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Sweden33719 Posts
Disclaimer
First of all, let me preface this by saying that I like the idea of the Thor. I like giant robots that are far too big and far too ridiculous to actually be realistic.
Oh and a warning: Wall of Text incoming.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/FrozenArbiter/taterconcept12a.jpg)
Tater-Titan!
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The problem
However the Thor is problematic. It's a big fuck-off robot that's good at anti-air and good at anti-ground, all while having a ton of HP and no real unique characteristics.
In short, I think it lacks an identity. It's a little bit of everything but there's really nothing that sets it apart or makes you think "wow, that's pretty cool". It's just big. Big, and from the looks of things, a bit too massable.
The current Thor
The Thor currently has the following specifications:
HP: 400
Energy: 200
Ground Attack: 30dmg x 2, range 6
Air Attack: 10x4 (+4 per attack vs Light units), range 10
Mineral cost: 300
Gas cost: 300
Supply: 6
Produced by: Factory
Abilities:
250mm Cannon:
The thor gains an ability which attacks ground troops using the cannons on its back. The thor can only target one unit, which it does continually, stunning the target(such as a building) for 5 to 6 seconds while inflicting 500 damage. The thor is otherwise rendered helpless while the ability is in use.
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Looking back
When the Thor was first introduced, it had some interesting differences from what we have now:
The first difference was its method of construction. Initially, in order to produce a Thor you would have your SCV build it, much like it would a building. I am not sure why this was scrapped, but I personally think it was a fantastic idea, and really added some uniqueness to the Thor, while emphasizing its enormous size.
Secondly, we have Mechanical Rebirth:
The thor can self-repair. Once a thor "dies" in combat, its wreckage remains on the battlefield. The terran player can spend resources to rebuild it relatively quickly. The enemy player must decide either to destroy the vulnerable wreckage or to target other units. The ability must be researched.
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Not a bad idea at all. Perhaps it should require an SCV or Raven to salvage the wreck, but definitely an interesting mechanic for something this big. Very terran.
If you ever played CnC3 you would recognize this ability from the Scrin Tripod. In my limited experience, it worked well enough in that game, and I wouldn't mind it returning in this game.
Again, I do not know why it was removed - perhaps it was with good reason. I am simply including it for completeness.
It also had a different version of the particle cannon:
250mm Cannons (Previous Version)
Bombardment cannons in action.Artillery Strike was a powerful long-ranged area-of-effect attack. To use the Artillery Strike, the thor had to expend energy, then it "stabilized" itself as the cannons on its back were lowered. The four 250mm bombardment cannons alternated raining damage upon the area. This ability needed to be researched. The ability was later removed.
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Last, we have the Thors old weakness - its turning speed. Back when it was first introduced to the public (Blizzcon 2007), the Thors main weakness was its inability to quickly turn (and it had to face its target to attack it). A speedy enemy unit could run circles (literally) around it, taking significantly less damage as the Thor would struggle to line up for shots.
I think this was a very interesting mechanic but I think there's a potentially better way to implement it (more on that later).
Terran Racial Identity
In order to deeper examine what's wrong with the Thor, I want to briefly discuss what two traits I think distinguishes the Terran race in Starcraft (and Starcraft 2).
- Synergy
- Adaptability/versatility
Synergy is simple: Terran armies combine to become more than the sum of their parts. Marines+medics are basically two parts of one unit, something that some people like, and others don't - but nevertheless it's a good example of Terran as a race. Alone they really do not do much, but together they are potent.
The same goes for tanks+vultures. Strong alone, but working together they reach undreamed of heights.
I think the second trait is something they've put some emphasis on in SC2 so far, with the added importance of add-ons and switching between them (tech lab vs reactor). The basic Terran buildings all being able to fly, and the newly introduced Salvage system are further examples of this.
V-Gundam's old TvP strategy was nicknamed the Bamboo Push. The reason, I was told, was that because it might bend but it never breaks. I think this is a pretty fitting description of the Terran race as a whole - no matter what you throw at them, they will overcome it (maybe).
Applying the Identity
This section will have some ideas for how to make the Thor feel more like a Terran unit and less like an all-purpose giant mecha. I don't necessarily think that ALL of these options would have to be included, it is merely brainstorming.
To begin with, I'll be leaving all the pricings intact, and keep all its attacks and abilites the same in terms of stats.
To start off, I want to examine the two abilities it once had but that were taken away. Let's start with its production method - the SCV:
Pros:
- Very unique, adds to the feeling that you are constructing a giant behemoth and not just an ordinary unit.
- Doesn't take up factory space.
Cons:
- Vulnerable during construction.
- Possibly tedious to produce Thors as you cannot easily queue them remotely (ie you can't just hotkey your production facilities and press T for Thor).
As far as the first weakness is concerned, I think that you can easily just tweak how much armor it has during construction, or allow non-building SCVs to repair it while it's being built. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have this as a weakness either.
The second problem is, in my view, fairly minor. If the Thor works as intended, I think it shouldn't be a unit you mass in Ultralisk like numbers.
Mechanical Rebirth
The thor lost this ability as of May 2009. Blizzard's internal playtesting showed the ability to be impractical.
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I would like to know more about why this was found to be impractical, and if they experimented with a version where you'd have to use SCVs to re-activate the wreck. Personally I think it would fit the Terran theme very well.
Now for some ideas of my own:
Modules
It is possible that this has been suggested previously (a MaybeNextTime post perhaps?), but I'll bring it up anyway.
How about instead of having every Thor start with GtA, GtG and a special heavy artillery attack, you keep all three, but allow only one of them to be active at once?
The way I'd have it work is much like the add-on system for terran buildings, except you'd be able to refit the Thor. So let's say you need some close range GtG - you give him the Thor's Hammer module. You scan the zerg switching to mass mutas? No problem, you quickly refit (for a cost, and some upgrade downtime) your Thors with missile launchers.
Need to break some tough defenses? Switch to the 250mm cannon.
Another thing worth considering would be some kind of d-matrix type ability, allowing it to act as a true "tank" (its stated purpose is, afterall to act as the "tip of the spear" when assaulting heavily fortified locations).
A further module idea which is a little bit less fleshed out, would be some kind of support module. Perhaps allowing it to repair at a really quick rate, or adding a comsat station, or returning the ghosts "psi-sense" ability. Things like that.
Each module would cost a certain amount of minerals/gas, and would have a short re-fit time during which the Thor would be unable to attack (or perhaps even unable to move?).
Mobile Bunker
In the recent Battle Report 4 thread, a poster brought up the possibility of having the Thor act as a mobile bunker. If anyone remembers Caller's posts suggesting the same thing for the Terran Dropship (a Gunship upgrade, to be exact), you'll recall I was a vocal supporter of this idea then, and I still am.
An upgrade could allow the Thor to carry X number of infantry units, which could all attack from out of it, like a bunker. In addition, you could do things like let SCVs repair from inside the Thor if loaded up, or let Ghosts cast EMP - things like that.
Basically it would become a walking fortress. This idea could be used alone, or in conjuction with the Module idea above (in which case the Thor should perhaps have some form of basic weaponry while upgraded with the bunker module).
Rear Armor
As talked about earlier, the Thor used to have a weakness in its slow turning speed, something which has since been changed. I think the glacial turning speed of the original Thor might have been slightly annoying for players, but I think the idea was good, so here is what I propose:
If you are familiar with Warhammer 40k, you'll know that the facing of a vehicle is critical in determining its Armor Value. Attacking a Leman Russ from the front is a nigh futile task, whereas if you can get in from the back it's easy pickings.
For most SC2 units, I think this would be impractical. The units are small, it would be hard to keep track of where they are facing and I think it could potentially be rather annoying. Not so with the Thor - it has a very clear, wide front and an equally wide back.
You could easily have it so that its front is armor 8 and its back is armor 4, or even change armor types.
Easily distinguishable front/rear
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Lift-off
This last idea is just something that idly crossed my mind... Since the Thor shares so many characteristics with Terran buildings, why not let it lift-off like one?
It would, perhaps, require a short transformation, and I certainly don't think it should be able to fly very fast or be able to attack while in the air. It would, nonetheless, be an interesting alternative to transporting it with a dropship (considering it's about 3 times as big as one).
Jack of all trades, master of none
What I've tried to get through in my suggestions above is the feeling of being able to customize your Thor. One of the complaints I had was that it's too all-purpose, and it might seem that these ideas would only serve to make it more so, but I believe that all-purpose is fine... Just not all at once and with no price to pay.
Ideally I would see the Thor as a low-count, highly customizable support unit, very potent/versatile but not something you would (under normal circumstances) mass produce. I'm fine with if, say, TvT becomes mass Thor wars - not unlike BC battles in TvT today, but what I don't want to see is it becoming something akin to ultra/ling, where it's used all the time.
So, let me know what you think.
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France231 Posts
The modules and lift off ideas are really good, adding a bit more of thinking and a lot more of fun in this unit.
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Wow, some *really* nice ideas there. Obviously they cannot all be implemented at once, but a few of them in conjunction would be cool.
I like the idea of a Thor with different weapon types that you can switch between. If the Thor were a unit that could switch between being a giant firebat and a giant goliath, could cast its own defensive matrix, could lift off (I imagine it "packing itself up" and basically turning into a big lozenge), and was built by SCV's, you'd have a really versatile and interesting unit.
The "mobile fortress" idea takes it in a completely different direction, but is also very cool.
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Great write-up, I agree with just about everything you are saying.
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really great article thanks for the writeup! I hope that blizzard does something with the thor because currently it's my least favorite unit. Well that and the collossi
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I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
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Awsome article
I liked most of your ideas/suggestions and now i think they can make the thor better (more iconic).
I hope they try some of these ideas.
Only disagree with this:
Terran Racial Identity
In order to deeper examine what's wrong with the Thor, I want to briefly discuss what two traits I think distinguishes the Terran race in Starcraft (and Starcraft 2).
- Synergy
- Adaptability/versatility
Synergy is simple: Terran armies combine to become more than the sum of their parts.
While not wrong, i think this is a characteristic of all 3 races. Zergling+Ultras+defiler, Zealot+Dragoon+HT, Reaver+Corsair. All three races are better with armies of combined units.
I know you know this, but my point is that is not only an identity of terran, but of SC overall.
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wow this is strange.
i scroll past everything to read the comments to see IF i should read the article
and the comments are...good? FUCK now i have to read this
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Katowice25012 Posts
That walking bunker idea is really cool both from a flavor standpoint and a game mechanics one
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Didn't the Thor originally have a really long range gun barrage which required energy to use (I don't believe it is the same as the 250mm cannon ability you have described)? I was under the impression that (at least one of) the Thor's purpose(s) was to break tank standoffs in TvT. I always thought that was a really cool feature and added a lot to the matchup. However, I haven't heard much about that ability in a while. I'm guessing it is gone now?
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wow, that picture make it seem so fucking big WTF. Never noticed it.
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On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
While you've got a point, I'd like to point something out:
Zerg has ultras - but also has guardians. They're just too weak to be real ultimates.
Protoss has carriers - but also has arbiters which are equally game-breaking, but distinctly casters rather than attackers and so fit in just nicely.
Now, Terran has BCs - but also has nukes. Nukes are just too expensive to be a real ultimate weapon. And hey, you don't even see BCs in TvP. Really Terran doesn't have a powerhouse unit at all except in TvT.
I'm not sure what that says about the Thor's viability as a concept - clearly there's a niche the Terrans just don't have filled at the moment in SC:BW, but do they really need it? - but I think it's worth noting.
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On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
Devourers, Guardians and Archons?
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i am very reserved about these ideas, but i do admit the lift-off one is catchy, hah.
the main reason for my reservations is i believe most of these are contrary to blizz's unit pattern, which is partly "shed anything that makes the unit clunky." and by clunky i don't mean speed, but depth. making the thor upgrade different modules and then being able to house different units which then can cast nukes, etc. from within the unit seems more aoe'ish to me and less starcrafty.
so, like i said, i have my reservations, but am not entirely opposed.
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Toss have Carriers and Archons. Zerg aren't very powerhousy by nature, ultras being a notable exception.
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I like the ideas. Hope someone from Blizzard reads this 
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On October 22 2009 02:14 Alur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent Devourers, Guardians and Archons?
devourer is a powerhouse? o.O
u don't play zerg do u :p
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I like the way you want this unit to act, sort of terrans answer to the Queen and Mothership. No of course it won't be exactly like them (or even close to some degree) but it will be a nice counterpart to the other races, it's purpose as a low-count very-micromanageable unit will blend in nicely. Thinking about the unit as of this does not make it fit for starcraft 1, but for starcraft 2 it could be great with more time given towards micro. The idea of an scv building the unit is smart, not only does it fit the terran theme of constructing buildings at sight but it will totally mark the unit as something extraordinary comparing to the regular troops.
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holy shit. i agree 100% with everything you said. someone should DEFINITELY bring this to blizzard's attn.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 02:11 Qatol wrote:
Didn't the Thor originally have a really long range gun barrage which required energy to use (I don't believe it is the same as the 250mm cannon ability you have described)? I was under the impression that (at least one of) the Thor's purpose(s) was to break tank standoffs in TvT. I always thought that was a really cool feature and added a lot to the matchup. However, I haven't heard much about that ability in a while. I'm guessing it is gone now?
250mm Cannons (Previous Version)
Bombardment cannons in action.Artillery Strike was a powerful long-ranged area-of-effect attack. To use the Artillery Strike, the thor had to expend energy, then it "stabilized" itself as the cannons on its back were lowered. The four 250mm bombardment cannons alternated raining damage upon the area. This ability needed to be researched. The ability was later removed.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Thor
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On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
but Zerg also has defilers
Toss also has carriers
Terran also has ghosts/nukes
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Disagree with most of the ideas.
It is one thing to have ideas, it is another to have them actually work in the game. While I agree that thor has issues and is not very interesting the solutions proposed are old and problematic.
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SCV Construction:
Don't need to build anti-air or multiple factories to prepare a pump, just spam thor if air tech is spotted! Every race is limited in its macro by buildings, and this breaks the rules. The thor being a "do it all unit" as is, really make building planning less important, macro more lazy and make factories worthless targets in base raids. It also means more annoying macro, while 300/300 isn't "that big" of a unit, when units carriers are spammed.
Mechanical Rebirth
There isn't enough time for the opponent to actually not target thor's wreck. It wouldn't make sense if the opponents won't automatically attack either, since it is path blocking hostile unit which really ought to be attacked. If the unit is made "neutral" or "noncombatant" in targeting priority, it would totally mess up mass melee armies and add annoying micro to its opponents.
Mobile Bunker
400HP unsnipable EMP machine that can be repaired and fires nukes? God it can just tank its way into opponent armies and do awful things to them. This power totally overwrite whatever character the unit has and makes a bunker with fancy stuff around it. But really, terran infantry should have terran infantry's weakness behind it and larger units that needs to do the job of infantry should have those abilites built in. Opponents should have a chance of stopping the infantry from carrying out its job, and that is why the medic was removed. (since medics can't really be sniped pratically)
Lift off
Yes, every unit must cliff walk..... With everything else cliff walking/flying/transported, terrans wouldn't build seige tanks and would be a air/medivac+infantry/thor army which loses very little for that.
But really, it is crazy to suggest that because something is large, that it ought to fly. Shouldn't sensible people realize that large things have a harder time flying?
Armor facing/Super Slow Rotation speed
Too micro intensive for Starcraft scale of gaming. When people are controlling blob armies all over the map, controlling a flank to target a single unit is just too much detail. Compare to squeezing out a extra psi storm or plague, armor just isn't important enough.
Modules
Annoying to manage and differentiate in the heat of battle. If there is interesting abilities out there, just add it to the baseline unit instead of making it "occasionally interesting."
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I really liked the modules idea, although I think it should be more like tanks sieging. Press a button: anti-air. Press a different button: anti ground. I don't think it should cost any monetary resources, but rather time, much like going into and out of siege mode.
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It might be hard to make a super large unit like that "look" right in combat. It would pretty much have to fly if it were any larger than it is due to terrain considerations. But that might make it more interesting in terms of placement.
I could see scv's building special purpose mech machines, but I don't know if I like the idea of being able to refit them on the fly. I would rather you sink a minute and 300/300 into building it and then you use it as best you can. If you built a bunker bot when you needed a mobile missle turret, too bad.
As for rotation, I'm surprised the upper half stays in sync with its legs. It seems like it should be possible to make the torso swing around quickly, but only for maybe 60 degrees, afterwhich it must wait for its legs to catch up. This would make flanking moves useful, but still allow it to have a good front, and would make for interesting positioning.
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A lot of these are excellent ideas. The variable armour and the rebuild after death are great IMO. However, lift-off might make a group of thors too viable for insane harassment or CC/Nexus/Hatchery sniping. They can lift onto a cliff to backdoor, use the 5 second 500 damage ability as a group, then run away. While dangerous because of their speed, their tank-ness makes it arguably too powerful.
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On October 22 2009 02:31 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Disagree with most of the ideas.
It is one thing to have ideas, it is another to have them actually work in the game. While I agree that thor has issues and is not very interesting the solutions proposed are old and problematic.
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SCV Construction:
It also means more annoying macro, while 300/300 isn't "that big" of a unit, when units carriers are spammed.
Lift off
But really, it is crazy to suggest that because something is large, that it ought to fly. Shouldn't sensible people realize that large things have a harder time flying?
Who exactly is spamming carriers just like that?
The lift off totally makes sense. How can a huge unit like the Thor fit in a dropship? Of course it makes sense that is has his own lift-off function to be able to move across un-walkable terrain.
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Hoping they just take the unit out -_-. And I really dislike any "front defense, back defense" mechanic.. just doesn't seem very Starcraft.
I like most of the new units but the Thor just seems retarded/unfixable. Just replace or nix the unit.
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Ideally I would see the Thor as a low-count, highly customizable support unit, very potent/versatile but not something you would (under normal circumstances) mass produce. I'm fine with if, say, TvT becomes mass Thor wars - not unlike BC battles in TvT today, but what I don't want to see is it becoming something akin to ultra/ling, where it's used all the time.
There is three units at the factory/armory level tech. If such a unit can't be mass produced bread and butter then that tech path has....problems.....big ones. So we'll see bio+air with 1~2fact worth of tank support every game? lame. (but there is no other tech)
Anyway, if TvT degenerate into Thor stacks, I'd consider it a huge disaster since it is far lower tech than BC and just as boring tactically. At least BCs happens only occasionally after epic fights.
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Nice writeup. I guess the option I like the most is the Modules idea- because it plays on another aspect of Terran mech, which is its clunkyness. Yes, Terran Mech is clumsy and clunky, yet very mighty. Siege Tanks need to switch between Tank mode and Siege mode; Goliaths have powerful anti-air, but they have pathing difficulties; Vultures are very fast, but the process of dropping Spider Mines is a bit clunky.
In SC2, the Viking could fit into that model with its switching between a walker mecha and a fighter plane, while the Siege Tank remains the same. Add to that a clunky Thor that has trouble switching its weaponry on the spot but is very deadly when wielding the correct weapon, and you have something with personality and flavor.
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Sanya12364 Posts
Fitting inside dropships is insensible. But think about how slow the thor would fly, it would be completely vulnerable and doesn't have nearly the same hp as a real building. It'd be easily taken down.
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How can a huge unit like the Thor fit in a dropship? Of course it makes sense that is has his own lift-off function to be able to move across un-walkable terrain.
I'd rather the Thor being not airlift-able and have to walk everywhere, than this.
If the Thor can fly, why the hell does it need such huge legs? Just make it a battlecruiser by adding big thrusters already. I'm so tired of giant mecha flying.....flying machine really don't need to be build like a human that is restricted to the earth does it. >.>
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I think a big problem with the Thor stems from the fact that its armament doesn't suit what I perceived to be its role; that is, I thought the Thor was supposed to be the point man of an assault (ie. breaking tank lines in TvT, as someone mentioned). Yet its armament is fully ranged, so it ends up staying behind the absolute front lines, thus its armament contradicts what it LOOKS like it should do. Instead it becomes another siege tank, with less firepower, more mass, and the ability to hit air. Unfortunately the latter is a job already seemingly taken by that transformer-bot of which name I've forgotten. For the most part I agree with SWPIGWANG; a lot of the ideas are good in theory but they're, as Blizzard seems to have noted especially with the two scrapped ones, not that good in practice.
To be honest, I really feel like the Thor needs to turn into primarily a melee unit to become a point-man, which is the main thing missing from the terran arsenal I think, like Zealots and Ultralisks. And such a unit would be useful in almost every matchup I think. The balance would then be the building time as opposed to just cost (like defilers, which are relatively inexpensive but they take a lot of time to spawn), so you can't just make a legion of Thors and send them swinging that easily - although if you have the time and resources to do so, you can, like current TvT BCs.
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I have to disagree with the first three ideas.
First off, the SCV construction mechanism was removed because it can totally break matchups, more specifically TvP. For example, the T is going say 6 rax and only 1 fact. He scouts out mass carriers with his comsat. He only has mnm, which isn't all that effective v. carriers. No problem, just pull 6 SCVs or so off the mineral line and build Thors. Protoss walks in, carrier fleet demolished in a couple seconds. The Thors then head out and roflstomp the Protoss base which has practically nothing because all their resources was just blown out of the sky, literally. Starcraft places a lot of emphasis on choosing the right tech and being punished for not. SCV construction of the Thor violates that concept.
Second, field repair, although it could be viable, probably won't be used much. Unless the field revival is extremely fast (which would make it broken) the enemy army would most likely just destroy the wreckage while they're at it. Either that, or they'll ignore it for a while then when they see the telltale Thor revival animation just focus fire it and kill it while it's useless.
Also, a mobile bunker would be very scary. Especially for a Protoss player if the Thor can just act as a safe house for Ghosts as they EMP and Nuke everything. Now, if special abilities can't be used while in the Thor, then it's a little more balanced. But even then you're essentially giving all the units within the Thor an additional 400 hp! If the units within the Thor die with the Thor, then perhaps it's a little more viable and the balancing issue would come to how many units can be fit at a time.
That's all I have for now...but I must say, I kinda like the lift off idea but having so many units that can cliff jump may be a bit much...
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On October 22 2009 02:49 SWPIGWANG wrote:Show nested quote +How can a huge unit like the Thor fit in a dropship? Of course it makes sense that is has his own lift-off function to be able to move across un-walkable terrain. I'd rather the Thor being not airlift-able and have to walk everywhere, than this. If the Thor can fly, why the hell does it need such huge legs? Just make it a battlecruiser by adding big thrusters already. I'm so tired of giant mecha flying.....flying machine really don't need to be build like a human that is restricted to the earth does it. >.>
It has it's huge legs to be able to move on terrain while carrying such huge machinery. If it wouldn't be able to be transfered accross different terrains via air it wouldn't really be realistic. It is not supposted to be like a battlecruiser in the air.
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The Thor needs 'something', and you put the finger on what that something might be. Nice post.
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On October 22 2009 02:50 Southlight wrote:
To be honest, I really feel like the Thor needs to turn into primarily a melee unit to become a point-man, which is the main thing missing from the terran arsenal I think, like Zealots and Ultralisks. And such a unit would be useful in almost every matchup I think. The balance would then be the building time as opposed to just cost (like defilers, which are relatively inexpensive but they take a lot of time to spawn), so you can't just make a legion of Thors and send them swinging that easily - although if you have the time and resources to do so, you can, like current TvT BCs.
This is similar to something I've said before: Thor looks like it should best be (late-game) melee brawler. For sheer ridiculousity I'd like to see melee-Thor with lift-off just for the effect of the giant mech crashing down into the middle of a battle and pulverizing stuff, true Hollywood style, but I'm not sure that's really viable.
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Sweden33719 Posts
SCV Construction:
Don't need to build anti-air or multiple factories to prepare a pump, just spam thor if air tech is spotted! Every race is limited in its macro by buildings, and this breaks the rules. The thor being a "do it all unit" as is, really make building planning less important, macro more lazy and make factories worthless targets in base raids. It also means more annoying macro, while 300/300 isn't "that big" of a unit, when units carriers are spammed.
I don't see this as a problem. And the cost of the unit is obviously subject to balance - I only said I wouldn't be talking about cost because I have NO basis on which to judge how much the unit is worth. Subject to balance.
Mechanical Rebirth
There isn't enough time for the opponent to actually not target thor's wreck. It wouldn't make sense if the opponents won't automatically attack either, since it is path blocking hostile unit which really ought to be attacked. If the unit is made "neutral" or "noncombatant" in targeting priority, it would totally mess up mass melee armies and add annoying micro to its opponents.
I don't think it's that big of a deal if they form obstacles while wrecked. Players are gonna be manually targetting units anyway so it's up to them to prioritize whether they want to finish off the wreck (and risk an SCV sneaking back to re-activate it once the battle is over), or not.
Mobile Bunker
400HP unsnipable EMP machine that can be repaired and fires nukes? God it can just tank its way into opponent armies and do awful things to them. This power totally overwrite whatever character the unit has and makes a bunker with fancy stuff around it. But really, terran infantry should have terran infantry's weakness behind it and larger units that needs to do the job of infantry should have those abilites built in. Opponents should have a chance of stopping the infantry from carrying out its job, and that is why the medic was removed. (since medics can't really be sniped pratically)
I had initially added a caveat about not being able to nuke from it but I removed it as I wasn't sure if you could even nuke from a normal bunker or not.
What's so different between this and a bunker anyway.
Anyway, I guess you hate the bunker?
Lift off
Yes, every unit must cliff walk..... With everything else cliff walking/flying/transported, terrans wouldn't build seige tanks and would be a air/medivac+infantry/thor army which loses very little for that.
But really, it is crazy to suggest that because something is large, that it ought to fly. Shouldn't sensible people realize that large things have a harder time flying?
Oh come on, that last line of your complaint is just petty. What about Terran buildings? They are all as big as a Thor, and they ALL fly.
Armor facing/Super Slow Rotation speed
Too micro intensive for Starcraft scale of gaming. When people are controlling blob armies all over the map, controlling a flank to target a single unit is just too much detail. Compare to squeezing out a extra psi storm or plague, armor just isn't important enough.
So most people won't have the time to exploit it except in small scale battles. So what? The ones capable of exploiting will get an edge.
Modules
Annoying to manage and differentiate in the heat of battle. If there is interesting abilities out there, just add it to the baseline unit instead of making it "occasionally interesting."
... Really? I guess Siege Mode is too annoying to manage as well. Meh.
On October 22 2009 02:59 Musoeun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 02:50 Southlight wrote:
To be honest, I really feel like the Thor needs to turn into primarily a melee unit to become a point-man, which is the main thing missing from the terran arsenal I think, like Zealots and Ultralisks. And such a unit would be useful in almost every matchup I think. The balance would then be the building time as opposed to just cost (like defilers, which are relatively inexpensive but they take a lot of time to spawn), so you can't just make a legion of Thors and send them swinging that easily - although if you have the time and resources to do so, you can, like current TvT BCs. This is similar to something I've said before: Thor looks like it should best be (late-game) melee brawler. For sheer ridiculousity I'd like to see melee-Thor with lift-off just for the effect of the giant mech crashing down into the middle of a battle and pulverizing stuff, true Hollywood style, but I'm not sure that's really viable.
I think that would be a fine module option as well.
On October 22 2009 02:51 Ryuu314 wrote:
I have to disagree with the first three ideas.
First off, the SCV construction mechanism was removed because it can totally break matchups, more specifically TvP. For example, the T is going say 6 rax and only 1 fact. He scouts out mass carriers with his comsat. He only has mnm, which isn't all that effective v. carriers. No problem, just pull 6 SCVs or so off the mineral line and build Thors. Protoss walks in, carrier fleet demolished in a couple seconds. The Thors then head out and roflstomp the Protoss base which has practically nothing because all their resources was just blown out of the sky, literally. Starcraft places a lot of emphasis on choosing the right tech and being punished for not. SCV construction of the Thor violates that concept.
Second, field repair, although it could be viable, probably won't be used much. Unless the field revival is extremely fast (which would make it broken) the enemy army would most likely just destroy the wreckage while they're at it. Either that, or they'll ignore it for a while then when they see the telltale Thor revival animation just focus fire it and kill it while it's useless.
Also, a mobile bunker would be very scary. Especially for a Protoss player if the Thor can just act as a safe house for Ghosts as they EMP and Nuke everything. Now, if special abilities can't be used while in the Thor, then it's a little more balanced. But even then you're essentially giving all the units within the Thor an additional 400 hp! If the units within the Thor die with the Thor, then perhaps it's a little more viable and the balancing issue would come to how many units can be fit at a time.
That's all I have for now...but I must say, I kinda like the lift off idea but having so many units that can cliff jump may be a bit much...
1) Well, the Thor isn't supposed to be good vs Carriers I thought. Its supposed role is as a counter to light, mass air (ie Mutas).
2) Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to have it there basically.
3) Hm, is being able to house 4 marines really that huge of a deal? And I agree you shouldn't be able to nuke from a Thor.
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I would like for all the unit changes and additions in SC2 to follow some sort of logic from SC1. The terran units in SC1 were designed to fight other terrans, and were used to fight the zerg and protoss because that was all they had. By the time we reach SC2 they should have units specially designed to fight zerg and protoss. I think a huge anti-air mech fits this perfectly, given the power of muta swarms and carrier fleets vs terran in SC1. It can't be picked off easily or sniped around the edged and can unleash a huge barrage of long range splash air damage.
I would slow the thor down from the speed seen in the battle report, bring back the characteristic that if it we caught on its own a faster ground unit to could run circles around it. The anti-air weapon, though, should be on a swiveling turret and be able to attack in any direction. I am not against the specializing/retrofitting idea, but that seems to intrude too much on where Blizzard is taking the battle cruiser.
I really like the idea of it being built and rebuilt by an scv. I think that is a really terran-fitting trait, like it would be used on some far frontier planet or something. The point was made in another thread that if protoss invested all the resources to switch to carriers a terran player could just grab a bunch of scvs and make all the thors needed at once. A special tech building for the thor could maybe counteract this, especially if the anti-air gun range or splash damage or something had to be researched afterward.
I am really against the thor having some sort of base/defense assault special ability. Too redundant with the siege tank.
The mobile bunker idea I think would work better as a different vehicle. Maybe ditch the hellion, bring back firebat and have a bunkerbuggy buildable at the factory? Could even hold two units when driving around, transform into static bunker to hold 4 units or something...
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I think the Thor is god awful for one reason, that is one mother f'ing fast building.
Seeing the last battle report, they where zipping and turning around as fast as marauders. These are huge mechs, cant they behave like them? They seemed more mobile than goliaths in bw.
I think they should stay in the support role, using a reaver as an example. Big lumbering mech that has a huge firebase, but if flanked will get taken down easy without any support. The siege tank really fits the flavor of Terran, the Thor could compliment it. The problem is to not overide roles. Easily the Thor could be an air spam counter, he might as well have turrets on his shoulders. Artillery barrage (despite how perfect he seems for it) would conflict with nukes and siege tanks though. How about instead of a large area damage attack for ground support (because come on, who would use him if he was only good for anti air), he has a single shot long range cannon attack that is good against armored targets like the collusus and the utralisk. His current spell seems really funky. Pretty much, he could be a sniper against heavy targets in the air or ground. Let him be really slow so that hes easily fanked by fast units like zerglings and zealots if the terran gets reckless.
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You could have them buildable by SCVs if it just took long enough maybe?
I would be fine with it just being really powerful and all-round too but in turn being very slow and/or clumsy - and without liftoff or capability to fit to a transport, to make moving around a major weakness. Some aa firepower, bit more ground attacking power, but mostly a tonne of hp. Tanks would give more firepower for cost but Thor would be there to take hits, maybe even retreating back to get repaired after taking damage. You could have them amidst other units just shooting out, they ought to have enough range for that imo, but they would be best used when put to more front so that AIs of enemy units would be more likely to target the Thor instead of your more fragile units. And make sure that army of tank+thor beats same cost army of pure thor consistently, but that pure tank doesnt beat tank+thor when army size grows enough.
Slow movement and slow building by SCVs would make it really important to decide where exactly you build them too
And about the resurrection, while youre at it just make them go into TA style wrecks that either side can harvest for minerals :D
Bunker thing seems silly, why take more soldiers in when that room could be used for a gun the size of said soldier?
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wow, nice write indeed.
but can you actually load a thor in a dropship!? that would need some changes: the thor should be resized down (preferred) or make the dropship FUCKING HUGE!
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I agree with everything. Great ideas, the Thor needs an identity. Listen Blizzard!!
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Thor should transform in to a battlecruiser :D . But seriously Thor is for tanking damage pretty much what the ultras are for zerg . Its good anti- air attack is alone a very good counter to carriers so i think its a good unit in the terran arsenal as it is .
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On October 22 2009 03:31 JohannesH wrote:
I would be fine with it just being really powerful and all-round too but in turn being very slow and/or clumsy - and without liftoff or capability to fit to a transport, to make moving around a major weakness. Some aa firepower, bit more ground attacking power, but mostly a tonne of hp. Tanks would give more firepower for cost but Thor would be there to take hits, maybe even retreating back to get repaired after taking damage. You could have them amidst other units just shooting out, they ought to have enough range for that imo, but they would be best used when put to more front so that AIs of enemy units would be more likely to target the Thor instead of your more fragile units. And make sure that army of tank+thor beats same cost army of pure thor consistently, but that pure tank doesnt beat tank+thor when army size grows enough.
There's the problem of theory vs realty. The reality is then if it's slow and has mainly ranged weaponry it's not going to be anywhere in range of being "hit," unless it gets intercepted ala tanks rallied to a fight and roaming across the map alone. Not to mention opponents will more likely just kite the blob until it's 1) out of range because it moved too slow or 2) they're ready to take your blob on, which means a slow unit simply runs counter to terran SC2 mobility. And retreating? With a slow-ass unit? Good luck.
Edit: Not to mention, if it has a crapton of HP, moves slow, and doesn't do THAT MUCH DAMAGE then people will usually just ignore it. It's gotta be an immediate threat to force people to actually deal with it, and a slow, giant block of metal sitting at the back of an army makes it very low on the list of priorities. /end edit.
Plus, having a slow, heavy unit is redundant with tanks. People are sitting on the line between Siege Tanks from SC1 and a Krogoth from Total Annihilation, and you end up either looking at Siege Tank #2, the very thing people were against (Motherships at announcement), or something very "meh" (what we have now).
FA's ideas are nice but they don't do much than to keep the Thor in the Siege Tank #2 niche, except with the ability to switch modes to hit air and a nifty little macro mechanic that'll force people to (gasp) look at their base. Which is what Blizzard has been trying to do but I don't think anyone's hoping for a late-game unit to be the thing that solves that problem.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 03:34 fabiano wrote:
wow, nice write indeed.
but can you actually load a thor in a dropship!? that would need some changes: the thor should be resized down (preferred) or make the dropship FUCKING HUGE!
I believe that currently the thor attaches itself to the bottom of the dropship or something like that. Hangs outside or something.
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On October 22 2009 03:14 FrozenArbiter wrote:....
Its not the cost. Its the fact that the Terran can mess up his factory count and macro timing and be just fine by throwing a few thors down.
Wreckage is meaningless in SC, a extremely high damage per second RTS game. Units and engagements lasts seconds before one side is destroyed. Unless the wreckage has a lot more hp than the actual unit, it would too be destroyed very quickly during/after battle. The read effect of the mechanic is to block zealots and zerglings for a few split seconds before they could destroy/bypass that and push onto the next target, or that terran gets to recover some units after winning a battle. (which just means the winner wins more, and the game ends faster)
As for moving bunker: If you have something boring like no special abilities, than it would probably be always used and it is just be adding 24 damage to the unit for 200 minerals and such, which isn't really all that interesting. If special abilities can be used, then it is a unsnipable caster which is against the principles of starcraft, as everything from templars, defilers, vessels and such can be sniped. Unsnipable EMP is just bad design that totally screws the protoss. I guess the only interesting thing to do with the unit is to use it for marauder dodge micro, but it is still questionable if it is worth the time.
The bunker was fine because it is static and didn't replace infantry. The thor, being mobile, would likely replace naked infantry which is effectively taking out units.
Thors are also mid game units, so small battles is not going to be what it finds itself in. It would also be extremely annoying when you have like 5 differently loaded out thors and have to figure out which does what in the heat of battle while missing some of the usual cues. It is nice that every other starcraft unit is standardized, so that if you hotkey a group and select one out of them (for spell casting for example), you know it can do it as long as it has mana. But 5 different upgrades? Are you telling me to get 5 control groups of 1 thor?
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Look, gimmicks are bad, okay. The proposals looks like something out of RA3 design team, and I hope no RTS follow their footsteps.
The question is whether a unit has a strategic role and opens up interesting strategies. If a unit fails to do anything useful, than adding gimmicks like armor facings or wreckage would do absolutely nothing to save it.
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The other proposals result in a huge remap of strategic options. A Heavy Cliff climber unit at armory tech? Unsnipable EMP on every protoss army? A unit that can be build without buildings and is good against everything? That sort of thing is going to completely change the Terran race in really complicated ways, not all of it desirable.
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reminds me of the overlord tank from c&c generals, where you could put addons on the tank but you could only choose one.
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I agree with you on this. The Thor doesn't have an identity of its own. The units has been changing so much every few builds. First it was a buffed up tank, an artillery unit. Then it was changed into a mass AA killer. It's abilities are bland and overlap with other units. While the concept is very nice, they just can't seem to find a suitable place for him.
I was always a firm believer (don't take out the torches and pitchforks, please!) that the Siege Tank should be taken out of the game, and replaced with the Thor. It's model screams ass-kicking, so why can't it have that role? In SC1 tanks took 2 supply. In Starcraft 2, they take up 3 supply. Blizzard said themselves they beefed up the tank and made it cost more food, so the battlefield will see less of them. Why not take it a step further but replace the CrucioST with the Thor?
Anyway, I agree also on the points that Mechanical Rebirth was a very good and unique ability. It beats me, why they removed such a good ability. You took the CnC3 example of the Scrin Anihilator Tripod. Don't forget that Nod's Avatars and GDI's Juggernaut also had the ability to be resurrected.
I can't say I agree with the Thor being built by SCVs, thought. I think it should be able to be resurrected by an SCV. Maybe with a timer(a la CnC3 engi waits 3s before resurrecting it), a % percent of HP repaired before being able to rise again, being rebuilt, or resurrected immediately, but with insanely low HP(like 10-20?) thus making it need repairs before being battle ready again.
In conclusion I would like to say the Thor is a kick-ass unit, it has a great model, and should stay in the game 1 way or another. But personally I just can't picture it being an anti-AA gun that walks =\.
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First thing about the Thor - considering it deals massive damage and is a big and clunky unit, it would be pretty cool if it had the sieged tank weakness of being unable to attack at point blank AND could be targeted by air-to-air flyers - things which would fit very well with it's character as a MASSIVE robot. I think the slow turning would make it useless against mutalisks, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad. Those weaknesses could be countered by lowering it to 5 supply (last battle report showed the armies being too small, this would help with that), and on a positive note, would give it a clearer niche role for the Terran army (second-third rank mobile support).
I think that the mechanical rebirth is a good idea overall (fits the Terran identity), but perhaps instead it should leave a wreckage with 400hp which is a one-square high-ground (or maybe just leave it burning), and SCVs should have a "salvage" ability on it, stripping it down for minerals, the amount dependent on how much damage the wreckage received. That way it wouldn't become a useless ability, and we could finally see Zealots standing on piles of destroyed enemies (which is so awesome that words fail me).
My biggest problem with the Thor is that it replaces the good-old "build turrets with your push" mechanic, which helped create a massive differentiation from Protoss and Zerg and gave the Terran push a feeling of a gritty, unstoppable war machine (yes, I know people dislike turtle-Terran style, but I think it's one of the things that give SC1 such an epic feel). I'd think that slowing it down some more would help that vibe, and would make the usage of dropships much more important.
I know there are some problems with this, but it needs to feel Terran, fit a need, and not just be a ground-BC with ground-yamato.
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The Thor imo was fine when it had mechanical rebirth, when all an SCV had to do was rebuild the wreckage during a battle. The role of the Thor is to anchor an army and so you shouldnt have the ability to make too many of them. The fact that its a jack of all trades in terms of offensive power is fine so long as you make the siege tank better at fulfilling its role and give the hellion some type of mine ability(id suggest giving them the d8 charges actually, the reaper is fine with just stim). What you get out of that is a split between siege/defensive options for the Terran.
1) Hellion/Siege Tank - this strategy plays out much like traditional BW mech and as such is most effective at holding positions and slowly branching out to take the map.
OR
2) Use Thors - when you go with Thors, your going for a much more versatile type of mech play because you can pretty much use anything with Thors and you can draw fire away from your other forces simply by constantly threatening to rebuild it after its been destroyed for the first time. It would even buy you the time to use Ghosts for tactical nukes.
Think of this version of the Thor to be the key to a bio-mech style in SC2.
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I was mostly irked by the fact that in the BR there were so many thors produced. I think it would be okay if there is a high powered general purpose unit. But using them should be a strategic choice, and not using them should be a viable option. I think the thors should move slower, coupled with costing more supply, in the range of 10-12. I know that sounds like a crazy amount of supply but it should be balanced against its abilities. This would force less thors and in combination with the thors being less mobile it will force more focus on positional play, when using them.
Of course this also makes it more viable for terran to not go thor. They will have a more mobile army with larger number of units. This will be similar to SC1's choice of going MnM.
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Great Read! Really love the idea about being able to fly like Terran buildings that would probably do wonders to separate its role from the siege tank. Like someone posted earlier Blizz should really think about the module idea because that is genius and does sound very Terran.
On the bunkers sc2armory says you cannot use unit abilities while inside a bunker (probably because of nukes lol).
http://www.sc2armory.com/game/terran/buildings/bunker
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Personally I love the idea of the Thor. It's just that it needs so much balancing is it really worth it?
I think the Thor should be either a strong jack-of-all-trades that's very high tech (like BC level). Only problem with that is that then its role would overlap with the BC.
According to SC2pod, the Thor does 40 damage that splashes to ALL air. It gets an added 16 damage to light air. So basically right now, it rapes air, and it pulverizes light air in seconds. But really...does the Thor look like it should only be AA? I don't think so...
According to internal Blizzard tests and releases, the SCV field building ability was scrapped mainly because it was too easy to abuse. That's one ability that I think should not be given no matter what even if it fits the Terran image. This basically allows the Terran to mis-macro and mis-tech and yet still get an extremely powerful AA weapon/tank. The repair ability most likely would not be used at all in game. Enemy forces would just destroy the wreckage as part of their attack or just destroy it while its being rebuilt. FA said that the ability could just be there even if it won't be used much. However, one of the greatest things about SC is that there were no abilities that were kept intentionally unused. Every ability had a purpose that would be used given the right build or situation. Furthermore, the bunker concept is essentially giving the Thor a damage upgrade for X amount of minerals. Kinda irrelevant and pointless; why not just GIVE the Thor an additional damage upgrade option the same way the Ultralisk got an additional armor upgrade option?
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 04:27 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Look, gimmicks are bad, okay. The proposals looks like something out of RA3 design team, and I hope no RTS follow their footsteps.
The question is whether a unit has a strategic role and opens up interesting strategies. If a unit fails to do anything useful, than adding gimmicks like armor facings or wreckage would do absolutely nothing to save it.
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The other proposals result in a huge remap of strategic options. A Heavy Cliff climber unit at armory tech? Unsnipable EMP on every protoss army? A unit that can be build without buildings and is good against everything? That sort of thing is going to completely change the Terran race in really complicated ways, not all of it desirable.
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
Oh and you don't need to key them to individual groups - just use the tab key to switch between them from within one group.
Thors are also mid game units, so small battles is not going to be what it finds itself in. It would also be extremely annoying when you have like 5 differently loaded out thors and have to figure out which does what in the heat of battle while missing some of the usual cues. It is nice that every other starcraft unit is standardized, so that if you hotkey a group and select one out of them (for spell casting for example), you know it can do it as long as it has mana. But 5 different upgrades? Are you telling me to get 5 control groups of 1 thor?
Just to clarify - I did NOT mean for every single module I talked about to be implemented. It was simply brainstorming - 5 modules would barely even fit in the command window :S Also, you can very easily have visual cues on a unit as HUGE as the Thor.
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
According to internal Blizzard tests and releases, the SCV field building ability was scrapped mainly because it was too easy to abuse. That's one ability that I think should not be given no matter what even if it fits the Terran image. This basically allows the Terran to mis-macro and mis-tech and yet still get an extremely powerful AA weapon/tank.
Can you explain how this is different from, say, a TvP where you are going mass vulture/tank with upgrades then realize oh shit he has carriers and switch all factories to goliath production?
Not sure I see the difference.
On October 22 2009 04:54 Badjas wrote:
I was mostly irked by the fact that in the BR there were so many thors produced. I think it would be okay if there is a high powered general purpose unit. But using them should be a strategic choice, and not using them should be a viable option. I think the thors should move slower, coupled with costing more supply, in the range of 10-12. I know that sounds like a crazy amount of supply but it should be balanced against its abilities. This would force less thors and in combination with the thors being less mobile it will force more focus on positional play, when using them.
Of course this also makes it more viable for terran to not go thor. They will have a more mobile army with larger number of units. This will be similar to SC1's choice of going MnM.
I agree, but if it's going to increase in supply/cost it needs to do more than it currently does IMO.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
I still think it's visual design can be dubbed as inefficient and game role vague. I don't think that customization is the right way to go, SC had always been about keeping things simple. Whereas an ability like "lowers ranged damage by 20% in an area" fits well in a game like WC3, it's useless in SC where the right ability is "immunity to ranged damage in an area". Simplicity and no complex calculations, that's the right way to go. Customization brings out much unneeded focus on one specific unit, SC is much more macro-oriented (not in a sense of economy, but in a sense that you always think about the process as a whole) to be about customizing one unit. Even units that worked well in SC solo (defiler, reaver) are relatively simple by themselves, they just occupy such a niche that they are very needed.
Construction on the spot is very argueable. You could somehow just tech to Thors without any production and still be there early because you didn't waste money on factories and voila you have almost infinite production capabilites. I'm not sure how that works out in a real game, probably they found it hard to balance.
Rebirth is meh. Just like the Roach, it's either useless, or you gain immunity in clutch situations like an elimination race or mine-out. Being immune is not good, it's almost as bad as lifting off your buildings when there are no more minerals and your enemy cannot build anti-air. We all know you lost, but technically it's a draw.
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@ FA: The difference between the SC tech switch to Goliaths from Tank/Vult is that the Terran needed the factories to do the tech switch. Since the Terran had a bunch of factories the tech switch was viable. By allowing an SCV to just build a Thor you're allowing the Terran player to have essentially no factory tech but still having an unit that fills the heavy mech role. Also, in SC when the Terran switches factories to Goliath production, he's sacrificing Vulture/Tank production. By allowing Thors to be built by SCVs, the Terran can get the AA he needs so badly without sacrificing Hellion/Tank production.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I still think it's visual design can be dubbed as inefficient and game role vague. I don't think that customization is the right way to go, SC had always been about keeping things simple. Whereas an ability like "lowers ranged damage by 20% in an area" fits well in a game like WC3, it's useless in SC where the right ability is "immunity to ranged damage in an area". Simplicity and no complex calculations, that's the right way to go. Customization brings out much unneeded focus on one specific unit, SC is much more macro-oriented (not in a sense of economy, but in a sense that you always think about the process as a whole) to be about customizing one unit. Even units that worked well in SC solo (defiler, reaver) are relatively simple by themselves, they just occupy such a niche that they are very needed.
To me, it doesn't feel that far removed from how terran add-ons work, or even siege mode (the modules that is). Especially if you basically just make it an extension of siege mode - ie you have to switch between the different guns (could even be at no cost aside from transformation time).
Construction on the spot is very argueable. You could somehow just tech to Thors without any production and still be there early because you didn't waste money on factories and voila you have almost infinite production capabilites. I'm not sure how that works out in a real game, probably they found it hard to balance.
OK, this is an interesting point. But if the Thor is sufficiently high tech (as befits a unit of that size...) then it shouldn't be an issue really.
Rebirth is meh. Just like the Roach, it's either useless, or you gain immunity in clutch situations like an elimination race or mine-out. Being immune is not good, it's almost as bad as lifting off your buildings when there are no more minerals and your enemy cannot build anti-air. We all know you lost, but technically it's a draw.
Good point as well. Although I disagree about the roach - burrow+increased healing speed should make it work without being broken/bad (see: fiends in WC3).
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Concerning customization, doesn't anyone remember that the BC already has nearly that exact same thing? You know, you can pick a shield, AoE missiles, or Yamato Cannon?
Moreover, I'm just not convinced that customization is the way to go, it's too complicated, for one, and for another *you can already customize your army*. A lot of SC is about getting the right unit combination ratios for an overall effective army, and allowing not just the BC but also the Thor to do this by itself only adds more redundancy (both on the customization front and the siege tank #2 front) without actually solving all the problems. The Thor's identity can only get MORE muddled by customization.
Indeed, though at first I balked at the idea of the Thor as a melee unit, I realized that as long as you put some sick flamethrowers on (or something like that) and kept it slightly less mobile than an ultralisk than Thors could make fairly heavy metal style viable by shielding tanks due to their sheer size.
While before in SC vultures and goliaths provide the tanks with the wall you need to protect them from zealots and such, the large size of thors suggests that a similar function would not be out of the question. And while I think making the unit melee is kind of a stretch, making it have a shorter range seems the simplest way to force it to the front of the battle and give it a great deal of character.
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Currently it seems fine.. focus more on the high hp, and the high damage slow rate of fire ground weapon. (making it the counter for artillery units which are high dps... and do splash, but have low hp)
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Just from a spectator's point of view, if the Thor was one giant hulking slow ass motherfucking anti air defensive ground unit, portable bunker and all, it would be AWESOME to watch such a thing roll up to someone's front door, escorting and protecting siege tanks from blinkers and teir 1 unit.
Waves and waves of zerglings would be churned into pulp as the Thor, in true terran slow-push style, grinded up to zerg ramp. Behind it would be floating barracks/factories/command centers (to protect production vs mobile counterattacks). And the nearby protected seige tanks would roll to a halt, siege up, and proceed to shell the sunken line. And at the same time the CC would land and take over Zerg's natural right under their nose. It would produce such a BRACE FOR EPIC feeling watching zerg launch everything at it in desperation.
Of course, i dont know how practical that is in balance, but its just a wet dream of mine.
EDIT: oh and the Thor should be progressively more IN FLAMES as it reaches closer to red HP. Nothing like a flaming, shooting, bombing, blasting inevitable doom. And if/when it explodes the audience would go apeshit, and the terran supporters should feel their liver on their toes.
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Who doesn't love giant robots?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Concerning customization, doesn't anyone remember that the BC already has nearly that exact same thing? You know, you can pick a shield, AoE missiles, or Yamato Cannon?
Honestly, it had COMPLETELY slipped my mind >_<
Indeed, though at first I balked at the idea of the Thor as a melee unit, I realized that as long as you put some sick flamethrowers on (or something like that) and kept it slightly less mobile than an ultralisk than Thors could make fairly heavy metal style viable by shielding tanks due to their sheer size
Sounds good.
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i definitely like the module idea, reminds me of the battlecruiser upgrade idea. i do have a problem with the multiple armor values/types. the game would have to distinguish where the "lines" for front and back armor would be, which would be horrendous because 1 pixel could decide what type of armor your're facing, which is why vehicles in 40k have side armor.
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You could havve the thor upgrade to either the battlecruisers AoE rockets or the stun cannons ability.
Battlecruisers could upgrade either Yamatoe or Defensive matrix.
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I really like the modules idea, with the transformation having to be researched, and the animation between transformations taking about the same time as warp in. Fast enough that you could use it in a fight, but not fast enough to make up for glaringly bad scouting the opponents army. The module should be exclusively what it transforms to, such as if it goes AA, then it loses all GtG and 250mm cannons, but buff the AtA. Likewise, if you want to use 250mm, you need to keep the original form.
A third form more tank-like would be nice that eschews all ranged damage for more armor/or dmatrix, and a very slow melee range AoE with some sort of effect vs. light units such as 1 second stun. Slow, like siege mode slow so it's not like you can totally lock down a light unit army. It would be useful situationally vs. endgame cracklings or MnM. I think it would be awesome and fear-inspiring to see an animation of maybe a giant hammer pounding the ground every 3-4 seconds. ^^ also a great counter mid-late game for zealots with charge and it forces the opponent to target the Thor because no one wants to get stunned. It would also encourage the terran player to send more scv's with his push to repair the tanking thor.
I also like the idea that if in AtA mode, it can fire unidirectionally, and throw in that you can fire while moving, esp. if you are giving up all GtG attacks for the one ability.
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On October 22 2009 02:22 da_head wrote:
holy shit. i agree 100% with everything you said. someone should DEFINITELY bring this to blizzard's attn.
the sc2 team lurks here all the time man
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I'm not sure about the rebirth ability, I feel like it would almost never come into play in regular battles or be tremendously irritating when you end up trading armies.
The thor being a 'building' is conceptually great - a terran push where thors are built out on the field as reinforcements sounds neat. The balance issues with walling off + teching thors could be a problem, though - if you cant muta harass before one or two thors come out... though this might be remedied by the rear armor idea and turning speed - which would also really make positioning and flanking important in dealing with thor armies moving out (banelings, blink?).
I think the bunker idea would be imbalanced, though, even if like a normal bunker you cant cast/repair from inside. 4 marauders shooting the stuff behind the thor?
Also, I hope TvTs don't turn into huge Thor-fests
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although allowing it to transform would be cool, that and the scv field building are two things i really don't think should be implemented. the balance issues regarding those two are enormous.
Example Scenario:
terran player scouts protoss massing stargates. factories are busy making tanks? no problem, build them Thors using scvs pulled off mineral line. after you destroyed the protoss carrier fleet with Thors, the Terran player sees Protoss making really fast switch to zealot/goon? No problem, transform all the Thors into GtG mode or seige mode or w/e. Thor and the tanks that were being pumped out of the factories earlier eat up that ground army. Oh wait, the Protoss somehow still has resources and switches to air again? No problem! Just turn Thors back to AtA and annihilate that carrier fleet one more time. Repeat.
See the potential abuse here? By allowing SCVs to just build Thors in the field you free up the factories to continue pumping Tanks/Hellions, which is pretty imba in itself (dont' forget about the Terran Reactors!). Add to that a Thor ability to transform at will make the Thor a true monster. Don't get me wrong, I love the Thor idea, it's just all those little abilities will make it very imba.
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Maybe make it that you can only transform the Thor from its original form once, then you would pay a heavy price if your opponent fooled you be doing a tech switch, or showing you 2 carriers or 6 mutas, then push out with a heavy ground army. Then you can open up the idea of maybe if the Thor has full hp, you can salvage it for 50% cost, leaving you with some resources for your mistake, but you would have to remake it, or other units, while you have lost precious time.
And yes, the Thor should definitely be produced from the factory or all these ideas are trash.
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On October 22 2009 02:13 Musoeun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent While you've got a point, I'd like to point something out: Zerg has ultras - but also has guardians. They're just too weak to be real ultimates. Protoss has carriers - but also has arbiters which are equally game-breaking, but distinctly casters rather than attackers and so fit in just nicely. Now, Terran has BCs - but also has nukes. Nukes are just too expensive to be a real ultimate weapon. And hey, you don't even see BCs in TvP. Really Terran doesn't have a powerhouse unit at all except in TvT. I'm not sure what that says about the Thor's viability as a concept - clearly there's a niche the Terrans just don't have filled at the moment in SC:BW, but do they really need it? - but I think it's worth noting.
You're comparing Guadians to the ultimate units of each race? That's like... "Terran has BCs. But also has Siege Tanks", although tanks are probably even more ultimate than guardians, still. And there's been quite a few instances where BCs have been used vs Z.
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Seems like this is a recurring problem w/ the Thor since the game was released. Just cut the damned thing.
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I think either the mobile bunker or the def matrix should be implemented and not both; here's why,
3 scvs repairing a supply depot can fend off 6 speedlings (correct me if I'm wrong). Now given that a bunker holds 4 if each thor carries 4 scvs and say there are 3 thors charging the front line...with defense matrix...that's kind of unbreakable. Especially considering if you ever do get 3 thors like that you'd probably have a decent sized army composed of other units as well.
As far as modules, I really think that swapping specs need to cost more than what you seemed to propose. from a swift read i can see you projecting the cost to be like 50/50 or say 100/50 for ground and 50/100 for air (again correct here if I'm mistaken). In all honesty I'd like to see better adaptation over switching what your thor's armed with. a proper sc2 game i feel at the moment should have about maybe 5 thors max out at once at late game, and keeping the modules cheap might increase turtling as well.
As far as armor I'm not sure how I feel about that. It does seem like a good idea, especially since I can totally see a cinematic of a group of zerglings running up the back of a thor and ripping all of its wires out from the back and then the thor exploding. but i digress.
Overall in the current state thors should be fixed so that its not overly produced. I do think if they toned it down a bit (350 hp, 25 atk?) and redid the size then an thor vs ultralisk army battle would be very entertaining to watch.
on a side not though, notice the size of the ultralisks now kind of match the size of thors. they're just more boxy where the thor is more rectangular. wonder if blizzard is trying to get the units to match up?
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Exept the "Mobile Bunker" idea, that is crap, everything is damn brillant.
Something similar to that mobile bunker idea emerged in WC3. When back during the beta, riflemen could enter into siege machines, but it really turned out to be completly retarded.
It's just too strong of a tactic for something that require basically no skill at all.
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I remember someone (I want to say Blizzard but can't say for sure) stated that the main reason for the mechanical repair was removed was because it was never really practical in a game. If your opponents attacks you with thor(s), chances are they destroy your army and continue to roll your base or you force them to retreat and since thors are supposedly the slowest, there is much less chance for any of them making it back home safely. Therefore, the thor wreckage is left on the opposite side of the map nearer to the opposing army.
Conversely, if you are defending with the thor, either your thor dies and your army is destroyed anyways or your thor lives/is wrecked after you just dominated their forces so it wouldn't matter much if it had lived or died. Something along those lines.
If someone can find the official post (probably a Karune post I believe or a panel interview), that would be a lot better than me trying to recollect what they said a few months back.
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Please allow me to repeat myself in this thread as it will be more relevant here than where I posted it the first time:
On October 21 2009 07:21 Manit0u wrote:My thoughts on Thor: 1. Either make it smaller and massable. 2. Or bigger and more unique.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 07:03 MrRey wrote:
Exept the "Mobile Bunker" idea, that is crap, everything is damn brillant.
Something similar to that mobile bunker idea emerged in WC3. When back during the beta, riflemen could enter into siege machines, but it really turned out to be completly retarded.
It's just too strong of a tactic for something that require basically no skill at all.
Ah it's good you brought that up, I didn't know the Siege Engine had ever been able to have the transported units fire from it =]
On October 22 2009 06:32 Ryuu314 wrote:
although allowing it to transform would be cool, that and the scv field building are two things i really don't think should be implemented. the balance issues regarding those two are enormous.
Example Scenario:
terran player scouts protoss massing stargates. factories are busy making tanks? no problem, build them Thors using scvs pulled off mineral line. after you destroyed the protoss carrier fleet with Thors, the Terran player sees Protoss making really fast switch to zealot/goon? No problem, transform all the Thors into GtG mode or seige mode or w/e. Thor and the tanks that were being pumped out of the factories earlier eat up that ground army. Oh wait, the Protoss somehow still has resources and switches to air again? No problem! Just turn Thors back to AtA and annihilate that carrier fleet one more time. Repeat.
See the potential abuse here? By allowing SCVs to just build Thors in the field you free up the factories to continue pumping Tanks/Hellions, which is pretty imba in itself (dont' forget about the Terran Reactors!). Add to that a Thor ability to transform at will make the Thor a true monster. Don't get me wrong, I love the Thor idea, it's just all those little abilities will make it very imba.
Can we all keep in mind that the Thor isn't supposed to be able to counter carriers? At least not according to what we've been told.
I mean, valkyries don't work very well vs carriers right (tho god knows I have spent many games trying to make them work... success rate was quite low, I am afraid to say, lol)?
Wreckage is meaningless in SC, a extremely high damage per second RTS game. Units and engagements lasts seconds before one side is destroyed. Unless the wreckage has a lot more hp than the actual unit, it would too be destroyed very quickly during/after battle. The read effect of the mechanic is to block zealots and zerglings for a few split seconds before they could destroy/bypass that and push onto the next target, or that terran gets to recover some units after winning a battle. (which just means the winner wins more, and the game ends faster)
I forgot to address this - I think it's a good point, and might be enough to convince me the idea is just downright not very good.
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I really really like the idea of building the Thor with an SCV; it gives it a lot of character.
Just imagine a proxy Thor or something too, that'd be pretty interesting strategically. The tech tree might have to be adjusted for this to be balanced but I think this, if anything, should be a defining feature of the Thor.
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To be honest, I really feel like the Thor needs to turn into primarily a melee unit to become a point-man, which is the main thing missing from the terran arsenal I think, like Zealots and Ultralisks.
There is something to say for this idea. I mean, give it a giant hammer of destiny (mijolnir anyone?) and just send it to the front lines to smash shit into little pancakes.
"Terratron, Terrorize!"
I really think that the thor should be scrapped in favor of a more mobile anti-air unit (hopefully not like the goliath).
Maybe a cruise missile battery with an ability like the point defense drone: it can shoot air units, but if its not being used for that, it can convert into a point defense drone and shoot down enemy missiles. Offense vs. Defense.
I was always a firm believer (don't take out the torches and pitchforks, please!) that the Siege Tank should be taken out of the game, and replaced with the Thor. It's model screams ass-kicking, so why can't it have that role? In SC1 tanks took 2 supply. In Starcraft 2, they take up 3 supply. Blizzard said themselves they beefed up the tank and made it cost more food, so the battlefield will see less of them. Why not take it a step further but replace the CrucioST with the Thor?
Another interesting post that got me thinking. What if the siege tank was replaced with a tanking tank (surprise surprise!). Tanks initially started out as the ones that took damage, so why not give them that role? Then the thor could become the base assault unit that comes behind the meatshield and does the real damage, especially with the 250mm cannons. The thor would be big, scary and powerful, but a glass cannon in some way that blizzard would have to decide.
And if people want a constructable thor, why not do this:
make an SCV "activate" a factory. The factory would then be "building" the thor (ie: producing materials that will go into the thor). That way, it mimics the assembly line mentality. While the factory is in the active state, only then can you build a thor. If you cancel the assembly line, your thor will stop being built. If you kill the SCV, the factory continues to be out of commission (unless you tell it to stop too).
Review:
1) SCV goes to factory and "activates" it
> while in this state, factory cannot do anything else.
2) 1 thor can now be built. If you want 5 thors, you need 5 factories.
3) SCV goes to build the thor. If you cancel the factory's activation, the thor cannot continue to be built
4) if the SCV cancels construction or doesnt construct the thor, the factory will still continue to be unable to produce other things unless the player tells it to stop.
5) when the thor is built, the factory can do stuff again (comes back online autmatically)
Maybe too complicated?
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On October 22 2009 07:37 Knee_of_Justice wrote:
I really think that the thor should be scrapped in favor of a more mobile anti-air unit (hopefully not like the goliath).
Maybe a cruise missile battery with an ability like the point defense drone: it can shoot air units, but if its not being used for that, it can convert into a point defense drone and shoot down enemy missiles. Offense vs. Defense.
WH40K comes to the rescue again!
That's certainly something I'd like to see in SC. Mobile flak cannon.
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On October 22 2009 02:03 SiZ.FaNtAsY wrote:
I just feel that you can only have 1 true powerhouse unit per race.
Zerg has big brothers
Toss has instawin carriers (reason why I don't like the mothership)
Therefore Terran should either have BCS or the thor. Not both.
Just my 2 cent
Well, that doesnt mean that Terran can just mass a ridiculous force of BC and Thor. Both require huge amounts of resources and food supply. Not only that, but you obviously (if in a high level game) are going to have enough money for both units upgrades. Both can also be countered by a foward thinking player. This is why blizzard has done such a great job with Broodwar over Westwood with C&C. There no massing one unit (or even 2) and walking over someone else.
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On October 22 2009 07:31 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Can we all keep in mind that the Thor isn't supposed to be able to counter carriers? At least not according to what we've been told.
I mean, valkyries don't work very well vs carriers right (tho god knows I have spent many games trying to make them work... success rate was quite low, I am afraid to say, lol)?
Thors currently do a BASE damage of 40 (10 x 4), which also splashes. Factoring in armor (no upgrades), they do 32 (8 x 4). That's quite a lot of damage and they can definitely be used to counter carriers. http://www.sc2pod.com/wiki/Thor
Thors get bonus damage vers. light units, but they do plenty of damage already to all air units. Also, the Thor AA attack (range 10) outranges Carriers (range ~8), along with every other Air unit (not including BC's Yamato Cannon as it's a spell). So yes, Thors in the current build do counter Carriers.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Remember that it's 4x10, and a carrier has 4 base armor, so it's actually 24 damage. But yeah, I dunno, it can all be tweaked.
EDIT: I dunno if a carrier has 4 or 2 armor, it says 2 on sc2pod and 4 in the wiki.
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On October 22 2009 07:53 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Remember that it's 4x10, and a carrier has 4 base armor, so it's actually 24 damage. But yeah, I dunno, it can all be tweaked.
carrier has 2 base armor, at least according to sc2pod and remember shields take full damage.
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Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 07:54 Kimera757 wrote:
Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
I know, I'm saying it should
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On October 22 2009 07:54 Kimera757 wrote:
Carriers have an attack range of 12, according to many sources. I wonder if thors can kill interceptors easily.
On another note, Mechanical Rebirth never required SCV help, as shown in WWI 2008 videos.
If carriers have range of 12 that's jsut amazing :D
Interceptors currently have 50 shield and 50 hp with no armor. They're also considered light units. So Thors would do 56 damage against them that'd splash (base damage 10 x 4, then bonus of 4 x 4). Two or three Thors would easily wipe out a bunch of interceptors, thus rendering carriers useless. Again, Thors can counter carriers.
Also, if Thors could be built through SCVs not production buildings, then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Of course, economically it wouldn't make much sense but if the situation calls for it, it can be done.
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This was a really good read. I really, really want the Thor to work and I agree with your opinion that it shouldn't be something that necessarily comes out in every game (although I will be trying my hardest to make it so in mine). Great ideas.
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Even though i don't like theorycrafting and i think that most of theorycrafting on SC2 forum is nonsense (not all, but most, for example this guy with new race - that was pure gold, but i wouldn't call it theorycrafting) this topic is great.
Just prime example how should theorycrafting topic look like. Ideas that aren't stupid/weird/imba/good-only-on-paper. I support every idea here (except maybe liftoff, seems weird but argument with similarity to buildings wouldn't be that stupid, however when lifted Thor definitely shouldn't be able to attack - it would be too much Viking'ish)
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On October 22 2009 04:54 Badjas wrote:
I was mostly irked by the fact that in the BR there were so many thors produced. I think it would be okay if there is a high powered general purpose unit. But using them should be a strategic choice, and not using them should be a viable option. I think the thors should move slower, coupled with costing more supply, in the range of 10-12. I know that sounds like a crazy amount of supply but it should be balanced against its abilities. This would force less thors and in combination with the thors being less mobile it will force more focus on positional play, when using them.
Of course this also makes it more viable for terran to not go thor. They will have a more mobile army with larger number of units. This will be similar to SC1's choice of going MnM.
I agree with this post a lot and is one of my primary concerns. I can't think of a time when Terran wouldn't want Thors and apparently it's "mid-game" (which seems funny to say considering the cost, but given the economic speed SC2 appears to move at, this is of no concern as David Kim appeared to make 2 easily with no budget constraints...then again his macro wasn't perfect). But the Thor doesn't feel like a strategic option to any particular matchup, it seems like an all-purpose ranged-ultralisk killing machine.
And then at the same time, I'm trying to picture myself using this unit and I can't. Anti-light air? What? So it's a 'hard' counter to Mutalisks and Phoenix? Why wouldn't I just go cost effective and have Barracks with Reactors pumping mass marines? Do these units have attacks that are going to devastate a marine ball more than my 1 huge target?
Right now TvT comes to mind where there's lots of strategic choice late game in BW. With the map split and excess resources one player can decide to produce mass BCs and another may choose to counter this with mass Goliath or Wraiths. The Thor seems strong enough to dual role and seems like the only viable late game SC2 TvT option. The HP amount to push front lines, combined with its ability to shoot down any incoming dropships and enough range to threaten BCs, makes TvT look like it will turn into purely a Siege Tank/Thor fight. (this is just speculation)
I don't know how to express this without it being received with mass groans and accusations of just wanting SC1 in 3d, but I feel like the Goliath was a pretty iconic unit to Terran and I'm going to sorely miss it. I know the Viking is some cover-all Goliath replacement but it just incites more doubt in me as to where the Thor fits. The Thor simply looks and reminds of a slow, bulky hero from WC3 that you're going to want to micro heavily in battle to protect, provided you're not 40 minutes into the game and have 12 of them.
I've always been the kind of player (albeit a bad one) to go for the mass smaller units vs the bigger ones (e.g. I'd rather get goliaths vs BCs in TvT) and the Thor...just doesn't look like much fun.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I don't know how you can combine "slow and bulky" with "wc3 hero"... The majority of the WC3 heroes are really agile lol
The only ones that are really slow are like... the Pitlord and the Cryptlord?
Anyhow, that doesn't change anything about the rest of your post, just don't see the need to bring in a wc3 comparision.
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10387 Posts
Really great suggestions, I like the idea of being able to kill a Thor mid-construction haha.
For the module idea however, I think it should just transform into three different forms like how a Siege tank transforms, instead of it costing money, and each form (GtG being default, GtA and Bunker/Tanking form being researchable) could have different armor values, attack values, range, and movement speed to make each form unique and balanced.
Blizzard better read this thread haha
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Netherlands19129 Posts
Nice article FA, good read and agree with the clueless but cool unitconcept.
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I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid.
Also, if we forget about the first little blunder, the Thor is supposed to be the ultimate terran weapon of war. It is big as hell and it moves slowly. For it to be this ultimate weapon it has to have a great amount of health and armor and a shitload of destructive power, turning the tide of the battle on its own. Anything else wouldn´t fit its visuals and background story. I don't see that being possible in a well balanced game such as starcraft, where the concept is strategical choice making and having a balanced unit mixture.
I also let Thor take credit for the robbing of terran´s identiy. Earlier, tanks were the height of the terran ground army, but now they are mere backup units. I'm not saying whether it is good or bad, but in BW terran held the role of the defensive team, both gameplaywise and lorewise. In BW, the movie was aliens, in SCII its starship troopers. Actually I like the emphasis moving away from the tanks, but not in favor of the Thor.
As for the topic, I like the initiative and it is a good read(even linking to my post) but fixing the Thor feels to me like spicing a burnt steak.
I don´t like much about the thor, and I also think the hellions are just "renewed" vultures. I would like to see some new ideas in the terran arsenal. Units that work well with the tanks, but not necessarily must be accompanied by them in every game. The units should be simple but dynamic, offering different solutions to different situations. For example I think some development of this idea would be interesting:
On October 22 2009 03:15 mucker wrote:
The mobile bunker idea I think would work better as a different vehicle. Maybe ditch the hellion, bring back firebat and have a bunkerbuggy buildable at the factory? Could even hold two units when driving around, transform into static bunker to hold 4 units or something...
EDIT: Haha, I just reread this post. Sorry for the lack of constructive thoughts, but I really dislike Thor. I would rather have them reintroduce the goliath.
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Osaka27132 Posts
I don't agree with people who say that scv-built thors will screw up terran macro. The argument seems to be that "you don't need more factories, you can just use scvs and still produce units". Well, if the thor costs 300/300 and 6 supply, you would already have to have terrible macro in order to build more than one or two, keep pumping factory units, and have an extra 30 supply sitting around.
Like this example:then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Really? You have 3600/3600 + 72 extra supply sitting aronud? That is nonsense.
I don't like mobile bunkers. I do like customizable thors. It makes a lot of sense. I am indifferent about armour types, but the fact that a thor moves the same as a hellion bothers me greatly. I agree with manitou. Either make it small and massable (essentially into goliaths) or huge and more unique.
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On October 22 2009 08:39 FrozenArbiter wrote:
I don't know how you can combine "slow and bulky" with "wc3 hero"... The majority of the WC3 heroes are really agile lol
The only ones that are really slow are like... the Pitlord and the Cryptlord?
Anyhow, that doesn't change anything about the rest of your post, just don't see the need to bring in a wc3 comparision.
Pitlord isn't slow- it's relatively fast, actually. Crypt Lord could qualify as slow and bulky, as could the old Tauren Chieftain before he went on a massive diet on some patch that reduced his collision size.
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Thor:
My idea is simple and in my opinion its the best one. It has a very slow attack speed but the attack is 200 damage but the shots its gives is rocket volley which the takes about 1.5 seconds to reach its target. the other player can micro against it if they are fast enough to move their units similar to a psi storm.
This way it actually adds the micro dimension for both the attacker and defender
Attacker would want to target the middle of the pack so it has he most chance of hitting the oponent
Defender would want to time the shots to know when attack then move.
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The whole mobile bunker idea seems like it would be a little OP, especially with SCV's being able to repair from the inside, and Ghosts being able to cast.
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I liked the idea of a very slow-moving, SCV-constructed powerhouse unit. It seemed to me like with the removal of vult/mines, hard pushes became less viable as more mobile bio/tank strats were preferable. Building Thors during the push/at a contain similar to the way Turrets were thrown up seemed like a cool idea. I think it's hard to keep the mechanic, though, as it circumvents standard macro mechanics of production buildings determining how quickly you could pump out units/tech switch.
I think a decent idea that can reconcile those two things (SCV construction breaking macro, low-mobility power units) could be for Thors to be built faster and weaker, with add-on modules like the ones already suggested/discussed disabling attack and movement completely while being built. Theoretically the point would be that if you just rush your army across the map, the Thors would be able to keep up, maintaining the higher level of mobility that SC2 seems to be aiming for, but your army would not be fighting at full strength. On the other hand, if you entrench yourself in a strategic location (e.g. contain), you can plant down your Thors to drastically strengthen them, with the downside being that if you abandon the position, the Thors would be very slow-moving and hard to withdraw.
Unfortunately, this would also make them like giant, exaggerated siege tanks. I suppose the add-on modules would determine exactly how similar/dissimilar they would be to tanks, but it would still seem rather stale. The great thing about vults was their mobility and harassment potential combined with their great synergy with establishing ground with mines.
Also, as a side note, lift-off is entirely reasonable IMO. In terms of "realistic" objections, it's been argued already that buildings are even more massive, but can still fly. There's no real problem there. For people who say there's already enough cliff-jumping, or that this would make them far too strong, keep in mind the movement speed of flying buildings, along with the huge difference between building HP and Thor HP. The Thors would be extremely vulnerable, making it a big risk to try to use lift. I don't think it's an intrinsically imbalanced idea. My own criticism of the idea is that it wouldn't help establish an "identity" to the Thor. It's an interesting addition, but doesn't address the problem of being good at everything.
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Decent thread; it's about time we have a good old "Thor is shit" discussion.
I'm not going to comment on the changes that FA has proposed because i'd like to play the game before commenting, but i would like to add a suggestion - for those of you who've played Ground Control 2, you will remember that the Human faction had a siege-tank like piece that could also deploy. The kicker was that when it deployed it also extended to either side a sort-of shield, behind which infantry could hide (and shoot out of).
So basically, we steal this idea. Thor gains a Deploy ability (say same, or slightly longer time then siege mode) which parks it in a _fixed_ direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc. This gives it a proto-bunker ability in that it serves as a portable fire/rally point for terran pushes, while synergising with the siege-tank and the terran leap-frog. Furthermore, it should't be as imbalanced as the bunker idea because the units are still out in the open and can therefore be flanked, but are a little more resilient against head-on assaults.
This will also be super effective at holding ramps temporarily, as well as the invitable marauder nerf.
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SCV building (again) and Liftoff seem to be interesting changes that wouldn't take too much work. I'd really love to see those
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Allow Master Chief to commandeer Thor and if he shoots the back glowing thing it explodes.
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On October 22 2009 09:10 Manifesto7 wrote:I don't agree with people who say that scv-built thors will screw up terran macro. The argument seems to be that "you don't need more factories, you can just use scvs and still produce units". Well, if the thor costs 300/300 and 6 supply, you would already have to have terrible macro in order to build more than one or two, keep pumping factory units, and have an extra 30 supply sitting around. Like this example: Show nested quote +then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Really? You have 3600/3600 + 72 extra supply sitting aronud? That is nonsense. I don't like mobile bunkers. I do like customizable thors. It makes a lot of sense. I am indifferent about armour types, but the fact that a thor moves the same as a hellion bothers me greatly. I agree with manitou. Either make it small and massable (essentially into goliaths) or huge and more unique.
it was an exaggeration for visual purposes only. my point was that by allowing the SCVs to build Thors outside of production buildings the Terran unit production isn't limited. In other words, the factories could continue to pump dual tanks or hellions using their reactors, while X SCVs create X Thors. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Terran players occasionally build up somewhat large stockpiles of resources, even in pro games. It's not common, but it does happen; usually when the Terran is doing some kind of slow push/turtling. In such a case, it won't be so far-fetched to say that the Terran player can simply just slap down 3-4 Thors at once. Granted, if the Terran player has proper macro, the supply limit would be an issue. However, say the Terran just lost a good number of tanks/hellions to a large air attack. Then the supply would be freed for several Thors to be built, while replenishing the tank numbers simultaneously.
Basically, my concern is that by allowing SCVs to construct Thors the Terran doesn't have as much a dilemma in choosing between replenish tank/hellion numbers or to make Thors. In SC, the Terran has to choose between getting more Goliaths for the time being to counter air or to get more Tanks. With SCV construction of Thors, that dilemma is removed.
I mean, imagine probes being able to warp in Colossi or Immortals straight into the battlefield while the Robotics Facility continues to pump out Observers or something -.-
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nice, dude. normally when people have suggestions to improve the game they suck... but this was great!
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Sanya12364 Posts
I don't know how likely terrans will be slow pushing in SC2 but building Thors with SCVs could conceivably enable SCVs to construct them in a forward location and follow the slow push forward like how terrans built turrets against Protoss when setting up a contain.
Customizing Thors should be good since they are large enough and Terrans are good at generalizing and specializing mechanical units.
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Personally, I like the idea of a slow-moving, short range, heavy damage Thor that has its bombardment spell. It fits the unit concept of the tip of the Terran spear, which traditionally has been very immobile (if it's a mech army anyways). Some argue that if it was slow, it would cause problems with retreating, overpowering by small units, etc... However, is that really so bad? Yes, it's a slow retreat but that's the part of the cost to getting a strong unit. I mean, every powerhouse unit is traditionally slow. For example, carriers and battlecruisers are rather slow and not very good at retreating. It's a trade-off. Also, the fact that small units can micro it to death is already being seen to a certain extent with the Colossus. Colossi die very fast to a ling surround despite being a ling counter. So why not the Thor?
Lifting for me is a meh idea. Mostly because I have to ask myself do we really need that many units in SC2 that can completely bypass the cliff barrier? We have Colossi and stalkers who can do that for Protoss and the Terran already has the reaper and technically the Viking as it is partially a ground unit. Still the idea is worth looking into...
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On October 22 2009 09:04 Appendix wrote:
I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid.
Lorewise it makes perfect sense (to me, at least). What is the Terran army lacking? An all-around, general-purpose, wreck-shit-up machine. Sure, you've got tanks (which are deadly, but only in bunches), nukes (which are expensive and easy to dodge), and battlecruisers (but they're often not practical in ground battles or whatever, you can fluff that somehow). It's not too hard to imagine Mengsk or Duke's SC2 equivalent watching a mass of zealots and dragoons smashing a tank line to bits and demanding that R&D "get me something that can stop these alien bastards. Something BIG." Is it?
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On October 22 2009 08:39 FrozenArbiter wrote:
I don't know how you can combine "slow and bulky" with "wc3 hero"... The majority of the WC3 heroes are really agile lol
The only ones that are really slow are like... the Pitlord and the Cryptlord?
Anyhow, that doesn't change anything about the rest of your post, just don't see the need to bring in a wc3 comparision.
I admit my WC3 knowledge is crap. I just mean in the sense that WC3 is slower compared to SC, your group moves and centers around your hero unit, moves at same speed, etc. It just seems slow to me.
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Lift-off can work if you make it an ability like cloak, xx mana to lift and x mana drain per sec while in air. So you wouldn't have the energy to fly in someone's main and 250mm cannon their base and fly out again.
The module idea is also very neat, although I'd prefer them to be able to switch on the fly like siege tanks without costing anything. 250mm cannons of course would still cost mana.
SCV building Thors won't be a problem as long as there is a tech building, it's not that hard to switch to goliaths in current sc1 TvP anyway.
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[QUOTE]On October 22 2009 07:37 Knee_of_Justice wrote:
[quote]
make an SCV "activate" a factory. The factory would then be "building" the thor (ie: producing materials that will go into the thor). That way, it mimics the assembly line mentality. While the factory is in the active state, only then can you build a thor. If you cancel the assembly line, your thor will stop being built. If you kill the SCV, the factory continues to be out of commission (unless you tell it to stop too).
Review:
1) SCV goes to factory and "activates" it
> while in this state, factory cannot do anything else.
2) 1 thor can now be built. If you want 5 thors, you need 5 factories.
3) SCV goes to build the thor. If you cancel the factory's activation, the thor cannot continue to be built
4) if the SCV cancels construction or doesnt construct the thor, the factory will still continue to be unable to produce other things unless the player tells it to stop.
5) when the thor is built, the factory can do stuff again (comes back online autmatically)
Maybe too complicated?[/QUOTE]
Why not make it so that an scv builds a thor, but only in a certain area, the "add-on area"
1. this prevents mass tech shifts without a drastic change in production buildings- only one thor could be built at a time from each factory, as there is only one "add-on" spot. If the factory lifts off, the thor stops building.
2. It penalizes the player by preventing the use of add-ons. This restricts the factory where the thor is being built to only building hellions, and without the reactor add-on, building hellions at half speed.
This seems like a good potential compromise.
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Why not make it so that an scv builds a thor, but only in a certain area, the "add-on area"
1. this prevents mass tech shifts without a drastic change in production buildings- only one thor could be built at a time from each factory, as there is only one "add-on" spot. If the factory lifts off, the thor stops building.
2. It penalizes the player by preventing the use of add-ons. This restricts the factory where the thor is being built to only building hellions, and without the reactor add-on, building hellions at half speed.
This seems like a good potential compromise.
Not a bad idea really imo, but i still don't like the idea of the terran player being able to skimp on factories/add ons when he knows he is going to go Thors. Normally, you would have to have an explosion of factories to get the critical mass number for ideal mid-late game production. If the thor needs no add on, that's time and savings that the terran player could be throwing down more barracks, or a CC, or multiple covert ops in the early mid-game. There should be a lasting and severe cost/benefit to teching to thors, which in this case would be multiple factories with tech lab add-ons. Now, if you moved P Immortals back to gateway, there might be a case for balance to let scv's build thors, but since those need to come out of the robo bay, it seems most balanced the way it currently is.
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Look, if you add those complicate things back into the thor, would it be a interesting unit?
No, you'd just A-move it into the enemy army. (or you emp then A-move)
All the 'classic' Terran units have its unique form of control to overcome the fundamental defining limits of the terran race, that of glass cannon. Marine with its shoot-kite, Tanks with siege advance, vulture with its patrol micro + mine. The terrans has also been a army of extreme specialists that all do one and only one thing very well.
All this is what defined the terran race and gave its units its character.
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The thor is fundamentally a un-terran unit trying to fit in. It has no character because it doesn't have a extreme role, only a extreme unit model that is very out of place.
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Unless a proper role can be found for the thor ON THE BATTLEFIELD, it would always be a bland unit.
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Osaka27132 Posts
It is unnecessary to bold sentences in your posts. If it is worth reading, people will read it.
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On October 22 2009 05:16 FrozenArbiter wrote:
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
The problem is that the around factory level tech only has 3 units, and with the thor moved up then the factory lineup would be awfully incomplete. The player is pretty much forced into bio/biomech into air due to lack of AA.
That is not necessarily a terrible thing, but does make terran game play less interesting as Bio/Mech's very different unit properties makes for very different fights.
Now if there is another unit to fill the mid game factory gap (or hell, redeployable missile turrets), then the thor can be moved back and have those fancy mechanics. Otherwise, a unit that is affordable at mid game would be spammable at late game and all that baby sitting would be too much....
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On October 22 2009 12:29 SWPIGWANG wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 05:16 FrozenArbiter wrote:
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
The problem is that the around factory level tech only has 3 units, and with the thor moved up then the factory lineup would be awfully incomplete. The player is pretty much forced into bio/biomech into air due to lack of AA. That is not necessarily a terrible thing, but does make terran game play less interesting as Bio/Mech's very different unit properties makes for very different fights. Now if there is another unit to fill the mid game factory gap (or hell, redeployable missile turrets), then the thor can be moved back and have those fancy mechanics. Otherwise, a unit that is affordable at mid game would be spammable at late game and all that baby sitting would be too much....
well, previously in SC1, terran would often build turrets as they push so perhaps that mechanic would become more widely used if Thor gets moved up?
or maybe move viking into factory tech?
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On October 22 2009 10:10 Megrim wrote:
So basically, we steal this idea. Thor gains a Deploy ability (say same, or slightly longer time then siege mode) which parks it in a _fixed_ direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc. This gives it a proto-bunker ability in that it serves as a portable fire/rally point for terran pushes, while synergising with the siege-tank and the terran leap-frog. Furthermore, it should't be as imbalanced as the bunker idea because the units are still out in the open and can therefore be flanked, but are a little more resilient against head-on assaults.
+1
My only worry is that this smacks of the phoenix overload ability, which apparently wasn't good enough.
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IMO, they should make the Thor a anti air/melee/tank unit, in the sense that it should have a really devastating short range ground attack (maybe with splash) and a strog AA attack, making it really distinct in its role to the Siege Tank, given that choosing Thors over Tanks would give you defence againts air, more mobility and meele capabilities, but would be seriously lacking against ranged units and static defense, the two things the Tanks do best.
So you could have the sheer range and firepower of Tanks, the (relative) mobility and adaptability of the Thor or a commbined arms aproach with the Thor serving as meat shields for the Tanks.
Lorewise i think it would make sense, given how the Terran worse threat are the Zerg and Mutalisks and Dark Swar where probably the worst things the Terran had to face.
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On October 22 2009 12:40 m3rciless wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 10:10 Megrim wrote:
So basically, we steal this idea. Thor gains a Deploy ability (say same, or slightly longer time then siege mode) which parks it in a _fixed_ direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc. This gives it a proto-bunker ability in that it serves as a portable fire/rally point for terran pushes, while synergising with the siege-tank and the terran leap-frog. Furthermore, it should't be as imbalanced as the bunker idea because the units are still out in the open and can therefore be flanked, but are a little more resilient against head-on assaults.
+1 My only worry is that this smacks of the phoenix overload ability, which apparently wasn't good enough.
I think it' sufficiently different because it doesn't boost the damage dealt in any way - all it does is help the terran units survive, while rewarding the tactically aware player. It also rewards the terran staple of 'higher micro = more effectiveness'.
And it makes sense for a fuckhuge robot.
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Here is my main problem with the Thor. It's too indistinct and does not really pose an acute threat that needs to be addressed, as many of Starcraft higher-tech units do. Thor is, effectively a few golies bunched into one. Not that interesting.
What's cool about Starcraft is that each tech choice requires a unique approach from opponent. For example, let me explain what I mean:
-Tanks ownage of goons straight up needs to be addressed with surround, zealots, storm and zealot bombs, etc. If you just attack move, you get raped. Tanks can also destroy base defense with impunity.
-Vultures mines need careful elimination and detection. Again, you attack move you die.
-Muta harass also needs specific counter and defense.
-Reavers represent an enormous threat that, if you mismanage your units, you will get owned by a few well-placeed scarabs.
-Colossus raped low and mid-tier units with its high damage output and AOE.
-Dark templar are cloaked and need detection to deal with as well as vigilance to not let them sneak in somewhere and rape your econ.
-Storm, similar to reaver--you can't to manage your units against this, or die.
-Archons. Etc.
-Carriers - huge air threat that needs to be addressed asap, and is very hard to do.
In above examples, each high tech unit represents a unique and immediate threat that needs to be addressed with extreme sense of urgency. Colossus is just a generic big robot unit that introduces nothing more than the threat of "hey if I have enough of these, I am just gona attack move on your base." The counter to it is also--just attack move on it. Nor does it represent a great threat that needs a unique counter. It basically follows the way most other RTS's work, where you just make progressively more powerful versions of the same units. Thor adds nothing to Starcraft, and also does not fit in with the Terran synergy that FA talked about. Unfortunately, it needs a drastic overhaul rather than a few gimmicky changes to make it work well.
And since we are on the topic of generic units, replacing vultures with helions....just weak.
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I really like the ideas for change that you suggested FA, especially the one regarding using it as a mobile fortress that is able to load infantry units.
I'd really love for the Thor to gain more identity through abilities and changes like it, so it isn't completely a 1a2a3a unit like the current Ultralisks(for SC).
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 12:29 SWPIGWANG wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 05:16 FrozenArbiter wrote:
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
The problem is that the around factory level tech only has 3 units, and with the thor moved up then the factory lineup would be awfully incomplete. The player is pretty much forced into bio/biomech into air due to lack of AA. That is not necessarily a terrible thing, but does make terran game play less interesting as Bio/Mech's very different unit properties makes for very different fights. Now if there is another unit to fill the mid game factory gap (or hell, redeployable missile turrets), then the thor can be moved back and have those fancy mechanics. Otherwise, a unit that is affordable at mid game would be spammable at late game and all that baby sitting would be too much....
Well first of all, you can now salvage missile turrets so in a sense they are redeployable. BUT, I don't think that's what you had in mind so let's move on!
You could start by moving the Viking back to factory tech, where it started out...
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On October 22 2009 18:25 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 12:29 SWPIGWANG wrote:On October 22 2009 05:16 FrozenArbiter wrote:
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
The problem is that the around factory level tech only has 3 units, and with the thor moved up then the factory lineup would be awfully incomplete. The player is pretty much forced into bio/biomech into air due to lack of AA. That is not necessarily a terrible thing, but does make terran game play less interesting as Bio/Mech's very different unit properties makes for very different fights. Now if there is another unit to fill the mid game factory gap (or hell, redeployable missile turrets), then the thor can be moved back and have those fancy mechanics. Otherwise, a unit that is affordable at mid game would be spammable at late game and all that baby sitting would be too much.... Well first of all, you can now salvage missile turrets so in a sense they are redeployable. BUT, I don't think that's what you had in mind so let's move on! You could start by moving the Viking back to factory tech, where it started out...
While I really like the Viking's concept, it's an AtA unit. Moving it back to Factory Tech might give Terran air-power too early and if you need to defend your tanks from flyers, you leave them vulnerable to ground forces. It's an interesting unit, but I think it might have similar problems that the Thor has, just not as discussed.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 22 2009 18:41 Signus wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 18:25 FrozenArbiter wrote:On October 22 2009 12:29 SWPIGWANG wrote:On October 22 2009 05:16 FrozenArbiter wrote:
First of all, there is nothing that says the Thor would have to stay as low tech as it currently is, should these changes be made.
Second, how wouldn't the modules open up strategic options...?
It will still be in small battles in the extreme late game.
The problem is that the around factory level tech only has 3 units, and with the thor moved up then the factory lineup would be awfully incomplete. The player is pretty much forced into bio/biomech into air due to lack of AA. That is not necessarily a terrible thing, but does make terran game play less interesting as Bio/Mech's very different unit properties makes for very different fights. Now if there is another unit to fill the mid game factory gap (or hell, redeployable missile turrets), then the thor can be moved back and have those fancy mechanics. Otherwise, a unit that is affordable at mid game would be spammable at late game and all that baby sitting would be too much.... Well first of all, you can now salvage missile turrets so in a sense they are redeployable. BUT, I don't think that's what you had in mind so let's move on! You could start by moving the Viking back to factory tech, where it started out... While I really like the Viking's concept, it's an AtA unit. Moving it back to Factory Tech might give Terran air-power too early and if you need to defend your tanks from flyers, you leave them vulnerable to ground forces. It's an interesting unit, but I think it might have similar problems that the Thor has, just not as discussed.
The Goliath was at factory tech...?
You could even have its flight mode be researched at starport tech if you are worried it'd come too quick.
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I just had a revelation! The Thor should be big, clunky and slow. It should be used for sieges to complement siegetanks and bunkers, in my opinion. Now imagine the terran doing a proxy factory and bunkering up outside the opponents base. Produce a few siegetanks and then....
convert the factory into a Thor!
I get the chills imagining that animation Now you can have a big, powerful, slow unit that is built out in the field without it being gamebreaking. The terrans now have more of that strategic area control that i liked about SC1 terrans.
What do you think?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Thats... interesting  It'd certainly be cool, and I love walking buildings lol.
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Trees from W3
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On October 22 2009 10:29 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 09:10 Manifesto7 wrote:I don't agree with people who say that scv-built thors will screw up terran macro. The argument seems to be that "you don't need more factories, you can just use scvs and still produce units". Well, if the thor costs 300/300 and 6 supply, you would already have to have terrible macro in order to build more than one or two, keep pumping factory units, and have an extra 30 supply sitting around. Like this example: then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Really? You have 3600/3600 + 72 extra supply sitting aronud? That is nonsense. I don't like mobile bunkers. I do like customizable thors. It makes a lot of sense. I am indifferent about armour types, but the fact that a thor moves the same as a hellion bothers me greatly. I agree with manitou. Either make it small and massable (essentially into goliaths) or huge and more unique. it was an exaggeration for visual purposes only. my point was that by allowing the SCVs to build Thors outside of production buildings the Terran unit production isn't limited. In other words, the factories could continue to pump dual tanks or hellions using their reactors, while X SCVs create X Thors. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Terran players occasionally build up somewhat large stockpiles of resources, even in pro games. It's not common, but it does happen; usually when the Terran is doing some kind of slow push/turtling. In such a case, it won't be so far-fetched to say that the Terran player can simply just slap down 3-4 Thors at once. Granted, if the Terran player has proper macro, the supply limit would be an issue. However, say the Terran just lost a good number of tanks/hellions to a large air attack. Then the supply would be freed for several Thors to be built, while replenishing the tank numbers simultaneously. Basically, my concern is that by allowing SCVs to construct Thors the Terran doesn't have as much a dilemma in choosing between replenish tank/hellion numbers or to make Thors. In SC, the Terran has to choose between getting more Goliaths for the time being to counter air or to get more Tanks. With SCV construction of Thors, that dilemma is removed. I mean, imagine probes being able to warp in Colossi or Immortals straight into the battlefield while the Robotics Facility continues to pump out Observers or something -.-
I fail to see the difference between making more factories and making Thors. Nobody says a Thor should build super-quickly, quite the opposite - it's a super-unit that should take a loooong time to build and a big pile or resources - kinda like throwing down a few more factories and building a big bunch of tanks or something. Even less practical, since factories you build once and they keep producing, while for each Thor you'd have to take an SCV off resourcing for the entire build time (which should be considerable) and the Thor would be vulnerable while in production.
It could totally be balanced via build time, cost and tech tree placement.
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I think with a combination of FrozenArbiter's ideas the Thor could really work. It should be converted to a very slow, but powerful and versatile late-game unit (ideally with an independent tech building). It should be built by an SCV on the field, but costly (esp. in terms of supply so that it's not viable for immediate tech switches without sacrificing your army first). It's not transportable, but can lift-off (while being vulnerable airborne). It should get rebirth, but require a SCV for it (in principle a "rebuild" at very low/no costs, but time consuming).
It would be the ground alternative to BC requiring a totally different counter, therefore becoming a late game option to break fortified bases or counter heavy air. The fact that it can be deployed on the field makes up for it's slow speed. Viking becomes Factory tech to build the new support unit for terran mid game army, while it's airform is an upgrade of the Starport.
I would keep modules to BCs exclusively, to keep them an interesting alternative, and give BCs an unfit option to allow them to change their role (unfit would need to take some time and make the BC vulnerable to open windows of opportunities while Terran "reconfigures").
For the first time I see some light for the Thor!
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if you can produce it with scvs, it is possible to produce it directly where the fight is, or even sneak it behind enemy lines or such... with that in mind, i think it is perfectly fine if it was impossible to transport the thor by any other means - neither liftoff nor dropship. you'll just build it where you need it.
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Just have the Thor being made through merging 6 scvs or something, and equip it with a enormous deadly fusion cutter.
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Just have the Thor being made through merging 6 scvs or something, and equip it with a enormous deadly fusion cutter.
In essence i like this, even though I get the joke. If however, it was created by transforming a factory you'd retain the 'build anywhere' trait while not fucking up the tech tree and macro.
On to the fusion cutter. Id like the thor to have one primary mode of attacking that is close range, and also the 'Thors hammer' that should be pretty much like it is now.
By making the Thor close range you'd make it impractical to have too many at one time, cause they'll walk into each other. It would also make it easier to tank with.
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United States12235 Posts
Thor movement speed is too slow, but more importantly, their build time is too slow. Their attack speed is also slow, and their health is relatively low for what you would expect. I really don't see a role for it at all now that it's lost its flavor as a uniquely constructed unit with a slow turn rate. Blizzard has been trying all sorts of things with the Thor but what Terrans really need is simply another Goliath clone. Something that can be mass-produced and has quality anti-air properties.
I've been wondering if maybe there's some ability they could give to the Thor, such as an anti-air magnet that draws down air units to ground level (like Web/Ensnare in War3), like a weaker version of Lockdown, but even that I think couldn't save it (or would make it overpowered because Terran ground is already pretty strong).
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what about if when they are death you can repair them but it still cost you supply, so you need to go with your units and destroy him to get the supply
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On October 22 2009 10:44 Musoeun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 09:04 Appendix wrote:
I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid. Lorewise it makes perfect sense (to me, at least). What is the Terran army lacking? An all-around, general-purpose, wreck-shit-up machine. Sure, you've got tanks (which are deadly, but only in bunches), nukes (which are expensive and easy to dodge), and battlecruisers (but they're often not practical in ground battles or whatever, you can fluff that somehow). It's not too hard to imagine Mengsk or Duke's SC2 equivalent watching a mass of zealots and dragoons smashing a tank line to bits and demanding that R&D "get me something that can stop these alien bastards. Something BIG." Is it?
I don´t agree. I would consider for instance the vulnerability to mutalisk harass a bigger weakness than zealots and dragoons, which tanks with proper support excel at killing. And as a solution to that problem I would not create the thor. I would make like gizmoducks with AA-missiles, or something. Small, mobile and only good against air.
The terran army is characterized by units well suited to their purpose. Tanks are raw power against attacking ground units, and are optimized for that, and that only. Vultures are fast, but generally weak in terms of firepower and health, well suited for harassment and scouting. Goliaths -> antiair. The only exceptions to this structure are marines and battlecruisers, but marines are the first available attacking unit and are generally weak, and battlecruisers are capitol ships at the other end of the scale whose purpose is to look impressive and keep the commanders safe.
The thor, as it is now, doesn´t fit into this structure. Its only unique value right now is that it is big. And, as it seems, to make it fit into the structure it has to become very complex.
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If it had the ability to lift off, self-repair, and act as a bunker, Thor would seriously be imbalanced. All at the small cost of 300/300.
Think of its massive 400 health as even more health with self-repair. The ability to lift-off? Wtf.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Remove siege tank and I find you and kill you. Seriously.
If you give it a buzzsaw or a flamethrower:
1) These forums will be forever stalked by enraged Warhammer fans. You might consider it funny, but they are like the most annoying people in the world so we will all suffer.
2) StarCraft atmosphere becomes a joke. It's still supposed to be science fiction, giant robots with chainaxes are for heroic fantasy.
3) We will get a melee-centric terran race which is unbelievably stupid.
I would be content though with Thor having a 1-unit limit and building for a bajillion minerals. This way it will still be in the game for those who love giant nonsense robot walkers, but will never ever be used in a serious game unless one player wants to humiliate the other with something that ridiculous.
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On October 22 2009 22:18 exeprime wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 10:29 Ryuu314 wrote:On October 22 2009 09:10 Manifesto7 wrote:I don't agree with people who say that scv-built thors will screw up terran macro. The argument seems to be that "you don't need more factories, you can just use scvs and still produce units". Well, if the thor costs 300/300 and 6 supply, you would already have to have terrible macro in order to build more than one or two, keep pumping factory units, and have an extra 30 supply sitting around. Like this example: then the Terran player could potentially raise an army of 12 Thors very very fast. Really? You have 3600/3600 + 72 extra supply sitting aronud? That is nonsense. I don't like mobile bunkers. I do like customizable thors. It makes a lot of sense. I am indifferent about armour types, but the fact that a thor moves the same as a hellion bothers me greatly. I agree with manitou. Either make it small and massable (essentially into goliaths) or huge and more unique. it was an exaggeration for visual purposes only. my point was that by allowing the SCVs to build Thors outside of production buildings the Terran unit production isn't limited. In other words, the factories could continue to pump dual tanks or hellions using their reactors, while X SCVs create X Thors. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Terran players occasionally build up somewhat large stockpiles of resources, even in pro games. It's not common, but it does happen; usually when the Terran is doing some kind of slow push/turtling. In such a case, it won't be so far-fetched to say that the Terran player can simply just slap down 3-4 Thors at once. Granted, if the Terran player has proper macro, the supply limit would be an issue. However, say the Terran just lost a good number of tanks/hellions to a large air attack. Then the supply would be freed for several Thors to be built, while replenishing the tank numbers simultaneously. Basically, my concern is that by allowing SCVs to construct Thors the Terran doesn't have as much a dilemma in choosing between replenish tank/hellion numbers or to make Thors. In SC, the Terran has to choose between getting more Goliaths for the time being to counter air or to get more Tanks. With SCV construction of Thors, that dilemma is removed. I mean, imagine probes being able to warp in Colossi or Immortals straight into the battlefield while the Robotics Facility continues to pump out Observers or something -.- I fail to see the difference between making more factories and making Thors. Nobody says a Thor should build super-quickly, quite the opposite - it's a super-unit that should take a loooong time to build and a big pile or resources - kinda like throwing down a few more factories and building a big bunch of tanks or something. Even less practical, since factories you build once and they keep producing, while for each Thor you'd have to take an SCV off resourcing for the entire build time (which should be considerable) and the Thor would be vulnerable while in production. It could totally be balanced via build time, cost and tech tree placement.
if the build time for Thors and the tech tree placement was changed, then the Thor would no longer be a mid-game unit, but rather a late-game unit. The purpose of having an SCV build it in the field is to allow greater mobility for the Terran army. If the build time for the Thor is very long to fix balancing issues you're better of giving it a shorter build time and producing it from the factory. I mean, think about it, if the Thor takes 75 seconds to be built at the factory now, and you suggest making the build time longer. Even if the build time was increased to just 90 seconds or so, that's quite a long time and a very big window for the enemy to snipe the Thor while it's being built. In the field, the Thor will likely not have as much protection from AtG attacks as it would while being built within the base. Remember, the Thor's current niche is as an anti-air. Lengthen the build time, and most people would be constructing the Thor within the base anyways...
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On October 23 2009 00:55 Appendix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2009 10:44 Musoeun wrote:On October 22 2009 09:04 Appendix wrote:
I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid. Lorewise it makes perfect sense (to me, at least). What is the Terran army lacking? An all-around, general-purpose, wreck-shit-up machine. Sure, you've got tanks (which are deadly, but only in bunches), nukes (which are expensive and easy to dodge), and battlecruisers (but they're often not practical in ground battles or whatever, you can fluff that somehow). It's not too hard to imagine Mengsk or Duke's SC2 equivalent watching a mass of zealots and dragoons smashing a tank line to bits and demanding that R&D "get me something that can stop these alien bastards. Something BIG." Is it? I don´t agree. I would consider for instance the vulnerability to mutalisk harass a bigger weakness than zealots and dragoons, which tanks with proper support excel at killing. And as a solution to that problem I would not create the thor. I would make like gizmoducks with AA-missiles, or something. Small, mobile and only good against air. The terran army is characterized by units well suited to their purpose. Tanks are raw power against attacking ground units, and are optimized for that, and that only. Vultures are fast, but generally weak in terms of firepower and health, well suited for harassment and scouting. Goliaths -> antiair. The only exceptions to this structure are marines and battlecruisers, but marines are the first available attacking unit and are generally weak, and battlecruisers are capitol ships at the other end of the scale whose purpose is to look impressive and keep the commanders safe. The thor, as it is now, doesn´t fit into this structure. Its only unique value right now is that it is big. And, as it seems, to make it fit into the structure it has to become very complex.
You got it the wrong way around. Terrans "thing" is versatility. Specialisation is a Zerg thing - they get away with it because Larvae can turn into any unit. Thats why they can techswitch with ease and their 200/200 army is the weakest overall.
The Tank isn´t specialized, used properly it beats ANYTHING on the ground. Vultures are scout/harrass with anti armor/mobility inhibition with Spidermines etc...
Again it´s fair because Terrans don´t get Larvae but have to build either Barracks Factorys or Starports.
The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly.
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On October 23 2009 02:12 Unentschieden wrote:
The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly.
when beta comes out I really want to see someone test out how well Thors respond to carriers. Because just looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the Thor would be able to destroy interceptors really easily...
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Personally, I think the only change the Thor really needs is reducing its base ground damage. Ideally, the Thor should be a support unit that is really only effective when coupled with other, high-damage-dealing, units; it should NOT just be a ground Battlecruiser effective against everything by itself. It should be there to soak up damage and push ahead for your siege tanks and/or low-hp infantry army, and to help ward off mutalisks and other air threats from your predominantly ground-based army--by itself, though, when in pure mass, it shouldn't be able to throw up that much damage against a lot of ground targets.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the ground damage should simply be nerfed, and the Thor can stay otherwise the same, as the huge, damage-soaking, air-unit-destroying monstrosity it is. Oh, and the model is awesome...what's not to like about giant, impractical mechs? You guys need to lighten up.
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Thor's imo should not become massable units like you talk about ultralisks. Don't forget that its the zerg that specialize in the 'strength in numbers' mentality. Terrans like you say are flexible and emphasize on synergy. Anything massable takes away from that synergy doesnt it?
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United States12235 Posts
On October 23 2009 02:29 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 02:12 Unentschieden wrote:
The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly.
when beta comes out I really want to see someone test out how well Thors respond to carriers. Because just looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the Thor would be able to destroy interceptors really easily...
When I played the Blizzcon build, I had one Thor that I built in response to a Carrier my opponent built. The Carrier just crushed my Thor and sustained very little damage in return. As Carrier and Thor numbers increased (only slightly, mind you), my Thor/Missile Turret combinations were still dying decisively. You would think that with their supply cost, resource cost, and build time that they would be able to go toe-to-toe against Carriers, but it's clearly not so.
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From here:
+ Show Spoiler +
Development
In early builds, the thor could be constructed by SCVs in the field, though is now built from the factory.[9][8] The Thor "structure" used to cost 300 minerals/ 300 gas/ 6 supply/ 100 seconds, hotkey T.[6]
The thor had a slow turning speed in the BlizzCon 2007 build, enabling units such as the Cobra to destroy it easily with micromanagement.[37] It now turns fairly quickly, and the turning speed is no longer a balancing factor.[29]
The thor was scaled down in size as it was vulnerable to micro-ing from smaller units that could be built in only a fraction of the time and resources required to build a thor.[38]
As of March 2008 the thor has been shrunk from its original size and can move faster in order to suit its anti-air role better. However, its anti-ground attack was weakened.[14][39]
Previously the thor could not be transported.[40]
I dont understand... Whats so terrible in that they can be easily microed to death if theyre unsupported? Obviously I dont know how exactly it played out but mechanics like that are interesting to me. And buildtime of 100 seconds doesnt seem that quickly spammable from just SCVs...
It seems much more bland now :/
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Canada11314 Posts
I do like the idea that scv's build Thor, but it seems the biggest issue people have is that they can be built anywhere. Maybe this idea is too complicated, but what if first an scv had to throw down a building yard (a flat concrete building, similar in design to the old GDI Repair Platform from C+C). It could be dirt cheap (50 minerals?) and have a fast to medium build time. (Adjust time and cost to be balanced.) Then an scv would still have to be used to make a Thor. Thus although a Terran could theortetically build the building yard anywhere, cost and time would dictate limit the number you have on hand- if you were planning on massing Thor's, either you'd make them individually or the opponents would scout a mass amount of building yards going down.
Maybe it's just a weird version of the Factory, but if it's cheap enough, the Terran could build it fairly far afield/ proxy it. (But it couldn't be built literally anywhere and the Terran would actually have to prepare to go mass Thors.) It wouldn't tie up factories, but it would tie up an scv.
Just a thought.
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On October 23 2009 03:35 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 02:29 Ryuu314 wrote:On October 23 2009 02:12 Unentschieden wrote:
The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly.
when beta comes out I really want to see someone test out how well Thors respond to carriers. Because just looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the Thor would be able to destroy interceptors really easily... When I played the Blizzcon build, I had one Thor that I built in response to a Carrier my opponent built. The Carrier just crushed my Thor and sustained very little damage in return. As Carrier and Thor numbers increased (only slightly, mind you), my Thor/Missile Turret combinations were still dying decisively. You would think that with their supply cost, resource cost, and build time that they would be able to go toe-to-toe against Carriers, but it's clearly not so.
that's interesting. So i'm guessing the carrier's interceptor rebuild rate coupled with its insane range can out-damage the Thor?
i think if the Thor can be shown that its not an effective counter to heavy armored air or w/e then the SCV field building may be more balance-able. Still, in mid-game and late-game I would argue that tying up an SCV is less of a disadvantage/cost than tying up a factory...especially with the new macro mechanics.
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Maybe it's just a weird version of the Factory, but if it's cheap enough, the Terran could build it fairly far afield/ proxy it. (But it couldn't be built literally anywhere and the Terran would actually have to prepare to go mass Thors.) It wouldn't tie up factories, but it would tie up an scv.
Just a thought.
Im going to act like a parrot and say it again:
I really like the idea of a factory transforming into a thor. Its simple, its epic and it gives the Thor a unique twist. You can build it anywhere, fly it anywhere(as a factory) and you'll have to protect it while it builds. It sets the size of the Thor and it wouldnt require much work on blizzards side. The animation is already there for both the factory build and the Thor build.
On another note:
When I played the Blizzcon build, I had one Thor that I built in response to a Carrier my opponent built. The Carrier just crushed my Thor and sustained very little damage in return.
In my opinion an equal investment in Thors should beat Carriers. The reason is that carriers are more mobile and can choose when to fight.
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On October 23 2009 05:21 Kaboo wrote:Show nested quote +
Maybe it's just a weird version of the Factory, but if it's cheap enough, the Terran could build it fairly far afield/ proxy it. (But it couldn't be built literally anywhere and the Terran would actually have to prepare to go mass Thors.) It wouldn't tie up factories, but it would tie up an scv.
Just a thought.
Im going to act like a parrot and say it again: I really like the idea of a factory transforming into a thor. Its simple, its epic and it gives the Thor a unique twist. You can build it anywhere, fly it anywhere(as a factory) and you'll have to protect it while it builds. It sets the size of the Thor and it wouldnt require much work on blizzards side. The animation is already there for both the factory build and the Thor build. On another note: Show nested quote +
When I played the Blizzcon build, I had one Thor that I built in response to a Carrier my opponent built. The Carrier just crushed my Thor and sustained very little damage in return.
In my opinion an equal investment in Thors should beat Carriers. The reason is that carriers are more mobile and can choose when to fight.
Carriers cost more than Thor, and thus why they should be able to beat Thors. Mobility? Did you watch how slow carriers are?
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Carriers cost more than Thor, and thus why they should be able to beat Thors. Mobility? Did you watch how slow carriers are?
When i say equal investment I mean resources of course, not number of units. Regarding mobility, the carriers fly and the Thor walks.
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If it takes almost 2 min or so its not risk-free at all to build those thors in the field.
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On October 23 2009 06:00 Kaboo wrote:Show nested quote +
Carriers cost more than Thor, and thus why they should be able to beat Thors. Mobility? Did you watch how slow carriers are?
When i say equal investment I mean resources of course, not number of units. Regarding mobility, the carriers fly and the Thor walks.
Also, carriers have a much longer range than Thors according to some sources. Personally, the only issue I can see regarding carrer v. thor battles is how easily Thors can take out interceptors as Thor damage is done in groups of 4, meaning Carrier armor is effectively multiplied by 4.
The Thor's potential as an all-purpose air counter is one of the reasons why I dislike the SCV build idea.
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OK, I got the majority of the way through this thread, so if these things are suggested at the end I appologise.
1)
When they die they leave a bunker-like structure. This blocks movement, and leaves very interesting positional oppertunities for where the terran wants their Thor's to die as to reinforce their line with a (possibly weaker then normal) bunker.
2)
Factory transforms into it, so you have to sacrifice a factory to build one, this would obviously mean a heavy discount on the cost, but it would allow for a reasonably fast emergency response, as well as leaving the oppertunity to build a thor out in the field, it just has to be a factory first.
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch
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On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
OK, I got the majority of the way through this thread, so if these things are suggested at the end I appologise.
1)
When they die they leave a bunker-like structure. This blocks movement, and leaves very interesting positional oppertunities for where the terran wants their Thor's to die as to reinforce their line with a (possibly weaker then normal) bunker.
2)
Factory transforms into it, so you have to sacrifice a factory to build one, this would obviously mean a heavy discount on the cost, but it would allow for a reasonably fast emergency response, as well as leaving the oppertunity to build a thor out in the field, it just has to be a factory first.
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch
While the whole Factory transforming into a Thor idea is interesting and will help with balance, it just doesn't seem...right?
I mean, personally i think it just screams Night Elf from WC3 :\ I'd rather not see buildings that are also units.
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On October 23 2009 07:53 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
OK, I got the majority of the way through this thread, so if these things are suggested at the end I appologise.
1)
When they die they leave a bunker-like structure. This blocks movement, and leaves very interesting positional oppertunities for where the terran wants their Thor's to die as to reinforce their line with a (possibly weaker then normal) bunker.
2)
Factory transforms into it, so you have to sacrifice a factory to build one, this would obviously mean a heavy discount on the cost, but it would allow for a reasonably fast emergency response, as well as leaving the oppertunity to build a thor out in the field, it just has to be a factory first.
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch While the whole Factory transforming into a Thor idea is interesting and will help with balance, it just doesn't seem...right? I mean, personally i think it just screams Night Elf from WC3 :\ I'd rather not see buildings that are also units.
I'm not saying they get to transform back, I'd say it's a one time cost to transform and then they're stuck like that. The factory is part of the cost of the unit.
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On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch
I think its a bad idea. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *reasonable was because Lurker tech was researched from Hydra den, therefore, there was a connection between them. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *not overpowered was because lurkers, in mass numbers, was a powerful force but not a game-determining force. Imagine T vs. P, both their armies almost gone and resources completely drained. Well guess what? The Terran transforms his 10 factories into 10 Thors (which is a devastating army compared to 10 lurkers) and that is enough to determine the game outcome. Additionally, Factory cost is not very high, meaning Thor cost would be even more reduced than the already pretty low cost.
It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop.
Does that even sound remotely fair to you?
Lets let Protoss Gateways turn into Carriers and see how many T players will complain
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Canada11314 Posts
Actually turning 10 factories into Thors is a HUGE risk. (Or you have ridiculous amounts of resources to make 10 extra factories- in which case you're already ahead.) But if not, you are killing your production capability. You have to make those Thor's count or you'll be dead in the next wave. It's essentially an all in strategy. (But it need not be if you just did two or three.)
On October 23 2009 07:53 Ryuu314 wrote:
I mean, personally i think it just screams Night Elf from WC3 :\ I'd rather not see buildings that are also units.
I played WC2, not WC3 so I'm not sure what unit you're referring to. But I don't really see why it's such a big deal. They cross-pollinated from WC2 to StarCraft. (And from StarCraft to WC3.) And the concept of a factory turning into a giant mech has not a single fantasy element in it (Thematically, not game mechanics). It's all industrial/mechanical- comparing it to the transformers would be a more legitimate critique.
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I really like the idea of Factorys being 'upgradable' into a non-unit-producing giant unit (thor). Especially if it can't change back. With the total build time and expenses they could justify it being quite a powerful unit (But it would definetly still need to be highly counterable like all good units). It could even justify its role overlapping that of half their existing army (as the Thor does now). It would (hopefully) force them to be used in much fewer quantities (how I imagine they Mothership is) and bring even greater diversity to each race.
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On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch I think its a bad idea. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *reasonable was because Lurker tech was researched from Hydra den, therefore, there was a connection between them. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *not overpowered was because lurkers, in mass numbers, was a powerful force but not a game-determining force. Imagine T vs. P, both their armies almost gone and resources completely drained. Well guess what? The Terran transforms his 10 factories into 10 Thors (which is a devastating army compared to 10 lurkers) and that is enough to determine the game outcome. Additionally, Factory cost is not very high, meaning Thor cost would be even more reduced than the already pretty low cost. It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop. Does that even sound remotely fair to you? Lets let Protoss Gateways turn into Carriers and see how many T players will complain
There would still be a cost to morph the factory to a thor, it is NOT free. I was saying the cost would need to be less then the 300/300 simply because the factory costs X/X So yes if the terran is willing to make an all-in attack by morphing all his factories to thors, first he has a fucktonne of money he's been saving to do that, and second he'll have no production if he doesn't win with it. I think the numbers can be balanced around it to make it work, and it adds an interesting gameplay element.
If you wanted to make it less-able to be done on the fly you can have it require a tech addon or something, which would then be left behind when the Thor walked away, making it so you can continue to use one tech addon to produce Thors in your base if you are pumping them for some reason. Possibly making it so having a tech addon reduces the time it takes to do the transformation... but I'm just throwing out brainstorms at that point.
The ability to proxy a fact, float it into their base unseen, make some hellions and then convert the factory to a Thor is indeed a tactic I can support and think would make for amazing games.
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I think simply making the Thor the Opposite of a glass cannon is enough
Give them a relatively low dps v. ground (but a high actual damage) so they are only good
v. medium to large glass cannons (ie siege tanks, Lurkers, Colossi, which have a high splash dps, but a low hp /cost)... cheaper glass cannons such as hydralisks/Stalkers would be effective because of their relatively low cost and low # of hp
v. air (particularly light air)..... BC, Carriers, and Broodlords would be about balanced v. them (carriers from the range, Broodlords from their broodlings doing additional damage, BCs because they can take the damage, and with Yamato/Def Matrix would be similar to Thors)
They would then be countered by swarmable ground units
Essentially they would have a similar role to Immortals and Ultralisks on the Ground, but with the additional strong anti-air component.
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On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:
It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop.
Other than this, I really like the fac --> thor idea.
But this is too strong. Imagine a 6 factory push, except with 6 less tanks and 6 thors instead. Yeah its all in because you sack production capacity, but there is nothing that's going to stop that.
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On October 23 2009 11:21 m3rciless wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:
It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop.
Other than this, I really like the fac --> thor idea. But this is too strong. Imagine a 6 factory push, except with 6 less tanks and 6 thors instead. Yeah its all in because you sack production capacity, but there is nothing that's going to stop that.
As long as this sort of thing was factored in and balanced out by e.g. the Thor's stats, costs, build time, tech level of probable counters, there really wouldn't be a problem. This is like saying that a T can go for a timing push with tanks and vultures and it's too cost-efficient for any opponent to stop. Of course the windows are there, but as long as it's scouted it'll be met with zealots and goons and maybe reavers and squashed.
Assuming Thor is tier 2.5-3 (which seems like where it should be if it's going to be a heavy-weight hitter, and if it's not they should change the unit design to be smaller but I like the heavy-hitter idea beter), then any sort of Thor timing push is essentially going to be a Thor rush build (since the Thor will be counterable), which will be scoutable. I'm absolutely sure of this. And you know how much we make fun of players now for dying to hydra all-ins which actually come pretty fast since hydras are tier 1.5? Dying to a Thor rush would be like that, only more so - more like dying to fast carriers. It just shows you suck.
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On October 23 2009 09:18 Shiladie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch I think its a bad idea. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *reasonable was because Lurker tech was researched from Hydra den, therefore, there was a connection between them. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *not overpowered was because lurkers, in mass numbers, was a powerful force but not a game-determining force. Imagine T vs. P, both their armies almost gone and resources completely drained. Well guess what? The Terran transforms his 10 factories into 10 Thors (which is a devastating army compared to 10 lurkers) and that is enough to determine the game outcome. Additionally, Factory cost is not very high, meaning Thor cost would be even more reduced than the already pretty low cost. It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop. Does that even sound remotely fair to you? Lets let Protoss Gateways turn into Carriers and see how many T players will complain There would still be a cost to morph the factory to a thor, it is NOT free. I was saying the cost would need to be less then the 300/300 simply because the factory costs X/X So yes if the terran is willing to make an all-in attack by morphing all his factories to thors, first he has a fucktonne of money he's been saving to do that, and second he'll have no production if he doesn't win with it. I think the numbers can be balanced around it to make it work, and it adds an interesting gameplay element. If you wanted to make it less-able to be done on the fly you can have it require a tech addon or something, which would then be left behind when the Thor walked away, making it so you can continue to use one tech addon to produce Thors in your base if you are pumping them for some reason. Possibly making it so having a tech addon reduces the time it takes to do the transformation... but I'm just throwing out brainstorms at that point. The ability to proxy a fact, float it into their base unseen, make some hellions and then convert the factory to a Thor is indeed a tactic I can support and think would make for amazing games.
I actually really like that idea. It would definitely make for interesting gameplay and keep the opponents on their toes.
I think the Thor should get a lower dps for ground than it currently has (30x2 damage...really now? that's a lot). become slower than it is now (to allow for easier countering of the Thor as it currently doens't really have a counter except maybe the Immortal, which counters every armored unit). and its anti-air capabilities should be kept the way it is as they rape light air and can potentially disable carriers and pose a decent enough threat to Zerg and Terran heavy air. and i suppose it can keep its current 250mm cannon ability, although the damage would need to be balanced.
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On October 23 2009 12:18 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 09:18 Shiladie wrote:On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch I think its a bad idea. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *reasonable was because Lurker tech was researched from Hydra den, therefore, there was a connection between them. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *not overpowered was because lurkers, in mass numbers, was a powerful force but not a game-determining force. Imagine T vs. P, both their armies almost gone and resources completely drained. Well guess what? The Terran transforms his 10 factories into 10 Thors (which is a devastating army compared to 10 lurkers) and that is enough to determine the game outcome. Additionally, Factory cost is not very high, meaning Thor cost would be even more reduced than the already pretty low cost. It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop. Does that even sound remotely fair to you? Lets let Protoss Gateways turn into Carriers and see how many T players will complain There would still be a cost to morph the factory to a thor, it is NOT free. I was saying the cost would need to be less then the 300/300 simply because the factory costs X/X So yes if the terran is willing to make an all-in attack by morphing all his factories to thors, first he has a fucktonne of money he's been saving to do that, and second he'll have no production if he doesn't win with it. I think the numbers can be balanced around it to make it work, and it adds an interesting gameplay element. If you wanted to make it less-able to be done on the fly you can have it require a tech addon or something, which would then be left behind when the Thor walked away, making it so you can continue to use one tech addon to produce Thors in your base if you are pumping them for some reason. Possibly making it so having a tech addon reduces the time it takes to do the transformation... but I'm just throwing out brainstorms at that point. The ability to proxy a fact, float it into their base unseen, make some hellions and then convert the factory to a Thor is indeed a tactic I can support and think would make for amazing games. I actually really like that idea. It would definitely make for interesting gameplay and keep the opponents on their toes. I think the Thor should get a lower dps for ground than it currently has (30x2 damage...really now? that's a lot). become slower than it is now (to allow for easier countering of the Thor as it currently doens't really have a counter except maybe the Immortal, which counters every armored unit). and its anti-air capabilities should be kept the way it is as they rape light air and can potentially disable carriers and pose a decent enough threat to Zerg and Terran heavy air. and i suppose it can keep its current 250mm cannon ability, although the damage would need to be balanced.
30x2 damage is GOOD
Just make it Slow
If the Thor does a Lot of damage at once with no splash that really ruins it v. low hp targets
Imagine 2 units with 20 dps
one does 5 damage every 0.25 sec
the other does 40 damage (in 8 packages of 5) every 2 sec
unless a unit is exactly 40, 80, 120, etc. hp then the 5/0.25 sec is better... and the % by which it is better goes up with smaller hp units
(now there is also how much armor affects it but that also depends on how many "packages so in this case they would be equal)
So if the Thor has a dps that is a Lot of damage per shot, but slow (nonsplash) shots, then it would be more easily countered by massive numbers of smaller units [which should be its counter, Thors should die easily to Zerglings, Zealots, Marines, Hydras.. possibly Stalkers
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On October 23 2009 16:05 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 12:18 Ryuu314 wrote:On October 23 2009 09:18 Shiladie wrote:On October 23 2009 07:59 AzureEye wrote:On October 23 2009 07:16 Shiladie wrote:
People may scream at number 2 at first, but think about it, it's the same kinda thing as building a hydralisk to get a lurker, just with a building. True it will take a bit longer to get a Thor from scratch if you don't want to sac an existing factory, but it gives the terran the ability for a quick switch to counter air, while still making it a strategic descision.
edit:
bah, somebody else thought of the factory xforming into the Thor, well hopefully this means it's an idea many people find attractive.
On that note, does anybody see a glaring problem with xforming a factory to a Thor that we havn't thought of?
It works themactically, it works to limit their numbers, and it gives the terran a versitility without making it an overpowering ability to techswitch I think its a bad idea. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *reasonable was because Lurker tech was researched from Hydra den, therefore, there was a connection between them. Why Hydralisks turning into Lurker was *not overpowered was because lurkers, in mass numbers, was a powerful force but not a game-determining force. Imagine T vs. P, both their armies almost gone and resources completely drained. Well guess what? The Terran transforms his 10 factories into 10 Thors (which is a devastating army compared to 10 lurkers) and that is enough to determine the game outcome. Additionally, Factory cost is not very high, meaning Thor cost would be even more reduced than the already pretty low cost. It just makes T units way way too cost-efficient; and they were already the most cost efficient race in Broodwar. Imagine every game, a T will go for a timing push in ADDITION to his factories turning into Thors for an all-in push that no opponent can stop. Does that even sound remotely fair to you? Lets let Protoss Gateways turn into Carriers and see how many T players will complain There would still be a cost to morph the factory to a thor, it is NOT free. I was saying the cost would need to be less then the 300/300 simply because the factory costs X/X So yes if the terran is willing to make an all-in attack by morphing all his factories to thors, first he has a fucktonne of money he's been saving to do that, and second he'll have no production if he doesn't win with it. I think the numbers can be balanced around it to make it work, and it adds an interesting gameplay element. If you wanted to make it less-able to be done on the fly you can have it require a tech addon or something, which would then be left behind when the Thor walked away, making it so you can continue to use one tech addon to produce Thors in your base if you are pumping them for some reason. Possibly making it so having a tech addon reduces the time it takes to do the transformation... but I'm just throwing out brainstorms at that point. The ability to proxy a fact, float it into their base unseen, make some hellions and then convert the factory to a Thor is indeed a tactic I can support and think would make for amazing games. I actually really like that idea. It would definitely make for interesting gameplay and keep the opponents on their toes. I think the Thor should get a lower dps for ground than it currently has (30x2 damage...really now? that's a lot). become slower than it is now (to allow for easier countering of the Thor as it currently doens't really have a counter except maybe the Immortal, which counters every armored unit). and its anti-air capabilities should be kept the way it is as they rape light air and can potentially disable carriers and pose a decent enough threat to Zerg and Terran heavy air. and i suppose it can keep its current 250mm cannon ability, although the damage would need to be balanced. 30x2 damage is GOOD Just make it Slow If the Thor does a Lot of damage at once with no splash that really ruins it v. low hp targets Imagine 2 units with 20 dps one does 5 damage every 0.25 sec the other does 40 damage (in 8 packages of 5) every 2 sec unless a unit is exactly 40, 80, 120, etc. hp then the 5/0.25 sec is better... and the % by which it is better goes up with smaller hp units (now there is also how much armor affects it but that also depends on how many "packages so in this case they would be equal) So if the Thor has a dps that is a Lot of damage per shot, but slow (nonsplash) shots, then it would be more easily countered by massive numbers of smaller units [which should be its counter, Thors should die easily to Zerglings, Zealots, Marines, Hydras.. possibly Stalkers
does thor damage currently splash?
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On October 23 2009 16:22 Ryuu314 wrote:does thor damage currently splash? The air damage does, last I heard, but not GtG.
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SOMETHING needs to be done about the Thor, I don't like spammable it was in the last Battle Report, and it died to easily and was just meh. They need to be fewer, they need to be more late game, and they need to make a bigger impact. Aaand they should not in any way step on the Siege Tank's toes. I want to see armies with Tanks in the mid game, not Thors.
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Make the tank transform into the thor at tier 3.
As in you need a scv to modify the tank to turn it into the Thor.
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I REALLY like the OP ideas. Great work. We need to bring those thoughts to blizzard if it hasnt already happened.
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Factories turning into thor's is not a good idea due to the impossibility of balancing something that is necessarily so all-in. Either the convert-all-factories-to-thor-all-in-push is super strong and works 80% or more of the time, which would make Terran a very boring race to play, (survive until you have 6 fact, convert and destroy)OR if the balance were tweaked so that this all in strategy was less effective or more situationally effective, the result would be that thors would never end up being seen at all, as players are unlikely to try such a scoutable late game all-in if the odds of success are ~50%. This is why starcraft games last as long as they do in the late game. Nobody wanting to press their small perceived advantage aggressively (risky), but instead choosing a to use their advantage as a chance to add more economic and macro capabilities to eventually roll over the opponent.
The only way the factory conversion mechanic could work is if some way could be devised to make each additional Thor less useful than the previous one (making it not all in, just convert one or two facts)
any ideas on how to make the thors effective mostly in small numbers?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Well, first of all, if the Factory transforms into the Thor, you are most likely going to be making NEW factories when you want to build Thors. Maybe there will be some very specific timing-rushes where you transform all your factories and just gogo, but I think that will be rare.
Second, if you want to limit their numbers (I do too), making them prohibitively costly (supply and resources) is one way, or giving them abilities that help the rest of your army but don't have a compounding effect as you get more Thors (an example of this would be Auras in WC3 - if you have one hero with Brilliance aura you won't benefit from a second hero with the same aura in a 2v2 - of course auras might not be the best mechanic in SC2 but the principle behind it can still apply).
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What would be something that would make a straight-up combat unit viable but not unviable to mass?
Abilities/auras that give something that you mostly ever need 1 per battle is obviously like that but doesnt really fit Thor.
Another way is to make it counter just 1 type of enemy well, and make it do that well enough that you dont ever need many of them together. Like, in Thors case, it could be ridiculously good vs light air units but pretty crappy vs all else. But usually thats shitty game design and doesnt fit Thor.
Could simply long buildtime be enough to discourage massing? Lets say for example 3 minutes to build a thor, either normally from fac or by SCV - even if a unit is really nice unit for its cost, its a long time to have resources tied up and not giving any return until the time its ready. You really couldnt afford to build more than 1 or 2 at a time without a big risk of getting well outnumbered before their completion. Could it work nicely like this or is this logic flawed somehow? Or come up with other/better ways to make a simple hard hitter/damage soaker non-massable.
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I was playing around with the idea of giving the Thor, something like the devourer's role. More specifically:
1. high hit point tank
2. An non-stacking, large splash, low damage, attack slowing "stun" attack
-----The said attack also works against air
3. Special ability to do high damage to one target fairly quickly (for tank line breaking, if this role is still desired)
So basically, you build one thor which then proceed to slow incoming attacks. Both of its abilities contributes to its defensive role as terran units are specialized. It will need high damage output units to be useful thus fits in a mixed terran army and is not useful massed.
However, it doesn't really need this to do its current job of tank (just sufficient hp is enough) and it still isn't that interesting.... (see below for why)
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My personal feelings for disliking the Thor is that it does not feel like a unit that has finesse like the rest of the terran SC1 army. The entire *giant mecha overrunning shit in a slow 1a2a3a* just feels lame compared to all the micro intensive Terran army was known for. If there is some cool micro you can pull off it, it'd be cease being boring but be associated with it.
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Most of this thread has crazy ideas: how about letting the Thor "push" small units like how force fields can push units away or how things gets pushed by SC1 mines and such. Now I'm not sure if it works in the SC2 engine, but it would be a characterful feature for such a unit which interesting potential applications, like pushing zealots out of tank lines and such, leading to clutch saves and such.
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The devourerish attack seems an ok option to me.
The return of slow turning could make it require more micro, though I have no idea how that practically worked with this engine.
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One could make the GtG attack rely on the slow turning, but make the GtA attack beable to fire in all directions (ie make the GtA missiles that can shoot units Behind the Thor)
I think the Thor
1. Should be vulnerable to mass units... therefore always needs support units with it, to deal out enough damage to clear out the mass units (so the main way to counter the Thor is to have units to help clear out the units supporting it....Thor supported by Marauders=kill with Zealot, H. Templar, Zergling, Hydralisk, Marine; Thor supported by Marines, Hellions=kill with H. Templar, Stalkers, Roaches?.. any armored anti-light unit
2. Should be there primarily for anti-Tank/Colossus/Lurker pushes (where it would have to leave its support units behind for a bit, so that the splash doesn't kill them) and Anti-air
3. Would probably be interesting if it were classed as a Structure (immunity to many spells/abilities such as Psi storm)
4. Should be more expensive and have more hp.
5. With 3+4 could give it Lift Off (I wouldn't Convert it from a Factory, I'd Keep it Buildable by the Factory)... it would have to be very slow, lke BW Lift Off.. possibly take double damage while flying.
6. Could give it the other characteristics of a Terran building as well ("burning down" when in red... but instead of burning down it is just inactive) That is similar to the "rebirth" ability.. but it involves repair
Imagine a Thor that is 750 hp, but once it is 250/750 or below, it can't move, shoot, or use abilities. It is effectively 'dead' with 500 damage, but recoverable with an SCV(this makes it worth 'damaging it' without killing it in battle (give it the 500 damage and then shift targets... if you think you can win by doing that.) If not, it slows the Terran push, as they need SCVs to support.
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Independently of balancing, one thing that imo should be changed is the size of the Thor. I've only watched the Thor in action through this BR, so i may be wrong about this, but its size is just like a fucking fat megazord, doesnt fit well to the rest of the terran units.
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Ok, I can brainstorm too!
What if the Thor had no attack, just special abilities? It would be like a caster, only a mechanical caster. So it could, for example:
- deploy into a metal wall (could be useful for blocking medium-sized chokes)
- roll into a ball of steel and crush everything in its path in a certain direction; would lead to some fun moments of units jumping from it's path or running away from it
- explode and send shrapnel and hot oil in all directions
- deploy into a bridge
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Sweden33719 Posts
I don't love those exact examples as they seem somewhat hard to implement, especially the rolling ball of doom one (although deploying into a metal wall is similiar to being a mobile bunker), but I think it's a decent idea to have it be pure support (it would also make it unappealing to just mass produce it). The problem is they'd have to completely redesign the Thor and re-write all Thor lore
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Sure, but what better time to do that than pre-beta?
Not sure what you mean by hard to implement - do you mean interface-wise? With the ball of doom you activate the ability and select a point to roll to; with the bridge select a point to bridge to etc. Or did you mean something else?
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Factory-> Thor has a couple of all-in problems. Im not sure if they are deal breakers though.
I will say this. If the Factory could transform into a Thor it would go a long way to teaching new players how to keep making new production buildings. It would also help new players understand how a Terran push worked.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 24 2009 04:35 Doctorasul wrote:Sure, but what better time to do that than pre-beta? Not sure what you mean by hard to implement - do you mean interface-wise? With the ball of doom you activate the ability and select a point to roll to; with the bridge select a point to bridge to etc. Or did you mean something else?
Well, I guess I'm not sure how you'd control it, hard time visualizing it hehe
I guess it'd work something like bladestorm in WC3.
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The Factory -> Thor conversion actually sounds really good...Blizzard would, of course, have to balance the Thor in terms of build time, cost and supply in order to make it work - but all in all, it sounds like a really good idea. Remember that when factoring in the cost of the build time, you have to think of all those units you aren't producing from the factory.
The problems with the Factory -> Thor all-in move can either be prevented by using the compounding system that FA was talking about (although I don't really have any ideas about what it could be), or nerfing the Thor sufficiently, such as allowing the return of that slow-turning speed. If the Terran player does decide to all-in, it will necessarily lead to micro-intensive play in preventing zerglings/zealots/hellions from obliterating the backbone of your push. Indeed, someone posted an idea earlier in this post to make the Thor vulnerable to anti-air - that's a perfect weakness which prevents the Thor from being a 1a2a3a unit - pushing into a base filled with Missile Turrets would be suicide.
Speaking of which, I really liked the modules idea from before. Admittedly, it is copying the customisable abilities of the BCs and the Siege/Tank Mode of the Tanks to a certain extent, but it could work with, let's say, SCVs being required for every "tech-switch" between that anti-ground mode and that anti-air mode. Heck, perhaps they could make it such that the Thor wouldn't reactivate if the SCV was killed, similar to how Missile Turrets were useless if the SCV building it was destroyed.
Oh, and all that talk about Carriers? The Thor isn't a counter to the Carriers, it's a counter to mutalisks and suchlike. Carriers are, in fact, countered by Vikings, which have bonus damage to capital ships (not sure what their class is called).
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The factory -> Thor idea? That is so crazy that is into parody land. Just how does a production line, with molding machines, casts, assembly machines, unknown electronics production methods, massive logistic trails and all that transform into guns? Of course, RTS are a crazy genre where battlecruiser armies are built in less time it takes to cook spaghetti, but should the game push in that direction? Do we really want a game that is crazy for crazy sake, like RA3's unit set?
Thor vulnerable to anti-air - that's a perfect weakness which prevents the Thor from being a 1a2a3a unit - pushing into a base filled with Missile Turrets would be suicide.
Hardly, the only GtA only unit is the missile turret. Every other unit is either dual use, or AtA which is supposed to be countered by the thor. (which also means that thor GtA will have to be buffed to make it keep the role)
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Yes, lets have a terran colossus (together with transform), as if the terran archon isn't bad enough. Ah, stolen roles.....
Of course, the biggest problem we have now is how to have a terran archon when it looks like a siege tank on legs.
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I gotta say, despite my attempts to find it a role in the game, the Thor is a fucking shitty unit.
It is bad.
When I saw it for the first time I was like "oh, a big, long range, deployable artillary unit, wtf happened to the siege tank?"
Now it's just a big fat meat shield, BOOOORING
The Thor is a shitty unit, that is educated my verdict.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Most of this thread has crazy ideas: how about letting the Thor "push" small units like how force fields can push units away or how things gets pushed by SC1 mines and such. Now I'm not sure if it works in the SC2 engine, but it would be a characterful feature for such a unit which interesting potential applications, like pushing zealots out of tank lines and such, leading to clutch saves and such.
This is definitely interesting. The only potential problem I can see is that it's annoying to have abilities that rob you of control of your units, but it's not like it would be the only one in the game.
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During the last cycle of thor threads (you couldn't possibly believe such a bad unit had only one thread), I thought about giving thor GtA a special property of increasing dispersion of stacks. This makes it a supporting AA unit that needs marines to be fully effective.
While not engine breaking, I can smell the complaints from the "mutas are nerfed already" crowd already.....
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Now that I think about it, Protoss gets all the unit disabling abilities right now..... force field, phase shift, who knows what mothership-does-now and such. The closest the terran has is emp.... (gone is the lock down)
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If there is a identity the thor has, it is bulk. If there is a way to translate that impression into game mechanics than it would be okay....in having its own identity. (though probably still don't fit in the glass cannon terran race) That is why I'm kind fond of abilities that shove enemy units around since that is what a BIG unit is suppose to feel like, while doing something interesting tactically.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Well, I count the Marauder's slowing attack as a disabling ability, but I guess it depends on your definition.
Dispersion AA sounds really cool in theory, it's just a question of if it takes the fun out of using air units vs it (as with all disabling and slowing abilities). I'm all for trying it out tho.
In a similiar vein, I remember maybenexttime proposing something along the lines of a ground stomp (seismic thump iirc?), I'm not sure if it was on the Thor tho. Anyway it makes sense with the Thor's bulk at least.
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I wonder what happened to Raven's (nighthawk) seismic thump ability. I wonder if there was a Q/A that addressed why it was removed. One also wonder about how did the infestor "uber ensnare" worked out.
If dispersion AA is added, the "natural stacking" can probably be increased, since protoss have either splash or very mobile GtA (to counter edge range kiting) while zerg will probably get air superiority via corrupter (dedicated unit >> nondedicated units...and it needs no tech) and only terran is hurt by stacking that much. If the dispersion has some kind of delay involved (it should lead the target so that a unmicroed full speed stack should not evade it by flying straight) that can be microed to dodge would be interesting. Of course if a stack is dodging attacks, it isn't doing its best at killing things.
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Now that I think about it, one could use the code for resolving terran building landings (or burrow stacking) for thor push ability to move thing out of the way. It would also be very funny if the thor could "stomp" interceptors after dropping from a medivac.... :D
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If the thor is to become a disruption unit, one can probably look at DoW and see how that worked out..... (but I don't play DoW...so ....I guess we need to grab some relicnews folks and ask them about it)
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On October 24 2009 11:27 SWPIGWANG wrote:
If there is a identity the thor has, it is bulk. If there is a way to translate that impression into game mechanics than it would be okay....in having its own identity. (though probably still don't fit in the glass cannon terran race) That is why I'm kind fond of abilities that shove enemy units around since that is what a BIG unit is suppose to feel like, while doing something interesting tactically.
You probably missed this, so i'll repost my idea (page 6):
- I'm not going to comment on the changes that FA has proposed because i'd like to play the game before commenting, but i would like to add a suggestion - for those of you who've played Ground Control 2, you will remember that the Human faction had a siege-tank like piece that could also deploy. The kicker was that when it deployed it also extended to either side a sort-of shield, behind which infantry could hide (and shoot out of).
So basically, we steal this idea. Thor gains a Deploy ability (say same, or slightly longer time then siege mode) which parks it in a _fixed_ direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc. This gives it a proto-bunker ability in that it serves as a portable fire/rally point for terran pushes, while synergising with the siege-tank and the terran leap-frog. Furthermore, it should't be as imbalanced as the bunker idea because the units are still out in the open and can therefore be flanked, but are a little more resilient against head-on assaults. -
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The ability to produce cover is pretty interesting, i must admit. It would add a click and strategic positioning value to the thor, as well as put it directly in harm's way. Maybe the terrans cracked some part of protoss technology and were able to create a proxy defense net for forward positions or something.
I had a slightly different take on a possible use for the thor as an artillery unit revisiting 'particle cannon' a bit. What if instead of 250mm cannons, which i dont think many people like, you had a massive back-mounted energy cannon, and instead of single damage or splash in the siege tank sense, make it damages everything in the path of the beam either ground or air, anime-style. Give the ability enough range, and effect radius, and enough damage to 1 shot marines, hydras, roaches, mauraders, zealots, but not tanks, stalkers, lurkers, etc. make the energy requirement low enough to get 2 or 3 shots off with a sizeable cooldown(~10 sec).
Make the ability a directional click, which forces the player to aim the beam, not at a unit, but in the direction it will have maximum effect, and also another click to choose between hitting air targets or ground targets.
Give it a half second charge time, and a full second duration, also to make it somewhat 'dodgeable' or especially to stalkers with blink and such.
From there you can either have the ability shoot omnidirectionally and make the unit turn uberslow, or leave the current turning speed in BR4 and only fire where it can turn.
Also, make the thor exclusive, so you can only have one, like the mothership. Buff the cost, supply, and hp of the unit and you have something that could be the centerpiece of the terran army. Something the player will want to protect but powerful
The SC2 dev team will be loathe to make super changes to the build that it is right now, since in their own words the game is pretty close to being balanced. This change isn't too drastic, but allows the unit to still be a game changer with the right circumstances.
Making the unit exclusive solves a lot of the issue with being built either by scv's or a factory, as well as makes the unit very situational, like BC's, which would satisfy those who hate it overall.
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Cerebralz, the kinda CNC2 railgun idea sounds neat.
Perhaps instead of having that mechanic with its special, put it with it's normal guns like the Mammoth Tank Mk2. Could be interesting watching players trying to keep their Thor's rapid fire guns always on the best targets to get the most line splash.
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Also, make the thor exclusive, so you can only have one, like the mothership. Buff the cost, supply, and hp of the unit and you have something that could be the centerpiece of the terran army. Something the player will want to protect but powerful
The SC2 dev team will be loathe to make super changes to the build that it is right now, since in their own words the game is pretty close to being balanced. This change isn't too drastic, but allows the unit to still be a game changer with the right circumstances.
Personally, I like the idea of a single massive game-changing unit. Unfortunately, I also have to admit that such a unit isn't going to work in Starcraft. We all know what happened to the Mothership, and in SC:BW, the essential parallel for this super-game-changing unit is the Nuke, which almost no one uses anymore, other than Flash against Savior. In other words, I kind of disagree with the whole make the Thor unique idea.
I do, however, agree whole-heartedly with the second point. The Dev team is probably not going to want to move the Thor around in the tech-tree or mess around with the machine too much. It's probably too much to hope that they'll change the Thor's production mechanism (either the SCV building it or transforming from a Factory), and they aren't going to create a whole new sprite for the cover, either.
What they can do is either bring back the slow turning mechanism such that micro becomes a lot more important when fighting with or against Thors, or implement the Module idea - the Thor has gone through quite a few re-iterations that I doubt it'd be difficult for them to scrounge up a previously used model.
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On October 24 2009 14:58 cerebralz wrote:
The SC2 dev team will be loathe to make super changes to the build that it is right now, since in their own words the game is pretty close to being balanced. This change isn't too drastic, but allows the unit to still be a game changer with the right circumstances.
Wait, wait, WHAT? Where did they actually say that? Because, seriously, fucking looooooooooool. "Close to being balanced" my arse. With what, David Kim as the mean? Haha, no.
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Ideas I like:
* SCV construction.
Much more macro-intensive and doesn't make observers soil their pants at the end of every Factory production cycle. Whatever IMBA caused Blizzard to believe locally produced Thors are a bad idea can be offset with build duration. Plus, with the Thor's movement speed, you'll be lucky to get one where you want it before the match ends either way.
* Lift off.
That just feel extremely natural and solves a whole lot of clutter problems for the SCII Terran army. Very, very good idea. Keep in mind that combined with the Mobile Bunker part, this would essentially make the Thor a short-range transport. With sufficiently low movement speed, it would be possible to get your army into an enemy base during an assault, but not like doom drop a bunch of Thors and Marines out of the blue. Though, admittedly, Drop Thors make Drop Pods look like crap.
* Modules.
Again, highly fitting for Terran. Not sure about "switching" between modules, as we're going into RPG territory here, but an initial choice between different kinds of Thors sounds about right. Bunker for infantry support and cliff-jumping, WWII battleship artillery rack for cracking base defenses, or a bunch of AA missiles for the sheer joy of seeing mutas pop. All Thors, like BCs, would then start out with just the basic cannons and be upgradeable at no extra charge.
Ideas I don't like:
Everything else. Keep in mind, the Thor is just one, albeit gigantic unit. It makes no sense to give it too many bells and whistles. The fact it's big enough for 536987 SCVs to repair at the same time is bad enough.
On October 24 2009 14:58 cerebralz wrote:
The ability to produce cover is pretty interesting, i must admit. It would add a click and strategic positioning value to the thor, as well as put it directly in harm's way. Maybe the terrans cracked some part of protoss technology and were able to create a proxy defense net for forward positions or something.
I had a slightly different take on a possible use for the thor as an artillery unit revisiting 'particle cannon' a bit. What if instead of 250mm cannons, which i dont think many people like, you had a massive back-mounted energy cannon, and instead of single damage or splash in the siege tank sense, make it damages everything in the path of the beam either ground or air, anime-style. Give the ability enough range, and effect radius, and enough damage to 1 shot marines, hydras, roaches, mauraders, zealots, but not tanks, stalkers, lurkers, etc. make the energy requirement low enough to get 2 or 3 shots off with a sizeable cooldown(~10 sec).
Make the ability a directional click, which forces the player to aim the beam, not at a unit, but in the direction it will have maximum effect, and also another click to choose between hitting air targets or ground targets.
Give it a half second charge time, and a full second duration, also to make it somewhat 'dodgeable' or especially to stalkers with blink and such.
From there you can either have the ability shoot omnidirectionally and make the unit turn uberslow, or leave the current turning speed in BR4 and only fire where it can turn.
Also, make the thor exclusive, so you can only have one, like the mothership. Buff the cost, supply, and hp of the unit and you have something that could be the centerpiece of the terran army. Something the player will want to protect but powerful
The SC2 dev team will be loathe to make super changes to the build that it is right now, since in their own words the game is pretty close to being balanced. This change isn't too drastic, but allows the unit to still be a game changer with the right circumstances.
Making the unit exclusive solves a lot of the issue with being built either by scv's or a factory, as well as makes the unit very situational, like BC's, which would satisfy those who hate it overall.
I believe this is what you're getting at.
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I wonder did lurker morping from hydra maked lurker interesting, or the fact that it does line splash....... because that is what SCV construction is. Sure, devour morping from muta fits the theme of things, but it hardly made the unit interesting because of that after the first 10 minutes. I've never, ever heard of a claim that "zomg, devour is so cool because it is morped by mutalisks."
So what if thor is built by SCV, it doesn't change its core identity.
direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc.
It is really something not in the engine, worst than even armor facing. Starcraft never had true LOS and units can shoot through cliffs and other units and everything else. The range calculation and angles are all messed up, like how range is calculated from the body of the mutalisk as opposed to its shadow when shooting at something on the ground....and so and so on.
It'd be extremely messy to jury rig something like that it now that the engine is done already.
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On October 25 2009 14:10 SWPIGWANG wrote:
The range calculation and angles are all messed up, like how range is calculated from the body of the mutalisk as opposed to its shadow when shooting at something on the ground....and so and so on.
Why would it shoot from its shadow? Shadows do not have to be straight under the object, usually they are a lot to the side since the sun is not straight above.
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[QUOTE]On October 25 2009 14:10 SWPIGWANG wrote:
I wonder did lurker morping from hydra maked lurker interesting, or the fact that it does line splash....... because that is what SCV construction is. Sure, devour morping from muta fits the theme of things, but it hardly made the unit interesting because of that after the first 10 minutes. I've never, ever heard of a claim that "zomg, devour is so cool because it is morped by mutalisks."
So what if thor is built by SCV, it doesn't change its core identity.[quote]
Um, no. The difference is that when you morph hydras you lose the hydra entirely. When you're done building your six Thors with SCVs you get the SCVs back and have only lost a little mining time. Also, you have to devote production to hydras before you can morph lurkers, which could be an important decision (if you don't make hydras then you'll never make lurkers) Contrast this with the thor, where pretty much you'd have your CC building SCVs as much as possible, so you will always have a buttload of them hand to begin construction of thors with no problems.
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Why would it shoot from its shadow? Shadows do not have to be straight under the object, usually they are a lot to the side since the sun is not straight above.
Okay, maybe not the shadow itself, but "whatever its exact land position it is over", which is actually unknown except hints given by the 45 degree perspective. For range calculation purposes the mutalisk is essentially on the ground while flying. That is fine for a 2D engine, but problematic in a 3D one where the angle of shot is important for gameplay purposes.
It would suck horribly, if say, a mutalisk shooting from top to bottom would almost never trigger the directional shield, while shooting from down to up triggers it even at zero range....and so and so on. There is just a ton of position glitches possible if one try to jury rig an angular system into the game when all it does now is track unit distances on the 2d plane matching the default viewing perspective.
If that kind of stuff is to be added to the game, it is best to have it be a part of the engine since day one to prevent any weirdness from happening. Doing it this late in the development cycle is asking for bugs.
The classic glitch in Starcraft is the tank mode siege tank out ranging range upgraded marines in a bunker at specific angles.
The difference is that when you morph hydras you lose the hydra entirely.
The similarity is that they both are built outside of buildings in a remote location. The important thing is that the lurker example didn't make lurkers interesting (egg block trick aside)....lurkers had to be interesting in itself.
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I think he is refering to the fact that you could have just 1 factory and an armory and then create 14 thors all at the exact same time (provided you had the minerals) with SCVs more than the fact that you get to 'keep the SCV that build it'.
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On October 25 2009 14:10 SWPIGWANG wrote:I wonder did lurker morping from hydra maked lurker interesting, or the fact that it does line splash....... because that is what SCV construction is. Sure, devour morping from muta fits the theme of things, but it hardly made the unit interesting because of that after the first 10 minutes. I've never, ever heard of a claim that "zomg, devour is so cool because it is morped by mutalisks." So what if thor is built by SCV, it doesn't change its core identity. Show nested quote +direction and providing a cover/armour bonus to stuff that clustering in it's 180o behind arc. It is really something not in the engine, worst than even armor facing. Starcraft never had true LOS and units can shoot through cliffs and other units and everything else. The range calculation and angles are all messed up, like how range is calculated from the body of the mutalisk as opposed to its shadow when shooting at something on the ground....and so and so on. It'd be extremely messy to jury rig something like that it now that the engine is done already.
How do you know it's not something the engine is capable of? From what we've seen of the sc2edit demo it looks pretty damn powerful.
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On October 23 2009 02:12 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 00:55 Appendix wrote:On October 22 2009 10:44 Musoeun wrote:On October 22 2009 09:04 Appendix wrote:
I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid. Lorewise it makes perfect sense (to me, at least). What is the Terran army lacking? An all-around, general-purpose, wreck-shit-up machine. Sure, you've got tanks (which are deadly, but only in bunches), nukes (which are expensive and easy to dodge), and battlecruisers (but they're often not practical in ground battles or whatever, you can fluff that somehow). It's not too hard to imagine Mengsk or Duke's SC2 equivalent watching a mass of zealots and dragoons smashing a tank line to bits and demanding that R&D "get me something that can stop these alien bastards. Something BIG." Is it? I don´t agree. I would consider for instance the vulnerability to mutalisk harass a bigger weakness than zealots and dragoons, which tanks with proper support excel at killing. And as a solution to that problem I would not create the thor. I would make like gizmoducks with AA-missiles, or something. Small, mobile and only good against air. The terran army is characterized by units well suited to their purpose. Tanks are raw power against attacking ground units, and are optimized for that, and that only. Vultures are fast, but generally weak in terms of firepower and health, well suited for harassment and scouting. Goliaths -> antiair. The only exceptions to this structure are marines and battlecruisers, but marines are the first available attacking unit and are generally weak, and battlecruisers are capitol ships at the other end of the scale whose purpose is to look impressive and keep the commanders safe. The thor, as it is now, doesn´t fit into this structure. Its only unique value right now is that it is big. And, as it seems, to make it fit into the structure it has to become very complex. You got it the wrong way around. Terrans "thing" is versatility. Specialisation is a Zerg thing - they get away with it because Larvae can turn into any unit. Thats why they can techswitch with ease and their 200/200 army is the weakest overall. The Tank isn´t specialized, used properly it beats ANYTHING on the ground. Vultures are scout/harrass with anti armor/mobility inhibition with Spidermines etc... Again it´s fair because Terrans don´t get Larvae but have to build either Barracks Factorys or Starports. The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly.
Zerg can techswitch with ease because their units are cheap, die fast and build fast in combination with the larvae mechanism. They just have a high renewal rate. And specialization is not their trademark either, massing and agility are.
The terran army is versatile, the terran units are not. The phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its part" very much applies. And the tank is specialized. It lacks mobility, it requires certain circumstances to be effective and, as you said, it only hits the ground. The tank is not versatile. Neither is the vulture.
I don´t see the role thor plays in the terran army. I just see "aha, someone wants a big robot in this game".
"But this isn't Brood War, its starcraft 2"
Indeed its not, but they force themselves into this problem when they went with Vulture 2.0 i.e. the hellion. I say scrap it too and let the reapers take over their harassing role and come up with another fun set of dynamic units for the terran mech army.
(sorry for late answer, my HDD crashed)
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Concerning OP argument for rear armor dmg.
I really disagree. I hate the entire rear armor concept, I don't think that stuff has much place in a Starcraft game. Just a personal opinion, similar to how I don't think heroes belong either. Starcraft doesn't have that feel - I feel like if we did it with the Thor it should be done with other units as well, namely the siege tank (and I imagine that happenign to the siege tank in SC1 and it being awful).
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mobile bunker? When ghosts are already overpowered with faster nukes as well as hard as hell to kill? Yeah, let's have everybody play terran and whoever gets the nuke upgrade wins.
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I definitely agree that units like the Thor, Immortal and Roach are struggling to find their place. They are really just Broodwar concepts tagged with a new irrelevant feature (big goliath, hearty dragon, healing hydralisk). There are plenty of ideas for each of the units, including those in this thread for the Thor.
The OP mentioned the Tripod from C&C and how the Mechanical Rebirth ability was similar. Unlike the MR ability that saw some light in SC2, when the Tripod was dismantled/destroyed, any race could repair it for use on their side. This ability coupled with a number of the ideas for the Thor could greatly help to grant it the unique identity it deserves.
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On October 22 2009 01:51 Lz wrote:
nice read~
haha...great ideas for a THOR UMS/Custom game...
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On October 27 2009 09:36 FabledIntegral wrote:
Concerning OP argument for rear armor dmg.
I really disagree. I hate the entire rear armor concept, I don't think that stuff has much place in a Starcraft game. Just a personal opinion, similar to how I don't think heroes belong either. Starcraft doesn't have that feel - I feel like if we did it with the Thor it should be done with other units as well, namely the siege tank (and I imagine that happenign to the siege tank in SC1 and it being awful).
i agree with you, but just bringing something up. isn't hte carrier in SC2 supposed to have different armor levels for calculating gta damage and ata damage?
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On October 27 2009 09:27 Appendix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2009 02:12 Unentschieden wrote:On October 23 2009 00:55 Appendix wrote:On October 22 2009 10:44 Musoeun wrote:On October 22 2009 09:04 Appendix wrote:
I think the Thor is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, lorewise, it is farfetched. Normally, lore isn't that big of a concern to me, but when the supposedly greatest terran scientists sat down and discussed the new alien threats, they could impossibly have concluded that the correct counter to the more mobile protoss armies and the much much more mobile zerg armies were to construct an even bigger and slower terran unit than we have ever seen before. I doubt anyone is that stupid. Lorewise it makes perfect sense (to me, at least). What is the Terran army lacking? An all-around, general-purpose, wreck-shit-up machine. Sure, you've got tanks (which are deadly, but only in bunches), nukes (which are expensive and easy to dodge), and battlecruisers (but they're often not practical in ground battles or whatever, you can fluff that somehow). It's not too hard to imagine Mengsk or Duke's SC2 equivalent watching a mass of zealots and dragoons smashing a tank line to bits and demanding that R&D "get me something that can stop these alien bastards. Something BIG." Is it? I don´t agree. I would consider for instance the vulnerability to mutalisk harass a bigger weakness than zealots and dragoons, which tanks with proper support excel at killing. And as a solution to that problem I would not create the thor. I would make like gizmoducks with AA-missiles, or something. Small, mobile and only good against air. The terran army is characterized by units well suited to their purpose. Tanks are raw power against attacking ground units, and are optimized for that, and that only. Vultures are fast, but generally weak in terms of firepower and health, well suited for harassment and scouting. Goliaths -> antiair. The only exceptions to this structure are marines and battlecruisers, but marines are the first available attacking unit and are generally weak, and battlecruisers are capitol ships at the other end of the scale whose purpose is to look impressive and keep the commanders safe. The thor, as it is now, doesn´t fit into this structure. Its only unique value right now is that it is big. And, as it seems, to make it fit into the structure it has to become very complex. You got it the wrong way around. Terrans "thing" is versatility. Specialisation is a Zerg thing - they get away with it because Larvae can turn into any unit. Thats why they can techswitch with ease and their 200/200 army is the weakest overall. The Tank isn´t specialized, used properly it beats ANYTHING on the ground. Vultures are scout/harrass with anti armor/mobility inhibition with Spidermines etc... Again it´s fair because Terrans don´t get Larvae but have to build either Barracks Factorys or Starports. The Thor is EFFECTIVE against everything but only EFFICIENT against light air. As such it fits Terrans perfectly. Zerg can techswitch with ease because their units are cheap, die fast and build fast in combination with the larvae mechanism. They just have a high renewal rate. And specialization is not their trademark either, massing and agility are. The terran army is versatile, the terran units are not. The phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its part" very much applies. And the tank is specialized. It lacks mobility, it requires certain circumstances to be effective and, as you said, it only hits the ground. The tank is not versatile. Neither is the vulture. I don´t see the role thor plays in the terran army. I just see "aha, someone wants a big robot in this game". "But this isn't Brood War, its starcraft 2" Indeed its not, but they force themselves into this problem when they went with Vulture 2.0 i.e. the hellion. I say scrap it too and let the reapers take over their harassing role and come up with another fun set of dynamic units for the terran mech army. (sorry for late answer, my HDD crashed)
Well lets avoid discussing if Zerg are versatile or not or if Terrans are specialized - let everyone decide for themselves. It´s a tangent to this issue, really.
"aha, someone wants a big robot in this game" is right but unlike you suggest also legimitate. It worked for SC - where do you think the Vulture came from? Blizzard wanted a "space biker" to enhance the Terrans "Space Mad Max" feel. They gave it hover for the "space" bit and added Spidermines since the Factory needed a cost effective mineral only unit for balance reasons.
A mine was worth 25 minerals but the Vulture was a throwaway unit for many years.
I´m not suprised that youre upset with the Hellion if you think it´s the Vulture 2.0, it´s not. The familarity is mostly explained from it´s position in the Tech tree, mineral only in the Factory. It also relys on mobility but unlike the Vulture it´s supposed to be a serious combat unit. It has enhanced Damage capability due to the linear splash boosting the actual usefullnes of the unit itself. They don´t have the harrassing role Primarly since they are Primarly the "Factorys Marines". Going Mech has to be substainable Gaswise or you´d be forced to build Barracks for Marines.
If you were to made Hellions suck at harrassment (maybe slow the down?), how would a Mech Terran harrass? Siege mode Tanks would be a bit late, especially since they also need Medivacs at that point to "harrass".
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 27 2009 09:36 FabledIntegral wrote:
Concerning OP argument for rear armor dmg.
I really disagree. I hate the entire rear armor concept, I don't think that stuff has much place in a Starcraft game. Just a personal opinion, similar to how I don't think heroes belong either. Starcraft doesn't have that feel - I feel like if we did it with the Thor it should be done with other units as well, namely the siege tank (and I imagine that happenign to the siege tank in SC1 and it being awful).
I'm fine with you disagreeing, but I don't understand why the siege tank would have to use the same mechanic ?
On October 27 2009 14:19 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2009 09:36 FabledIntegral wrote:
Concerning OP argument for rear armor dmg.
I really disagree. I hate the entire rear armor concept, I don't think that stuff has much place in a Starcraft game. Just a personal opinion, similar to how I don't think heroes belong either. Starcraft doesn't have that feel - I feel like if we did it with the Thor it should be done with other units as well, namely the siege tank (and I imagine that happenign to the siege tank in SC1 and it being awful). i agree with you, but just bringing something up. isn't hte carrier in SC2 supposed to have different armor levels for calculating gta damage and ata damage?
No, they removed this when they scratched the neo-carrier-Tempest and replaced it with the regular-SC1-carrier.
On October 27 2009 10:21 probu wrote:
I definitely agree that units like the Thor, Immortal and Roach are struggling to find their place. They are really just Broodwar concepts tagged with a new irrelevant feature (big goliath, hearty dragon, healing hydralisk). There are plenty of ideas for each of the units, including those in this thread for the Thor.
The OP mentioned the Tripod from C&C and how the Mechanical Rebirth ability was similar. Unlike the MR ability that saw some light in SC2, when the Tripod was dismantled/destroyed, any race could repair it for use on their side. This ability coupled with a number of the ideas for the Thor could greatly help to grant it the unique identity it deserves.
Hm, I guess you could have an "infested thor" :D That'd be kinda cool. What about for protoss? MC:ed Thor?
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Make it able to build nukes and give it a secondary seige ability that takes a couple of seconds to transform(similar timing to ghost nuke ability). It makes it stupid to mass, valuable when it carries nuke b/c of all the resources spent on it and prime target on the battlefield when it seiges up into nuke mode.
ok, not exactly brilliant.... but it kinda works and yes I am playing MGS =P
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Armor switches? hahahaha yeah right how ineffecient would that be, Multiple ablilities? lmao let make spells even more annoying than they were b4!!, Fuck that- no!, Built by an scv? awesome and interesting but still a little on the hokey side, could be sniped by fast air units (irony LOL), Walking fortress? fuck what is this WoW or something-- hell no.
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On October 22 2009 01:59 Djabanete wrote:
Wow, some *really* nice ideas there. Obviously they cannot all be implemented at once, but a few of them in conjunction would be cool.
I like the idea of a Thor with different weapon types that you can switch between. If the Thor were a unit that could switch between being a giant firebat and a giant goliath, could cast its own defensive matrix, could lift off (I imagine it "packing itself up" and basically turning into a big lozenge), and was built by SCV's, you'd have a really versatile and interesting unit.
The "mobile fortress" idea takes it in a completely different direction, but is also very cool.
According to gearvOsh
One special note is that Thors are transportable. The Thor transforms into a little square shape and attaches itself to the underneath of the Medivac. It also takes up 1 slot instead of 2 or 4, however you can only transport one at a time.
WHERE IS BETAAAAAA
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send them to blizzard right now...
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I don't know if anyone has suggested this but I get the sense that using SCV's to construct Thors on the battlefield could lead to some obvious problems. For example:
On October 22 2009 02:31 SWPIGWANG wrote:
SCV Construction:
Don't need to build anti-air or multiple factories to prepare a pump, just spam thor if air tech is spotted! Every race is limited in its macro by buildings, and this breaks the rules. The thor being a "do it all unit" as is, really make building planning less important, macro more lazy and make factories worthless targets in base raids. It also means more annoying macro, while 300/300 isn't "that big" of a unit, when units carriers are spammed.
On October 22 2009 02:51 Ryuu314 wrote:
First off, the SCV construction mechanism was removed because it can totally break matchups, more specifically TvP. For example, the T is going say 6 rax and only 1 fact. He scouts out mass carriers with his comsat. He only has mnm, which isn't all that effective v. carriers. No problem, just pull 6 SCVs or so off the mineral line and build Thors. Protoss walks in, carrier fleet demolished in a couple seconds. The Thors then head out and roflstomp the Protoss base which has practically nothing because all their resources was just blown out of the sky, literally. Starcraft places a lot of emphasis on choosing the right tech and being punished for not. SCV construction of the Thor violates that concept.
However, I had an idea that I am not sure has been discussed yet where the construction of a Thor unit would need both a Factory and an SCV to complete. I'm not sure how this would be implemented. Perhaps the Factory begins the base skeleton and the SCV finishes it anywhere on the field or an SCV has to physically be at the Factory to help complete the unit. This would mean that the Terran player would still need to queue the Thor units at his/her Factory and could not spam build a game-winning unit without prior preparation.
Another thought about the two-stage construction... If the SCV's could transport the unfinished Thor pieces to the battlefield for completion, that could add a whole new dimension to the matchups. Just imagine the possibilities!
Any ideas about whether this could be viable or what could be done to flesh it out?
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