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On October 24 2012 12:28 gosublade wrote:
Carriers are somewhat counter to fungal. We need some more fungal killing units to toss and terran.
Actually I feel that the counter to carriers is basically infestors with some corruptors. If you have enough infestors, you toss out a bunch of IT to add dps to the corruptors who are tanking, and then you can chain fungal all of the interceptors very easily. Now the 10 carriers have a total of 20 interceptors, and they can not run to remake them because of fungal. It's pretty easy at that point to have your IT and corruptors clean them up. It's straightforward to win any game if you can hit that 30 infestor count with an intact economy.
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On October 24 2012 13:27 BronzeKnee wrote:
Maybe you can explain more why you think fortify won't make the game more turtley.
(1) Maps will no longer have to design turtle-friendly thirds with forcefield in mind. Fortify won't be as position-dependent as forcefield, so you can have more open maps. This means more activity for all races. More drops, more hit-and-run, more 2-base all-ins vs fast thirds, etc.
(2) The combination of changes will move Protoss compositions away from colossi and toward heavier use of units like zealots, immortals, templar, archons. Without forcefields, colossi are much worse, so Protoss will rely on compositions that aren't so forcefield-dependent. These units happen to be more able to be active in mid-game.
(3) Zealots and stalkers are buffed relative to marines and roaches in this package of changes. (Marines and roaches are nerfed.) This will make a more active warpgate gameplay more rewarding.
(4) Building fewer sentries means more attacking units. Sure, forcefields can be used offensively, but they're pretty bad offensively in most situations. You can't do much offensively with sentries unless you have a bunch of them, and if you have a bunch of them, you're either doing an immortal/sentry all-in or you're turtling till 150 supply. Reducing the optimal sentry count to 2 or 3 opens up more offensive options for Protoss.
(5) No forcefields blocking retreat means other races can be more aggressive against Protoss without being heavily punished. It's cool to be able to walk your units up to your opponents base and just walk right back if he's defended. Forcefield, like fungal growth, takes away a lot of those opportunities.
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On October 24 2012 13:12 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 13:02 BronzeKnee wrote:
I agree somewhat with the problems you've pointed out, but disagree with the solutions.
Forcefields are a very important part to all match ups and removing them means that Zergling runbys would decimate Protoss. Now you'll say "but I replaced it with fortify!" so you are saying that I still need to build gas heavy Sentries that now can only be used for defense instead of defense and offense as Forcefield can be used?
Your proposed solution makes Protoss even more turtley! Now Protoss can't even venture beyond their buildings.
Fungal growth reducing attack speed would destroy the ability of the units it hits to do sufficient damage. Zerg would build just a few Infestors and they would have such a massive effect on the game. 30% is gigantic, remember that Guardian Shield reduces damage by 2, and that is 33% of an unupgraded Marine's damage. Now we are talking 30% off every unit that is hit by Fungal. That drops the DPS of an Immortal by 10 damage per second (from 34 to 24), that is massive.
I agree that Vortex is dumb and needs to be replaced, however mass Corrupter will dominate Protoss then, and it needs to be addressed. You're right--30% is probably too much. 10% might be better. I'd be fine with just a movement speed slow rather than a root, but I didn't want all the Zergs to lose their shit. As for fortify making Protoss more turtly than forcefield does, I think it would have the opposite effect. With the exception of a few all-ins, sentries with forcefield are already maximally turtly. You need 6+ sentries to get a proper forcefield bank against Zerg, and once you've made that investment, you simply don't move out on the map and risk losing them until you're at 150+ supply. With fortify, you'll be able to get the desired defensive effect with fewer sentries, which means you'll have more other stuff. That other stuff will be more capable of early offense. Show nested quote +This "fortify" spell would also be completely broken offensively. Step 1 - Build Warp Prisms and load in Sentries and Probes. Step 2 - Fly to enemy base. Step 3 - Drop units, build structures (using Warp Prism for power) behind mineral lines and immediately cast fortify on them - Step 4, Win, structures don't need to be completed to gain the spell. The defensive steps would be: Step 1 - Try to deny warp prism from reaching mineral line Step 2 - Kill the probes before they make too many pylons Step 3 - Kill the sentries (which are not at all invulnerable) Step 4 - Micro away injured workers every 5 seconds. The attack only deals 10 damage every 5 seconds, so it takes 4 shots (20 seconds) to kill a probe and 5 shots (25 seconds) to kill a drone or an SCV. This attack seems pretty darn defendable. Maybe 20 second duration would be better, but a 2 DPS attack just don't sound very scary offensively.
Ensnare wasn't even used in BW and it had a great reduction in RoF for plenty of units, like the marine. It wasn't even used. And ensnare about HALVED a marine's attack, while slowing it 50% at the same time. Ofc, it didn't do damage though.
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On October 24 2012 13:51 kcdc wrote:
Sure, forcefields can be used offensively, but they're pretty bad offensively in most situations.
I don't think we'll ever agree on this point. Forcefields are amazing offensively. MC won a GSL title with Forcefields vs July.
Anyway, it is a travesty you don't have Beta Key. I know you had wanted stuff posted on the forum, let me know and I'll post it on there for you.
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I see blizzard in the right direction, while you are not. MSC can be an option to avoid sentrys (and forcefields) without remove them, not for now, but at least is what i believe they want do. If the MSC can provide the defensive power protoss needs, sentrys can finally be situational casters like in PvP they already are.
Remove things make only the game more poor, and there's no reason to do it while you can simply make the bad things optional. Remove the importance, the presence, of a unit can be hard, but at least is better than remove the unit itself. Your fortify ability, or something similar, will be very good on MSC, but awfull on sentrys.
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On October 24 2012 14:58 InVerno wrote:
I see blizzard in the right direction, while you are not. MSC can be an option to avoid sentrys (and forcefields) without remove them, not for now, but at least is what i believe they want do. If the MSC can provide the defensive power protoss needs, sentrys can finally be situational casters like in PvP they already are.
Remove things make only the game more poor, and there's no reason to do it while you can simply make the bad things optional. Remove the importance, the presence, of a unit can be hard, but at least is better than remove the unit itself. Your fortify ability, or something similar, will be very good on MSC, but awfull on sentrys.
As long as forcefield is in the game, Protoss units will suck vs roaches except when roach forces are cut in thirds by forcefields. You can't just say, "Oh, I think this insanely powerful mechanic hurts gameplay, so I just won't use it." The game is balanced around Protoss hiding behind forcefields, so if you play Protoss or against Protoss, you are subjected to the crappy gameplay that the mechanic produces. It's nice that you're looking forward to the MSC. I am too. But having new toys doesn't fix what's broken with the old units. Gameplay will still be less fun and interesting than it could be.
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The more of these threads I read, the more they sound like this:
"I'm going to smash this vase on the floor, and here is a diagram of exactly how I plan to glue the pieces back together afterwards."
If you want forcefield and fungal out of the game, take them out and see what happens. Then come up with a fix. It's pointless trying to pre-empt problems when we know it takes thousands of players months to explore the possibilities and expose them.
For instance, I know you hate fungal growth but I'm not sure you appreciate just how dependent Zergs are upon it being as strong as it is. Although zergs have the fastest tech-switching, in practice if you attempt to transition from a large lair-tech army to broodlords your army dips in strength at the exact time your opponent is ramping up hugely. It gets weaker because you have supply tied up in corruptors, and it gets weaker because a lot of its strength was in its mobility, which is eliminated the instant it has to baby-sit the first slow-ass broodlord that pops. The only transition that works in a game that isn't already over is ling/infestor->fast hive.
So you want to nerf the infestor, make an infestor army one you can attack into (because for some reason Zerg should be the only race who doesn't get one you can't  ), and you want to nerf the roach and you want to get rid of forcefields. Fine, do it. But why pretend it's even possible to consider all the ramifications? Break it, see how it's broken, then fix it.
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On October 24 2012 07:32 kcdc wrote:Solutions:Protoss - 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.
- 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.
- Range upgrade for void ray added to fleet beacon. Increases void ray range from 6 to 8. Costs 150/150. 60 second research time.
Zerg - 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.
Terran - Marine model size increased 30%.
- Stimmed marine attack speed reduced 5%. Unstimmed marined DPS unchanged.
Changes Explained:
This is a very good thoughtful post. I agree with all your criteria but think some of the suggestions could be improved upon.
Fortify would be too good, also making something completely invulnerable goes against the spirit of the game (hello invincible cannons). If FF are removed I would prefer something like 'grant hardened shield' perhaps limiting incoming damage to 5 for say 10-15 seconds, this would make sentries a purely defensive caster that could balance guardian shield vs hardened shield.
VR range upgrade I LOVE, it wouldn't come into play until late game so no problems early, but it really would help in the late game which is when VR really start sucking.
I dislike increasing marine size, it just takes away from the history and feel of the game, I'd prefer to balance this other way say by increasing stalker damage against non armored slightly.
But yeah thats small things, and overall I think you make excellent points, fix fungal, vortex, and forcefields and the game will be much better for it.
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On October 24 2012 16:42 Umpteen wrote:So you want to nerf the infestor, make an infestor army one you can attack into (because for some reason Zerg should be the only race who doesn't get one you can't ), and you want to nerf the roach and you want to get rid of forcefields. Fine, do it. But why pretend it's even possible to consider all the ramifications? Break it, see how it's broken, then fix it.
Correction, I want to remove forcefield and nerf the infestor (well, make it possible to micro and harass against the infestor), but I don't necessarily want to nerf the roach. I think you'll need to nerf the roach if you remove forcefield.
In response to your general point that we don't know how the pieces will fit back together, sure that's true, but after 10,000 games played, you do get a sense for how the game works and how certain changes will impact other changes. If you're trying to get around a new town, a local might not be able to tell you about every pothole in the road or even every street name, but it's still helpful if he draws you a map so that you know generally what to expect. There will be some unexpected consequences, but it's still worthwhile to predict the problems that we can predict and have plans in place to deal with them.
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+1 to the changes. numbers can be tweaked.
to the marine change: i like a removement of combatshield more than the increased marine size since i think more spread out marines are even better TvT vs a tank heavy player, lings, ultras, banes get an even worse surround and colossi/storm is weaker vs marines. so the model size increasement of the marine will make them do a bit less DPS per area but marines also take less DPS per area so basically its not clear if it changes anything or is even a buff to the marine.
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Agree with the Vortex and FG changes, and maybe a little nerf to roaches. The rest, not so much.
Force Field can be manuvered around with burrow and medivacs and actually makes for interesting play (on top of this we will have more long range units be used in HOTS: tanks and SH). So maybe a better solution would be to make the burrow upgrade build faster. All the races have better detection so why not?
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I think this is a good post, but I would like more if Force Fields stays in the game, with the change that they are like mini time bombs(old Protoss Mothership spell, that slowed everything in it, including missiles), of course, it can be tweaked, and Massive units would still be immune to it.
About the fungal, I agree, but I still think that Infestors would be massed, because of Infested Terrans and Fungal still doing damage. What I wanted is to instead of damage, give corruption like effect to the fungal, and that would actually make Infestors support units instead of all-around casters.
I agree with other changes, just don't increase Marine model by 30%, that seems a lot. :D
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i totally agree with the OP about FF, fungal and vortex being broken, but i disagree on how to solve this problem, i dont like the fixes you proposed
except for fungal, by this point the community pretty much decided on fungal being slow instead of root, its just a matter of blizzard finally doing it
the problems with zerg and the roach have been apparent from the start of WoL beta. the community repeated the solution for years, but blizzard wont listen: roaches and hydras need to switch tiers! its been repeated ad nauseam, but this would solve most problems zerg has and also fit better with the zerg race characteristics. nerf hydras, make them smaller and cheaper and 1.5 supply or even 1 supply, make them faster. give roaches more regeneration but make them more expensive. also get rid of queen anti-air attack and anti-ground range. nerf corruptors.
the main problem with protoss gateway as also been apparent from the start. making the main backbone unit a weak harass-type unit with blink leaves protoss with no good base unit that could surivive sans forcefields. switch the immortal back to gateway or reduce its cost, and turn it into more of a dragoon-type unit, maybe even allowing it to hit air. turn stalkers into harassment beasts. buff zealots. nerf or ged rid off FF, replace it with a shield-recharging spell
also remove mothership or at least remove vortex, and reworke colossus for more burst damage but less DPS and/or differently shaped aoe. warpgates should take considerably longer to build units than gateways and/or only be able to warp in units at warp prisms
without forcefields, mass stalker blinks, slow hydras and concussive shells, you will be able to actually get away from engagements without losing half of your army. with immortals as a backbone unit protoss could actually have a strong standing army and not hide behind their forcefields like cowardly space elves, and have a strong harass option with blink stalkers
the problem with terran, once again, has been known to most players since the start of WoL beta. its rauders and their silly slow ability. concussive shell needs to be reworked to either be castable and have small aoe, or to reduce a targets armor (maybe also with small aoe) to make them a support unit instead of a one-type-kills-all unit. also remove stim from marauders, maybe buffing their +armor damage. in return, buff tanks, thors and BCs, switch EMP to raven and give ghosts something else, maybe widow mines
the options for dealing with harassment should also be more limited, right now its too easy to shut down harassment. for this i propose to let warpgates only work in conjunction with warp prisms (still let them work as normal gateways after conversion), and nerfing the PF. along with the queen nerf suggested above this would make all races more vulnerable to harass, and without stimmed rauders killing buildings in seconds this is actually a good thing.
right now blizzard is doing it backwards. instead of focussing on new units and THEN trying to clean up the mess that is WoL they should first make WoL fun and balanced and then add some new stuff
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Italy12246 Posts
Seriously Blizzard, get a beta key to this man.
Regarding nerfing fungal in general and people saying that Z is balanced around winning thanks to it, you have to keep in mind that's true for WoL, not HotS. Vipers and Swarm Hosts open up the possibility of tweaking Fungal and/or Hive tech (seriously, Broodlords are about as stupid as Colossus/Void Ray used to be), so Z should/will turn out fine because of their new options.
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On October 24 2012 15:50 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 14:58 InVerno wrote:
I see blizzard in the right direction, while you are not. MSC can be an option to avoid sentrys (and forcefields) without remove them, not for now, but at least is what i believe they want do. If the MSC can provide the defensive power protoss needs, sentrys can finally be situational casters like in PvP they already are.
Remove things make only the game more poor, and there's no reason to do it while you can simply make the bad things optional. Remove the importance, the presence, of a unit can be hard, but at least is better than remove the unit itself. Your fortify ability, or something similar, will be very good on MSC, but awfull on sentrys. As long as forcefield is in the game, Protoss units will suck vs roaches except when roach forces are cut in thirds by forcefields. You can't just say, "Oh, I think this insanely powerful mechanic hurts gameplay, so I just won't use it." The game is balanced around Protoss hiding behind forcefields, so if you play Protoss or against Protoss, you are subjected to the crappy gameplay that the mechanic produces. It's nice that you're looking forward to the MSC. I am too. But having new toys doesn't fix what's broken with the old units. Gameplay will still be less fun and interesting than it could be.
Roaches are WoL roaches, WoL roaches are a supply overwhelming unit because it's a poor unit that needs to be 2x your supply to be efficient. WoL roach is produced by 3hatch gassless blind @4:00 .. but i dont see this "high eco macro-cheese" viable in hots, or at least from what browder says, its not what they want from the game (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6933954200?page=2#27 + recall first "design objective") With the SW and new hydras maybe the midgame of hots doesnt need the WoL roach, maybe Zerg doesnt need to be 200supply against 100, maybe we can have a roach that dont push you back by 100supply and forcefields.
I really don't know what the game will be, but when you will be able to play the beta, you will see that the actual MSC, without be insanely good and with a lot of tweeks needed, atm can actually reduce the importance of forcefields .. and i hope the design of the unit and this specific role will go further and further with the beta. You have mentioned roaches because the PvZ is the real problem with forcefields in WoL ..I really don't see the forcefield issue in PvP or PvT .. so imho is more a match-up design problem, more than sentrys. And i hope too will be resolved, for the mapmakers.
Also, for protoss changes that you have suggested, before remove the vortex, try it with half of the actual aoe, its not so bad, opponent has to choose, you can choose.
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I agree wholeheartedly with the problems you identified, but completely disagree with your solutions.
My honest opinion is that fungals, forcefields and vortex shouldn't be in the game at all. They are just stupid mechanics.
Make fungal do damage over time and reduce armour but have no other effect on micro at all, that way you can actually get to the fucking infesters to kill them, and still have a chance to micro against broodlords. At the same time you add synergy to zergs numbers with armour reduction. It doesn't even have to be a major debuff.
As for forcefields, take them away and give sentries an ability that buffs shields somehow. I don't know like restore shield hp in a small aoe or make shields more resistant to damage for a few seconds. Its something that can easily be tweaked with numbers. Hell give it an ability that energizes other units. Something like focussing its attack beam onto one of your own units making its damage increase by a certain percentage/dps while draining energy. That would make sentries much more of a utility unit. You energize the unit best suited to your situation eg: your enemy is making a shit ton of roaches, you energize immortals because of their bonus damage to armoured, need extra dps to deal with those broodlords? energize your voidrays. Either way both sides need to micro better to come out on top.
Remove the fucking mothership.
These might not be the most genius changes but they get to the core. Without fungal that roots everything, brood lords aren't as effective, but still useful. Both Terran and Protoss will have a better time against zerg, protoss will have a similar early game vs terran and zerg will still have most of the benefits and utility with infesters.
Best of all no game breaking changes, everything can easily be tweaked and no motherfuckership. This from a zerg player btw.
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I don't think you understand how a "system" works. Starcraft II units/structures/race mechanics, all work in combination with each other. If it was so easy to just change the sentry, or change fungal growth or whatever else, then OK... But you have to realize that every single one of the changes you propose are massive changes that affect everything we know about Starcraft II up to this day.
I won't go into detail why i think your proposed changes would never work, because I'll need a huge post for that. However i think that you're making the same mistake, Blizzard made for the last 3 years, which is fixing a "mistake" or "bad design" with a "patch" rather than a "cure".
First of all in a complex system like Starcraft II, whenever you change something, everything changes. So it's not "OK... OK... change the roach to 100/25 and roaches are balanced in ZvP". If that change ever occurred then Zerg would lose to any 8 gate protoss all-in without sentries in every single game. Not to mention a ton of other situations. So you see in such a complex game you just can't change something, even something small, without taking into account E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.
So the mistake i think you are making, which is basicly what Blizzard did for the last 3 years, is to try and fix a bad design with a patch. This is the logic of "I have a problem in this matchup with "this", let's change this". The problem with doing that is that in the end of all this you basicly have a bad design deciding for you whenever you want to make a change rather than you deciding what you want out of a building/unit. And to make this more clear. Think about Warpgate. Because of warpgate protoss gateway units had to be "bad" for their cost but protoss had to be able to defend with them as well. So Blizzard ended up fixing a problematic design = Warpgate with another problematic design = Forcefield. You see what's going on there? Kinda like Blink = problematic design fixed with Fungal Growth = problematic design. Or Terran Bio = problematic design fixed with AoE damage being way too strong = problematic design.
Ending this, I'd like to recap to make this understood. A system of units, works only when all the units work together and against each other in a harmonious way. Right now the smallest change completely breaks the game. Ofcourse there are maybe some small changes that can be implemented but none of those actually cure the problem with Starcraft II which is a badly designed game in its core. I love Starcraft II but i believe it needs to be reworked in its core and have Blizzard start over the process of creating units, buildings and race mechanics.
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Overall I'd agree with the direction these changes move the game. If gateway units proved too weak after testing there are plenty of ways to tweak them - HP, damage, speed, cost, buildtime, upgrades etc....Fortify as proposed has multiple balancing options as well.
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On October 24 2012 21:47 AbstractSC wrote:
I don't think you understand how a "system" works. Starcraft II units/structures/race mechanics, all work in combination with each other. If it was so easy to just change the sentry, or change fungal growth or whatever else, then OK... But you have to realize that every single one of the changes you propose are massive changes that affect everything we know about Starcraft II up to this day.
I won't go into detail why i think your proposed changes would never work, because I'll need a huge post for that. However i think that you're making the same mistake, Blizzard made for the last 3 years, which is fixing a "mistake" or "bad design" with a "patch" rather than a "cure".
First of all in a complex system like Starcraft II, whenever you change something, everything changes. So it's not "OK... OK... change the roach to 100/25 and roaches are balanced in ZvP". If that change ever occurred then Zerg would lose to any 8 gate protoss all-in without sentries in every single game. Not to mention a ton of other situations. So you see in such a complex game you just can't change something, even something small, without taking into account E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.
So the mistake i think you are making, which is basicly what Blizzard did for the last 3 years, is to try and fix a bad design with a patch. This is the logic of "I have a problem in this matchup with "this", let's change this". The problem with doing that is that in the end of all this you basicly have a bad design deciding for you whenever you want to make a change rather than you deciding what you want out of a building/unit. And to make this more clear. Think about Warpgate. Because of warpgate protoss gateway units had to be "bad" for their cost but protoss had to be able to defend with them as well. So Blizzard ended up fixing a problematic design = Warpgate with another problematic design = Forcefield. You see what's going on there? Kinda like Blink = problematic design fixed with Fungal Growth = problematic design. Or Terran Bio = problematic design fixed with AoE damage being way too strong = problematic design.
Ending this, I'd like to recap to make this understood. A system of units, works only when all the units work together and against each other in a harmonious way. Right now the smallest change completely breaks the game. Ofcourse there are maybe some small changes that can be implemented but none of those actually cure the problem with Starcraft II which is a badly designed game in its core. I love Starcraft II but i believe it needs to be reworked in its core and have Blizzard start over the process of creating units, buildings and race mechanics.
While I think what you say has merit, I really don't think Blizzard will rework Starcraft 2 to that extent. If they do the stuff that OP has stated I'd already be quite amazed.
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mothership needs to be removed, it has no place in sc2
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EPT
