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On October 18 2012 18:40 jworld wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2012 18:25 Velr wrote:On October 18 2012 18:04 jworld wrote:
I don’t see forcefields as game breaking as you make out. Terran gets to repair bunkers, stim then dropships and ultimately ghosts so forcefields in that matchup are fine as they progressively lose their power as the games go on which is a good thing in my opinion. Give Zerg something to help them against forcefields in mid game by giving them something in lair tech because at the moment hydras are useless other than for all ins.
The EMP/feedback dynamic is favoured for protoss in my opinion and blanket EMPing shouldn’t happen unless the protoss is the weaker player. However I do agree that it is unforgiving and a poor engagement will decide the game. This isn’t because of the EMP though more the insane dps of stimmed bio.
I agree with removing fungal though as it ruins late game in all matchups. Mass fungals and mass infested terrans make for a boring late game and when coupled with broodlords are too powerful.
In my opinion Roaches and Marauders are what hurts sc2 unit interactions and makes games uninteresting and should be removed. The units are boring and too strong for their cost, early availability and ease of use.
You don't get it. Forcefields "force" terrible maps because on interesting Maps with many chokes and stuff they become totally imbalanced. Yes, for Protoss it feels awesome to have set nice Forcefields (so do Fungals for Zerg or an EMP carpet for Terran). Yes, atm Protoss needs them (like Z needs Fungal and Terran needs EMP), but that could/should be fixed to make the game better as a whole. The mechanic itself (for all these) aren't even bad, but they should be nowhere near as dominating as they are now. Especially Forcefield could be pretty cool if it would be something that you can only use very sparsely, it should not be the thing that everything Protoss early -> mid revolves around. I think its an interesting spell that takes skill to use. Zerg just needs the tools to deal with it. You can still have chokes in maps if the other races have tools to deal with the forcefields. Maybe Zerg should get a move to abduct their own units to pull them back to their side of the forcefields or something. I think the problem is one races susceptibility to the spell.
No?
If any race is getting fucked by it, it's Protoss itself and the whole design of the race.
Abduct their own Units? Well.. Interesting.. Please show me how you implement that in the first 5-6 minutes of the game. Forcefields totally shot down early agression on maps with small chokes, which is bad and thats more than enough of a reason to get rid of it or alter it significantly.
It also does not really allow for maps with long "small" corridors.
...
It also gets useless later in the game when massive Untis or Airunits dominate... So the design makes itself obsolet during the game... It's just a bad spell for the game.
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I like your writeup! I agree on FF and Mothership, but Blizzard will never change FF I think!
Mothership as hero unit is so lame and boring to watch! The whole vortex spell is so game deciding ...
Maybe we can try to convince Blizzard about this
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Another incredibly insightful post, I swear I'm seeing more of these recently.
The changes you wrote look great for SC2, I personally think P is the worst designed race although I do find PvP incredibly exciting as there is none of the whole NR 10/FE business. (TvZ is a brilliant match up)
Most of all I wish Blizzard would just listen! Why haven't they, after two years, added clan support, normal chat channels and everything else from Bnet 1.0? It just makes no sense.
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Very good post, i support everything gretorp suggests.
Guys you have to remember there is no way to make a perfect game, even if you make a big reform on sc2 there will be some not so good things, but what is important to move in the right direction.
And lets be honest, everyone and there dog know's that forcefield and warpgate mecanic are big issue's with sc2, gretorp makes a thoughtfull reasonable suggestion that would obviously not make sc2 perfect but it would move the game into the proper direction i think.
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Great post. The ultimate TL:DR for PvZ, PvT, ZvT and to an extent ZvZ is that it's like 100 question quiz of 99 1-point questions followed up by a 100 point question.
Right now, with Diablo getting resurge and HoTS having a beta, I imagine they might be using their resources to the fullest.
But my humble opinion is that there should ALWAYS be something being tested on PTR, even if very few people go to play it (hell, that makes it less of a problem since it's not as resource heavy). If you think that the game is perfect, and not even an intern has any ideas - fucking ask your UPS guy. And if he answers "it needs delivery vans", you add motherfucking delivery vans, and see what happens.
And before it comes to this: lower burst damage; less clumping up settings, BW carriers, hellions with spider mines - there'd be months of stuff to be tested even if just to say "hey - we tried!".
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Awesome post. I have always argued that forcefield is a bad mechanic and that it should be removed/changed drastically. Alas, it seems like Blizzard is not willing to put in the effort needed to make this game as good as possible.
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I actually had a thought off of the top of my mind. Perhaps forcefields should create a field that you take damage through if you move through it? Make it impossible to cast on top of units to remove it's function as an assault spell. It would make defense against early aggression conceivable in a way that I don't think a slow spell would as a slowing spell wouldn't do much against static defenses anyway. And static defenses is what makes P survive against Z early/early mid game with the FFE.
Then it would be a choice by opposing players if they want to move through the forcefields and take some damage or hold off until they disappear again. Perhaps it could be added to a slow spell, bonus damage could be added or removed and duration/damage would be tweakable.
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No more hero unit please. The reason for hero unit is because having more than one would be too good. And having none (currently in WoL) the game wouldn't be balance. Then is the game balance with the hero unit (mothership pvz)? No, it is simply a stupid fix to game design issue. If you have to have that only one unit to balance the game, then clearly something is wrong.
Current PvZ super late game is can Protoss get in a good position and get that vortex off, if not, fall back try again. P.S. I play Terran. Take my comment with a giant salt block, but this is what I see in pro PvZ.
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What about adding more early game counters to sentries? Such as.... ground siege units?
TvP: Tanks ARE good counters to sentries, but due to the problem with chargelots and immortals, tanks only seem to work in 1base/2base play. If you can make tanks slightly more useful TvP (due to battle hellions?) wouldnt the importance of sentries be lower?
TvZ: Swarm host? Wont swarm host be a pretty good counter to sentries?
Isnt swarm host and buffed tanks TvP a step in the right direction?
On a different note, I agree P needs the biggest overhaul. Hero units doesnt really like that good of an idea. Maybe if you nerfed them and gave all races one each so that they could be balanced around it and that the hero unit would add that little extra strength to your army? Right now, Mothership is anything but a little extra strength.
Also I think P could really use a different defensive mechanic other than FFs early game. Mothership core might or might not fill that role, we'll see. But I dont like how invinible Ps are at ramps due to FFs, but at the same time how non-existant their defenders advantage is once FFs are taken out of the picture. The lastis mostly a PvP issue since blink negates FFs, Colo negates FF, warpin makes attacking easier. All three things clearly being a parge part in why PvP looks as it does, defending is just too god damn hard. Another defensive mechanic which would allow games to go on longer is needed. FFs early game is either a "lolol I have 1/3 your army and you still cant kill me" or its complete trash once negated.
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I completely agree on everything in this post. I think current changes in HOTS dont adress any of the problems we are having .. hell I even think they are embracing the problems with protoss (oracle)
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On October 18 2012 11:44 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2012 09:32 Glon wrote:
I think that, more than anything, we should be trying to get blizzard to simply LISTEN more than just propose changes. You're skipping a step -- we can tell blizzard EXACTLY how to balance the game, and they likely wouldn't do shit.
Maybe some kind of weekly "meetings" with blizzard balancers and select people in the community? Pros/casters preferably they are listening, and any sweeping changes to WOL units will be done further into the beta.
"take what i say with a grain of salt, make your own decisions and form your own opinions"
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On October 18 2012 18:04 jworld wrote:
Give Zerg something to help them against forcefields in mid game by giving them something in lair tech because at the moment hydras are useless other than for all ins.
I agree with your sentiment that zerg should have some counter play to force fields other than the gimmicky burrow movement roach. I see almost everyone calling for a nerf to force-field but what about making some super strong answer for zerg. We need to consider fighting OP with OP.
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On October 18 2012 19:26 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2012 18:40 jworld wrote:On October 18 2012 18:25 Velr wrote:On October 18 2012 18:04 jworld wrote:
I don’t see forcefields as game breaking as you make out. Terran gets to repair bunkers, stim then dropships and ultimately ghosts so forcefields in that matchup are fine as they progressively lose their power as the games go on which is a good thing in my opinion. Give Zerg something to help them against forcefields in mid game by giving them something in lair tech because at the moment hydras are useless other than for all ins.
The EMP/feedback dynamic is favoured for protoss in my opinion and blanket EMPing shouldn’t happen unless the protoss is the weaker player. However I do agree that it is unforgiving and a poor engagement will decide the game. This isn’t because of the EMP though more the insane dps of stimmed bio.
I agree with removing fungal though as it ruins late game in all matchups. Mass fungals and mass infested terrans make for a boring late game and when coupled with broodlords are too powerful.
In my opinion Roaches and Marauders are what hurts sc2 unit interactions and makes games uninteresting and should be removed. The units are boring and too strong for their cost, early availability and ease of use.
You don't get it. Forcefields "force" terrible maps because on interesting Maps with many chokes and stuff they become totally imbalanced. Yes, for Protoss it feels awesome to have set nice Forcefields (so do Fungals for Zerg or an EMP carpet for Terran). Yes, atm Protoss needs them (like Z needs Fungal and Terran needs EMP), but that could/should be fixed to make the game better as a whole. The mechanic itself (for all these) aren't even bad, but they should be nowhere near as dominating as they are now. Especially Forcefield could be pretty cool if it would be something that you can only use very sparsely, it should not be the thing that everything Protoss early -> mid revolves around. I think its an interesting spell that takes skill to use. Zerg just needs the tools to deal with it. You can still have chokes in maps if the other races have tools to deal with the forcefields. Maybe Zerg should get a move to abduct their own units to pull them back to their side of the forcefields or something. I think the problem is one races susceptibility to the spell. No? If any race is getting fucked by it, it's Protoss itself and the whole design of the race. Abduct their own Units? Well.. Interesting.. Please show me how you implement that in the first 5-6 minutes of the game. Forcefields totally shot down early agression on maps with small chokes, which is bad and thats more than enough of a reason to get rid of it or alter it significantly. It also does not really allow for maps with long "small" corridors. ... It also gets useless later in the game when massive Untis or Airunits dominate... So the design makes itself obsolet during the game... It's just a bad spell for the game.
It should be obselete during lategame as its a early game low tech unit. It gives protoss potent attack timings and allows them to defend if they choose to expand and play management style. Also protoss dont attack during the first 5 mins they ffe so i dont get your point with that
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When I'm thinking about the removal of the ForceField und buffing Gate-Units there is an idea in my mind: What about giving the sentry an ability compared with a moving shield generator. Healing Shields of Gateway Units. Would be usefull whole Game long.
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On October 18 2012 20:46 ChrisCologne wrote:
What about giving the sentry an ability compared with a moving shield generator. Healing Shields of Gateway Units. Would be usefull whole Game long.
That's an awesome idea, similar to the obsidian statue from wc3 maybe increased shield reg instead of healing or something along those lines http://classic.battle.net/war3/undead/units/obsidianstatue.shtml
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My esteem for Gretorp has just sho through the roof. These suggestions would make the game so incredible.
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I definitely agree with Gretorp, that some of the spells are just too strong and come into play too early. Even though I don't really like the "In SC:BW..." arguments, I'm still gonna do it myself, because let's face it, SC:BW was a much better designed RTS.
In SC:BW, the only spells that "removed micro" were Arbiter "Stasis Field" and Queen "Ensnare" (check Liquipedia for more info). Both were much later in the tech tree (tier 2.5 - 3), while as in SC2, sentries are tier1.5 and infestors tier2. You also needed to research both spells so it pushed back their effect even further into the late game. Both had their usages, but they weren't necessarily the reason you got the units in the first place. Your play wasn't totally revolving around those spells, as is in the case of forcefields and fungals, and the spell effects weren't as powerful (e.g. Esnare only slowed units and their rate of fire, spells were still usable, unlike with fungal). Gameplay was more focused on macro, army positioning and unit micro, not "spell micro". This let the players play their game, instead of hoping the opponent messed up his.
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On October 18 2012 09:32 Glon wrote:
I think that, more than anything, we should be trying to get blizzard to simply LISTEN more than just propose changes. You're skipping a step -- we can tell blizzard EXACTLY how to balance the game, and they likely wouldn't do shit.
Maybe some kind of weekly "meetings" with blizzard balancers and select people in the community? Pros/casters preferably
They have already done these "meetings" while ago before the beta was released WhiteRa posted a picture with David Kim and some other protosses and the picture text was like "Discussing problems with protoss with David Kim" or something like that.
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I agree we need some big changes!
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Instead of having the sentry be it's own unit, make it a 1 supply augmenting-unit, kind of an upgrade for the stalker, that requires a stalker to attach itself to. So there's a mini sentry, maybe 1/3 of the size, floating around the stalkers head. It will keep range 5 attack, but always float within 1 range of the stalkers head, equalizing their firing range. This also gives the stalker gaurdian shield and hallucination abilities, but remove force fields. The sentry just auto fires so you only have to micro the stalker. In order to augment your stalker it requires warpgate tech. While the stalker's in pylon range it can use its "sentry augment" ability and warp in the sentry above it's head which also uses one gateway warpin. Once warped in they are one unit (die together).
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EPT
