put, Protoss's basic units are much weaker for cost than the basic units for Zerg and Terran.
So how does Protoss win games in WoL? The answer is a combination of forcefied use, Protoss-favored maps, and tech units. The basic Protoss gameplan is to survive with forcefields unitl colossi or storm come out, build up enough gateway mass to protect your tech units, and then move onto the map. If there are too few tech units, the gateway core is overwhelmed by their more efficient Terran and Zerg counterparts. If there are too few gateway units, the tech units will be picked off and the Protoss force will be stomped even harder.
How does this pattern impact gameplay more broadly? Most obviously, Protoss plays as a turtly race that wants to defend efficiently until they can force one big fight with all their forces. Hence, the familiar sight of the “Protoss deathball” with every unit Protoss has built all game packed together under one guardian shield. Nobody likes the deathball, but there are more fundamental gameplay problems that arise from Protoss’s weak T1.
Perhaps the worst problem is that weak gateway units force convergence in map design to the point that every tournament-quality map plays more or less the same for the first 15 minutes. In order to play a competitive macro game, Protoss needs a tight choke leading into their natural so that they can defend with just a couple sentries, and in PvZ, Protoss also needs to be able to defend their natural and third bases simultaneously with forcefields. The result is that every modern map has a freebie natural expansion and a closed off third base tucked right next to the natural. Entombed Valley is the poster-child for this layout, but you see the same features on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana, Metropolis, and Condemned Ridge. Maps that deviate from this layout (think Korhal Compound or Dual Sight) don’t allow Protoss to take a third on remotely even economic terms, and force Protoss to play 1-base and 2-base all-ins.
This map convergence not only produces stale play where a single build can be fitted to every single map, but because competitive maps must allow 3 bases to be defended by forcefields, every race gets three easily defended bases. Optimal mining income can be achieved on three bases, so players are not forced to expose themselves to attack until 15 or 20 minutes into the game. The result is a monotonous, boring beginning to the vast majority of games. Players and spectators hate “No Rush 15,” but the Protoss-mandated map features too often force it.
The last major point I want to touch on is the binary battles that result from the combination of weak gateway units, strong tech units and forcefields. Remember how lopsided the chargelot vs marine battle at the top of this article was? It turns out that if you add just one storm to that fight, the chargelots win while taking almost no losses. Without a storm, the marines win with almost no losses; with a storm, the zealots win with almost no losses. Similar effects happen with colossi and forcefields in many other situations against both Terran and Zerg, and I think it’s safe to say that they are the #1 cause of smashed keyboards in the SC2 community.
These binary battles are almost always game-deciding, and they feel profoundly unfair to both sides of the fight. Protoss players hate that they instantly lose if their HT are EMP’d or if their forcefields are a half-second too late, allowing roaches to get in range. Terran players hate that they instantly lose because they EMP’d a half-second too late or because they didn’t discover Protoss’s hidden colossus transition. And Zerg players hate that they literally can’t fight back if Protoss hits perfect forcefields during an immortal-sentry all-in. Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak.
As for what to do about these issues, I fear that the required changes may be too significant and risky for Blizzard to undertake. Nonetheless, I hope they’re willing to be bold and consider altering the balance of strength between core gateway units, tech units and forcefields. Gameplay is stale and frustrating for all three races, and players would greatly appreciate it if Blizzard would at least take a crack at the underlying problems. My suggestions for a starting point would be to:
-slightly increase marine and hydralisk collision radius to reduce the AoE damage they take from colossi and storms -nerf or remove forcefield -buff zealots and stalkers relative to marines, marauders, roaches and zerglings (may require a direct roach nerf)
I don’t think the changes would be as game-warping as one might fear. Already, Protoss players are gravitating away from sentries in PvT building only enough to survive a stim timing before their tech comes online. And in PvZ, sentries are only built as a counter to roaches. If Protoss players could deal with roaches any other way, they’d happily invest those resources elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the changes would allow more open maps with more opportunities to harass and attack earlier in the game. Additionally, Protoss would finally be able to split their forces, and you wouldn’t see as many deathballs. And best of all, the battles wouldn’t be so damn binary. Stronger zealots might narrowly lose to stimmed marines. And because storms would deal less AoE damage to marines, the battle supplemented by a storm would also be less lopsided in favor of the zealots.
"Your comments should by written why is it that I cannot just A-Move and win every single game?- I'm so frustrated that the game actually requires me to change my style rather than me being able the change the game to suit how I want to play."
If you just did a simple rush like charge archon, stalker blink, sentry robo, phoenix/void/zealot. You don't have have to wait until the 15 minute deathball to attack. You would have a different timing for each.
IMO Warp is the problem more than anything. PVP is one base forever because of it, but also I love pvp cause its all about controlling units.
I still think protoss is the strongest race in the game at the moment. If you have blink the stalkers win that engagement only loosing like 2-3 stalkers. if you have 50 zealots vs a ton of marines you have so much unspent gas which could have been used on archons. chargelot/archon/templar wins marine/medivac. I really think that you shouldn't complain about how the game should better follow your style and focus more on how you should change your style to best play the game. Try using templar/archons more, you'll win more games sooner. Practice feedback more than writing these threads complaining that you don't want to take advantage of the slightly imba race.
A lot of people complain that zergs have become to strong. The problem is that if you don't build infestor, basically every strat in the game is designed to counter your army. Your entire goal should be killing infestors. (especially before broods) Destiny literally became somewhat competitive just by learning to use them.
Another thing is that a lot of terrans struggle with tier three games, but you watch and the trend has not been to use ghosts or ravens. WTF?!!!! Watch MVP, byun, taeja and marineking own with these units. EMP is sooo sick. You can cast two emps and remove all shields/ 12 infestors energy. vs broods get like 4-5 ghosts snipe overseer, stim marines- broods die, or raven viking sooo sick.
I definitely think you should try to work on timing builds more that writing threads like this.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
Edit: Someone please post this on hots forums.
Wait i dont get why removing of hallucination should solve something ?
People honestly think they'll change something as core to the game as gateway units? They're never going to do this. It'd be like changing pawns in chess to do something different just because.
Blizzard did say they're willing to look at older units when they feel they have all of the new units in a good place, so they could look at ravens, broodlords infestors, sentries etc. later on but it's highly doubtful they're going to ever change gateway units and they don't really need to...it's not a problem.
The game is how it is now, and it's even debatable whether gateway units are actually weaker than brood wars because they can literally be warped in anywhere on the map, and have things like blink/charge, etc.
I don't really understand your vacuum examples either. In an actual game anyone that just 1A's only zealots into marine medivac like that is basically a bronze league player. The game doesn't work in a vacuum so why do your examples matter at all for the arguments your making? Protoss relies on forcefield, that's just how the game works. You can claim they are weaker because of it, others could say Protoss is even stronger because of it because the game can sometimes be in the hands of the person using forcefields that stops the opponent from microing.
On October 12 2012 07:31 Ao wrote: I'm a little outraged at Dustin's pathetic attempt to sidestep the core issue in his response.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
Edit: Someone please post this on hots forums.
Wait i dont get why removing of hallucination should solve something ?
This is off-topic, but the idea was to remove the research requirement so that noobs could use hallucinated zealots as a poor man's forcefield.
On October 12 2012 07:54 avilo wrote: People honestly think they'll change something as core to the game as gateway units? They're never going to do this. It'd be like changing pawns in chess to do something different just because.
Blizzard did say they're willing to look at older units when they feel they have all of the new units in a good place, so they could look at ravens, broodlords infestors, sentries etc. later on but it's highly doubtful they're going to ever change gateway units and they don't really need to...it's not a problem.
The game is how it is now, and it's even debatable whether gateway units are actually weaker than brood wars because they can literally be warped in anywhere on the map, and have things like blink/charge, etc.
I don't really understand your vacuum examples either. In an actual game anyone that just 1A's only zealots into marine medivac like that is basically a bronze league player. The game doesn't work in a vacuum so why do your examples matter at all for the arguments your making? Protoss relies on forcefield, that's just how the game works. You can claim they are weaker because of it, others could say Protoss is even stronger because of it because the game can sometimes be in the hands of the person using forcefields that stops the opponent from microing.
Thanks Avilo for turning this into a balance discussion. I'm not saying that reliance on forcefield and high-tech units is good or bad for Protoss strength. It's obviously both. What I am saying is that it's bad for gameplay because it forces maps to converge in a boring way, limits activity and creativity for the first 15 minutes of the game, and creates binary battle results.
Those are terrible examples. In what game would I expect my Chargelots to win against a Marine ball of that size with stim and medivac support? My Stalker heavy Stalker/Immortal ball will lose to a Roach army which is able to get a concave on my army in an open field. I am not sure why I should expect otherwise. Biased examples do not help your post.
As to your point regarding the overwhelming nature of victories in SC2 is not specific to Protoss. "Terrible, terrible damage" is a feature of the game - although, admittedly, it may be emphasized in Protoss. But this is also due to our reliance on AOE once opposing armies research their significant upgrades and/or have substantive unit advantages.
I have no comment on your suggestions. They have all been done before in various threads.
And where HotS is concerned, the Beta is still in its infancy. Maybe once the Beta is more settled, tweaks with WOL units, like those you suggest, etc can be implemented. But, right now. Blizzard has other things to focus on than "fixing" Protoss.
On October 12 2012 08:01 willoc wrote: That Marine vs. Chargelot scenario bothers me because you added Medivacs using Healing but did not add Sentries using Guardian Shield.
It's actually more lopsided with just marines (because I added 4 extra zealots to balance the cost of the medivacs), but the picture isn't as pretty because all the marines are yellow health after the stim.
And yes, that fight doesn't happen in a real game. If for some reason Protoss did choose to stay on gateway tech, they'd at least use guardian shield and forcefields. Meanwhile, Terran would kite. The end result is the same tho--marines rock zealots unless P has storm or colossi.
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.
-Dustin Browder
This quote from SC2's lead designer came in response to requests from players to re-design Protoss from the ground up to make gateway units less dependent on high-tech support to trade evenly with their low-tech Terran and Zerg counterparts. It seems that Blizzard's position is that gateway units are already strong enough, and that gameplay can be improved without launching into the sorts of difficult fundamental redesigns that players have requested. In this article, I'll explore the cost-efficiency of gateway units, how the Protoss army functions at various points in the game, and the gameplay impacts of the Protoss design mechanics for the other races.
To begin, I'd like to directly address Dustin's statement that gateway units can be "very, very deadly." Here's what survives if you smash equal cost forces of 29 fully upgraded chareglots into 50 marines and 2 medivacs.
Yep, even without kiting, the zealots merely dent the marine ball. And for humor’s sake, here's what equal cost forces of roaches vs stalkers and immortals looks like.
Even with blink micro against a-moved roaches, the fight isn't close. Simply put, Protoss's basic units are much weaker for cost than the basic units for Zerg and Terran.
So how does Protoss win games in WoL? The answer is a combination of forcefied use, Protoss-favored maps, and tech units. The basic Protoss gameplan is to survive with forcefields unitl colossi or storm come out, build up enough gateway mass to protect your tech units, and then move onto the map. If there are too few tech units, the gateway core is overwhelmed by their more efficient Terran and Zerg counterparts. If there are too few gateway units, the tech units will be picked off and the Protoss force will be stomped even harder.
How does this pattern impact gameplay more broadly? Most obviously, Protoss plays as a turtly race that wants to defend efficiently until they can force one big fight with all their forces. Hence, the familiar sight of the “Protoss deathball” with every unit Protoss has built all game packed together under one guardian shield. Nobody likes the deathball, but there are more fundamental gameplay problems that arise from Protoss’s weak T1.
Perhaps the worst problem is that weak gateway units force convergence in map design to the point that every tournament-quality map plays more or less the same for the first 15 minutes. In order to play a competitive macro game, Protoss needs a tight choke leading into their natural so that they can defend with just a couple sentries, and in PvZ, Protoss also needs to be able to defend their natural and third bases simultaneously with forcefields. The result is that every modern map has a freebie natural expansion and a closed off third base tucked right next to the natural. Entombed Valley is the poster-child for this layout, but you see the same features on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana, Metropolis, and Condemned Ridge. Maps that deviate from this layout (think Korhal Compound or Dual Sight) don’t allow Protoss to take a third on remotely even economic terms, and force Protoss to play 1-base and 2-base all-ins.
This map convergence not only produces stale play where a single build can be fitted to every single map, but because competitive maps must allow 3 bases to be defended by forcefields, every race gets three easily defended bases. Optimal mining income can be achieved on three bases, so players are not forced to expose themselves to attack until 15 or 20 minutes into the game. The result is a monotonous, boring beginning to the vast majority of games. Players and spectators hate “No Rush 15,” but the Protoss-mandated map features too often force it.
The last major point I want to touch on is the binary battles that result from the combination of weak gateway units, strong tech units and forcefields. Remember how lopsided the chargelot vs marine battle at the top of this article was? It turns out that if you add just one storm to that fight, the chargelots win while taking almost no losses. Without a storm, the marines win with almost no losses; with a storm, the zealots win with almost no losses. Similar effects happen with colossi and forcefields in many other situations against both Terran and Zerg, and I think it’s safe to say that they are the #1 cause of smashed keyboards in the SC2 community.
These binary battles are almost always game-deciding, and they feel profoundly unfair to both sides of the fight. Protoss players hate that they instantly lose if their HT are EMP’d or if their forcefields are a half-second too late, allowing roaches to get in range. Terran players hate that they instantly lose because they EMP’d a half-second too late or because they didn’t discover Protoss’s hidden colossus transition. And Zerg players hate that they literally can’t fight back if Protoss hits perfect forcefields during an immortal-sentry all-in. Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak.
As for what to do about these issues, I fear that the required changes may be too significant and risky for Blizzard to undertake. Nonetheless, I hope they’re willing to be bold and consider altering the balance of strength between core gateway units, tech units and forcefields. Gameplay is stale and frustrating for all three races, and players would greatly appreciate it if Blizzard would at least take a crack at the underlying problems. My suggestions for a starting point would be to:
-slightly increase marine and hydralisk collision radius to reduce the AoE damage they take from colossi and storms -nerf or remove forcefield -buff zealots and stalkers relative to marines, marauders, roaches and zerglings (may require a direct roach nerf)
I don’t think the changes would be as game-warping as one might fear. Already, Protoss players are gravitating away from sentries in PvT building only enough to survive a stim timing before their tech comes online. And in PvZ, sentries are only built as a counter to roaches. If Protoss players could deal with roaches any other way, they’d happily invest those resources elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the changes would allow more open maps with more opportunities to harass and attack earlier in the game. Additionally, Protoss would finally be able to split their forces, and you wouldn’t see as many deathballs. And best of all, the battles wouldn’t be so damn binary. Stronger zealots might narrowly lose to stimmed marines. And because storms would deal less AoE damage to marines, the battle supplemented by a storm would also be less lopsided in favor of the zealots.
"Your comments should by written why is it that I cannot just A-Move and win every single game?- I'm so frustrated that the game actually requires me to change my style rather than me being able the change the game to suit how I want to play."
If you just did a simple rush like charge archon, stalker blink, sentry robo, phoenix/void/zealot. You don't have have to wait until the 15 minute deathball to attack. You would have a different timing for each.
IMO Warp is the problem more than anything. PVP is one base forever because of it, but also I love pvp cause its all about controlling units.
I still think protoss is the strongest race in the game at the moment. If you have blink the stalkers win that engagement only loosing like 2-3 stalkers. if you have 50 zealots vs a ton of marines you have so much unspent gas which could have been used on archons. chargelot/archon/templar wins marine/medivac. I really think that you shouldn't complain about how the game should better follow your style and focus more on how you should change your style to best play the game. Try using templar/archons more, you'll win more games sooner. Practice feedback more than writing these threads complaining that you don't want to take advantage of the slightly imba race.
A lot of people complain that zergs have become to strong. The problem is that if you don't build infestor, basically every strat in the game is designed to counter your army. Your entire goal should be killing infestors. (especially before broods) Destiny literally became somewhat competitive just by learning to use them.
Another thing is that a lot of terrans struggle with tier three games, but you watch and the trend has not been to use ghosts or ravens. WTF?!!!! Watch MVP, byun, taeja and marineking own with these units. EMP is sooo sick. You can cast two emps and remove all shields/ 12 infestors energy. vs broods get like 4-5 ghosts snipe overseer, stim marines- broods die, or raven viking sooo sick.
I definitely think you should try to work on timing builds more that writing threads like this.
I think the entire point of the OP was lost on you. First of all OP is a fairly knowledgeable poster who has made plenty of great posts about SC2 strategy and he was not complaining about balance. His entire point was how weak T1 of toss makes for a very volatile matchup and leads to deathballs. You only have to see the latest GSLs to see that is true. Most PvTs are decided off one engagement pretty much. It is unlike ZvT where you have back and forth battles with counter attacks, harass and multiple play styles for each race. BTW most people hate PvP. If you run a poll I think majority would just tune off streams during PvPs. They are one dimensional and boring with everything getting decided in one engagement be it 1 base or 3 bases. The only good matchups are ZvT and TvT at the moment. Is the game balanced ?... Sure .. But is it fun to play ? ... if you are a protoss or play against a protoss then no.
On October 12 2012 08:03 aZealot wrote: Those are terrible examples. In what game would I expect my Chargelots to win against a Marine ball of that size with stim and medivac support? My Stalker heavy Stalker/Immortal ball will lose to a Roach army which is able to get a concave on my army in an open field. I am not sure why I should expect otherwise. Biased examples do not help your post.
You shouldn't expect to win either of those fights--it's actually guaranteed that you won't win either of those fights. My point was simply to illustrate that Protoss depends on forcefields and tech units to win battles. If they don't have the right combination of forcefields and tech units, they lose badly even if they match their opponent's army value. That's not to say that Protoss is weaker than the other races--they just have to play to take advantage of forcefields and tech units. And I think the consequences of that requirement are bad for the game.
On October 12 2012 08:03 aZealot wrote: Those are terrible examples. In what game would I expect my Chargelots to win against a Marine ball of that size with stim and medivac support? My Stalker heavy Stalker/Immortal ball will lose to a Roach army which is able to get a concave on my army in an open field. I am not sure why I should expect otherwise. Biased examples do not help your post.
You shouldn't expect to win either of those fights--it's actually guaranteed that you won't win either of those fights. My point was simply to illustrate that Protoss depends on forcefields and tech units to win battles. If they don't have the right combination of forcefields and tech units, they lose badly even if they match their opponent's army value. That's not to say that Protoss is weaker than the other races--they just have to play to take advantage of forcefields and tech units. And I think the consequences of that requirement are bad for the game.
But, equally, you might also argue for the converse. That Terran upgrades + production are too strong or that Zerg production is too plentiful, too fast. It's really these factors that mean that Protoss gateway units must have some tech advantage (be it +1 and charge; or Colossus/HT/Archon for the two Medivac timing etc). It's because Zerg production is so plentiful that Protoss need Sentries and FF (and simcity for the Roach max etc). This dance of respective racial strength vs weakness at points in the game is hardwired into the game, true. But, if so, it is not specific to Protoss, IMO. So, any substantive change like those you seem to suggest above would have to be sweeping - more sweeping than you appear to realise.
On October 12 2012 08:03 aZealot wrote: Those are terrible examples. In what game would I expect my Chargelots to win against a Marine ball of that size with stim and medivac support? My Stalker heavy Stalker/Immortal ball will lose to a Roach army which is able to get a concave on my army in an open field. I am not sure why I should expect otherwise. Biased examples do not help your post.
You shouldn't expect to win either of those fights--it's actually guaranteed that you won't win either of those fights. My point was simply to illustrate that Protoss depends on forcefields and tech units to win battles. If they don't have the right combination of forcefields and tech units, they lose badly even if they match their opponent's army value. That's not to say that Protoss is weaker than the other races--they just have to play to take advantage of forcefields and tech units. And I think the consequences of that requirement are bad for the game.
That's my problem with Protoss, you are required to get core units that cost a lot of gas to survive, which in turn limits the choices you can make in tech down the road AND limits how you can use those units since they cost so much.
I can't advocate free hallucination as someone said. That's too strong
I think that a lot of problems would be solved if cannons were mobile again like they were in early WoL. Either that or shield batteries that are a mineral sink but don't serve the same role as other mineral sinks (zealots, WPs).
Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
On October 12 2012 09:18 xDaunt wrote: Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
The Stalker is a fast, tier 1 unit that can attack air, has good range, and has bonus damage vs armor. It can be warped in across the map and resources can quickly be dumped into them. It can also be buffed with blink. This is not a unit you want any stronger. Stalker-heavy compositions are part of what makes the three Protoss match-ups so boring to watch. You should want to reduce Stalker play from its current levels, not increase it.
On October 12 2012 09:18 xDaunt wrote: Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
The Stalker is a fast, tier 1 unit that can attack air, has good range, and has bonus damage vs armor. It can be warped in across the map and resources can quickly be dumped into them. It can also be buffed with blink. This is not a unit you want any stronger. Stalker-heavy compositions are part of what makes the three Protoss match-ups so boring to watch. You should want to reduce Stalker play from its current levels, not increase it.
The stalker doesn't perform well the longer the game goes on. For the only staple unit out of the gateway that has the right amount of range, it's exceedingly weak for it's cost.
On October 12 2012 09:18 xDaunt wrote: Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
The Stalker is a fast, tier 1 unit that can attack air, has good range, and has bonus damage vs armor. It can be warped in across the map and resources can quickly be dumped into them. It can also be buffed with blink. This is not a unit you want any stronger. Stalker-heavy compositions are part of what makes the three Protoss match-ups so boring to watch. You should want to reduce Stalker play from its current levels, not increase it.
Stalkers (even with blink) also get rocked for cost by marines, marauders, roaches, speedlings, hydras or chargelots. Let's not act like stalkers are on the brink of becoming OP.
I feel one of the primary culprits of keeping Gateway units weaker is the inherent advantages of Warpgate. With it, there is no way without drastic fundamental changes to gameplay, that Gateway units can be stronger without horribly breaking the game.
On October 12 2012 09:41 ktimekiller wrote: I feel one of the primary culprits of keeping Gateway units weaker is the inherent advantages of Warpgate. With it, there is no way without drastic fundamental changes to gameplay, that Gateway units can be stronger without horribly breaking the game.
Sure, just nerf forcefield. Then Terran holds rushes easily with bunkers. Immortal/sentry gets weaker--the rush that gets stronger is 7 gate, which isn't hard to hold anyway unless you're late with your roach warren.
On October 12 2012 09:18 xDaunt wrote: Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
The Stalker is a fast, tier 1 unit that can attack air, has good range, and has bonus damage vs armor. It can be warped in across the map and resources can quickly be dumped into them. It can also be buffed with blink. This is not a unit you want any stronger. Stalker-heavy compositions are part of what makes the three Protoss match-ups so boring to watch. You should want to reduce Stalker play from its current levels, not increase it.
I agree that balancing the stalker is tough because of its mobility. I'm just pointing out that it utterly fails in situations where it has to form the backbone of an army in the mid to late game. Also, the problems with PvP go beyond just the stalker.
I wonder, would anyone play a Protoss with no forcefields, no warpins but stronger t1?
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I wonder how TvP would work. Would stronger gateway units + stalker speed mean T would just be cooped up in his base until medivacs?
How would toss t3 be adjusted?
If t3 is nerfed, would this do the exact opposite of encouraging varied, macro oriented play from Protoss and encourage more blinkstalker allins because of buffed gateway units and reduced gas spending on sentries to stay safe?
I don't know about re-design, but I read on bnet forums (a blue post made 2 days ago) that Protoss is getting some buffs soon. I hope it's something nice.
On October 12 2012 09:18 xDaunt wrote: Yeah, this has been an issue since beta. Nothing new really. However, my criticism from back then focused solely upon the stalker. It simply is a pathetically weak unit in terms of combat power. I don't think that zealots are really any different than their SC1 counterparts. The problem with gateway units being generally weaker than their terran and zerg counterparts is the stalker. Yes, as others have pointed out, Protoss tech offsets this disadvantage to help make the game "balanced," but there are obvious problems with the current equilibrium as kcdc points out.
The Stalker is a fast, tier 1 unit that can attack air, has good range, and has bonus damage vs armor. It can be warped in across the map and resources can quickly be dumped into them. It can also be buffed with blink. This is not a unit you want any stronger. Stalker-heavy compositions are part of what makes the three Protoss match-ups so boring to watch. You should want to reduce Stalker play from its current levels, not increase it.
Stalkers (even with blink) also get rocked for cost by marines, marauders, roaches, speedlings, hydras or chargelots. Let's not act like stalkers are on the brink of becoming OP.
If you make Stalkers trade well in terms of cost to these units, then what happens? Every game will be mass Stalker. The combination of being able to hit air, the speed, being able to blink, the range, and being able to be quickly warped in and to have minerals dumped into them will not allow for a buff. Add in FF's and there is an even larger restriction on their being buffed.
I could definitely understand buffing them to be cost-effective against other ground units if they were less versatile, say if they couldn't hit air units, but as it is the measure would be unwarranted.
Your examples, as people have mentioned before, are really really biased just to "prove" your point. This is exactly when protoss is at its weakest. How about trying some smaller food comparisons? Wanna guess who wins between 2 chargelots and 4 stim/combat shield marines? How bout 2 stim/conc marauders vs 1 chargelot 1 stalker? How bout 1 immortal 1 zealot vs 4 roaches 2 speedlings? 1 immortal 1 stalker vs 5 roaches?
You could also use the same method to prove zerglings REALLY REALLY need buffing because a similar number of marines and medivacs would decimate an equal cost number of zerglings.
Edit: Also roaches need a buff because 8 marauders 2 medivacs can beat 14 roaches.
On October 12 2012 12:08 boxman22 wrote: Your examples, as people have mentioned before, are really really biased just to "prove" your point. This is exactly when protoss is at its weakest. How about trying some smaller food comparisons? Wanna guess who wins between 2 chargelots and 4 stim/combat shield marines? How bout 2 stim/conc marauders vs 1 chargelot 1 stalker? How bout 1 immortal 1 zealot vs 4 roaches 2 speedlings? 1 immortal 1 stalker vs 5 roaches?
You could also use the same method to prove zerglings REALLY REALLY need buffing because a similar number of marines and medivacs would decimate an equal cost number of zerglings.
Edit: Also roaches need a buff because 8 marauders 2 medivacs can beat 14 roaches.
The marines would win I believe, with stutter stepping. A larger amount would see the marines winning even more severely. The two marauders win easily. The immortal zealot would probably just win. I should hope so as immortal is the direct counter to roach. The roaches would probably barely win by focusing the immortal. Either way it would be very close, which isn't too good as the immortal is the roach's direct counter and the roaches collectively are cheaper than the immortal zealot.
Just to add, I personally don't agree with the OP's solutions, but I certainly agree with his issues.
On October 12 2012 12:08 boxman22 wrote: Your examples, as people have mentioned before, are really really biased just to "prove" your point. This is exactly when protoss is at its weakest. How about trying some smaller food comparisons? Wanna guess who wins between 2 chargelots and 4 stim/combat shield marines? How bout 2 stim/conc marauders vs 1 chargelot 1 stalker? How bout 1 immortal 1 zealot vs 4 roaches 2 speedlings? 1 immortal 1 stalker vs 5 roaches?
You could also use the same method to prove zerglings REALLY REALLY need buffing because a similar number of marines and medivacs would decimate an equal cost number of zerglings.
Edit: Also roaches need a buff because 8 marauders 2 medivacs can beat 14 roaches.
That's cute and all, but you'll notice he didn't send zealots against roaches, he sent Immortals and Stalkers.
And you'll notice that he used charge-zealots against marines and not stalkers against Marauders. The point I'm making is that these are the units you tend to *want* to use against marines and roaches - whereas you never want to use lings against marines.
Regarding your smaller army comparisons, they're a bit silly because those army sizes don't exist when you have charge, or Immortals, or stim/combat shields. It might be comforting for you to know that 3 microed marauders beat a Colossus by itself, but it also might not - because when does this ever happen in a real game?
On October 12 2012 12:08 boxman22 wrote: Your examples, as people have mentioned before, are really really biased just to "prove" your point. This is exactly when protoss is at its weakest. How about trying some smaller food comparisons? Wanna guess who wins between 2 chargelots and 4 stim/combat shield marines? How bout 2 stim/conc marauders vs 1 chargelot 1 stalker? How bout 1 immortal 1 zealot vs 4 roaches 2 speedlings? 1 immortal 1 stalker vs 5 roaches?
You could also use the same method to prove zerglings REALLY REALLY need buffing because a similar number of marines and medivacs would decimate an equal cost number of zerglings.
Edit: Also roaches need a buff because 8 marauders 2 medivacs can beat 14 roaches.
The marines would win I believe, with stutter stepping. A larger amount would see the marines winning even more severely. The two marauders win easily. The immortal zealot would probably just win. I should hope so as immortal is the direct counter to roach. 1 immortal 1 stalker, the roaches would probably win. Just focus immortal. And collectively the roaches are cheaper too.
Just to add, I personally don't agree with the OP's solutions, but I certainly agree with his issues.
I tested them all. Without any micro every case the toss wins. Even with micro toss wins both cases of zerg. And not sure who would win with stutter stepping the marines. My attempt at stutterstepping the lots still won.
On October 12 2012 12:08 boxman22 wrote: Your examples, as people have mentioned before, are really really biased just to "prove" your point. This is exactly when protoss is at its weakest. How about trying some smaller food comparisons? Wanna guess who wins between 2 chargelots and 4 stim/combat shield marines? How bout 2 stim/conc marauders vs 1 chargelot 1 stalker? How bout 1 immortal 1 zealot vs 4 roaches 2 speedlings? 1 immortal 1 stalker vs 5 roaches?
You could also use the same method to prove zerglings REALLY REALLY need buffing because a similar number of marines and medivacs would decimate an equal cost number of zerglings.
Edit: Also roaches need a buff because 8 marauders 2 medivacs can beat 14 roaches.
That's cute and all, but you'll notice he didn't send zealots against roaches, he sent Immortals and Stalkers.
And you'll notice that he used charge-zealots against marines and not stalkers against Marauders. The point I'm making is that these are the units you tend to *want* to use against marines and roaches - whereas you never want to use lings against marines.
Regarding your smaller army comparisons, they're a bit silly because those army sizes don't exist when you have charge, or Immortals, or stim/combat shields. It might be comforting for you to know that 3 microed marauders beat a Colossus by itself, but it also might not - because when does this ever happen in a real game?
Since when would you EVER want to send that many chargelots against a marine ball? How about that 6 chargelots beat 8 stim/combat shield marines and a medivac unmicroed? That's even a real game situation unlike the dumb chargelots running at a huge marine only ball.
Edit: And just to add. My point was not to prove that toss is op or anything at all like that. It was to show it's dumb to make most of these types of comparisons. I personally don't think gateway units are as underpowered as people somehow seem to believe.
I tested them all. Without any micro every case the toss wins. Even with micro toss wins both cases of zerg. And not sure who would win with stutter stepping the marines. My attempt at stutterstepping the lots still won.
I'm quite sure that with micro, as in targeting and stuttering/avoiding chargelot the roaches would win. But if i'm wrong, then I stand corrected. However you must remember that Zerg generally has a whole base of income's worth on top of what the Protoss usually has, and Zerg units are designed to be inefficient while Toss units are supposed to be efficient.
Seeing as how the Toss units are meant to counter the roaches, cost more/harder to obtain, require production facilities and whatnot, and still lose/hardly win, it's quite clear what race has the advantage in a real situation.
I tested them all. Without any micro every case the toss wins. Even with micro toss wins both cases of zerg. And not sure who would win with stutter stepping the marines. My attempt at stutterstepping the lots still won.
I'm quite sure that with micro, as in targeting and stuttering/avoiding chargelot the roaches would win. But if i'm wrong, then I stand corrected. However you must remember that Zerg generally has a whole base of income's worth on top of what the Protoss usually has, and Zerg units are designed to be inefficient while Toss units are supposed to be efficient.
Seeing as how the Toss units are meant to counter the roaches, cost more/harder to obtain, require production facilities and whatnot, and still lose/hardly win, it's quite clear what race has the advantage in a real situation.
He showed that "stalker immortal loses to roaches". No it does not. It does in high food count situations, hence the roach max. Edit: Also weren't people annoyed that you can just max roaches? Do people really want to make it so you can just mass gateway units?
Is this thread already degenerating into a discussion over whether zealots and stalkers are weak for cost without high-tech support or forcefields? This issue seems pretty cut and dry to me.
I tested them all. Without any micro every case the toss wins. Even with micro toss wins both cases of zerg. And not sure who would win with stutter stepping the marines. My attempt at stutterstepping the lots still won.
I'm quite sure that with micro, as in targeting and stuttering/avoiding chargelot the roaches would win. But if i'm wrong, then I stand corrected. However you must remember that Zerg generally has a whole base of income's worth on top of what the Protoss usually has, and Zerg units are designed to be inefficient while Toss units are supposed to be efficient.
Seeing as how the Toss units are meant to counter the roaches, cost more/harder to obtain, require production facilities and whatnot, and still lose/hardly win, it's quite clear what race has the advantage in a real situation.
He showed that "stalker immortal loses to roaches". No it does not. It does in high food count situations, hence the roach max.
But it does. Hence the roach max beating stalker immortal.
On October 12 2012 12:38 kcdc wrote: Is this thread already degenerating into a discussion over whether zealots and stalkers are weak for cost without high-tech support or forcefields? This issue seems pretty cut and dry to me.
In any mu a zealot and stalker on the field off 1 gate holds map control. The protoss 200/200 deathball is already far and away the strongest. You'd have to MASSIVELY nerf both colossi and storm if you do anything at all to buff gateway units. Probably have to get rid of forcefield. Maybe nerf the immortal. What do you do with the warp prism?
On October 12 2012 12:38 kcdc wrote: Is this thread already degenerating into a discussion over whether zealots and stalkers are weak for cost without high-tech support or forcefields? This issue seems pretty cut and dry to me.
In any mu a zealot and stalker on the field off 1 gate holds map control. The protoss 200/200 deathball is already far and away the strongest. You'd have to MASSIVELY nerf both colossi and storm if you do anything at all to buff gateway units. Probably have to get rid of forcefield. Maybe nerf the immortal. What do you do with the warp prism?
I really don't want to get into balance discussions here. You're right that in the very early game, a single stalker is pretty powerful and a zealot tanks a lot of damage. As you get into mid-game, stalkers and zealots are weak for cost against their Terran and Zerg counterparts, so Protoss needs forcefields and tech units to compete. Let's all agree to leave it at that.
As for how much to nerf colossi and storm, do it until it's balanced. The only ground units that colossi and storm truly hard counter are marines and hydralisks (and zerglings and banelings, but it's okay for those units to be bad vs Toss). If you increased their collision radius (between current marine size and current roach size) so that they took less AoE damage, that would go a long way toward balancing a gateway buff. The rest of the balance can be determined through testing.
Maybe stalker should get scratched and instead immortal becomes gateway unit replacement for stalker? It's certainly strong enough, but warpgate should definitely be moved up to T3 for it to even look balanced.
On October 12 2012 12:38 kcdc wrote: Is this thread already degenerating into a discussion over whether zealots and stalkers are weak for cost without high-tech support or forcefields? This issue seems pretty cut and dry to me.
In any mu a zealot and stalker on the field off 1 gate holds map control. The protoss 200/200 deathball is already far and away the strongest. You'd have to MASSIVELY nerf both colossi and storm if you do anything at all to buff gateway units. Probably have to get rid of forcefield. Maybe nerf the immortal. What do you do with the warp prism?
In PvZ it is always the zerg who has map control thanks to lings. It's also been said many times by pros that a maxed broodlord infestor army is way too hard for the protoss to deal with, at least it is relative to the difficulty of controlling broodlord/infestor. Still, this topic isn't about zerg, and i'm going to stop responding to your silly posts.
"Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak."
Great quote, exactly how I feel when I play vs P. This is the last thing you want in any RTS is a race that is purely gimmicky, yet thats what we get in SC2.
Bottom line, Its not fun to play vs Toss, and it is certainly not fun to be toss.
A reworked Protoss, could solve a lot of the issues the game has.
On October 12 2012 12:38 kcdc wrote: Is this thread already degenerating into a discussion over whether zealots and stalkers are weak for cost without high-tech support or forcefields? This issue seems pretty cut and dry to me.
In any mu a zealot and stalker on the field off 1 gate holds map control. The protoss 200/200 deathball is already far and away the strongest. You'd have to MASSIVELY nerf both colossi and storm if you do anything at all to buff gateway units. Probably have to get rid of forcefield. Maybe nerf the immortal. What do you do with the warp prism?
In PvZ it is always the zerg who has map control thanks to lings. It's also been said many times by pros that a maxed broodlord infestor army is way too hard for the protoss to deal with, at least it is relative to the difficulty of controlling broodlord/infestor. Still, this topic isn't about zerg, and i'm going to stop responding to your silly posts.
1 gate expo the zerg does not hold map control thanks to lings until after the zealot and stalker poke then return home. It takes speed to really matter to the stalker and the zealot helps force many many more lings to be able to deal with forcing the stalker away.
On October 12 2012 07:31 Ao wrote: I'm a little outraged at Dustin's pathetic attempt to sidestep the core issue in his response.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
Edit: Someone please post this on hots forums.
I'm hoping to get beta access in the next wave, and if I do, I'll post in on the HoTS forums.
The result is that every modern map has a freebie natural expansion and a closed off third base tucked right next to the natural. Entombed Valley is the poster-child for this layout, but you see the same features on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana, Metropolis, and Condemned Ridge. Maps that deviate from this layout (think Korhal Compound or Dual Sight) don’t allow Protoss to take a third on remotely even economic terms, and force Protoss to play 1-base and 2-base all-ins.
WHAAAAT? Condemned Ridge is a map designed with protoss in mind? Have you ever played this game on that map?? It's got a hugeass, wide open natural 1 cannon BARELY covers, a gigantic ramp, and a 3rd that, once again is really open and impossible to wall off. This means that it's nearly impossible to defend both your natural and your 3rd at the same time.
On a side note, narrow chokes, at least at the ramp leading down to the natural, are also relevant in ZvT and ZvZ with queen blocks. And while I do agree that, when confined to 2 bases, protoss doesn't have a lot of choices, this is mostly because of the way the protoss gateway army works together. With recall being an easily usable ability, I think we'll see protoss be able to assume more choices than a) all-in and maybe win or b) sit in base and cry about how impossible it is to move out. As far as the midgame goes, I feel like templar are filling this role nicely right now, although storm could be a little more powerful (we won't talk about how it balances against MMM and will instead assume that terran army compositions will change over time).
If there are too few tech units, the gateway core is overwhelmed by their more efficient Terran and Zerg counterparts. If there are too few gateway units, the tech units will be picked off and the Protoss force will be stomped even harder.
We've seen quite often that zealot/archon is actually a really strong, cost efficient army against MMM or roach/ling in small numbers. As long as zealot/archon is coupled with early upgrades, it becomes significantly stronger than the other races counterparts in small numbers. If we focus on NOT the deathball or, in better terms, if we pretend like we're talking about HotS instead of WoL.
I DO agree that protoss needs a unit that can stand toe to toe better with other races, but I don't think the zealot, stalker, or immortal should be this. If anything, protoss needs a type of warhound at the gateway that kicks in at T2; this would allow protoss to deal with ridiculous things like maxed roach pushes and MMM balls and such. The archon is good, but protoss needs another mid-tier gateway unit as stalkers and zealots are just way too fragile. A meatier unit like the dragoon would go a long way in allowing protoss to choose between a really strong, immobile, meaty army versus a more lightweight, attacking army.
The last major point I want to touch on is the binary battles that result from the combination of weak gateway units, strong tech units and forcefields. Remember how lopsided the chargelot vs marine battle at the top of this article was? It turns out that if you add just one storm to that fight, the chargelots win while taking almost no losses. Without a storm, the marines win with almost no losses; with a storm, the zealots win with almost no losses. Similar effects happen with colossi and forcefields in many other situations against both Terran and Zerg, and I think it’s safe to say that they are the #1 cause of smashed keyboards in the SC2 community.
This may be the first time I've seen an argument for less diverse armies in SC2.
It's certainly a problem that protoss has to RELY on certain spells in order to win even early fights, but I don't think that having to use storm or adding in colossus makes protoss, or even the game at that, bad. Having to use a more diverse group of units makes the game interesting and exciting. Instead of trying to get rid of the diversity, we should try to add to it, which, in my opinion, means protoss needs another gateway unit.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
On October 12 2012 07:31 Ao wrote: I'm a little outraged at Dustin's pathetic attempt to sidestep the core issue in his response.
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.
He acknowledges the why but fails to respond in any real way to it. He just tangents on to why the sentry should be "easier to use" which could mean a lot of things. Later in the thread David Kim clarifies that they've thought of removing hallucination research or something useless like that.
But the real problem has been aptly described by the op and I just hope blizzard continues to watch the hots forums here too. I rarely ever post anywhere but I'm fired up by the developers' negligence of this issue that could fundamentally alter the game in an unbelievably positive way.
Edit: Someone please post this on hots forums.
I'm hoping to get beta access in the next wave, and if I do, I'll post in on the HoTS forums.
Why do you not have access?????
You have well earned it.
Ah I mentioned earlier that I already posted the link to this on the HotS forums, but it hasn't been getting many replies. Would you like me to delete it?
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
This has been tried before but it promoted proxy gates too much. With buffed gateway units and reduced build times proxy gates would be way too hard to stop.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
This has been tried before but it promoted proxy gates too much. With buffed gateway units and reduced build times proxy gates would be way too hard to stop.
You can't look at major changes like "restructuring protoss gateways completely" in a vacuum. Any good change will have major repercussions, but you can fix those as well. 1) maps can help to fix things like proxi gates. Also, consider buffing the other races' early game (zerg already has the queen range buff, so they might be able to hold proxi gate).
But also, proxi gating should still be an option that has a high chance of winning if it goes unscouted and the other player plays greedy.
That's how RTS works. If proxi-gating becomes a big deal, consider minor tweaks, or scout better. Overall, seems like a minor issue, and the fix still seems like a great one imo.
On October 12 2012 07:54 avilo wrote: People honestly think they'll change something as core to the game as gateway units? They're never going to do this. It'd be like changing pawns in chess to do something different just because.
Blizzard did say they're willing to look at older units when they feel they have all of the new units in a good place, so they could look at ravens, broodlords infestors, sentries etc. later on but it's highly doubtful they're going to ever change gateway units and they don't really need to...it's not a problem.
The game is how it is now, and it's even debatable whether gateway units are actually weaker than brood wars because they can literally be warped in anywhere on the map, and have things like blink/charge, etc.
I don't really understand your vacuum examples either. In an actual game anyone that just 1A's only zealots into marine medivac like that is basically a bronze league player. The game doesn't work in a vacuum so why do your examples matter at all for the arguments your making? Protoss relies on forcefield, that's just how the game works. You can claim they are weaker because of it, others could say Protoss is even stronger because of it because the game can sometimes be in the hands of the person using forcefields that stops the opponent from microing.
Thanks Avilo for turning this into a balance discussion. I'm not saying that reliance on forcefield and high-tech units is good or bad for Protoss strength. It's obviously both. What I am saying is that it's bad for gameplay because it forces maps to converge in a boring way, limits activity and creativity for the first 15 minutes of the game, and creates binary battle results.
I agree. I wish that space control could be managed without the sentry so that the maps could be made differently. In PvZ, roaches can be maxed due to the crazy econ of a zerg and their safe 3 base which protoss needs forcefields and close third with a choke to be able to win.
I don't mind vetoing maps that are bad or I prefer not to play on. But some are literally impossible because of the way protoss is designed.
There are so many little issues with protoss game play in all the matchups. You did a great job in the op, but the issues are actually even deeper, IMO. The points you make about map design cannot be overstated. If we look at how terran changed from BW to WOL, some of the changes were things like supply depot lowering, bunker salvage, building armor upgrades, PF's, turret range upgrades. These things all promote terrans defense. Protoss could really use some mechanics for walling and securing expansions, similar to what terran has. This would make map design much more flexible.
Another thing they need to change is Gateways, they should produce a little faster than warp gates, so warp gate = better offense, gateway = better production. Warp gates should be a choice not a mandate. It is not viable to play with gateways instead of warp gates, it should be, and there should be some tradeoff and decision between the mobility vs production. Also, pvp would be less horrible. I think sentries would be much cooler if they just pushed stuff back with force fields, instead of the FF sitting there. Get rid of charge and put it back to just a movement buff (and lower the price), so it's not a "no micro" ability.
But look at the issues with protoss and look at the fixes
weak gateway units ------------------------> FF,colossus no map presence early/mid game ----> Recall poor harass -----------------------------------> oracle trouble with anti air--------------------------> phoenix range Difficulties on defense after 2 bases--> mother ship core
weak gateway units -----------> make gateways produce faster than warp gates, remove FF, buff gateway units low mobility/map presence -> Give oracle a mass blink, so it can blink an army(like recall/blink mixed) poor harass----------------------> get rid of colossus add reavers trouble with anti air ----------> give stalkers +2 per attack upgrade instead of +1 defending 3 bases------------> Nexus provide psi, energy can heal unit's shields, cannon range research
Protoss would be much more fun to play like this ^^
Because the protoss design suck hard as shit. That's why you don't see back and forth games like in ZvZ, TvT or ZvT.
Once protoss lose their key units in the army, is a fking death sentence due to the high costs and slow production times (not saying is up, just pretty all-inish). So due this, as a P player, you have to make a very specific timming all-in, or some sort of gimmick play to make your path for some kind of all-in. Once you attack, is almost always all-in, because if you lose your army (or even trade armies), is game, there is no back and forth for P. And warp tech make that even worse.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
I like this idea. Swap the build time of units around so that warp gate is longer. Suddenly defender advantage returns, you get 1 big warp in when attacking and then you're slowly getting weaker. Need to make considerations to things like proxy gate cheese in PvZ etc.
Once this is done I don't think you need to buff gateway units themselves, just reduce their cost. 125/50 for a stalker is too expensive. it's on par with most tier 2 units for the other races.
Other changes I'd like to see tested are:
Cannon from cyber instead of forge. That way it's still too slow for cannon rushing, but fast enough for decent base defence. With faster gateway unit build times opening gateway expand is even more viable than it already is. I don't know if this makes detection too easily available regardless of protoss tech path. Possible issue may require cannon cost to be tweaked.
Switch the stalker + damage from armoured to light. Stalkers would become good harass units capable of killing off workers, lings, zealots, sentries and marines. This may even make a role for the void-ray open up again since stalkers would be capable with dealing with marines and mutas while being nerfed vs the VR themselves...
If both changes are made cannons would become more important for holding things like maruader or roach play so possibly give them +damage to armoured. That way the stalkers will be micro'd to try and pick off the light unit 'shield' while the cannons deal with the armoured units. zealots and FF to protect the cannons and pylons from surround.
4 gates are very nerfed since you need tougher units like immortals to deal with armoured units properly, but stalker harass has real possibilities, especially with blink.
4 stalkers should be able to do serious damage to a mineral line (like every other drop payload) via warp prism harassment. right now 4 stalkers are appallingly bad for that role and zealots are too slow, even with charge, to do considerable damage, leaving only DT, HT or immortals for economy harassment.
On October 12 2012 14:29 Kharnage wrote: 4 stalkers should be able to do serious damage to a mineral line (like every other drop payload) via warp prism harassment. right now 4 stalkers are appallingly bad for that role and zealots are too slow, even with charge, to do considerable damage, leaving only DT, HT or immortals for economy harassment.
4 zealots dropped into a mineral line with charge kills workers about as fast as 2 DTs if the workers dont run. Its also about the same if the workers do run as well.
I would like to see the stalkers range increased by 1 and in exchange have a longer blink cooldown or research time or something. I believe in BW if goons had their range upgrade and marines did not they had a longer range by two grids and it ended up looking something like this.
Zealot charge is good upgrade and everything but seeing as how it is a melee unit I would love to see just a speed increase in the zealot nothing huge like somewhere in between worker speed and the 2.25 normal movespeed they have now.
This would also mean that zealot stalker armies would have better synergy. Due to movement speeds that are closer together and toss would have more of reason to have their units further from their base as hit and fall back tactics (that would be more common with an increased range) work better when there is more distance to fall back with.
After the t1 gets its buff then the collosus could be redefined to have a better role. Right now it is like this. Terran/zerg builds unit a.) its a ground unit ----> toss builds collosus b.) its an air unit -----> toss builds something to kill air units.
I would like to see collosus say have reduced damage to armor but extra to light so there is a difference between the immortal and the collosus
On October 12 2012 15:27 terranghost wrote: Zealot charge is good upgrade and everything but seeing as how it is a melee unit I would love to see just a speed increase in the zealot nothing huge like somewhere in between worker speed and the 2.25 normal movespeed they have now.
This would also mean that zealot stalker armies would have better synergy. Due to movement speeds that are closer together and toss would have more of reason to have their units further from their base as hit and fall back tactics (that would be more common with an increased range) work better when there is more distance to fall back with.
The charge upgrade already increases zealot speed to 2.75, almost as much as a worker (2.81). It's still not enough though, in my opinion - I'd like to see charge replaced with a significant speed upgrade to maybe 3.375 (the speed of stimmed bio). This would allow for much more micro from protoss players. First of all, charge actually limits micro since the charge is canceled if you issue a move command. Secondly, the speed upgrade would let protoss players more easily flank with zealots, manually surround enemy armies (much like zerglings), and send small groups to harass expansions (and they could actually chase down workers).
I think a something like giving Stalkers a range buff at Cybernetics Core would do wonders - you could have stronger Stalkers early game, but at the expense ofna much later Warpgate tech, meaning you would choose between stronger tier 1 gateway army without warpgates, or a weaker gateway army with warpgates and a tier 2 (timing-wise) upgrade that would help stalkers against stimmed marines and roaches alike.
With this, we could even consider making sentries start with half the energy so they cant immediately forcefield, and give them a khaydarian amulet style upgrade at twilight council (or cybercore) to help balance out sentry-based timing pushes.
kcdc I'm surprised you did not go into why protoss t1 units have been balanced over time to be so weak. A lot of people have pointed out that the warp in mechanic is the primary reason for this. The ability to warp in units anywhere on the map is a ball and chain on the relative strength of these units. I like the ideas in your thread but there was no discussion on this issue. I assume it's yet another issue blizzard will be unwilling to tackle.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
I think it is a cool idea and the Gateway Warpgate relationship and mechanics should be expanded. I have this idea that the Gateway once upgraded into a Warpgate, should be transformable back into a Gateway without cost but with a transformation time(4-5s). The same applies to subsequent transformation back into a Warpgate. Warp-ins will now have a longer cool down period, while the Gateway produces units faster, essentially flipping the current unit build time between Gateway and Warpgate.
What this does is that it introduces a layer of strategic decision making and base management(more clicks overall) to the Protoss player. There will now be expand builds that doesn't involve getting Warpgate tech immediately. Warp-in will become a great tool in the mid game when Protoss needs to harass and pressure the opponent, and also later for drop defence. Yet even in the late game it is not always a good idea to have all your gates as Warpgates, as army trades doesn't favour the Protoss with a Pylon in the front lines as much now.
Should a player chooses, Warp gate all-ins would still be viable, yet the windows of success closes more rapidly as your next round of warp-ins are now slower. This also helps PvP by giving the player the option to switching back to Gateway production to gain a defender's advantage, and not die so easily because your opponents Warpgate count and timing directly counter yours in the early game(This is why WoL PvP hinges so much on the build order).
It will also be interesting to see how players balance the Warpgate, Gateway counts in their builds, and how they would change the counts, either to carry out their strategy or to react to the game conditions.
With this new gameplay mechanics in place, gateway units can be tweaked accordingly. The goal would be to make Forcefields more forgiving, as in better in defence, but less powerful offensively, the later which has been slightly addressed by making warp-ins slower. I do feel that it is not necessary to overhaul FF to achieve this goal. Rather it is the synergy of other units/structure/abilities in defence that should do better. But this reply is getting too long so I won't get into that now.
What do you guys think? TLDR: The Warp-in changes are essentially the same as a lot of the posts about P recently in the HoTs discussion: warp-in cool down > Gateway. What I proposed is to add the ability to switch between Warpgate and Gateway. Edit: Was just pointed out that this ability was always there. New TLDR: switch the builtime/cooldown between Warpgate & Gateway, with a lower switch time from Warpgate to Gateway.
The warpin mechanic is necessary to keep up with zerg larva inject and terran reactors. Chronoboost alone wouldn't be enough, as it would have to be split between boosting gateways and nexuses. Even if gateways were given a build time buff, it wouldnt be enough. Warpgates are necessary because the protoss army is the least mobile in the game, and functions the worst when split.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
I proposed a fix many months ago, and now Starbow uses it, so I'm really pumped and loving it.
Here is the fix: Make Warpgates have a LONG cooldown. Make gateways produce units MUCH faster. So that means you use Gateways to macro, and only a few warpgates for quick defense, late game warm prism harass, or whatever else. Doing this makes having tons of warpgates macro suicide, because you can't produce fast enough. Warpgates would still be situationally useful, but not the CLEARLY better option.
So... this is clearly a nerf to the warpgate mechanic. So, you buff gateway units a ton. And get rid of forcefields....
This is a great fix, and if you don't believe me, go watch a Starbow match.
I think it is a cool idea and the Gateway Warpgate relationship and mechanics should be expanded. I have this idea that the Gateway once upgraded into a Warpgate, should be transformable back into a Gateway without cost but with a transformation time(4-5s). The same applies to subsequent transformation back into a Warpgate. Warp-ins will now have a longer cool down period, while the Gateway produces units faster, essentially flipping the current unit build time between Gateway and Warpgate.
What this does is that it introduces a layer of strategic decision making and base management(more clicks overall) to the Protoss player. There will now be expand builds that doesn't involve getting Warpgate tech immediately. Warp-in will become a great tool in the mid game when Protoss needs to harass and pressure the opponent, and also later for drop defence. Yet even in the late game it is not always a good idea to have all your gates as Warpgates, as army trades doesn't favour the Protoss with a Pylon in the front lines as much now.
Should a player chooses, Warp gate all-ins would still be viable, yet the windows of success closes more rapidly as your next round of warp-ins are now slower. This also helps PvP by giving the player the option to switching back to Gateway production to gain a defender's advantage, and not die so easily because your opponents Warpgate count and timing directly counter yours in the early game(This is why WoL PvP hinges so much on the build order).
It will also be interesting to see how players balance the Warpgate, Gateway counts in their builds, and how they would change the counts, either to carry out their strategy or to react to the game conditions.
With this new gameplay mechanics in place, gateway units can be tweaked accordingly. The goal would be to make Forcefields more forgiving, as in better in defence, but less powerful offensively, the later which has been slightly addressed by making warp-ins slower. I do feel that it is not necessary to overhaul FF to achieve this goal. Rather it is the synergy of other units/structure/abilities in defence that should do better. But this reply is getting too long so I won't get into that now.
What do you guys think? TLDR: The Warp-in changes are essentially the same as a lot of the posts about P recently in the HoTs discussion: warp-in cool down > Gateway. What I proposed is to add the ability to switch between Warpgate and Gateway.
Personally, I think adding a Stalker range buff to cybercore (like in broodwar) would solve all of Protoss early game problems, and give an option of whether to go warpgate or stalker range first. It wouldnt break bio like in BW, either, because of the marauder and the medivac.
You could combine this idea with the idea of making gateways produce faster than warpgates, so you actually have a reason to switch them while attacken and switch back when on the defense and so on.
On October 12 2012 17:25 playnice wrote: I think it is a cool idea and the Gateway Warpgate relationship and mechanics should be expanded. I have this idea that the Gateway once upgraded into a Warpgate, should be transformable back into a Gateway without cost but with a transformation time(4-5s). The same applies to subsequent transformation back into a Warpgate. Warp-ins will now have a longer cool down period, while the Gateway produces units faster, essentially flipping the current unit build time between Gateway and Warpgate.
What this does is that it introduces a layer of strategic decision making and base management(more clicks overall) to the Protoss player. There will now be expand builds that doesn't involve getting Warpgate tech immediately. Warp-in will become a great tool in the mid game when Protoss needs to harass and pressure the opponent, and also later for drop defence. Yet even in the late game it is not always a good idea to have all your gates as Warpgates, as army trades doesn't favour the Protoss with a Pylon in the front lines as much now.
...
What I proposed is to add the ability to switch between Warpgate and Gateway.
You can already do that! Just noone ever uses it, because it is utterly and completely useless atm
On October 12 2012 17:25 playnice wrote: I think it is a cool idea and the Gateway Warpgate relationship and mechanics should be expanded. I have this idea that the Gateway once upgraded into a Warpgate, should be transformable back into a Gateway without cost but with a transformation time(4-5s). The same applies to subsequent transformation back into a Warpgate. Warp-ins will now have a longer cool down period, while the Gateway produces units faster, essentially flipping the current unit build time between Gateway and Warpgate.
What this does is that it introduces a layer of strategic decision making and base management(more clicks overall) to the Protoss player. There will now be expand builds that doesn't involve getting Warpgate tech immediately. Warp-in will become a great tool in the mid game when Protoss needs to harass and pressure the opponent, and also later for drop defence. Yet even in the late game it is not always a good idea to have all your gates as Warpgates, as army trades doesn't favour the Protoss with a Pylon in the front lines as much now.
...
What I proposed is to add the ability to switch between Warpgate and Gateway.
You can already do that! Just noone ever uses it, because it is utterly and completely useless atm
Edit: Argh, sorry I meant to edit my other post
LoL, I actually didn't know that. But the idea stands. I just wanted to elaborate more on how it actually would impact gameplay in a positive way with the swap of build times.
MMM has to be better than basic gateway units, else bio is not viable. Roaches being that strong is just dumb, yet more a problem of the roach and how zerg has to play against warpgate allins, than with protoss.
The problem here is that you can't buff Gateway units unless you kill the Warpgate mechanic. The strength of Warpgate allins doesn't come from the units' own strength, it comes from the broken mechanics that power the allin. From the automatic proxying of all production and the subsequent loss of defender's advantage to the Gateway transformation unit swell where you get two cycles back to back to being able to build production much later than other races because of frontloaded production. Consider a game of Marinecraft (SC2 with CC, depot, rax, starport, refinery, scv, marine, medivac). It's a simple, yet robust game with many emergent rules concerning tactics and strategy from econ/army/tech struggle to ambushing reinforcements to defender's advantage to proxying to positioning to area control to the effects of winning an engagement, flanks, high ground mechanics and the like. Rules about how the game can be expected to pan out. Rules that are there despite not being stated anywhere.
Protoss break a ridiculous number of these rules by virtue of warpgates and forcefields. The issues can be masked by things like weak gateway units, forcefields and keeping the warpgate mechanic away from the most vulnerable super early game portion of the game, but the issues are there. And the masking actions cause their own problems which result in bad, gimmicky-feeling gameplay. The game may be balanced, but it just doesn't feel good. For toss to be truly good - as in both balanced and satisfying to play - they need to kill warp gates and lamefields.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. I think blizzard will never go for big sweeping changes. Especially taking out FF and Warping. So I think we as a community need to think of small changes that will achieve the same effect.
I was playing with the idea that, instead of having 3 levels of attack/armor/shield upgrades for the game, why not we have 4 levels. With the final levels skewed more to stronger armor so in general all units last longer and the first level being cheaper than the current level 1 and upgrade faster.
This will make the early Level 1 make units last longer, allowing for more back and fourth in fights. As well as more micro-intensive endgames.
I probably came up with the "remove Warpgate and Sentries" thing before anyone else, but since nothing has happened to address these issues for all this time, we can be sure that they will not be dealt with this way. The game has been balanced with these units and concepts in mind, so Protoss will always look somewhat funny from a design perspective.
It's hard to convince Blizzard to make big changes (to this I mean forcefield, not half of the suggestions in this thread...) and then say "we'll have new map design to take care of the rest!", because although I personally believe this post is probably a good thing for the game...we all know Blizzard's history with maps.
They don't pay enough attention to them and may never.
I actually really, really like forcefields (confession bear) and it was one of the spells that first fascinated me and cemented me as a protoss player. So I would really like for it to stay. I do agree that current protoss play is far too reliant on it, but as you said it doesn't have to be this way. Maps can be a lot more open and unprotected. If your natural had no chokes there's no way you'll be able to defend it with forcefields the way we do now. As long as we can remove the overreliance on forcefields for defense, I think that the existence of the spell is a positive thing. Adds to the ways that protoss can take advantage of certain types of terrain, as long as that terrain isn't a home base choke that exists every map.
Completely agree with the OP. Some things will need tweaking ofc (maybe warpgate cooldown time might need an increase due to stronger gw units etc. etc.), but the concept is right.
I'm in general agreement with the OP. I'd enjoy a more robust T1 at the expense of a less powerful T3/AOE and a later hitting warpgate. I really enjoyed the feel of the zealot/dragoon in BW rather than treating zealots more as "cannon fodder". I thought zerglings were supposed to be the cannon fodder unit.
On October 12 2012 17:11 Pabs wrote: kcdc I'm surprised you did not go into why protoss t1 units have been balanced over time to be so weak. A lot of people have pointed out that the warp in mechanic is the primary reason for this. The ability to warp in units anywhere on the map is a ball and chain on the relative strength of these units. I like the ideas in your thread but there was no discussion on this issue. I assume it's yet another issue blizzard will be unwilling to tackle.
I've heard a few suggestions in other threads that give Blizzard the ability to tune this as needed for balance.
- When in warpgate mode increase the build time of units - Move warpgate back in the tech tree - Increase time required to phase in a unit -Phase in units with no shields and the list of suggestions go on. Those may not be the right solution but they certainly are a starting point one could build from.
On October 12 2012 20:09 armada[sb] wrote: Oh my dear god, some of these suggestions are absurd and it's clear that half of you have never played protoss.
I approve this statement!! It's silly to think of a) changing warp gate mechanics or b) removing FF from the game because EVERYTHING IN THE GAME IS BALANCED AROUND THEM ATM. No reason on completely screwing over the game design just so that you can have what you think is a better system.
Range upgrades are interesting, but it makes no difference on protoss as stalkers are still generally useless as the game progresses. I DO NOT like kcdc's argument, I think it has huge holes in the logic (like that Condemned Ridge was designed with protoss in mind HA), and I think most of the suggestions are off.
Coming from the perspective of a protoss player, I think protoss, especially with the addition on MSC, is by far the most interesting race at the moment with tons and tons of different openings, probably the most varied of any race. I would like to see the protoss midgame and lategame balanced a little better, but I'm 100% that adding something useful to the game would be better than trying to redesign the game from the ground up.
That being said, let's look at what HotS could be, not what WoL isn't.
To begin, I'd like to directly address Dustin's statement that gateway units can be "very, very deadly."
...
How does this pattern impact gameplay more broadly? Most obviously, Protoss plays as a turtly race that wants to defend efficiently until they can force one big fight with all their forces. Hence, the familiar sight of the “Protoss deathball” with every unit Protoss has built all game packed together under one guardian shield. Nobody likes the deathball, but there are more fundamental gameplay problems that arise from Protoss’s weak T1.
Perhaps the worst problem is that weak gateway units force convergence in map design to the point that every tournament-quality map plays more or less the same for the first 15 minutes. In order to play a competitive macro game, Protoss needs a tight choke leading into their natural so that they can defend with just a couple sentries, and in PvZ, Protoss also needs to be able to defend their natural and third bases simultaneously with forcefields. The result is that every modern map has a freebie natural expansion and a closed off third base tucked right next to the natural. Entombed Valley is the poster-child for this layout, but you see the same features on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana, Metropolis, and Condemned Ridge. Maps that deviate from this layout (think Korhal Compound or Dual Sight) don’t allow Protoss to take a third on remotely even economic terms, and force Protoss to play 1-base and 2-base all-ins.
This map convergence not only produces stale play where a single build can be fitted to every single map, but because competitive maps must allow 3 bases to be defended by forcefields, every race gets three easily defended bases. Optimal mining income can be achieved on three bases, so players are not forced to expose themselves to attack until 15 or 20 minutes into the game. The result is a monotonous, boring beginning to the vast majority of games. Players and spectators hate “No Rush 15,” but the Protoss-mandated map features too often force it.
...
As for what to do about these issues, I fear that the required changes may be too significant and risky for Blizzard to undertake. Nonetheless, I hope they’re willing to be bold and consider altering the balance of strength between core gateway units, tech units and forcefields. Gameplay is stale and frustrating for all three races, and players would greatly appreciate it if Blizzard would at least take a crack at the underlying problems. My suggestions for a starting point would be to:
-slightly increase marine and hydralisk collision radius to reduce the AoE damage they take from colossi and storms -nerf or remove forcefield -buff zealots and stalkers relative to marines, marauders, roaches and zerglings (may require a direct roach nerf)
I don’t think the changes would be as game-warping as one might fear. Already, Protoss players are gravitating away from sentries in PvT building only enough to survive a stim timing before their tech comes online. And in PvZ, sentries are only built as a counter to roaches. If Protoss players could deal with roaches any other way, they’d happily invest those resources elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the changes would allow more open maps with more opportunities to harass and attack earlier in the game. Additionally, Protoss would finally be able to split their forces, and you wouldn’t see as many deathballs. And best of all, the battles wouldn’t be so damn binary. Stronger zealots might narrowly lose to stimmed marines. And because storms would deal less AoE damage to marines, the battle supplemented by a storm would also be less lopsided in favor of the zealots.
Yeah, I mean what Dustin said is just silly. Marines and Marauders that you can warp in anywhere on the map would break the game. Try it in the map editor, you won't be playing long before the first 2-rax comes with 6 extra food and breaks your back. I believe his point, though, may have been chronologically driven by the design process - it may be that protoss units were made weaker due to FFs, and then gateways were fine because these units were weaker... or something. But claiming unsupported gateway can be "very, very deadly" is just flat out wrong. Gateway units without tech are many times less deadly than the other race's equivalents - as you've shown.
I'm not sure this thread is still being taken seriously (given the last three pages), but I wanted to point a few things out here.
1. Protoss does play differently, and oriented around FF usage and tech units rather than the more massable (but weak) gateway units. I guess I don't view this as necessarily a bad thing (it keeps the races not homogenous, which I view as positive), but rather something which may take some changes to work around suitably in order to keep PvX balanced without turning every game (as you mentioned) into NR 15 games. They've currently done the most obvious thing, which is just to make bases easier to defend, without looking to add offensive options against things which are too easy to hold. In TvZ right now, for example, both races seem to be building three bases right away (though Terran's third expansion is delayed, they make the CC rather early for mules). In HotS, we've got the MsC, which I'm not convinced (maybe I just haven't watched enough games), isn't going to be the thing which makes halting early aggression without perfect FFs possible (or more possible, as the case may be). Maybe someone else knows it's not enough? Buff MsC's damage greatly, and limit its movement (at least away from the base) greatly to avoid rush builds. We build our tech for damage - because our gateway units are terrible at damage dealing.
2. Mapmakers in WoL were definitely hindered by these constraints, but will it be the same in HotS? Blizzard doesn't seem to think so (based on their map design). I see more attack paths for the natural and thirds which are a lot more open. As a protoss, this makes me nervous ("how do I defend my third without a billion FFs?") but I'm holding out on hope that there's gonna be a way to do it - other than building infinity sentries.
3. The "deathball" syndrome is a result of Colossus design, not of the need for tech units. Look at the HT. It's a high tech unit which can deal a ton of damage without needing to be in a big blob of units to do it. It's unit design (not protoss reliance on tech) which makes the deathball. By redesigning stargate, I was hopeful they'd add another HT-like unit (one which can deal high damage, support itself and is micro intensive) but instead we got an incredibly low dps secondary capital ship that I haven't really seen anyone use to great effect and a raiding unit which I don't think anyone likes using.
Well, what is kinda neglected in this thread is the fact that sentries are the same tech as the other tier 1 units, so when comparing tier 1 protoss units you HAVE to keep sentries in the equation or you have to move them to another tech.
You can't compare zealots and stalkers with marines and marauders. You have to compare zealots, stalkers AND sentries. And only if Sentry loses all combat focused abilities OR is moves to another tech you can talk about buffing the other gateway units.
In other words: it's unlikely that it will change.
I want to say that I agree with much of what kcdc said in his first post. Too bad the thread derailed and crashed into I huge pile of nonsense.
First off I would like to say that I think we should never justify something by saying: ”It is already like that and it would be too much of a pain to change”.
If a basic mechanic changes the game in a negative way, we should try to improve that basic mechanic. It should have been improved a long time ago, but it wasn’t and now we are left to take the consequences.
Secondly I think people need to let go off their balance concerns. This is not a thread about the protoss race’s relative strength compared to the other two. It is a thread about how protoss functions and what is not good about it. For the topic itself, personally I think it comes down to damage output.
Protoss armies are made up of a bulk of gateway units with very high hitpoints and overall rather poor damage output. To make up for that we have colossus and storms. Pretty much every mid- to late game army for protoss consists of the same key components. Gateway units to provide a meatshield, to increase the number of shots a colossus can get off and perhaps let your storms land in a better place. Then storms and colossus, enough to kill the opponent’s army. Compare that to terran armies where the damage comes from marauders and marines. Zerg armies (up to a point) consist of ling/roach. Ghosts, medivacs and Vikings are supplements to bio. They don’t kill armies, they provide specific functions to take out colossus and storms. Why does zerg build corruptors? To kill colossus. For a long time 2base colossus was a top level strategy vs Z.
The problem is; why do you actually build stalkers beyond a 2 base allin? Most of the time it comes down to dealing with air. If somehow you knew there would be no air, pure zealot/robo would solve all your problems. I guess the underlying problem here is that P’s own air is not that great. That would also explain why PvP degenerates into colossus wars every time it goes into late game.
Past the point where you need force fields to survive a timing attack on two bases, you generally only want 1-2 sentries for guardian shield. You are never splitting your army up anyway.
That leaves zealots, who are purely hitpoints in the latter game. They barely ever get close to a bio ball or even roaches once the supply count gets up past 100. Ever seen that 12 zealot warpin that suicides into an expansion just because a protoss player is on 6 base and can’t spend his minerals? That’s equivalent to 48 zerglings or 24 marines. Even though the zealots with 3 armor basically never dies, they won’t kill your base either, but 3 dropships full of stimmed marines will. Damage output is on a different tech level for protoss and it disables smaller forces from moving around, since the damage they do never seems to justify their cost. That’s why protoss sits in their base and that’s why colossus is so very common.
On October 13 2012 01:03 Fenris420 wrote: Secondly I think people need to let go off their balance concerns. This is not a thread about the protoss race’s relative strength compared to the other two. It is a thread about how protoss functions and what is not good about it. For the topic itself, personally I think it comes down to damage output.
It IS a thread about protoss' relative strengths and weaknesses lol! That is how we should think about how a particular race should be played. kcdc is unhappy that maps have all converged on a few ideas, and all maps in competition are too similar.
I like the addition of the Sentry to the Protoss army to buff its strength. Having a ViU you have to kill or protect is something I enjoy personally. Of course they could remove it and make the Race only need Zealots and Stalkers, but that would actually make the race easier then it already is and more boring. Otherwise t1 of toss with their full upgrades run over the other races t1 units pretty handy and if the opponent is one upgrade behind then it is not even close. (excluding reaper marauder, who destroys anything on ground). But Bio is pretty bad without t3 unit support as well aka Medivac.
But I have to admit, that I don't play a gateway heavy Protoss style, so maybe this evil gateway unit issues everyone sees in Protoss never came to my attention.
protoss is frustrating to play against because of the power of their a+click Protoss is frustrating to play because a+click all the time make you feel bad at some point
On October 13 2012 01:49 algue wrote: protoss is frustrating to play against because of the power of their a+click Protoss is frustrating to play because a+click all the time make you feel bad at some point
Yea, really feels bad losing all of your colossi before they fire a shot and then getting everything emp'd by cloaked ghosts because he scanned your observers and oneshot them with vikings and losing a battle at the 20 minute mark taking you down 100 food because you dont use 3 hotkeys and bio is hillariously powerful compared to protoss army if AOE doesnt land
Frustrating to play AGAINST because it is actuly difficult to control properly and to get a feel for how to be aggressive with medivac timing and it seems that nobody in low master or below can do it anywhere near correctly
I always have an issue any time I see a suggestion to buff gateway units and the Roach used as an example for how weak those very same units are.
One of the most prominent builds in the entire PvZ MU is 7 gate blink all-in.
While there are many different variants of these, the core to ALL of them is Stalkers with Blink making up 90% or more of the army.
This type of play is so powerful, easy to execute, and hard to defend, that Zerg is forced to rush into 3-base play simply to keep up with macro, tech up to lair, and get all their necessary research while sacrificing overlords to scout Protoss' base, and even then, we see top-level pros lose quite consistently to this simple build.
The fact of the matter is that Zerg has a tough time dealing with Blink Stalkers. Buffing the core stats of the Stalker would essentially break ZvP unless you radically change Zerg as well.
This build specifically is problematic to any protoss nerf involving force field being a justification for gateway unit buffs.
One of the most prominent builds in the entire PvZ MU is 7 gate blink all-in.
While there are many different variants of these, the core to ALL of them is Stalkers with Blink making up 90% or more of the army.
This type of play is so powerful, easy to execute, and hard to defend, that Zerg is forced to rush into 3-base play simply to keep up with macro, tech up to lair
Blink stalker all-ins in their current form didnt exist before zerg played 3hatch before gas, they used to be much more delayed and often come with observers, but the old style got destroyed once zerg made the switch to 3hatch play
Blink Stalkers kill Zerg without force field.
Noooo they do not, blink stalker all in's bring sentries for a reason, and you are gonna get crushed by large blobs or roaches or lings if you go blink with anything other than jangbi style third massing chrono's on your first gateway
One of the most prominent builds in the entire PvZ MU is 7 gate blink all-in.
While there are many different variants of these, the core to ALL of them is Stalkers with Blink making up 90% or more of the army.
This type of play is so powerful, easy to execute, and hard to defend, that Zerg is forced to rush into 3-base play simply to keep up with macro, tech up to lair
Blink stalker all-ins in their current form didnt exist before zerg played 3hatch before gas, they used to be much more delayed and often come with observers, but the old style got destroyed once zerg made the switch to 3hatch play. Zerg doesnt have to play 3 hatch to hold a blink all in, they just choose to because it puts them in a much better position vs a bunch of other styles
And 3 hatch play came in response to FFE.
None of this changes the fact that 7-gate blink kills Zergs with no force fields needed. Address that concern before you go praising Stalker buffs as necessary for the good of the game.
edit: to argue your edit:
I would argue that 3 base Zerg is merely equal with 2 base Protoss around the time these 7-gate attacks hits. Zerg is functioning off 4 gasses, has worse tech than the Protoss, and barely keeps up in worker counts (~53 probes vs 60 drones).
You're suggesting Zerg is doing fine if he's on equal bases with Protoss? Why does all convetional knowledge of the game disagree?
I agree with everything you've stated. Protoss does seem weak in the mid game, and too strong late game. A Buff of gateway units, and nerf of late game units and I think the race would be much better; to play, and play against.
None of this changes the fact that 7-gate blink kills Zergs with no force fields needed. Address that concern before you go praising Stalker buffs as necessary for the good of the game.
That is simply not the case, FFE-Blink all-ins are terrible without forcefields if zerg plays correctly
On October 12 2012 12:52 XXXSmOke wrote: A great post here,
"Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak."
Great quote, exactly how I feel when I play vs P. This is the last thing you want in any RTS is a race that is purely gimmicky, yet thats what we get in SC2.
Bottom line, Its not fun to play vs Toss, and it is certainly not fun to be toss.
A reworked Protoss, could solve a lot of the issues the game has.
lol this is so true. ZvP is so fucking frustrating against 3+ base toss and when I lose against it I go play toss on ladder and lose to such basic stuff. >_>
None of this changes the fact that 7-gate blink kills Zergs with no force fields needed. Address that concern before you go praising Stalker buffs as necessary for the good of the game.
That is simply not the case, FFE-Blink all-ins are terrible without forcefields if zerg plays correctly
Ok, "no force fields" may be a bit of an exaggeration, but anything short of a complete removal of the skill does not justify a gateway unit buff.
Equally so. If you remove force fields, you largely remove all modern Protoss openings, I don't even know if 1 gate expos would even work.
Force field is kind of the core of the entire race. One does not simply remove the skill on a whim.
Still more problematic. Since I'm delving into the realm of actually removing force field, is the Zealot. If you give it even 1 more damage on it's standard attack, Zerglings become essentially worthless in the ZvP MU, and we would likely see 4-gates come back around with a vengeance as even a handful of Zealots would mow through Zerglings like crazy.
Force fields are problematic to the balance of the game, but Gateway units are JUST weak enough to not be OP when you look at the numbers.
On October 13 2012 02:38 Jermstuddog wrote: Still more problematic. Since I'm delving into the realm of actually removing force field, is the Zealot. If you give it even 1 more damage on it's standard attack, Zerglings become essentially worthless in the ZvP MU, and we would likely see 4-gates come back around with a vengeance as even a handful of Zealots would mow through Zerglings like crazy.
Force fields are problematic to the balance of the game, but Gateway units are JUST weak enough to not be OP when you look at the numbers.
Which is why they lose horribly to bio and roaches? Read the OP
On October 13 2012 02:38 Jermstuddog wrote: Still more problematic. Since I'm delving into the realm of actually removing force field, is the Zealot. If you give it even 1 more damage on it's standard attack, Zerglings become essentially worthless in the ZvP MU, and we would likely see 4-gates come back around with a vengeance as even a handful of Zealots would mow through Zerglings like crazy.
Force fields are problematic to the balance of the game, but Gateway units are JUST weak enough to not be OP when you look at the numbers.
What most people don't realize is that when you tweak a unit in starcraft you are not upsetting just the balance of your race, your are upsetting the whole game, with a cascade effect on the rest of the units and strategies of the other races. This is why I feel threads like "remove force field" or "remove colossi" or "change warpgate tech" are utterly useless, they generally try to imagine how to balance the changes within their race, but not in the context of their opponents.
This said, the problem will protoss in SC2 in SC2 is and always will be the same: they are supposed to be the expensive but strong race, the one that the more money (and time) you put into, the stronger it gets compared to the opponents. But the reality is that it's only the most expensive, it doesn't get stronger compared to the others (zerg in wol, for example, are way better in late game, and with terran the problem is not being strong or not, is just a question of landing the right storms or the right EMPs, as the OP correctly stated). The only two realistic solutions for this situation I could see, short of a rework of the entire race, is either a nerf in unit costs for some Protoss units (immortals, to name just one) OR some surgical nerfs to other races' units, specifically zerg, to make them way more vulnerable in late game to protoss. Or, as a last possibility, foregoing the initial idea for the P race and just add more early game capabilities to give them more early game harassment and the possibility to end the game in early-mid stages without resorting necessarily to all ins.
IMO, roach speed upgrade needs to only go half as far as it does now. The fact that speedroaches outclass stalkers is fucking ridiculous (without perfect blinking away they will overwhelm even BLINK stalkers). That, combined with burrow move and the cost efficiency of them makes them easily able to bait forcefields and thus completely negate the only defense our slow protoss units have against them.
That combined with a fungal range of only 7 (therefore making it EQUAL to feedback and one hex LESS than colossi with range, letting both strategies have a chance to taking out infestors) would balance the matchup fairly well IMO.
On October 13 2012 02:38 Jermstuddog wrote: Still more problematic. Since I'm delving into the realm of actually removing force field, is the Zealot. If you give it even 1 more damage on it's standard attack, Zerglings become essentially worthless in the ZvP MU, and we would likely see 4-gates come back around with a vengeance as even a handful of Zealots would mow through Zerglings like crazy.
Force fields are problematic to the balance of the game, but Gateway units are JUST weak enough to not be OP when you look at the numbers.
Which is why they lose horribly to bio and roaches? Read the OP
I'm not talking about Terran here, I will agree that bio is bullshit, but I would go about changing things with bio in my perfect world, not gateway units.
Back to the ZvP relationship. Zealots don't lose horribly to roaches. In the current game, they lose due to the roaches speed and range, but if you blindly 1A them vs each other, equal numbers of Zealots will largely break even or even come out ahead. Not bad for a mineral-only investment.
Now here's where the problem comes when you suggest stat buffs to Zealots AND Stalkers to make up for the loss of force field.
Zealots will make Zerglings useless. Hell, even upping Stalker damage vs light to 12 makes Zerglings useless as they now kill them in 3 shots instead of 4 (part of why the +2 blink timings are so powerful).
So, since Zealots with even 1 addition damage in the current game ALREADY shut down lings, you can't buff their damage without effectively removing lings from ZvP. Stalkers ALREADY win vs Roaches in any equal-supply fights and their cost-effectiveness scales up insanely with the addition of Blink, so I guess you can't buff there either...
Where exactly are you going to buff gateway units without screwing the whole ZvP MU?
I Switched from terran to protoss when i watched a white-ra game. around feb 2011. When i started out i was in platinum league, at this point having shit tons of fun playing VERY VERY aggressive playstyles without being all-in's. While also just in general having fun with specific units, Things like until around january this year i'd always make 6 phoenixes in PvZ because i loved the speed of that unit and the way it controls. But i found the better i got at the game as i progressed through platinum and diamond i found i had to increasingly play more and more of a passive role in order to go to a "macro game". My aggressive pokes and prods kept getting weaker and weaker. I kept finding that i was unable to get even remotely as much value out of my units as before i also found that i'd lose games by breaking away groups of units to pressure additional bases.
Recently, I've phased phoenixes out of my play in PvZ because it wasnt as safe as using immortals to try and transition into a macro game. The biggest kick in the balls was last season. Through plat/low-mid diamond PvT was my best matchup. Last season i dropped to 24% in PvT. There was 1 common theme through out the whole season. I'd play too aggressive id pressure and it wouldnt work or i'd over extend occasionally and be disproportionatly punished. In PvP/PvZ where i feel i can fall behind and micro my way out of a bad situation in PvT that just seems much less viable without aoe i can't get enough out of my units. So i've switched to a VERY passive style of PvT and its really dramatically helped my winrates. But honestly its just not nearly as much fun as it was in before.
All in all its felt like i've been punished for having an aggressive playstyle as protoss. Things i've enjoyed in the past i cant really use anymore. I do feel the game is balanced, or at the very least balance has NEVER been the reason why i've lost a game. Protoss just doesn't seem to be balanced around my playstyle or things i find enjoyable.
But for some reason i stick to protoss because i think warp gates are kinda fun, Blink micro is pretty awesome, and that moment where you lay the perfect set of forcefields is possibly the greatest feeling ever. Not to mention i still <3 white-ra. Maybe i should switch races because i have a pretty solid terran and zerg (going by sc2gears i almost never miss an inject ) but i still kinda maintain that soft spot i have for protoss.
This is not to difficult to balance all you have to do is buff protoss gateway units and remove warpgate. this also fixes PvP, and protoss can fell more like they did in broodwar.
I recently watched this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cid2T-2eLsY&feature=plcp) of tvp post widow mine changes and it made me think that this match might get far more interesting if mech t becomes the new meta. I think that maybe in hots p may not need the changes we are talking about at least in this match up because an alternative style from terran will shift the style of tvp protoss are stuck with right now.
If terran start to mech than some of the core issues in tvp that make the map a nr 15 style match i think will be resolved:
1. in mech tvp map control matters again, one of the things i notice about tvp that differentiates it from tvz and tvt is that taking and maintaining a dominant position on the field maters alot less, a protoss or Terran army at home is just as good as threatening as one near your base were as in the other matches a t with siege tanks creeping to a zergs 4th is alot more frightening than a t at home in a defensive position,. But with mech now a terran at your base or conversely a p with tempests near your is alot more of a threat than if they are back home chilling, this also means that back stabs are alot more of a threat and can happen with more frequency as players may try to aquire map control so that they can limit their opponents expos.
2 protoss in now the aggressor. You might think that this just means that now Terran will turtle even harder than they do already however, because mech is alot slower than a protoss army the opportunity for p to be aggressive, do dmg and than run away become more interesting and create a dynamic that forces the mech player to carfuly distribute their forces it also makes map control via mines important for t as if they have this control they can keep more of their army together. Most importantly this change makes the power of gate way units less relevant than their mobility which is something the poses in spades, with warp in blink and warp prisms p has alot of ability to quickly build and launch raids on undefended Terran locations, effectively solving some of the boring turtly problems p has without making any major changes to gateway units.
3. The death ball mat still be their but its a more interesting death ball, colossus ht might give way to a slow air army combined with a nimble gate way army, also any battle that involves mech and besieging it i feel tends to create less battles that end in under 30 seconds. I like how tempests kill things slowly but from a distance so that p does not have to dive mech to kill it off and mech does not have to instantly charge p if they start getting hit by tempests.
4. Because mech cant really kill or push a protoss in the early game like bio can P does not need to build sentrys. Iin addition sentrys are not good vs mech ff is not great vs mech, they move slowly and are rather fragile, instead i think p will be more encouraged to use aggressive and mobile stalker strats. Another affect of mechs slow and fragile buildup is that p can get a third before they are forced into teching really hard, and more money means more gateway units to use in multipronged raids.
I think all of these potential changes in the meta will make tvp alot better in other words i think that if bliz can balance widow mines so that they make mech viable without making it op and terran are attracted to mech that the match will take on a style much more reminiscent of the way brood war tvp played out wich at least i think is alot better than the current tvp of today, as it is more dynamic, more cerebral, and more exiting to play and watch. As for tvz i honestly don't know enoph to comment on it and how hots might improve it.
To add: Warp-in mechanic. One of the reasons gateway units are so weak is because they can be warped in, as opposed to being built at barracks/hatcheries (think 4-gate). If anything, this is the biggest issue why blizzard can't just straight up remove forcefields and tweak zealots/stalkers to compensate.
On October 12 2012 08:01 willoc wrote: That Marine vs. Chargelot scenario bothers me because you added Medivacs using Healing but did not add Sentries using Guardian Shield.
Same. It doesn't appear to be a fair comparison when you combine marines(tier 1) together with medivacs(tier 2.5), against just chargelots alone. So you have marines + support unit, vs unsupported chargelots.
The numbers don't appear to work out. Chargelots in a vacuum, which only cost minerals, versus the marines + medivac which is minerals and gas.
Another thing is that a lot of terrans struggle with tier three games, but you watch and the trend has not been to use ghosts or ravens. WTF?!!!! Watch MVP, byun, taeja and marineking own with these units. EMP is sooo sick. You can cast two emps and remove all shields/ 12 infestors energy. vs broods get like 4-5 ghosts snipe overseer, stim marines- broods die, or raven viking sooo sick.
Taeja recently commented on this, making ghosts makes the terran a victim for a ultralisk transition and ever since the EMP radius nerf the emp will hit like 3-4 infestors at the most... not 12
Your proposed buffs are ridiculously stupid. Imagine a proxy 2 gate or any warp gate all-in with buffed zealots/stalkers. Just because mid-game requires protoss to have more than stalker/zealot to compete does not mean the game needs to be changed to make that viable.
Another thing is that a lot of terrans struggle with tier three games, but you watch and the trend has not been to use ghosts or ravens. WTF?!!!! Watch MVP, byun, taeja and marineking own with these units. EMP is sooo sick. You can cast two emps and remove all shields/ 12 infestors energy. vs broods get like 4-5 ghosts snipe overseer, stim marines- broods die, or raven viking sooo sick.
Taeja recently commented on this, making ghosts makes the terran a victim for a ultralisk transition and ever since the EMP radius nerf the emp will hit like 3-4 infestors at the most... not 12
While Ravens are becoming more important in late-game TvZ, I don't think Ghosts really have a place after the massive nerf to snipe.
If snipe hit for 30 or 35, you would have a case for why they are still good, but 25 damage snipes make ghosts basically worthless against anything that doesn't have light and/or psionic as modifiers.
Nice post dude, "frustrating to play as or against" and either "too strong or too weak" pretty much sums up Protoss. Buff gateway, Nerf Colossus/Storm - > Protoss isn't pigeonholed into all ins or camping 3 bases until their tech is out + Protoss no longer relies so much on Forcefields to defend so we can nerf them to be microable against or remove completely. Not even a difficult redesign, just need to tweak the right numbers. Would also probably need to remove or make warpgate different to balance out stronger gateway units.
Thing is, this thread is best summed up in pvp. It's frustrating to play in pvp and to play against in pvp. It's an absolute mess and I would like to see warp gate later, if only so it fixes pvp.
I think everyone needs to just face the fact that the Blizzard design team is just incompetent. It is quite obvious that Blizzard has taken a money-first policy to their company in the last few years, and SC2, no longer generating much money, is no priority. Their balance team has always been shitty; only David Kim even plays the fucking game. DBrowder just sits there and pretends to care. The community has consistently proposed better unit designs or at least raised very legitimate concerns, and every time without fail, Blizzard as ignored them
Before we even talk about Protoss gateway units, i'd worry about the atrocious unit design that blizzard implements into HotS. Like jesus fuck, who the fuck is making these decisions, free hallu for sentries lmfao
I'm protoss and I agree with OP, But why not even mention once the warpgate mechanic ? It's partially because of it that Protoss T1 units are weaker. Buffing T1 units and still keeping warpgate looks ridiculously op. Don't you think ?
the screen cap you posted of immortal stalker vs the roaches really put me off right off the bat to the point where i didnt even read your article.
-the zerg has a much better concave than the protoss -there are stalkers and immortals dancing in the back that cannot reach the zerg's roaches.
that right there would be evidence for a BAD ENGAGEMENT, but not DIFFERENCE IN COST EFFICIENCY.
gateway units are plenty strong enough in the hands of someone that knows how to use them, but i think if the right changes were made to the sentry and their T3 (specifically the colossus), i'd be willing to hear them out.
Buffing T1 units will only add to the strength of the army combination with T2 units. That will very much break the game. Even in BW, protoss was extremely limited in its capabilities in the early game. As a toss, you could hit very specific timings versus an expanding enemy and do alot of damage - just like SC2. By comparison to BW, you could say protoss have it easier, because a fast-expanding toss was extremely susceptible to early timing attacks, like hydra bust or a tank marine push* (depends on map). Granted early game all-in zergs are still difficult to handle, that in itself depends entirely on the map and is very difficult for a zerg to pull off on larger maps.
I don't think early game is what you toss players should be focusing on. You want to improve the quality - the fun factor - of the entire game and realistically it still all boils down to the deathball.
And in reality, all blizzard needs to do is to remove the colossus from the deathball to create more positional play and minimize centralized DPS.
To illustrate,
The protoss deathball. A moving entity of pure DPS. Having colossus stacked on top the army creates what is essentially a moving, AoE turret. The protoss deathball is the bane of the entire game and needs to be solved.
What happens when you remove the colossus from the deathball?
You create a situation where colossus do not act like a "turret". You still maintain the zealot-archon-immortal-stalker "stack" but the colossus need to be repositioned to attack. This is has a multitude of implications which the following image will illustrate.
What you see in the above is the spreading of DPS. Here's what's happening.
1) Colossus not stacking leads to reduced DPS on a certain area of the attacking army. 2) The protoss army will begin to spread out laterally to match the lateral spread of the attacking army. So now the attacking army is not concentrating DPS on one central area. 3) You now have these sub engagements in a lateral direction versus one specific ball-on-ball engagement. Think like how roach vs roach spreads out. 4) ... and for the toss,
this fucker:
can no longer fungal your entire deathball because your army is widely spread out! great!
Protoss is so bad I have basically quit following starcraft and am not even planning on buying HOTS. Nobody really loves protoss right now and it shows.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
Good idea.
This is actually a great idea, make having warpgate a upgrade that you don't just get but actually can plan builds around getting.
I've been considering race swtiching from protoss, not because of ballance, but because of the play style... it's just not fun.
Blizzard's afraid of making any changes like this. I'd love to see warp gates redesigned/destroyed, but it simply won't happen because Blizzard sees themselves as already being too invested in it.
The ideas expressed in the OP are basically the way I have felt about the Protoss race since launch. A complete and utter reliance on perfect forcefields to make up for t1 and t1.5 units that outright lose badly cost for cost against all other T1 and T1.5 in the game of other races, and a mandatory requirement of T3 units to deal with critical masses of other races T1 and T1.5 units. Both of these things make protoss weak in small engagements, greatly limiting options for splitting army / harassing with a few units. Like the OP said, it's simply bad design. Against a Mass Roach ball in PvZ for example, I either hit perfect forcefields and come out way ahead, or leave a small gap open, allowing all the speed roaches to funnel through, and lose horribly. It's not good design. The best thing that could happen to this game would be a gateway unit buff / forcefield removal, but that will likely never happen.
On October 13 2012 04:49 BluemoonSC wrote: the screen cap you posted of immortal stalker vs the roaches really put me off right off the bat to the point where i didnt even read your article.
-the zerg has a much better concave than the protoss -there are stalkers and immortals dancing in the back that cannot reach the zerg's roaches.
that right there would be evidence for a BAD ENGAGEMENT, but not DIFFERENCE IN COST EFFICIENCY.
gateway units are plenty strong enough in the hands of someone that knows how to use them, but i think if the right changes were made to the sentry and their T3 (specifically the colossus), i'd be willing to hear them out.
You didn't miss much. It went on to state reliance on FF in all MU, moved onto some assertions about "weak" gateway units, observed Protoss dependence on tech in the mid to late game, then onto maps and map pools before finally ending with some entirely unoriginal design suggestions. A shambles of an OP.
Nerf FF, buff other gateway units IMO. FF really takes away a lot of possible micro in the games early parts, micro was much more entertaining and difficult in BW and did not have FF...and as a zerg as a game play mechanic, making a 200/200 ground army is so fucking terrible...you have to make tons of roaches KNOWING that they will sit behind force fields...they are there JUST to buffer force fields....how boring and uninteresting is that!?
On October 13 2012 04:37 sAfuRos wrote: I think everyone needs to just face the fact that the Blizzard design team is just incompetent. It is quite obvious that Blizzard has taken a money-first policy to their company in the last few years, and SC2, no longer generating much money, is no priority. Their balance team has always been shitty; only David Kim even plays the fucking game. DBrowder just sits there and pretends to care. The community has consistently proposed better unit designs or at least raised very legitimate concerns, and every time without fail, Blizzard as ignored them
Before we even talk about Protoss gateway units, i'd worry about the atrocious unit design that blizzard implements into HotS. Like jesus fuck, who the fuck is making these decisions, free hallu for sentries lmfao
Yeah Blizz has been lacking lately, you can tell by the lower quality of the content being released after Burning Crusade expac in wow.
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
Thumbs up to the OP, please don't get tired of pointing out design flaws despite Blizzards igorance.
Currently Balance is good, but the design is bad. Is it really? Well look at this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=374930 Only 150ish people participated in the poll before the thread was closed, but I think the trend is clear. I didn't know TL didn't approve of simple surveys like this, maybe someone can come up with an addition to the thread so there would be some disussion instead of just people listing for what they voted and maybe it could be reopened. I'd love to have a 2k people sample of which 80% state PvZ is utter bullshit, regardless of what race they play. Then present it to DB only to hear "but but I like it, there is no spoo.. eh problem."
With balance and design going hand in hand, of course balance will be overthrown when trying to fix underlying design issues. Most people bringing up things like "nah you can't change FFs/can't buff Warpgate units/nerf AoE" are not seeing the giant circlejerk they're caught in because they're looking mostly at balance.
To break out of this vicious circle you need to start at one point and then introduce more design/balance changes subsequently. It's pretty much impossible to gauge the consequences of a fundamental change like FF nerf. Yes it's a fuckton of work, but in the long run it will only benefit the longevity of the game. Maybe this shouldn't be mentioned to their higher-ups, because with extended longevity of one product it's more difficult to sell the successor...
I'd love to theorycraft and come up with more different approaches if it weren't so damn disheartening, reading the same horseshit from DB and DK over and over again. Denying that there's a problem in P design is either a lie or proof of stupidity, at this point idk which I'd prefer...
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
im assuming this was a reply to me, i think your missing the point you could have 200/200 supply of any unit on the ground, but over making units because you know you have to make it through force fields its really boring
Doing these changes would first of make fourgate and all other rushes for protoss imba, prior to stim gateway units are already pretty good versus terran. Making collosion radius on marines would make the marine split micro alot less neccesary against units like banelings. It would pretty much require that warpgate was removed because warp ins of 10+ gateways units lategame would become VERY effective. I don't see how this would make protoss more fun, i think ffs are pretty fun and microing collosi/hts is pretty much the only micro P has late game so just a-moving with gateway units would become the norm which is even worse than it is now.
On October 13 2012 06:24 Tedde93 wrote: Doing these changes would first of make fourgate and all other rushes for protoss imba, prior to stim gateway units are already pretty good versus terran. Making collosion radius on marines would make the marine split micro alot less neccesary against units like banelings. It would pretty much require that warpgate was removed because warp ins of 10+ gateways units lategame would become VERY effective. I don't see how this would make protoss more fun, i think ffs are pretty fun and microing collosi/hts is pretty much the only micro P has late game so just a-moving with gateway units would become the norm which is even worse than it is now.
Hence why multiple people in the thread suggested moving warpgate up in tech three or changing/removing it. Do you even lift?
few things for OP: 1. i did a test in which 20 marines + 2 medivacs fully upgraded with no micro against a 9 zealots + 1 immortal = protoss won with the immortal surviving. 2. zealots harrasment for terran players is strong when terran army trying to attack protoss side. and dont forget on mid - late game you can warp 10 + zealots on enemy base in 5 seconds to start attacking on multiple places. 3. 10 roaches vs 10 protoss both units fully upgraded = protoss win with 6 protoss survive (and this is even with no use of forcefield to split enemy to 1/2 or 1/3 each time)
protoss is the last race who needs buff in my opinion (well not last, zerg is last :p), what it DOES need is a viable way to play late game PvZ which is currecly is a joke and favour zerg in every match. same thing goes to TvZ late game, zerg are way too powerfull on late game because of the unbeatable combo corruptor + broodlords + infestor, and vs terran if this does not work they simply switch to ultras who win them the game (terran cant reproduce on late game even with amazing infestracture enough units to stop 200 / 200 zerg ground army with ultras.
We’ve been getting a lot of feedback from lower-level Protoss players saying that gateway units are weak because Warp Gates are too good, Force Fields are too difficult to use, etc
I find it insulting that dayvie/rock seem to think these complaints are coming from lower level players
Very well said kcdc, I hope someone at Blizzard takes a long look at this. It's not a shockingly new or innovative idea but I haven't seen it put better yet!
Blizzard, please listen to the long, thoughtful posts on the issues with Protoss. There's 2-3 of them now, both here and at TL. You're missing the point with your buffs/nerfs and core unit design needs to be addressed (possibly even core race design). It's beta now so you have the opportunity to do that.
We have said on repeated occasions that we will be addressing Swarm units before we look to address WoL units. Please keep that in mind.
We are paying attention, even if it doesn't seem that way to you.
Although I think it's the wrong way to do it since they don't need rebalancing but redesign...
kcdc : To be fair, the problems you illustrate are just the way battles work in SC2. Put 20 marines in a fight against 15, they won't be 5 against 0 in the end, but rather 12 or 13 against 0. The side that wins a battle very often wins it overwhelmingly. As for your tests, well : 1) Marines are supposed to be the counter to zealots, with their pure single target DPS. So it's logical they would win. But they're the weakest against AOE. The more maraudeurs you mix in, the closer the battle will be, but when you add in storm or colossi it won't be as impactful. I'm sure you know that anyway. 2) As somebody said before, zergs are supposed to be kings in open space, and the protoss army is supposed to be strong together. Their units aren't great to mass, but they complement each other really well. I do agree with the dichotomy of the sentry success though. One hole and it's game over, perfect FFs and zergs don't kill a single unit.
Really awesome article! This adresses exactly what is going wrong with the current meta game (map design included). Thanks for putting this together and hopefully this will be seen by someone at Blizzard!
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
Yeah I agree with this notion. Protoss needs more variety at tier 1, and warp gate should be a decision with pros/cons, not a given. I like the tension with Terran as to whether you mule, supply or scan. Granted the ratio will nearly always favor mules except for the late game with scans, there is tension there and that tension embodies the RTS component of the game.
I think increasing collision radius on a lot of the units would a be a great. I dont enjoy the deathball style collisions that you often see, were the entire 200 supply army is clumped up in a 2 inch box. I love the idea of buffing and nerfing tier one units esp with the goal of seeing more tier 1/2 engagements. The one thing that i absolutely hate about WoL is that you have two players build up an army for 20 minutes and then the game is over in one big fight. If blizzard reworked tier ones units we can see more small skirmishes across the map and less deathball collisions.
On October 13 2012 05:24 tsuxiit wrote: Blizzard's afraid of making any changes like this. I'd love to see warp gates redesigned/destroyed, but it simply won't happen because Blizzard sees themselves as already being too invested in it.
This. I don't even bother thinking/theorizing about sweeping changes. They won't be implemented. I guess this is the reason why no one aside from avilo is posting in the pro beta feedback forum. HotS will be based off of his feedback. glhf.
I for one would vastly prefer a version of SC2 designed by avilo over what we have seen by Browder and company. The game needs bigger changes than silly stuff like making the Sentry not require research to use hallucinate.
On October 13 2012 05:24 tsuxiit wrote: Blizzard's afraid of making any changes like this. I'd love to see warp gates redesigned/destroyed, but it simply won't happen because Blizzard sees themselves as already being too invested in it.
This. I don't even bother thinking/theorizing about sweeping changes. They won't be implemented. I guess this is the reason why no one aside from avilo is posting in the pro beta feedback forum. HotS will be based off of his feedback. glhf.
Don't worry, they'll only lose 1% of their revenue when all the hardcore fans of the game get fed up with their inability to acknowledge more deep-seeded problems with the game.
On October 13 2012 11:53 ledarsi wrote: I for one would vastly prefer a version of SC2 designed by avilo over what we have seen by Browder and company. The game needs bigger changes than silly stuff like making the Sentry not require research to use hallucinate.
Thought they already tried that (and went back on it) in the first beta? Made certain timing attacks really strong when you could conjure 6 faked immortals/colossi at the 7 minute mark.
Also spore crawler without evo? I'm not really up to date on what's being discussed in the scene, but where are they getting all of this from?
Oracle increase entomb duration from 50 to 60? It's not like you'll ever see an entomb last a full 50 seconds in a pro game anyway. Pointless.
We’ve been getting a lot of feedback from lower-level Protoss players saying that gateway units are weak because Warp Gates are too good, Force Fields are too difficult to use, etc
I find it insulting that dayvie/rock seem to think these complaints are coming from lower level players
Well I find it insulting that you low level players don't realize you're low level.
On October 13 2012 11:53 ledarsi wrote: I for one would vastly prefer a version of SC2 designed by avilo over what we have seen by Browder and company. The game needs bigger changes than silly stuff like making the Sentry not require research to use hallucinate.
Thought they already tried that (and went back on it) in the first beta? Made certain timing attacks really strong when you could conjure 6 faked immortals/colossi at the 7 minute mark.
Also spore crawler without evo? I'm not really up to date on what's being discussed in the scene, but where are they getting all of this from?
Oracle increase entomb duration from 50 to 60? It's not like you'll ever see an entomb last a full 50 seconds in a pro game anyway. Pointless.
I don't know how free Hallucination will play out but I think it's an idea worth trying out.
The spore crawler thing is a bit odd but I understand their reasoning, they wanted that to make fending off Widow Mine a bit easier and contrary to what some say, removing the Evo condition doesn't make much real difference for fighting Dts or Banshees...at least not at any league at diamond and above. Lets take DTs for example, if Zerg is totally not expecting it he will get fucked up badly no matter what even if he doesn't need an evo, well great now you can just snipe his Spores all day long as he tries to build them, big deal, same thing with Banshees. Using Spores vs DT or Banshee is only truly effective if you actually have them up BEFORE the cloaked units reach your base. And aside from that, cloaked units are often waaaaaay more effective in the lategame than the earlygame, just used to harass multiple bases and whatnot, the evo chamber change is nearly irrelevant.
Oracle is still a retarded unit with retarded spells blizzard sucks.
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
Can we trade stalkers for roaches then?
I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches.
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
Can we trade stalkers for roaches then?
I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches.
Man, if I had blinking hydras I'd never build another roach + Show Spoiler +
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
Can we trade stalkers for roaches then?
I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches.
I'll make you a deal--you can build roaches with blink if each roach costs about twice as much. Let's say 125/50. Hell, I'll even throw in an extra 2 range.
Protoss is forced into building Colossi and Chargelot deathballs because their army is heavily based on unit composition and AOE. And it doesn't help that Protoss Stargate tech is a complete dead end. Case in point PvP where victory is decided by how many Colossi you have. Unfortunately the deathball configuration need very little variability in micro thus the general conception that Protoss just A moves to victory.
It seems like a lot of people are overlooking upgrades when examining these test in a vacuum along with tech tier units. In the first example you're fighting 2 tier 3 tech units and upgraded tier 1 units with just tier 1 tech units. The investment/benefit of tier 3 units are much higher than that of tier 1 units in terms of army support.I would be more inclined to agree if this was done with chargelots and 1/2 archons before claiming that gateway units are weak.
Also let's not forget it's all scalar, we don't need forcefields until terran has stim and similarly we don't need templar/colossus until terran has medivacs.
I agree that protoss could use a redesign, but there isn't anything that is THAT flawed with how gateway units work in terms of cost.
Nice writeup, although the two examples are kinda bad. I think if you nerf Warpgate and buff Gateway units, this would work wonders for all Protoss matchups. Also, there's still enough time to implement and balance this in the Beta.
Given the comments of DB and DK, we will likely never see it implemented though. It just hurts my brain to read their posts
On October 12 2012 07:07 Vegro wrote: I'd like to adress two things:
Maps/3 base: Am I really the only one who thinks that the "old" way was kinda nice? Every race (exept maybe zerg) played one base builts and slowly got more and more econ. Today everythings starts with two bases - hell terran has 3cc builts!? I understand that terran was sick as f*** with 2 rax pressure but making the maps bigger and now as you mentioned 3 bases closer together... at the end we just wait until we have 200/200 armies and kill each other, because it needs 2 hours to get to your opponent.
Leading to my other point: Everyone is currently talking about making T1 protoss more viable. IF and only IF(!) Z-lots and stalkers get better and are on even, or slightly better ground then other t1 units, why would i make t3? I am able to warp in 20 zlots at the enemies base who trade nicely - or better then terran t1. T3 would be overkill. If we now consider stim, upgrades etc. Then T3 gets WAY to strong.
So buffing T1 = nerf T3. The same concept as terran. mmm > T3 units.
---
I like the idea with forcefields. I hate it to rely on them so much as Protoss. But thats how protoss is played currently. You need perfect FF, storm, perfect Mothership control, perfect splits, perfect blinkmicro to make anything happen. Otherwise you will get stomped (master and above) because of macro alone.
The risk = gain factor is only there with storm. One nice storm deals nice dmg. But everything else is a neccessity not to die. Remember the 200 roach timing days, where every protoss had to play perfectly with FF and blink to hold (not win) this.
I don't know if you consider this "discussion" but in BW you cannoned up as toss to get to your higher tier units. A cannonbuff (+ light) would help with lings/marines/muta who are currently the biggest threads in these stages of the game.
Lingsrunbys kill bases if they are on hold, or focussed on the nexus ignoring the cannons, and with proper dmg, you could nexus first against terran without loosing to 2rax or anything similar. + mutas are easier to deal with. Guess in another thread someone mentioned this buff for stalker, which is also a good idea.
But yeah: If there is a way to hold without ff - pls give us the opportunity for 1 base AND macro based play + nerf t3 protoss units. (actually the whole anti-lossus argument could be mentioned here as well)
Yeah if blizzard really really really want to keep warpgate that would be the case in the current PvT mechanics.... However what if you removed warpgate, balanced the buildtime for protoss through normal production through pure "gateway" production just as terrans have to click their a button every time they want a marine. If we would balance the production through gateways(NOT warpgates) and buff zealots/stalkers/(dragoons!?) in such way that T3 is still viable but its not required in order for me to win just as it is for zerg, they dont NEED to build infestor/bl to win however its a very good transition and its so stronk. With this change maybe we should remove storm and replace with something that wouldnt force me to "get this or lose". Current meta game vs terran = When the MMM becomes a certain amount of units it is impossible for a good terran to lose vs T1.5 units which forces me to get "gimmicky" things such as storm or colossus. I do like my colossus thats for sure but that does not matter I want to be forced to build this one unit EVERY game because otherwise I'll lose. Blizzard wants us to move away from the "protoss deathball" and probably the best way to do this is to equalize so that colossus is good to get but its not TO GOOD. Repeating that I DONT want protoss deathball to get STRONGER with BETTER T1.5, I want it to be equalized with the terran MMM and not relying on spells for me to win. Same goes for PvZ, I dont want to rely on FFs and definately not have to rely on me landing a good vortex or missing it, NP'd etc. I want to have the stargate tree to be useful as a main army "skytoss" and not just have that as a harassment tree + Go-to in order to win lategame zerg(which is quite the challenge already at higher levels) Make skytoss viable PvZ so that I can pick to go either skytoss+ more or less ground units or going pure ground just as the zerg can go bling/ling/muta or roaches/infestors or go for a quick ultra build. As a protoss I have my robo play into macro, the zerg can simply know what im doing because the current techtree is the only viable one. Give me more than 1 way to play against zerg, just as i want terran to be able to play mech at a proper level against protoss aswell. (In my opinion mech is good vs protoss but it scales out favoring the protoss the longer it goes) The reason I want this is because if there is 2 ways for me as a protoss to play terran AND zerg just as much as they already have/ could get 2 ways to beat protoss and terran/zerg(depending on who your playing as) I believe that something like this would make the game more entertaining since you'd know almost before hand what the terran/protoss would do which I pretty much can as a toss vs terran since their macro is MMM oriented while zerg have atleast 2 choices vs T and P. It would be more entertaining to watch,play and it would raise the skillbar just slightly because you'd have to read the T/P better. HotS MIGHT give protoss a viable SG play vs zerg, I havent played in the beta yet but it looks a little promising.
Sorry if this is a bit messy but I wanted to play ^^
Listen to this man, spot on imo. As a mapmaker I especially want to say the analysis about maps is very accurate.
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I just want to say that when buffing warpgate units, at the same time warpgate should be weakened itself. It's just ridiculous that warpgates are in EVERY way superior to normal gateways, so it's like a complete no brainer to upgrade them and then warp everything everywhere, completely negating rush/reinforcement distance, one of the biggest defender's advantages. Instead warpgates should be significantly worse in build time than gateways and maybe later tech, so you actually make a decision, how many gateways do you want to have for normal production and how many warpgates do you want to have for instant reinforcement/harrass/harrass defense.
Lastly let me emphasize again. The design and strength of gateway units and warpgates is probably the single most limiting factor for maps, even bigger than the lack of highground advantage...
On October 12 2012 07:07 Vegro wrote: I'd like to adress two things:
Maps/3 base: Am I really the only one who thinks that the "old" way was kinda nice? Every race (exept maybe zerg) played one base builts and slowly got more and more econ. Today everythings starts with two bases - hell terran has 3cc builts!?
On October 13 2012 20:14 Ragoo wrote: Listen to this man, spot on imo. As a mapmaker I especially want to say the analysis about maps is very accurate.
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I just want to say that when buffing warpgate units, at the same time warpgate should be weakened itself. It's just ridiculous that warpgates are in EVERY way superior to normal gateways, so it's like a complete no brainer to upgrade them and then warp everything everywhere, completely negating rush/reinforcement distance, one of the biggest defender's advantages. Instead warpgates should be significantly worse in build time than gateways and maybe later tech, so you actually make a decision, how many gateways do you want to have for normal production and how many warpgates do you want to have for instant reinforcement/harrass/harrass defense.
Lastly let me emphasize again. The design and strength of gateway units and warpgates is probably the single most limiting factor for maps, even bigger than the lack of highground advantage...
I agree completely and as I posted elsewhere there a few cool ways to do this:
1. Buff gate units and have warped in units warp with only 75% shields. (number is just an example, could be 50% or what ever will be balanced)
2. Buff gate units and have Warp in units warp with a Warp Sickness debuff that lowers their stats abit (maybe to how they currently are) for 60 seconds. (at the end of which their stats return to normal.)
3. Make warp gates have longer cool downs than gateways.
I would argue the baneling also has this flaw in Z. For example, If T has enough units to clean up every baneling, then zerg does basically no damage. If Z has 2 banelings left over after running in, T will lose tons of stuff despite cleaning up everything except for 2 banelings. This would not occur if the 2 units left over were roaches or anything else similar in cost.
Also in some situations, if Z can land one fungal, he will come out way ahead, but if the opponent splits well or dodges fungals well, Z has helpless.
On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap
Can we trade stalkers for roaches then?
I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches.
I'll make you a deal--you can build roaches with blink if each roach costs about twice as much. Let's say 125/50. Hell, I'll even throw in an extra 2 range.
Sure. They are far superior in small numbers and scale better past the midgame. Forcefields wouldn't effectively render half my army useless either because I could shoot over them or just blink out. It's funny that people think it's a strength of zerg to have shitty units that don't cost much, when in reality that's why their armies are so garbage without infestor broodlord.
On October 12 2012 06:44 kcdc wrote:These binary battles are almost always game-deciding, and they feel profoundly unfair to both sides of the fight. Protoss players hate that they instantly lose if their HT are EMP’d or if their forcefields are a half-second too late, allowing roaches to get in range. Terran players hate that they instantly lose because they EMP’d a half-second too late or because they didn’t discover Protoss’s hidden colossus transition. And Zerg players hate that they literally can’t fight back if Protoss hits perfect forcefields during an immortal-sentry all-in. Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak.
Really great post man and I so agree. TvP (I'm Terran) is so extremely boring to play and to watch. I might feel like I'm playing a good game (macro wise etc) but then I mis-control my vikings for a split second or miss two key EMP's which turns into my army melting away and instantly lose. Then I might play a second game where I'm not doing as well in terms of macro and mechanics but I manage to get a few lucky snipes on one or two collossus or manage to EMP the HT's while the Protoss is not watching his army and INSATNTLY win. So frustrating really.
This is the least rewarding matchup there is, ever in any RTS I've ever played.
TvZ has similar synergies and problems, TvT is actually the only matchup I enjoy playing. Sad really.
Thanks all. It's really a shame that Blizz seems unwilling to even consider changing the balance of strength between zealots/stalkers, forcefields and splash damage. More map variety would make all MU's more interesting for the first 15 minutes. And less lopsided fights would be great for the game.
There really isn't a problem with gateway units early on.. In small numbers zealots/stalkers do absolutely fine against MM and by the time bigger numbers and additional upgrades kick in additional tech is available. In PvZ the balance is fine already as well, stalkers are really good already in that matchup and the reason so many strong 2 base all-ins exist in that matchup.
If stalker/zealot get's a buff relative to MM or roach/ling early on then simple mass gate attacks (4 gate of 1 base or 7 gate of 2 base) will simply get too strong in those matchups. They are already quite strong now.
The principal problem that protoss is too much defend with sentries till they move out with a deathball is already being dealt with by the mothership core a bit. Relying on purify for defense you won't need as many sentries (nor will they be good if the threat of mech or locust swarms etc is around), which in turn will allow for vastly more different maps. Also if protoss airplay actually becomes good and useful in all matchups the variety of openings will increase as maps will always differ in being air friendly or ground friendly etc. The only problem remaining for low level players perhaps is the hit/miss nature of forcefield and the frustation of playing against it. The new HOTS tactics should however prevent mass FF play from being used much as it's pretty bad against mech and not really of use against vipers.
Overall I think this gateway 'problem' is not really there and changing the balance of strength of the early units is a terrible thing to do after it took so much time to get it settled correctly. Early game balance is crucial and should be maintained, lategame balance is influenced by many more factors and can be tweaked later. The first 15 minutes are already improved by the oppurtunity to actually go stargate, and not having to rely on sentries as much plus the ability to actually attack without going all-in.
The key in TvP i've notice is reading infomation correctly. On the ladder I see a lot of 1 base 3 gate robo immortal busts. Theres also quick collosus builds and quick HT builds. The point I am trying to make is that Terran players need to burn scans to see what is going on. If you see collassus coming out you gotta make vikings, and honestly its ok to have 4 vikings coming at a time. If you see HT ghosts should be made to deal with that. Actually ghosts are great vs Toss in general.
I would add the suggestion, like a similar change to pylons, remove blink from low ground to high ground and thus limiting the various blink all-ins we have been seeing in WoL and the even more powerful all-ins in HotS. Thoughts?
please don't use terrible inaccurate examplse to prove your point. and while i agree with the point it's well known; the hard part isn't fixing the problem, or identifying it, the hard part is getting blizzard to listen.
What if they did something to the power matrix? If it worked similarly to how creep spreading does (nexus grants the initial power grid, pylons extend that). With a simple change like that you would get rid of all the common protoss cheese with one beautiful solution. No cannon rushing, no proxy gates, no proxy stargates, no proxy pylons to support WG rushing, etc.
That could be solid beginning point of balancing the gateway units. You could go anywhere with it. Since cannons couldn't be proxied, they could get unlocked from a Gateway, changing the timings quite a bit already. And since it's easier to protect nexi with perfect power coverage for cannons, one could redesign stalkers to be more reaper -like harassing units forcing toss to go air vs air for map control. Who knows.
It might be a shit idea, but I don't see why right this moment. The way I see it is that pushing WG to be a TC upgrade makes it impossible to do anything but gate forge expos. Protoss units can't really be linearly produced while expanding as their cost is so high. WG allows toss to backload the production cycle to kick in after the nexus investment is done, and to prolong unit production in favor for faster upgrades and tech.
On October 12 2012 07:14 FeeLdAfuRy wrote: This is such a great post and I agree with everything you said.
The only thing that I would add is that buffing Protoss tier 1 would also require Warp Gate to be made a higher level tech (possibly tier 3) so as to limit 4/6gate type strategies from becoming unbeatably strong.
Great idea. I think this really seals the deal. This change with the buffed T1 units would be awesome in my opinion. Also with getting rid of colossus.
In HOTS right now, protoss can play like they have been playing against zerg (robo/twighlight into third) and put on more pressure. In WOL it was balanced without protoss being able to pressure while taking a third now with recall, they can force zerg to make units, kill a BUNCH of stuff until they have no more sentry energy, then recall.
Its just ridiculous.
I'm really tired of deflecting the several harass options protoss has to barely make it to the late game to not even have an edge in that area of the game. Zerg has no risk-free harass options. Furthermore, while I understand apm isn't everything, it doesnt feel normal to me that to win, different race need vastly different apm at the mid masters level. Currently, terran>zerg>>protoss is the apm scale, with protoss vastly behind.
I wish Blizzard would make radical changes to the current state of the game because the protoss design is terrible and infuriating. I'm not a pro but still I won't become a pro, I want to have fun at my current level. Right now, on the HOTS ladder, I play random (mid masters Z in hots) and my W/L ratio with protoss is better than Zerg. I don't think you guys realize how embarrassing this is considering the thousand of zerg games I have player vs the ~100 protoss games I have under my belt. I really do get the whole "miss you FF and its over" kind of thing but with recall and FF being an easy to use spell I can't see protoss repeatedly messing up. I just feel disgusted by the fact I understand PvT better than I have ever understood ZvP.
I don't think zealots need a buff, just stalker damage. Stalkers are so low in damage, which causes the gateway weakness. I suggested some changes that would basically fix many of kcdc's problems with protoss (I believe).
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fVDzC.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gWFum.png)
) but i still kinda maintain that soft spot i have for protoss.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4rQJj.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fWxBM.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yenH9.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/8/8b/Infestor.png/200px-Infestor.png)
