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On October 24 2012 08:21 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 08:15 rembrant wrote:
I guess my point is that rushing to mass bane/ling with a few ultras to knock out ff is one of my fav strats and its hella strong, if toss have no ff I would roflstomp them all day long. You're right, and that strategy is very strong in the current metagame because Protoss builds their composition to depend so heavily on forcefields. If Protoss makes sentries, stalkers and colossi, they lose really hard if their forcefields are knocked out and they have no way to keep Zerg's forces at arm's length. But if Protoss plays for a quick third base and a zealot-immortal-templar style, Protoss will rock any Zerg melee force. It really comes down to how Protoss builds their army.
Right, but how you gonna afford that or take a third while I'm flooding you with tier 1 units the moment you try to leave your natural?
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Pretty good. Very well thought out.
One could argue about exact numbers you posted, but I see that working.
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I can see fortify being used for cheese more than anything. Construct a pylon, use fortify, win. As long as its not allowed to be used on pylons, it could be ok. Would add a lot of defensive capabilities. Protoss offense would in turn be allowed to be buffed perhaps.
Also this means one sentry at home can completely shut down drops, or at least give them a time limit before they need to leave or risk losing all their units
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On October 24 2012 08:57 rembrant wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 08:21 kcdc wrote:On October 24 2012 08:15 rembrant wrote:
I guess my point is that rushing to mass bane/ling with a few ultras to knock out ff is one of my fav strats and its hella strong, if toss have no ff I would roflstomp them all day long. You're right, and that strategy is very strong in the current metagame because Protoss builds their composition to depend so heavily on forcefields. If Protoss makes sentries, stalkers and colossi, they lose really hard if their forcefields are knocked out and they have no way to keep Zerg's forces at arm's length. But if Protoss plays for a quick third base and a zealot-immortal-templar style, Protoss will rock any Zerg melee force. It really comes down to how Protoss builds their army. Right, but how you gonna afford that or take a third while I'm flooding you with tier 1 units the moment you try to leave your natural?
Immortals, upgraded zealots, cannons, intelligent building placement and fortify to make my buildings temporarily invulnerable and give them a small amount of damage against your T1 units. It would have to be tested, but personally, I think it'd be easier to take a third with fortify and 100/25 roaches than it is with forcefield and 75/25 roaches.
On October 24 2012 09:09 ButteryBoo wrote:
I can see fortify being used for cheese more than anything. Construct a pylon, use fortify, win. As long as its not allowed to be used on pylons, it could be ok. Would add a lot of defensive capabilities. Protoss offense would in turn be allowed to be buffed perhaps.
Also this means one sentry at home can completely shut down drops, or at least give them a time limit before they need to leave or risk losing all their units
It's hard to get a sentry across the map super early, and even if you did, fortify has all of 2 DPS if the opponent spreads his units which is very easy to do in the early game when the unit count is low. It'd be stronger to simply send a stalker.
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On October 24 2012 08:54 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 08:41 Salient wrote:
I agree. Would you like me to post this in the Beta forum for you? Sure that'd be great. Is it possible to keep the formatting (bolded section headings, bullets for changes, and the two links) on the bnet forums? If not, you could copy over what is possible and then provide a link at the top for the fully formatted version and TL community discussion.
Hey - love your posts on balance. However, I think you're screwing up the following:
As Gretorp observed, the protoss race is basically balanced around force-fields. Both Roaches and a bio-ball with stim trade outrageously effectively with all protoss units until colossus and high templar unless forcefield is used.
Let's agree that, if a building is not nearby, the modified sentry power does nothing. And what you're doing amounts to a <25% price hike on roaches. Bad news: Roaches already trade 1:1 or better, supply-wise, with everything in the protoss army except immortals (and blink stalkers, given sufficient micro and numbers). Likewise, stim timings should be really powerful.
So there will be points in each matchup ( ~8 minutes to ~12 in PvT depending on tech, ~9 minutes to ~15 minutes in PvZ depending on tech) where a protoss literally _cannot leave his base_. Meanwhile, protoss' defensive capabilities are improved dramatically - to the point where going up against a decent sentry count is actually not possible. Three 100 energy sentries can make a protoss wall-off an invincible death machine for a minute.
What I worry, therefore, is that by limiting protoss timing attacks and likewise making them much harder to attack, you are in fact _encouraging_ the No-Rush For 20 games.
I realize that I am not exactly proposing a better solution. But I am curious as to how your proposal does _not_ lead to, effectively, no-rush games in PvT?
-Cross (I guess what I'm getting at is that changes may need to be more wide-ranging than merely changing those 3 abilities, a rather insignificant roach change and a 5% marine change)
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Excellent write up, but I'm not sold on the specific changes. I think you would have been better served leaving the post as a detailed treatment of the anti-micro abilities and their problems.
Personally, I would love to see an attempt at a one-way forcefield.
An FF that only blocked units moving towards the sentry's position would still perform most of its needed roles (eg. keeping toss alive against 1 base pushes and roaches), but executing the more abusive tactics would become much harder. You could still use it to defensively block ramps/gaps and space armies, but the other guy would be able to retreat through it unless you managed some kind of mass sentry flank. You might still be able to buff gateway a little to compensate. \\
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Ok but...how are you going to even get to start making your third with immo/zealot vs ling/bane? What I'm meaning is you would have a super hard time even dropping a pylon out that far.
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On October 24 2012 09:20 Crosswind wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 08:54 kcdc wrote:On October 24 2012 08:41 Salient wrote:
I agree. Would you like me to post this in the Beta forum for you? Sure that'd be great. Is it possible to keep the formatting (bolded section headings, bullets for changes, and the two links) on the bnet forums? If not, you could copy over what is possible and then provide a link at the top for the fully formatted version and TL community discussion. Hey - love your posts on balance. However, I think you're screwing up the following: As Gretorp observed, the protoss race is basically balanced around force-fields. Both Roaches and a bio-ball with stim trade outrageously effectively with all protoss units until colossus and high templar unless forcefield is used. Let's agree that, if a building is not nearby, the modified sentry power does nothing. And what you're doing amounts to a <25% price hike on roaches. Bad news: Roaches already trade 1:1 or better, supply-wise, with everything in the protoss army except immortals (and blink stalkers, given sufficient micro and numbers). Likewise, stim timings should be really powerful. So there will be points in each matchup ( ~8 minutes to ~12 in PvT depending on tech, ~9 minutes to ~15 minutes in PvZ depending on tech) where a protoss literally _cannot leave his base_. Meanwhile, protoss' defensive capabilities are improved dramatically - to the point where going up against a decent sentry count is actually not possible. Three 100 energy sentries can make a protoss wall-off an invincible death machine for a minute. What I worry, therefore, is that by limiting protoss timing attacks and likewise making them much harder to attack, you are in fact _encouraging_ the No-Rush For 20 games. I realize that I am not exactly proposing a better solution. But I am curious as to how your proposal does _not_ lead to, effectively, no-rush games in PvT? -Cross (I guess what I'm getting at is that changes may need to be more wide-ranging than merely changing those 3 abilities, a rather insignificant roach change and a 5% marine change)
A few points:
(1) Protoss without forcefields isn't actually bad against Terran bio--you just need to get storm and charge out in a timely manner. If you cut your sentry count down to just 1 or 2, you can actually get +1 armor, storm and charge all finished by the time a typical double medivac timing hits. It winds out working just fine.
(2) Gateway units feel a little weak in WoL, but they're really only weak against marines and roaches. Under my proposed changes, marines and roaches are both nerfed against zealots and stalkers. Zealots with charge tear marauders apart, and they perform admirably against zerglings and banelings.
(3) Even with the increased cost, roaches might still be too strong against Protoss. We'd need to test it. On the other hand, Protoss won't have to worry as much about Zerg's brute force muta strategy (fortify + cannons = no point to building more than 10 mutas), which gives Protoss increased strategic flexibility. Protoss can go for more immortal-heavy strategies, and they can experiment with crazy ideas like teching charge and storm before blink in PvZ. I think fortify would also allow for more economically aggressive openings in PvZ, which would help Protoss trade better against roaches. There are a lot of unexplored possibilities, but roach strength vs P would definitely be a point to watch.
(4) Fortify might be too strong defensively--it's tough to say without testing. One thing I'll note is that Protoss won't want to get more than 2 or 3 sentries because that gas expenditure will be entirely wasted offensively, and Protoss doesn't have gas to spare. The way I see it, saying fortify would make Protoss impervious to early Terran pressure is sort of like saying building 5 cannons makes Protoss impervious to early Terran pressure. The point is technically true, but it's not a winning strategy. And of course if my proposed numbers for fortify wind up being overpowered, they can be tuned. My main concern is giving the spell enough teeth to defend 4-gate all-ins in PvP.
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On October 24 2012 09:31 rembrant wrote:
Ok but...how are you going to even get to start making your third with immo/zealot vs ling/bane? What I'm meaning is you would have a super hard time even dropping a pylon out that far.
Something like this, but with less sentries (later gas --> more minerals) and fortify instead of forcefields:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=342021
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United States4883 Posts
I'm sorry, kcdc, I literally never like your ideas. I definitely believe some of the analysis is spot on and that these are probably the biggest problems facing SC2, but I just don't like the suggestions. And then when you try to explain them, I like them less because they're just as bad as the way SC2 is now....
Sorry. <3
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On October 24 2012 09:34 SC2John wrote:
I'm sorry, kcdc, I literally never like your ideas. I definitely believe some of the analysis is spot on and that these are probably the biggest problems facing SC2, but I just don't like the suggestions. And then when you try to explain them, I like them less because they're just as bad as the way SC2 is now....
Sorry. <3
No problem, you'll never be able to get everyone to agree on specifics. I'm just trying to keep the momentum moving on what I see as the core problems in SC2.
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On October 24 2012 09:32 kcdc wrote:
A few points:
(1) Protoss without forcefields isn't actually bad against Terran bio--you just need to get storm and charge out in a timely manner. If you cut your sentry count down to just 1 or 2, you can actually get +1 armor, storm and charge all finished by the time a typical double medivac timing hits. It winds out working just fine.
(2) Gateway units feel a little weak in WoL, but they're really only weak against marines and roaches. Under my proposed changes, marines and roaches are both nerfed against zealots and stalkers. Zealots with charge tear marauders apart, and they perform admirably against zerglings and banelings.
(3) Fortify might be too strong defensively--it's tough to say without testing. One thing I'll note is that Protoss won't want to get more than 2 or 3 sentries because that gas expenditure will be entirely wasted offensively, and Protoss doesn't have gas to spare. The way I see it, saying fortify would make Protoss impervious to early Terran pressure is sort of like saying building 5 cannons makes Protoss impervious to early Terran pressure. The point is technically true, but it's not a winning strategy. And of course if my proposed numbers for fortify wind up being overpowered, they can be tuned. My main concern is giving the spell enough teeth to defend 4-gate all-ins in PvP.
To (1), yeah, I've read your guide. It's excellent...but not really the point. The point is, until you get charge, storm or colossus, you have no ability to fight anywhere but inside your base, because your army will get kited and destroyed by any bio play, or roaches. Your build beelines for storm and gets it around 10 minutes. This means that you pretty much can't do aggression until then ... and you can't have aggression done to you. You're halfway towards the 20-minute no-rush game.
To (2), Zealots do okay against banelings. Not spectacularly. In mass, they probably lose for cost. Pretty much everything loses, in mass, for cost to banelings without AOE damage. Again, this is a case where you'd be forced to turtle until AOE damage.
To (3), I saw the point - PVP becomes a bit of a mess, sans force-field. 3 sentries, however, is not an equivocal investment to 5 cannons. They have use later, for guardian shield, and, more importantly, unlike cannons, their utility does not diminish as the game progresses. You observed about rocks that, as the game progresses, you can kill them instantly. Invincibility as an ability means it actually gets more powerful as the game progresses. I think, in this case, everybody makes 3 sentries early, then leaves a sentry per base to mess with drops and muta pressure.
Note that I am not saying your suggestions are not good. But I feel like they will result in a more one-dimensional playstyle for protoss - an inability to put on pressure early on, combined with an inability to be pressured. I do not think that either of those makes for interesting gameplay - SC2 already suffers from "Nobody does anything for X minutes" syndrome.
Ultimately, I think you're going to have trouble coming up with a good solution until there are some early-game protoss compositions that can trade effectively with roaches, lings and bio.
-Cross
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On October 24 2012 09:34 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 09:31 rembrant wrote:
Ok but...how are you going to even get to start making your third with immo/zealot vs ling/bane? What I'm meaning is you would have a super hard time even dropping a pylon out that far. Something like this, but with less sentries (later gas --> more minerals) and fortify instead of forcefields: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=342021
Ya I use builds like that a lot vs zerg but it won't work for what you suggest, zerg won't need to react to a 3rd but just make a lot of ling bane and contain you on 2 base blindly.
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Is cannon rushes in team games a problem? proxy-sentry + cannon rush builds.
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Alright. Crazy @#$%ing idea time, where, having been sad that all I have been doing is crapping on KCDC's ideas, I spew out my own ideas.
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Sentry ability: "Empower". When used on a building, does similar to what KCDC suggested, except instead of invincible, hit-point limit. Set the limit such that it is difficult to take down early game, and easy to take down late game. Maybe...twice a photon cannon's HP?
MORE IMPORTANTLY: When used on gateway units, it is an AOE. Grants the appropriate upgrade (Blink or Charge) to the units it's used on, for 30 seconds.
Why: Cements sentry role as support unit. Gives them limited offensive capabilities. Allows protoss to trade reasonably with early zerg or early bio, temporarily. More importantly, this only really matters during early-game, which means that the 'toss army isn't totally fucked if it wants to fight before 10 minutes. \
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Thoughts, sir?
-Cross (General Design Philosophy Comment: I am for units that are useful in multiple contexts. When you design a unit with a single use, like harass, the decision-making pretty much ends when you build the unit - it is harassing. When you have a unit with multiple capabilities, like ghosts/HTs/Infestors/Immortals/Ravens/etc, you open up interesting transitions, where you use the units for one thing, then transition to another. It's better.)
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Changes I agree with:
Vortex removed. Replaced with new spell 'Stasis Field.' Stasis Field targets an area of effect, preventing all units in that area from acting for 15 seconds, but also making those units invulnerable to damage for the duration.
Carrier build time reduced from 120 seconds to 90 seconds.
Fungal growth changed from complete root to 40% movement speed slow and 30% attack speed slow. Damage unchanged. Still prevents blink.
Roach cost increased to 100/25 from 75/25. Vortex removed for a smaller radius Stasis Field is a good idea. Immunity to NP too. A think a bigger Carrier change is necessary and 90 seconds is way too big* of a build time reduction (105s instead). The Carrier also needs +armor and the ability to be microed for more effectiveness. Either nerfing the Roach or increasing its cost is good. Changing Fungal to a slow (but I would go more with 75%) / reduced attack speed too works.
Changes I don't agree with:
Forcefield removed
New sentry spell 'Fortify' added. Fortify surrounds a target friendly building with a field of energy, making the building invulnerable to damage for 30 seconds and discharging a blast of energy that damages enemy targets every 5 seconds for the duration of the effect. The energy blasts deal 10 damage in a small radius of effect at 7 range. Can be cast on any friendly building including buildings that have not yet completed. Costs 50 energy.
Low-ground pylons no longer provide power to high-ground areas. High-ground warp-ins thus removed.
Range upgrade for void ray added to fleet beacon. Increases void ray range from 6 to 8. Costs 150/150. 60 second research time.
Marine model size increased 30%.
Stimmed marine attack speed reduced 5%. Unstimmed marined DPS unchanged.
FF being removed is too big of a design change and without entirely updating/improving Gateway units - it won't work. Gateway units are already weak and do need a few improvements (like increased Stalker damage). I would rather improve Gateway units and change FF into a target-able thing (but what hp? idk) and AI to be not prioritized over attacking units. Your Sentry ability doesn't seem that good. Removing Pylon radius on highground (and high ground warp-in) completely takes out strategy from the game. Warp Gate needs a nerf (but not big enough to be useless/removed from the game). Void Ray range upgrade is stupid and doesn't work with the unit's role. Also it further overlaps with other air units. A quick late game raider (with Flux Vanes) makes much more sense.
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Just pointing it out, you're aware that Blizzard is very happy with how FF functions? They aren't going to change it.
For the love of god I hope they change how fungals work. I lost 17 Phoenix in a recent game because I didn't realize he had infestors, flew them in to far, and got fungaled ---> all 17 died.
I wonder if Blizzard has ever considered a delay in between which fungals can be chained (or if it's even a good idea, for that matter). For example, after fungal wears off after 4 seconds, units can't be fungaled for another 2 seconds. Or even, fungal roots for 2 seconds, but deals damage over four seconds (the green goo can still visually display), meaning that if you wanted to root you'd need to use it a meager 2 seconds later, greatly reducing the potency of the root.
Then again, the spell derives the majority of its strength in the root, in my eyes. Maybe reduce the damage. Or even better, make it an 80% slow.
Ensnare was an infinitely better spell, pity the queen sucked and the spell was very hard to use (mostly attributable to BW UI). Slowed units and reduced rate of fire (rate of fire reduction for marines, for example, was a perfect amount to counteract stim. Ensnared marines that were stimmed fired as if they weren't stimmed, as the increase in RoF from stim and decrease in RoF from ensnare perfectly cancelled each other out). And I just realized, your suggestions for fungal IS turning the spell into ensnare, pretty much, which Blizzard will never do. They won't revert to a BW spell.
EDIT: Also don't touch Roaches. They already suck. 100/25 is an AWFUL change. You seem overly biased against Zerg and pro-Protoss. The fortify spell is also awful. It basically nullifies timing attacks, snipes, and generally counterattacks. Terran does a double drop to snipe your third? Fortify! Massive ling runby? Not only can you fortify to prevent key buildings from dying, but they'll kill the Zerglings if they don't AVOID the building. To top it off, it specifically hard counters potential Roach/Ling allins. No thanks.
Mothership core also already counters Stephano roach style. Both Purify and Recall.
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Is cannon rushes in team games a problem? proxy-sentry + cannon rush builds. No, it is not and completely taking strategy out of the game is stupid.
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On October 24 2012 09:59 Crosswind wrote:
Alright. Crazy @#$%ing idea time, where, having been sad that all I have been doing is crapping on KCDC's ideas, I spew out my own ideas.
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Sentry ability: "Empower". When used on a building, does similar to what KCDC suggested, except instead of invincible, hit-point limit. Set the limit such that it is difficult to take down early game, and easy to take down late game. Maybe...twice a photon cannon's HP?
MORE IMPORTANTLY: When used on gateway units, it is an AOE. Grants the appropriate upgrade (Blink or Charge) to the units it's used on, for 30 seconds.
Why: Cements sentry role as support unit. Gives them limited offensive capabilities. Allows protoss to trade reasonably with early zerg or early bio, temporarily. More importantly, this only really matters during early-game, which means that the 'toss army isn't totally fucked if it wants to fight before 10 minutes. \
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Thoughts, sir?
-Cross (General Design Philosophy Comment: I am for units that are useful in multiple contexts. When you design a unit with a single use, like harass, the decision-making pretty much ends when you build the unit - it is harassing. When you have a unit with multiple capabilities, like ghosts/HTs/Infestors/Immortals/Ravens/etc, you open up interesting transitions, where you use the units for one thing, then transition to another. It's better.)
That sentry ability sounds good to me--it's basically the same thing that I'd been envisioning. I'd considered an HP cap on the building buff spell instead of invulnerability before I posted the thread, and the difference has little-to-no effect in early game scenarios. The reason I went with invulnerability was that I was concerned that the Stephano-style roach max attack would be too powerful denying Protoss's third by sniping buildings. For that reason, I'd favor invulnerability (maybe 20 seconds instead of 30) over an HP buff, but it's more or less the same concept. The other scenario where there might be a meaningful difference is baneling busts. An HP buff spell that makes a building take 5 extra baneling hits before it dies would probably be enough tho.
I don't think the zealot/stalker buff would actually be used much. You'd still want to skate by with the minimum number of sentries you can get away with, and casting charge on 4 zealots doesn't mean a whole lot in most cases. Maybe it'd be cool in the early game--tough to say.
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On October 24 2012 10:10 FabledIntegral wrote:
Just pointing it out, you're aware that Blizzard is very happy with how FF functions? They aren't going to change it.
For the love of god I hope they change how fungals work. I lost 17 Phoenix in a recent game because I didn't realize he had infestors, flew them in to far, and got fungaled ---> all 17 died.
I wonder if Blizzard has ever considered a delay in between which fungals can be chained (or if it's even a good idea, for that matter). For example, after fungal wears off after 4 seconds, units can't be fungaled for another 2 seconds. Or even, fungal roots for 2 seconds, but deals damage over four seconds (the green goo can still visually display), meaning that if you wanted to root you'd need to use it a meager 2 seconds later, greatly reducing the potency of the root.
Then again, the spell derives the majority of its strength in the root, in my eyes. Maybe reduce the damage. Or even better, make it an 80% slow.
Ensnare was an infinitely better spell, pity the queen sucked and the spell was very hard to use (mostly attributable to BW UI). Slowed units and reduced rate of fire (rate of fire reduction for marines, for example, was a perfect amount to counteract stim. Ensnared marines that were stimmed fired as if they weren't stimmed, as the increase in RoF from stim and decrease in RoF from ensnare perfectly cancelled each other out). And I just realized, your suggestions for fungal IS turning the spell into ensnare, pretty much, which Blizzard will never do. They won't revert to a BW spell.
EDIT: Also don't touch Roaches. They already suck. 100/25 is an AWFUL change. You seem overly biased against Zerg.
I know they've said they're happy with how forcefield works, but that doesn't make me any more satisfied. Up until a few months ago, Blizzard also didn't know motherships were standard in PvZ. We might not get the big problems corrected, but we've got a better shot if we let Blizzard know what we think. Giving clear, focused feedback with detailed explanations and quality suggestions is the most effective thing we can do to help improve the game.
And yes, fungal is awful. Even Zergs hate how it impacts gameplay--although many of them insist that they'd never win if it were even slightly nerfed.
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EPT
