EPT[D] Terran Medic Speed Upgrade
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IcED Bk
Canada245 Posts
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Jellikit
Sweden258 Posts
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On December 24 2012 02:43 IcED Bk wrote: Just curious to how the community feels about the speed upgrade. I have seen mixed views of the speed being too much of a buff. Some comments seen on HoTs was to change it to a energy cost? OR a longer cooldown. Others feel it was a long time coming to make it more powerful as a harass unit and a late game unit. No matter the ability (even if it is overpowered) what makes it interesting is the sense of choice. Siege Mode, Tank Mode? 50% Haste, -10/-20 Health? Snipe, EMP? etc... There either needs to be a trade-off or an either or moment. Even if it is obvious--we still need it. No one really thinks "when is it a good time to siege/unsiege" but yet we are able to say "that was a bad time to siege/unsiege" And it is the same for every ability, every unit option. Do I make a marine, or a maruader. Do I make a Thor, or a Siege Tank. Etc... Even if you choose option A 90% of the time and option B 10% of the time, being given the option is what makes choosing A feel good. 90% of the time you choose not to run pass the spine crawler with your hellions to save them for as long as possible. 10% of the time you run in and manage to kill 10-16 drones. That "sense" of choice is what makes any game fun. Why the diatribe? Because the current form of the speed boost does not give that sense of choice. When can you activate it? Anytime. What's the drawback to activating it? It's on cooldown. So if you activate it too early, you have a normal medivac. Compare it to say, Stim. Activating stim costs hitpoints. What does that mean? That means before medivac tech you can only ever stim your marines 1-2 times before the damage boost is not worth the health loss. Choosing *when* to stim becomes critical since it will cost you the fight. But, if you tech high enough, you can counteract the health loss with medivacs. Once you have healers, you can stim to your heart's delight! Except you can't because if you stim around too often your medivacs won't have energy for the big engagement and your army will die. 90% of the time you activate stim when the fight starts--but not always. Sometimes you want to stim a small force to snipe a drop, stim a few units to chase down a retreating force, etc...The choice is there and choosing wisely determines whether you win the fights or not. The speed boost has none of these. Yes, you can say that if you really need to drop troops you can use speed boost to get to a base faster at the cost of being able to retreat OR you could save the speed boost for your retreat only. But there's no actual drawback to casting it. As an example, corrupt on the corruptor is boring. It's not boring because a 20% damage boost is boring, it's boring because it is mindless. The fight starts, I better cast corrupt or I'm simply being inefficient. At no point is there a good reason not to corrupt when you can. Much like there is never a reason to choose not to use the speed boost when you can. But what if it had an energy cost? Suddenly you have a choice of "can I fight a bit longer OR run while I can?" What if it was an upgrade? Should I get a techlab for the speedboost or a reactor for 2x medivacs? It doesn't actually matter what the other option made available is--so long as it is there. Not as a nerf (if you feel that giving it a drawback means we buff the stats I'm cool with that too, I don't actually think it is overpowered nor do I think it is underpowered, I actually really like the numbers right now) but the more mindless we allow it to be the more boring it becomes. | ||
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fighter2_40
United States420 Posts
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
Basically agree with what thieving magpie said. There is literally no drawback to using speedboost. There's no choice, you just simply do it because it's the best thing to do and there's no drawback in terms of loss of energy, etc. There should be a conflict of some type, some decision the player makes when they use the ability. Do I want to sacrifice medivac energy to have higher success chance of the drop getting in? Or do I want to just fly it in and save the energy for pure healing? That makes sense imo. The other interesting part of making speed boost drain medivac energy is this further enhances lategame TvP drop play. Templar + cannon defense in lategame is very common vs Terran to use feedback to basically make it so Terran can never drop. Making the medivac speed boost drain energy gives Terran another way to purposefully drain medivac energy in lategame to also make their drops more successful in the lategame. (You can do the equivalent of the above by using ghost EMP on your own medivacs, but that's a bit unintuitive). | ||
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benthekid
United States132 Posts
The buff was super smart by blizzard because there is a point in late game TvX where drops simply were not viable due to overlord spread/creep and mass observers not to mention static defense or an infestor or high templar that can gimp a drop. At least now you have a chance to get away and not lose your potential 1000+ resource investment. | ||
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Pursuit_
United States1330 Posts
edit: I don't think it's OP at all though, it just makes Terran drops about as risk free as Protoss drops  | ||
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
The buff is very strong as it should be. Drop Play is something that should be promoted not demoted. Drops create excitement and tension in the game, by spreading armies out and having multiple battles take place. | ||
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ch4ppi
Germany802 Posts
On December 24 2012 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote: No matter the ability (even if it is overpowered) what makes it interesting is the sense of choice. Siege Mode, Tank Mode? 50% Haste, -10/-20 Health? Snipe, EMP? etc... There either needs to be a trade-off or an either or moment. Even if it is obvious--we still need it. No one really thinks "when is it a good time to siege/unsiege" but yet we are able to say "that was a bad time to siege/unsiege" And it is the same for every ability, every unit option. Do I make a marine, or a maruader. Do I make a Thor, or a Siege Tank. Etc... Even if you choose option A 90% of the time and option B 10% of the time, being given the option is what makes choosing A feel good. 90% of the time you choose not to run pass the spine crawler with your hellions to save them for as long as possible. 10% of the time you run in and manage to kill 10-16 drones. That "sense" of choice is what makes any game fun. Why the diatribe? Because the current form of the speed boost does not give that sense of choice. When can you activate it? Anytime. What's the drawback to activating it? It's on cooldown. So if you activate it too early, you have a normal medivac. Compare it to say, Stim. Activating stim costs hitpoints. What does that mean? That means before medivac tech you can only ever stim your marines 1-2 times before the damage boost is not worth the health loss. Choosing *when* to stim becomes critical since it will cost you the fight. But, if you tech high enough, you can counteract the health loss with medivacs. Once you have healers, you can stim to your heart's delight! Except you can't because if you stim around too often your medivacs won't have energy for the big engagement and your army will die. 90% of the time you activate stim when the fight starts--but not always. Sometimes you want to stim a small force to snipe a drop, stim a few units to chase down a retreating force, etc...The choice is there and choosing wisely determines whether you win the fights or not. The speed boost has none of these. Yes, you can say that if you really need to drop troops you can use speed boost to get to a base faster at the cost of being able to retreat OR you could save the speed boost for your retreat only. But there's no actual drawback to casting it. As an example, corrupt on the corruptor is boring. It's not boring because a 20% damage boost is boring, it's boring because it is mindless. The fight starts, I better cast corrupt or I'm simply being inefficient. At no point is there a good reason not to corrupt when you can. Much like there is never a reason to choose not to use the speed boost when you can. But what if it had an energy cost? Suddenly you have a choice of "can I fight a bit longer OR run while I can?" What if it was an upgrade? Should I get a techlab for the speedboost or a reactor for 2x medivacs? It doesn't actually matter what the other option made available is--so long as it is there. Not as a nerf (if you feel that giving it a drawback means we buff the stats I'm cool with that too, I don't actually think it is overpowered nor do I think it is underpowered, I actually really like the numbers right now) but the more mindless we allow it to be the more boring it becomes. Brilliant post, not only concerns it the medivac, but also it is a good summary of how to design a units abilitiy | ||
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Rainling
United States456 Posts
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On December 24 2012 03:48 Rainling wrote: Completely agree with Thieving Magpie, even Avilo agrees with giving speed boost an energy cost. It seems like a no-brainer to give a spell drawbacks so players aren't constantly casting it. An energy cost would make choosing to use speed boost much more of a tactical choice, because players have to choose between using energy for healing and using it for the speed boost. I really hope Blizzard plans on testing this. | ||
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Zahir
United States947 Posts
On December 24 2012 03:57 juicyjames wrote: I really hope Blizzard plans on testing this. Agreed. It feels like this ability should've had an energy cost from the start, I'm surprised blizz chose to make it Cooldown in the first place. | ||
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Sissors
1395 Posts
I think both solutions are fine: Either give it energy cost (also means you cannot use it when feedbacked or after large fights), or a much longer C/D timer. | ||
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Zazzles
Slovakia153 Posts
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Alex1Sun
494 Posts
On December 24 2012 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote: No matter the ability (even if it is overpowered) what makes it interesting is the sense of choice. Siege Mode, Tank Mode? 50% Haste, -10/-20 Health? Snipe, EMP? etc... There either needs to be a trade-off or an either or moment. Even if it is obvious--we still need it. No one really thinks "when is it a good time to siege/unsiege" but yet we are able to say "that was a bad time to siege/unsiege" And it is the same for every ability, every unit option. Do I make a marine, or a maruader. Do I make a Thor, or a Siege Tank. Etc... Even if you choose option A 90% of the time and option B 10% of the time, being given the option is what makes choosing A feel good. 90% of the time you choose not to run pass the spine crawler with your hellions to save them for as long as possible. 10% of the time you run in and manage to kill 10-16 drones. That "sense" of choice is what makes any game fun. Why the diatribe? Because the current form of the speed boost does not give that sense of choice. When can you activate it? Anytime. What's the drawback to activating it? It's on cooldown. So if you activate it too early, you have a normal medivac. Compare it to say, Stim. Activating stim costs hitpoints. What does that mean? That means before medivac tech you can only ever stim your marines 1-2 times before the damage boost is not worth the health loss. Choosing *when* to stim becomes critical since it will cost you the fight. But, if you tech high enough, you can counteract the health loss with medivacs. Once you have healers, you can stim to your heart's delight! Except you can't because if you stim around too often your medivacs won't have energy for the big engagement and your army will die. 90% of the time you activate stim when the fight starts--but not always. Sometimes you want to stim a small force to snipe a drop, stim a few units to chase down a retreating force, etc...The choice is there and choosing wisely determines whether you win the fights or not. The speed boost has none of these. Yes, you can say that if you really need to drop troops you can use speed boost to get to a base faster at the cost of being able to retreat OR you could save the speed boost for your retreat only. But there's no actual drawback to casting it. As an example, corrupt on the corruptor is boring. It's not boring because a 20% damage boost is boring, it's boring because it is mindless. The fight starts, I better cast corrupt or I'm simply being inefficient. At no point is there a good reason not to corrupt when you can. Much like there is never a reason to choose not to use the speed boost when you can. But what if it had an energy cost? Suddenly you have a choice of "can I fight a bit longer OR run while I can?" What if it was an upgrade? Should I get a techlab for the speedboost or a reactor for 2x medivacs? It doesn't actually matter what the other option made available is--so long as it is there. Not as a nerf (if you feel that giving it a drawback means we buff the stats I'm cool with that too, I don't actually think it is overpowered nor do I think it is underpowered, I actually really like the numbers right now) but the more mindless we allow it to be the more boring it becomes. The choice is use it now or use it later. It has a cooldown. I however agree that a cooldown can be made longer to add more choice. | ||
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IcED Bk
Canada245 Posts
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dynwar7
1983 Posts
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Sambobly
Australia241 Posts
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ktimekiller
United States690 Posts
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LonelyClock
Canada29 Posts
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