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I love the idea of the Ghost planting mines and not having EMP while the Raven has then. I guess, my suggestion would be to give the Raven the "missile spell" of the Warhound (or something to that effect with splash) to give it an attack spell at least should shields or mana not be the purpose of using it. I just found it odd that you have a ship on the front lines without a real means to defend itself, at least just once before it goes down.
I never really liked Sentries and Motherships when I play Protoss. I only use Guardian Shield if I have sentries and never really aimed for building a mothership. I found it silly that a mothership had such weak attacks with a "spell decider". It just didn't make sense to me to use it.
When I started to play WoL, I always found it odd that it seemed like the Stalker was weak compared to its counterparts (unless you had good blink micro). But with a sentry backup, it would at least increase its viability and survivability in straight up engagements. So I figured I'd just take it as it is. I never really thought that maybe the Sentry could be affecting the balancing of the whole gateway set of units because of its skillset. It did give a different point of view altogether. I remember in the beginning, the blame was actually pointed at the warp function against the gateway. No one stuck to gateway as there was no reason to stick to gateways. I think this could also be explored prior to HoTS.
I think Sase's post about Zerg having too great of a vision because of creep had some merits. Back in BW, you actually had to pay for creep colony's and actually build them. Now they are almost free and can widely spread. I think is what actually makes it difficult in the late game to "engage strategically" for practically everyone assuming the map has little to no airspace outside land masses. There may really need to be a cost to use the creep tumors, maybe by giving the previous tumor "mana" so it needs to charge up first before it spreads the next one? I'm not sure how that plays out but at least it doesn't greatly prevent the creep spread by outright changing the creep tumor concept for SC2.
As for Terran, I think my biggest gripe is with the Siege Tank. I really don't understand why it is so weak in siege mode. Maybe if the buff affects too much of the balance against other races then an increase of its supply cost would offset that. I just feel that tank lines are too easily/quickly busted and the weight of the balance suddenly shifts to the other player. Tank mode is okay but the siege capabilities don't really do much other than range. Maybe increase atk when in siege but cut down on the range a bit?
Watching replays of the HoTS nowadays is a bit more enjoyable as there is more variety at least to some extent compared to before but the air battles seem a bit too weird. The Tempest either needs splash damage or more dmg (just one or the other and not both). If it does get the range upgrade, I hope you could switch between the two features. Say 5 with long range while 3 with short range but splash (like an autocast activate ability that you can choose to enable/disable thus reactivating the disable stats).
Widow Mines I still find to be wierd. I don't really think they should be hitting cloaked units
Just a few thoughts of mine and open to discussion.
Cheers!
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On October 19 2012 22:15 17Sphynx17 wrote:
I love the idea of the Ghost planting mines and not having EMP while the Raven has then.
I still really don't see how giving ghosts mines would be a good idea. Mines were envisioned to be support for mech primarily (and of course also could be used in other styles). So now if you want to use them in that role, you first have to tech to ghosts before you can use them to help your mech?
Also important, what kind of mechanic does the ghost have for planting mines? Is it like vultures had? So you get fixed number of mines per ghost, in other words you have to suicide ghosts to be able to make a minefield? Which is of course completely unrealistic when playing mech. (If it was on for example hellions you could do that, then again hellion would be kinda OP with widow mines probably).
Or do you still have to pay for the mines? I see that then as the best solution, but thats probably because it is closest to the current situation. What is then the advantage compared to letting them come from the factory?
Final option would be that you need energy to place them. Which has as result that when playing mech you then need to have a bunch of ghosts somewhere in the back, with as only goal to get energy so they can place mines again. Which would imo be bad design.
I just feel that tank lines are too easily/quickly busted and the weight of the balance suddenly shifts to the other player. Tank mode is okay but the siege capabilities don't really do much other than range. Maybe increase atk when in siege but cut down on the range a bit?
Lately I am trying a bit mech against toss, which kinda works mainly because their preferred mode of attack is the frontal assault a-move. When they would realise they got way superior mobility you would need tank lines instead of one blob of siege tanks. That works reasonable against other terrans (which is immediatly the main worry i have about buffing siege tanks, TvT), but if I would start making siege lines against toss they would simply walk right through them. So yeah I agree with you here.
If it does get the range upgrade, I hope you could switch between the two features. Say 5 with long range while 3 with short range but splash (like an autocast activate ability that you can choose to enable/disable thus reactivating the disable stats).
I don't expect the range upgrade to ever be added again. It is pretty much impossible to balance a unit that can shoot so far.
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On October 19 2012 22:31 Sissors wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 19 2012 22:15 17Sphynx17 wrote:
I love the idea of the Ghost planting mines and not having EMP while the Raven has then.
I still really don't see how giving ghosts mines would be a good idea. Mines were envisioned to be support for mech primarily (and of course also could be used in other styles). So now if you want to use them in that role, you first have to tech to ghosts before you can use them to help your mech? Also important, what kind of mechanic does the ghost have for planting mines? Is it like vultures had? So you get fixed number of mines per ghost, in other words you have to suicide ghosts to be able to make a minefield? Which is of course completely unrealistic when playing mech. (If it was on for example hellions you could do that, then again hellion would be kinda OP with widow mines probably). Or do you still have to pay for the mines? I see that then as the best solution, but thats probably because it is closest to the current situation. What is then the advantage compared to letting them come from the factory? Final option would be that you need energy to place them. Which has as result that when playing mech you then need to have a bunch of ghosts somewhere in the back, with as only goal to get energy so they can place mines again. Which would imo be bad design.
Well, that is the idea I have at the moment. The idea also extends to buff/alter the tanks so that it doesn't need as much assistance early on. This is the current mindset I have regarding this which is why I proposed increase siege mode damage but reducing range maybe. Or keeping the range of the tank with increased damage but the tank costs an additional supply at least so you don't have too many of them.
As to how the mines would work, I really believe a cooldown or mana cost mechanism would be ideal. I don't think a limited number of uses for a certain skill would be the proper approach. With the approach of having a cooldown or mana consumption set, at least that prevents your ghosts from being a "tanya" from Red Alert. Also, the mines could theoretically have a duration before they become duds. If you place the mines in the fog of war you also gain vision of the area which can trigger the mine to explode. So this prevents Terran from obtaining or managing to envelop majority of the map with mines as they have an active time duration only, say 180 seconds to 240 seconds (something divisible by 3 at least). This method makes one ghost have 3 active mines max, and once you approach to the point of having a fourth active mine, the first one becomes a dud. Your ghost ends up remaining to be useful althroughout, the mines still help mech or become spotters even with their limited range.
[spoiler] + Show Spoiler +If it does get the range upgrade, I hope you could switch between the two features. Say 5 with long range while 3 with short range but splash (like an autocast activate ability that you can choose to enable/disable thus reactivating the disable stats). I don't expect the range upgrade to ever be added again. It is pretty much impossible to balance a unit that can shoot so far.
Well, I'm not expecting the old range cause that was just plain silly. Say a default tempest (mid tier) could have a range of 6. Default however to it, is that it has splash damage at least to its current attack instead of just single target. Once you get fleet beacon, you can research to double the range to 12 (actively or through autocast) with a small damage buff to structures/massive but attack speed is reduced to it and splash is removed when the skill is active. However, once you disable it, the tempest itself reverts back to 6 range with splash without the atk bonus of it when it is in "siege mode". Also, in "siege mode", they move like overlords without speed (kind of like the capital ship wars map in the custom games section - forgot the name)
This is my take on it at least that way, the range is not abused to harass the mineral line. Given a slower rate of fire, it prevents it from being to op when in siege mode at the same time, the AI may end up attacking 1 unit with 3 or 4 tempest when you just leave them to attack by themselves (no micro basically). But the option to revert to 6 range prevents them from being sitting ducks. The splash at least gives them a fighting chance but at the same time means magic boxing is effective against them. So the enemy at least needs to micro a bit and not just a move on your tempest to defend or he risks losing his air defense.
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On October 19 2012 09:33 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 08:23 Mo0Rauder wrote:
*Opinion* on how to fix HoTS/Toss:
1) Carrier; bring back the same leash micro with interceptors as was in BW.. This in itself will solve some issues regarding people who complain about the boring build-up to colossus fights and their quick outcome, as there would be more people playing stargate builds. Which have more mid-game flavor than the buildup and 3 basing that can occur in the colossus wars. (imo colossus is cool anyway but that's just me and I can understand why some people hate the unit.)
2) Forcefield; Probably the most broken/annoying thing about playing/facing toss for a million reasons discussed in this thread. IMO queens should be able to knock down a FF, this would allow zergs to better deal with the immortal timing push that is probably the silliest thing in the game currently. This would also add an incentive for micro regarding sniping/protecting/knocking down ff's with queens, and perhaps would add an interesting dynamic for a mass queenstyle/roach defensive style vs the immortal sentry builds since queens would also be good vs stargate style.
3) Paid Name Changes; I think everyone agrees with this, anyone who doesn't feel free to voice your opinion on the matter and be slaughtered by 1000 flamers.
The immortal FF push is done so frequently because the alternative is to play a super hard ultra turtle macro game vs. the zerg super army and either get a perfect vortex or auto-die. Protoss needs a stronger ability to pressure without going all-in, while not strengthening the all-ins, and a better ability to deal with the BL/infestor death push. Yes the push is very strong and hard to stop, but if you take that away without fixing toss elsewhere to give them strong pressure, you've actually just guaranteed that every ZvP is a zerg rush to broods with super economy and Protoss getting rolled before they can actually deal with that composition.
I agree that the Immo sentry timing push is done to get away from the "late game dynamics" of Zerg. However I feel you are overlooking the carrier buff that I suggested involving interceptor leash micro. You would now have another VERY POWERFUL unit in the late game, along with that buff and the MSC recall (MSC and Carriers have the same speed so using recall repositioning tactics when pushing/defending wouldn't even require a brian at the lowest levels of play). I'm also not sure if you have played Zerg when facing the Immo/sentry push but stopping that push when executed properly is equally challenging as facing the full scale Zerg army when you (as toss) have to make perfect ff's archon toilets/storms/mothership micro to avoid parasite, ect. Which is why I suggested that queens should be knocking down FF's. I feel these 2 changes would help a lot with the situations that P/Z face in their matchup.
*Opinion*
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Very nice, Gretorp. This writeup is the closest thing I've found to my own opinion on some of the most foundational issues in SC2. I think a lot of other things would work themselves out (or at least get better) once these were fixed or removed.
It only took me about 3-4 months of playing P to realize that forcefields were the reason that none of my gateway units mathed to anything close to efficient against other T1. Zealots absolutely need forcefields to be anything other than an "imminent threat" of damage instead of actual damage, and stalkers are such weak damage for the cost because it's assumed that you're not fighting their whole army at once. My first idea was also a snare/slow patch instead, but I'm not sure that's better enough. Maybe it would be... the entire opposing army could get in range to contribute to a fight, but would be delayed. Zealots could catch up and actually do some damage. It's still modifying the battlefield, but I guess it's just making choices harder for the opponent, and not removing choices completely.
Once I started seeing vortex use in tournaments, it was the same thing.
Battlefield/terrain manipulation is required for Protoss because their army isn't as efficient or cost effective as Zerg or Terran without it. I agree that battlefield manipulation removes opportunities to micro, and I think even worse than that is it reduces the game to singular instants that determine who wins. It's not about decision making, or mechanics (in the macro sense), if you flub a FF or Vortex you probably lose and if you get a great one you probably win. That's not fun to watch, imo, and not fun to play. I've almost exclusively played 2v2s because FFs are more of a liability there than a help, and I usually have my partner's lings or marines to work with instead, which feels a lot better. I don't want my games to come down to a split second of FF use to determine whether I win or lose.
Primarily, I'd love to see FF and Vortex go away entirely and see what balance measures would be needed to bring things back in line. I think it would offer a lot more design space in a lot of the aspects of the game. One issue would be warpgate, though. Warpgate didn't strike me as part of the problem early on in terms of gateway unit power, but I can see how if there were no forcefields, and therefore stronger gateway units, then warp ins might become a problem. I think the lack of high-ground warpins coming in HotS is probably enough of a nerf to start with and balance can happen from there. As long as you aren't letting Protoss hide a pylon IN your base, stronger gateway units shouldn't be too strong in the early game. Of course Warp Prisms would be another story...
Second, on your other topic of all-or-nothing spells, I'd love to see them toned down or something. I don't enjoy watching the feedback/emp/colossus/viking merry go round in PvT, but at least there's more going on than just a single spell to determine the outcome. I understand why terran and zerg don't like Storms... marines and lings melt pretty fast. But, they are also some of the fastest ground units in the game and they can move out of storms without taking lethal damage, ASSUMING that there are no forcefields. EMP and fungal are very different... you instantaneously know you're taking all of the damage.
Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn't get too wordy. Just another +1 here, this is exactly how I'd like to see things change, at least in a beta setting or a custom map.
-- Bah, and one more thing... this isn't about winrates, it's about balance. Obviously they've tweaked things to arrive at roughly 50/50 winrates (most of the time), but it's the how of those wins that is problematic. 6 months ago people were pointing out that Terrans were too strong early game based on their early time win rate, but they were also pointing out that Terrans had weak lategame and were thus just doing early all-ins as their best chance to win. Balancing "the best early game all-ins" against "the best 2-base timing attacks" against "the best late game max army" and just letting winrates even out by who controls which of those things is most relevant isn't actually balance. All 3 races should have access to the same features: early game pressure, mid-game multi-prong harass, and strong late-game armies. And other features I'm sure. 
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I like your thoughts Gretorp. But I do think there is another problem with toss that you are forgetting. That is warpgate. When protoss attacks it is almost an all-in bacause either you win or you lose all your units and are way behind. This really needs to be reworked.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 20 2012 03:40 Akilleus wrote:
I like your thoughts Gretorp. But I do think there is another problem with toss that you are forgetting. That is warpgate. When protoss attacks it is almost an all-in bacause either you win or you lose all your units and are way behind. This really needs to be reworked.
That's what recall is for and why is any attack all in?
Just retreat. Watch the later games in Proleague last season for SC2 and watch how loads of protoss players managed to attack and then retreat.
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Great post! Now we just need blizzard to actually read it and consider implementing some of it.
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Srs? no destiny spotlight?
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On October 20 2012 04:10 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 03:40 Akilleus wrote:
I like your thoughts Gretorp. But I do think there is another problem with toss that you are forgetting. That is warpgate. When protoss attacks it is almost an all-in bacause either you win or you lose all your units and are way behind. This really needs to be reworked. That's what recall is for and why is any attack all in? Just retreat. Watch the later games in Proleague last season for SC2 and watch how loads of protoss players managed to attack and then retreat.
As protoss you can't lose any gas units without trading really well or you fall behind and can be punished any number of ways. It's also really hard to retreat against the typical compositions you face: marauders and fungal growth. (Also the main units of terran and zerg are faster than all protoss units -- stim bio and ling/roach.)
So by default it is difficult to retreat successfully after engaging, especially if it's an attack on their side of the map.
That doesn't mean it's impossible though, and as the metagame settles and engagement techniques develop, players are figuring out how to do it.
The overall incentives though are for protoss to either all-in or a build a deathball. This isn't really related to warpgate.
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Nerf gaurdian shield, remove FF, and remove mothership? Your talking about removing the only way protoss can survive, and then also removing they only way they can kill zerg late game? Why not just remove protoss altogether, since they will be useless if these changes are implemented.
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EMP is already enough nerfed, but I agree about nerfing infestor (and buff other midgame) and mothership should stay but vortex less strong.
They need to nerf fungal, colossus, movespeed difference in general.
By the way i'm zerg
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I just want to say that I agree with this post wholeheartedly. However, I fear they will not be willing to change the design so drastically, and moreover that many (if not most) Protoss pros will be strongly against the sentry rework. In a way, can't really blame them for that since they'd be the ones having to adapt the most to the changes. Remember, some Protoss pros really made their careers out of good forcefield placement.
I'd just like to add that the "forcefield issue" was raised very early on and kept being raised for many months after that. Ultimately, people kind of came to terms with the fact that Protoss is designed around it and it's not going to change so the crying toned down considerably, but I'm sure most non-Protoss players still hate FF to this day. And for the record, I'm not saying it's imbalanced, I'm saying it's "stupid" or "bad design" or whatever term you like. Similar to some of the other things the OP mentions, like infestors/ghosts.
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On October 20 2012 06:51 AmericanPsycho wrote:
Nerf gaurdian shield, remove FF, and remove mothership? Your talking about removing the only way protoss can survive, and then also removing they only way they can kill zerg late game? Why not just remove protoss altogether, since they will be useless if these changes are implemented.
You are confusing reworking with nerfing. Reworking means take a good look at all these things and be prepared to make major changes to make the game play out better (more fun to play/watch, higher skill cap, etc.). It seems a large majority of Sc2 players (pro or not) are not very happy with where the WoL metagame converged to, and it did so mostly because of these design problems (some of which were really hard to predict ahead of time, but some of which, like the FF, were not).
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On October 18 2012 17:32 Teoita wrote:
While your analysis of Protoss is nice and it does bring up good points, you forget to mention one thing: warpgate, and PvP in particular.
PvP will always be a warpgate-timing fest if you don't allow a single forcefield to fully block off a ramp to prevent a high ground warp-in, as we see on maps like TDA, and as we saw back in the day when you could warp in above the forcefield.
The reason PvP has evolved as much as it has in this last year or so is because 4gates are more easily defendible with greedier opening. If you can defend with a greedier opening, you can go into the midgame with more developed tech, so now we see stuff like blink obs and robo stargate.
Back in the day, teching to two things at once would have been either incredibly dangerous (because modern PvP openings aren't safe vs the older 4gates), or incredibly slow, so by the time the other guy has his one base blink/colossus/phoenix timing ready, you are much much more likely to die.
tl;dr: it's not just sentries that screw up Protoss, it's the combination of sentries and warpgate that do. If you change one you also have to drastically tweak the other in order to not screw PvP up completely.
edit: @Nerchio: as a pro player, do you think it would be worth it to invest time and effort into that PTR, trying to sort out the game's design, instead of pracitcing? I feel like for an actual pro, it would probably not be worth it, and they would rather practice a game that's not as good to keep posting good enough results to "get to the end of the month".
Warpgate isn't that bad. In HOTS, purify gives the defender an advantage, so you could skip forcefields entirely and play economically by having almost as many units as your opponent + purify. I suspect that when all is said and done, 1 gate FE will become standard in HOTS PvP with or without forcefield.
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On October 20 2012 07:14 budar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 06:51 AmericanPsycho wrote:
Nerf gaurdian shield, remove FF, and remove mothership? Your talking about removing the only way protoss can survive, and then also removing they only way they can kill zerg late game? Why not just remove protoss altogether, since they will be useless if these changes are implemented. You are confusing reworking with nerfing. Reworking means take a good look at all these things and be prepared to make major changes to make the game play out better (more fun to play/watch, higher skill cap, etc.). It seems a large majority of Sc2 players (pro or not) are not very happy with where the WoL metagame converged to, and it did so mostly because of these design problems (some of which were really hard to predict ahead of time, but some of which, like the FF, were not).
Reworking shouldn't totally nerf forcefield, but it has to reduce how dominating it is -- it would make it less powerful, not as strong, aka nerf it. Otherwise you can't buff zealot / stalker / immo and the change would be pointless in addressing the design problem.
It would undoubtedly change all protoss matchups a lot and probably take a while to balance, but it'd probably be close to balanced at the outset.
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Really love your post and what you are trying to do here, but there are a couple things I fundamentally disagree on:
1. Funnily enough, as powerful as casters are in SC2, they were actually ten times MORE powerful in Brood War and BW was a far more balanced and dynamic game than SC2... so I don't think making casters less powerful is the answer.
2. Also, you talk about EMP as if it is overpowered vs Protoss, but Psi-Storm is just as powerful vs Terran in that matchup if not even more powerful. Neither should actually be able to end the game as long as your opponent is any good. A top level Protoss player can easily prevent a blanket EMP just as a top level Terran can easily prevent a blanket storm.
Those things said, I do appreciate the spirit and the vast majority of the content of your post. I'm also not 100% opposed to your suggestion of removing HSM and putting EMP onto the Raven. The Ghost's Snipe and Nuke Calldown would certainly still have their places so yeah... hope you read this post even though its fifteen pages in
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On October 20 2012 06:51 AmericanPsycho wrote:
Nerf gaurdian shield, remove FF, and remove mothership? Your talking about removing the only way protoss can survive, and then also removing they only way they can kill zerg late game? Why not just remove protoss altogether, since they will be useless if these changes are implemented.
You clearly did not read (or perhaps did not understand the spirit of) this post. He's not talking about nerfing Toss, he's talking about reworking the race to become more dynamic and would nerf those specific things whilst buffing or adding new things in their place.
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so many people in this thread either not reading his whole post or just making shallow comments that have nothing to do with what he's talking about.
thank you for this post gretorp. i'm glad you didn't just try to single out one stupid specific thing like warpgates or colossus. you clearly struck on something when you said that support spells as a whole are far too dominant in this game. very well written.
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On October 19 2012 00:05 DarkSeth wrote:
This thread represents everything that is wrong with the gaming scene nowadays. The consumers demand to be heard. It is this that destroys franchises, not the corporations wish to make money. You can whine and complain as much as you want about how Blizzard turned into an arrogant game developer that does not listen, and are completely ignorant to consumer feedback (which they are not). They still have MUCH more experience in designing, creating, and balancing games than anyone in this thread with MAYBE an exception or two. So for the love of God, cut them some slack. Blizzard has delivered so many times, it is revolting to see this lack of faith. Most of the mistakes they make are because of their attempt to please the masses, which will never achieve the best possible result, because the average person is actually not that bright.
Remember all those games that blew you away? That were so innovating and fresh they made your jaw drop in awe? Odds are you never tried to influence how that game would turn out. Odds are you TRUSTED the developer to deliver a good game. Odds are it took you by surprise, because you did not have a list of what YOU wanted in the game.
Now, I am not saying that the SC2 team at Blizzard is perfect, but they are damn far from as incompetent as many of you paint them out to be. In most cases Blizzard delivers, and sitting here reading post upon post about how broken SC2 is, is fucking infuriating. Many of you are so obscenely focused on finding something negative to point out that you are no longer capable of even enjoying the game, being caught up in your crusade to change the game into your own liking. Many of you are so obscenely focused on whining that in lack of something to actually complain about you just jump on the bandwagon, completely clueless as to what you are actually advocating. That being said, there are off course a lot of good ideas, and well thought through feedback. Sadly much of it disappears in the ocean of near aggressive complaints.
I am going to have to stop here. I could go on and on about the problems with forums, and consumer feedback, so I will leave you with this. Do not forget what brought you to the game to begin with. What made you spend hours playing. What gave you all the entertainment you undoubtedly have had. Do not forget that when it all boils down, every game designer and programmer do what they do because they love games, and because they want to create something that will be appreciated and enjoyed.
Great post. I could not agree more. I posted this a little while ago:
Too often ideas are posted because they are "fun" or "cool" which does not necessarily make them any good. So many suggestions also imply a wish to do anything you want in the game. There does not seem to be a realization that the game has limits, has rules. That your chosen race has limits, has rules. That the fun in the game comes from negotiating those limits and rules. In other words, being aware of the trade-offs that are inherent in making decisions in a RTS. If you don't like those limitations, those rules: play a different race or play a different game.
Believe me, you won't be missed.
So much of feedback is little more than "I want to do X but can't" or "Why can't I do Y?" and then "Change the game/my race! Because I want to do X and Y - at the same time!" etc. Occasionally they may have a point. But only on occasion. Most of the time, it's little more than a waste of space and time. Not all feedback is good feedback. Blizzard should, rightly, ignore most feedback thrown at it for SC2.
I hope the Dev team puts their head down and do what they have to do. 9/10 times what they come up with will be better than the cabal of self appointed designers and keyboard experts on TL (and Reddit). If the game lives on, great. If not, you know what? No worries. Moaning about SC2 and E-Sports on the forums is a good definition of a First World problem.
I think a good number of people need a break from TL. That or just press the "find match" button. I am going to take my own suggestion and just play or do other things irl for a few days. Some of the rest of you may want to do the same.
GLHF chaps.
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