The other day I was watching some GSL PvP, specific game is unimportant. However, both players were doing 4gate because obviously that is all anybody ever does in this matchup (obviously), and I realized after a while that I was having some difficulty figuring out whose units were whose. Stalkers are mostly blue no matter what, one of the players was blue, their lasers are all blue, etc.
At this time I stumbled upon the greatest and most obvious realization of what would make Protoss better to watch, and play, on a competitive level.
Protoss units laser beams should be the hue of their player color.
Now, as we all know from Blizzcon and its horribly inane questions, Protoss beams are powered by warp and/or psi, and psi is clearly blue, because it is. Therefor, Protoss beams should always be blue.
But trust me when I tell you that this change, while breaking the incredibly airtight canon that is Starcraft lore, will be better for everybody. I shall explain why, point by point.
The problem Quickly, here is a video of your standard PvP game. Fast forward to the end to see the inevitable 4 gate vs. 4 gate.
Can you tell whose Stalkers are whose? Wouldn't it be way more awesome if the laser beams were different colors?
Point A It is a clear tenet of any sort of entertainment involving laser guns that each sides lasers should be different colors. I'd like you all to close your eyes and imagine how much fun you had watching cartoons as a kid. In fact, screw closing your eyes, watch this: + Show Spoiler +
Do you think GI Joe would have been as entertaining as it was without both sides having different colored lasers? Or any Saturday morning cartoon for that matter? Of course not. Obviously. I cannot tell the Joes and the Cobras apart half the time, I have no idea what most of their names are. But you know who is winning because of the different colors of the lasers.
We can bring this same kind of simple aesthetic beauty to Stalkers, Sentries, Phoenixes, etc. And it will be awesome like Saturday morning cartoons. Hell, Cobra Commander kinda looks like a Protoss, sort of. Clearly the creators of GI Joe had Starcraft in mind when they pioneered pew pewing and reaped its high entertainment value. They were paving the way for the future of PvP.
Point B Nobody actually cares about Starcraft canon, which is clearly the only reason why Protoss lasers are currently always blue. I mean, this is a universe where a Marine on drugs can run faster than a state of the art space fighter jet, but can't run even close to as fast as the speed of a Nydus Worms bowel movements, which bend spacetime to shit banelings onto islands.
If we put up with that, we can put up with Stalkers having red and purple and green lasers. Because the above is silly, but Stalkers shooting red lasers would just be awesome.
Point C I realize that a lot of you may be skeptic about how clearly awesome this change would be, so I took the liberty of creating a custom map in which Protoss's laser beams actually can be different colors. I played and recorded a TvP game vs. a red Protoss, in which the usual Colossus vs. Viking + MMM strategies were used.
I have the replay shown below, with a video of normal Protoss gameplay for reference, followed by the video on the new map where the lasers are red like the red Protoss player. I think you will agree that the video with the improved laser effect is much, much more entertaining.
I think based on these videos, it is clear that we would be much more entertained with Protoss gameplay, and PvP specifically, if their lasers could be different colors.
As usual, this is an extremely important issue that Blizzard desperately needs to address.
You know you have played too much PvP when you read this title as "Improving PvP's Warpability". and don't catch the mistake until you read the first 2 paragraphs.....
Edit: Also yes this is a cool idea, could be interesting from a player prescriptive also.
It's not the 4 gating that makes me sick of watching PvP it's the fall back after a 4gate it's always falling back taking your expo get your gas mass collossus, I dont do that i fallback mass voids and get a mothership god it really doesn't work but that one time it does and i recall into he's base it's just priceless
Well this is a non-issue imho, I don't care about the lasers' colors, as long as the actual units' colors are different. Moreso I feel that there are a lot of more important issues, I mean, lasers' colors may or may not be top priority.
On March 25 2011 14:27 iCCup.Diamond wrote: Wait wait wait. How did you manage to pick like one of the only two scenes in Star Wars where they have the same color laser bolts?
Edit: Actually rereading OP that might have been intentional, I'm a bit lost.....
I got the idea for the thread, went looking up the Hoth battle (laughing all the way), found out that the lasers were all red, shook an angry fist and made the thread anyway. Star Wars has failed us, clearly.
I'm actually a bit bothered that the OP managed to pick a scene in Star Wars where all the lasers are the same color because I honestly would have believed that the Star Wars scene supported the point if it had been a tie fighter vs. X-wing battle or something.
So uh...the post is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but the idea is actually pretty good, and even if you really care about lore it's not that hard a justification to say that the game is simply coloring the lasers to make it easier for us to view.
And now I desperately want to see pink lasers vs. yellow lasers.
Or how about we give the colossus the AT-AT's laser beams? To balance it, give terran an upgrade to vikings that gives them cables to wrap around the colossus's legs.
StarWars jokes aside, Quake did this with unique railgun colors and it definitely helped out quite a bit, especially in rail fights. I can definitely see this translating to SC2 well :D (as long as the colors aren't something obscene)
I think they could do a better job on coloring the units in general because I feel that distinguishing between who owns which units in a mirror is hard, even for me as a player. Especially in zvz where all the lings are colored to look nearly identical or pvp where the zealots and stalkers look nearly the same regardless of player color... there's just so little coloring on the units that it's hard to tell when I'm losing a fight until it's too late!
On March 25 2011 14:51 neSix wrote: I think they could do a better job on coloring the units in general because I feel that distinguishing between who owns which units in a mirror is hard, even for me as a player. Especially in zvz where all the lings are colored to look nearly identical or pvp where the zealots and stalkers look nearly the same regardless of player color... there's just so little coloring on the units that it's hard to tell when I'm losing a fight until it's too late!
I especially hate watching zvz for the very reason you can't tell which units apart. When lings and roaches engage, it becomes just a big mass of brown. I remember pre-beta videos where the colors were much more distinct. Also, mutalisk projectiles were green colored, radioactive-like. So sad to see these change.
what if the player's colour is similar to that of the map's textures? then the lazers would be harder to see and would make pvp even more boring to watch. the real problem with pvp is the lack of exciting units, 4 gate dominates early game, colossi dominates late game and voidrays dominate late game. colossi and vr are two of the most boring units in the game and we are forced to use them for pvp.
On March 25 2011 15:18 mR.bONG789 wrote: what if the player's colour is similar to that of the map's textures? then the lazers would be harder to see and would make pvp even more boring to watch. the real problem with pvp is the lack of exciting units, 4 gate dominates early game, colossi dominates late game and voidrays dominate late game. colossi and vr are two of the most boring units in the game and we are forced to use them for pvp.
I feel that the state of PvP is a testament to how broken protoss design is. Warpgates negate defender's advantage, their units rely on the enemy being unable to move or having super strong splash damage.
colossi and vr are two of the most boring units in the game
I would not say that they are intrinsically boring units it's merely the way in which they work. Lategame can turn into just forests of coloxen melting each other with small gateway armies that are simply buffers. It's who has the greater colossus count. It's predictable and boring Void rays have their problems in that blink stalkers can kill them and by having 10 void rays you have invested more in killing the colossus than he has invested in them.
I think it would be very difficult to "fix" pvp on a balance level. Though with the op's suggestion it seems like a step in the right direction. I mean who doesn't like pretty colours?
I would love to melt my opponents with purple lasers. Colored lasers would be really cool, I support this thread. Dark grey lasers might look a bit odd though. It would also be really cool to see shield hits in your color. Light blue orbs around every unit and building is boring.
Yes the Zealots psi blades are done by player colour. I would love to see player coloured laser beam come out of the stalkers and maybe even the colawlsus. The would make battles look like a Star wars laser gun fight
On March 25 2011 15:51 Wolf wrote: Double warpgate research time. Would change the game dynamically.
Ha.. ha.
They tried something like that before, all it did was change PvP from 3 warpgate all ins into 4 warpgate all ins. Another double would probably make it 7 gate all ins......
On March 25 2011 14:17 iCCup.Diamond wrote: You know you have played too much PvP when you read this title as "Improving PvP's Warpability". and don't catch the mistake until you read the first 2 paragraphs.....
Edit: Also yes this is a cool idea, could be interesting from a player prescriptive also.
On March 25 2011 16:30 zasda wrote: Getting tired of pvp whine...as if zvz were any better...if u can't see who's who...bring brain
i dont agree, when i am chill, laidback getting a BJ with a beer and a big fat hamburger (every1 can dream right?) i dont wanna do my best to whatch a game of starcraft. And to make it easyer to watch would be great imo.
But thee thing i have is, ofc you can change leaserbeems, but what bout the colossus? And the vommit roaches spit. or the explosions of banelings for that matter.
I like the idea, but howfar you wanna go with it??
On March 25 2011 14:51 neSix wrote: I think they could do a better job on coloring the units in general because I feel that distinguishing between who owns which units in a mirror is hard, even for me as a player. Especially in zvz where all the lings are colored to look nearly identical or pvp where the zealots and stalkers look nearly the same regardless of player color... there's just so little coloring on the units that it's hard to tell when I'm losing a fight until it's too late!
I especially hate watching zvz for the very reason you can't tell which units apart. When lings and roaches engage, it becomes just a big mass of brown. I remember pre-beta videos where the colors were much more distinct. Also, mutalisk projectiles were green colored, radioactive-like. So sad to see these change.
Yea man, i miss when you could clearly see the mutalisk attack animation clearly. Something like the animation in scbw but a bit smaller and more detailed would be nice.
On March 25 2011 15:22 drcatellino wrote: Imagine watching pink and orange beams from stalkers. PvP would become some kind of weird disco.
Colossi beams are already orange, voidray beams are blue, medivacs heal with a green beam etc. The colours are already there, they just aren't used for distinguishing purposes.
I really like the idea of the OP but - furthermore - also agree with the people saying that units in general should be easier to identify in mirrors.
On March 25 2011 14:22 TrANCE, wrote: It's not the 4 gating that makes me sick of watching PvP it's the fall back after a 4gate it's always falling back taking your expo get your gas mass collossus, I dont do that i fallback mass voids and get a mothership god it really doesn't work but that one time it does and i recall into he's base it's just priceless
On March 25 2011 15:51 Wolf wrote: Double warpgate research time. Would change the game dynamically.
Ha.. ha.
They tried something like that before, all it did was change PvP from 3 warpgate all ins into 4 warpgate all ins. Another double would probably make it 7 gate all ins......
Not really, if the increased Warpgate research time by 20-30seconds, it would mean that an immortal can be chrono'd out before warpgate tech is finished
It also means that one side actually has a form of defenders advantage, as the increased time in warpgates would mean that you would need to produce a round of units off gateways, instead of pooling the money till warpgate is done, thus the side defending will have more units out at their base to defend any proxy pylons until Warpgate is actually done (or the othersides units cross the map)
To improve defender's advantage, i think the solution is probably the buff normal gateway and make units trained from normal gateweay finish faster than warpgate cd.
So it's a decision. if you want to warp in units instantly anywhere, the cd is longer so ultimately you have less units than if you just make units from the gateways.
For example : Warp in zealots = 5 sec + 28 sec cd = 33 sec zealot build time Build time of zealots out of normal gateway = 38 sec Thus warping in = more zealots than making from normal gateways right now
IF gateways are buffed so that making zealots out of normal gateway = 28-30 sec. compared to warpgate cd of 33 sec Making units out of normal gateway is more advantageous for defenders.
This will make decision making more interesting as well. In any case with larger maps nowadays, proxy gates are even more unrewarding. The numbers can be tweaked of course.
On March 25 2011 19:42 dtz wrote: To improve defender's advantage, i think the solution is probably the buff normal gateway and make units trained from normal gateweay finish faster than warpgate cd.
So it's a decision. if you want to warp in units instantly anywhere, the cd is longer so ultimately you have less units than if you just make units from the gateways.
For example : Warp in zealots = 5 sec + 28 sec cd = 33 sec zealot build time Build time of zealots out of normal gateway = 38 sec Thus warping in = more zealots than making from normal gateways right now
IF gateways are buffed so that making zealots out of normal gateway = 28-30 sec. compared to warpgate cd of 33 sec Making units out of normal gateway is more advantageous for defenders.
This will make decision making more interesting as well. In any case with larger maps nowadays, proxy gates are even more unrewarding. The numbers can be tweaked of course.
Yeah it was but it kinda went to pvp "balance" for the last few posts or so. Nothing to disagree with the cool colours of course. I wish FF are also of different colours.
On March 25 2011 19:53 Bobster wrote: Yeah, Protoss have the least distinctive colour scheme. So much blue. Differently coloured lasers would definitely help observability. Good idea, OP.
ZvZ also has these problems but to a slightly lesser extent. Some strong colour differentiating would really help there.
Baneling Acid of team colors, Roach Acid of team colors (no this one is screwed up as hell)
honestly though ZvZ i can barely tell whose lings are whose.
TvT should have projectiles that explode into team color themed fireworks =P
On March 25 2011 19:53 Bobster wrote: Yeah, Protoss have the least distinctive colour scheme. So much blue. Differently coloured lasers would definitely help observability. Good idea, OP.
ZvZ also has these problems but to a slightly lesser extent. Some strong colour differentiating would really help there.
Baneling Acid of team colors, Roach Acid of team colors (no this one is screwed up as hell)
honestly though ZvZ i can barely tell whose lings are whose.
TvT should have projectiles that explode into team color themed fireworks =P
TvT is more of a tactical game, you never see something like Speedling vs Speedling where you can't even tell what is going on, it is about positional control and smart plays, even if both teams were the same color you would easily be able to tell who is winning or what is going on in a fight in TvT. It is knid of the same with PvP when Colossus get out.
But I'll give you banelings though, Baneling/Ling vs Baneling/Ling is x10 more confusing than than Stalker vs Stalker...but it usually finishes x10 faster
I agree with this because it makes it easier for spectators. However, that is not the main problem. The real problem is the strength of team color. If you press alt F as the player you turn STRONG green and the opponent turns STRONG red, making it easily distinguishable. This green and red are different from picking green and red. They are way stronger and stand out more. The problem is that all other colors when not in this mode are much weaker, and I see no reason why. It makes it harder on spectators and it just doesn't make sense.
Solution? increase the strength of all team colors to match the strength of the alt F ones. Why include weaker team colors?
That being said, I still agree with what this thread suggests. It has been suggested before along with other things that make sense, like colored forcefields, colored warp in animation, colored scans, stuff like that.
Mods should totally warn people who talk about balance in this thread, which is clearly about whether or not it would be awesome to see Stalkers firing pink laser beams.
On March 25 2011 19:56 kusu wrote: This is only accepted, if Dark Templars will have purple swords.
They dont carry swords, they carry Schytes.
Some of them carry swords, other carry scythes, actually one of the only(or the only) units who has 2 different models in game I believe(distinct in multiplayer) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Dark_templar Check the pic which comes with the page.
Amen to the OP. Firstly just because it'd be totally cool.
It can be hard to distinguish your own units in a mirror, especially when they're jumbled up. Can't imagine what it's like for the Zerg!
Recently I had a battle where it looked like I was losing horribly, carnage everywhere. Boxed my units to run away any survivors, turned out 8 of the 10 units left were mine :/
On March 25 2011 19:42 dtz wrote: To improve defender's advantage, i think the solution is probably the buff normal gateway and make units trained from normal gateweay finish faster than warpgate cd.
So it's a decision. if you want to warp in units instantly anywhere, the cd is longer so ultimately you have less units than if you just make units from the gateways.
For example : Warp in zealots = 5 sec + 28 sec cd = 33 sec zealot build time Build time of zealots out of normal gateway = 38 sec Thus warping in = more zealots than making from normal gateways right now
IF gateways are buffed so that making zealots out of normal gateway = 28-30 sec. compared to warpgate cd of 33 sec Making units out of normal gateway is more advantageous for defenders.
This will make decision making more interesting as well. In any case with larger maps nowadays, proxy gates are even more unrewarding. The numbers can be tweaked of course.
The cooldown is not increased by the warp in time. It's still a zealot every 28 seconds.
I came into this thread expecting whining about 4gates and Warpgate tech and Colossi. What I saw was much, much more constructive and funny lolol.
As people had said before, someone should quickly make a custom map testing this out. I'm sure it wouldn't take too much time, and perhaps the OP's point can be proven or disproven better than the Star Wars videos show.
Heck, whenever the Rebels are fighting the Empire in a space battle, I can usually tell that the Rebel lasers are always red while the Empire fires green lasers. Now that is what I call "watchability."
I just wish stalkers of different colors were easier to distinguish, fix that before fixing lasers imo.
I can hardly tell red and blue stalkers apart in the middle of a huge fight, anyone else have this issue? I know I am R/G colorblind but it's pretty mild and has never actually had any effect on me in the past, other than failing at those colored dot tests.
On March 26 2011 03:29 PJA wrote: I just wish stalkers of different colors were easier to distinguish, fix that before fixing lasers imo.
Agreed, there needs to be more area that has the players color on all units. It doesn't make me lose games or anything like that, but it would just be nicer to see the differences more easily.
On March 26 2011 03:29 PJA wrote: I just wish stalkers of different colors were easier to distinguish, fix that before fixing lasers imo.
I can hardly tell red and blue stalkers apart in the middle of a huge fight, anyone else have this issue? I know I am R/G colorblind but it's pretty mild and has never actually had any effect on me in the past, other than failing at those colored dot tests.
I don't have that issue so I think the R/G colorblind has something to do with it, especially since they aren't real life colors and are projected from the monitor maybe? There have been times where my brain just hit a lag spike and I suddenly didn't know what units I was controlling (early early morning) but that's really uncommon.
On March 25 2011 14:15 Ketara wrote: The other day I was watching some GSL PvP, specific game is unimportant. However, both players were doing 4gate because obviously that is all anybody ever does in this matchup (obviously), and I realized after a while that I was having some difficulty figuring out whose units were whose. Stalkers are mostly blue no matter what, one of the players was blue, their lasers are all blue, etc.
At this time I stumbled upon the greatest and most obvious realization of what would make Protoss better to watch, and play, on a competitive level.
Protoss units laser beams should be the hue of their player color.
Now, as we all know from Blizzcon and its horribly inane questions, Protoss beams are powered by warp and/or psi, and psi is clearly blue, because it is. Therefor, Protoss beams should always be blue.
But trust me when I tell you that this change, while breaking the incredibly airtight canon that is Starcraft lore, will be better for everybody. I shall explain why, point by point.
The problem Quickly, here is a video of your standard PvP game. Fast forward to the end to see the inevitable 4 gate vs. 4 gate.
Point A It is a clear tenet of any sort of entertainment involving laser guns that each sides lasers should be different colors. I'd like you all to close your eyes and imagine how much fun you had watching cartoons as a kid. In fact, screw closing your eyes, watch this: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlUyqxmv2DA
Do you think GI Joe would have been as entertaining as it was without both sides having different colored lasers? Or any Saturday morning cartoon for that matter? Of course not. Obviously. I cannot tell the Joes and the Cobras apart half the time, I have no idea what most of their names are. But you know who is winning because of the different colors of the lasers.
We can bring this same kind of simple aesthetic beauty to Stalkers, Sentries, Phoenixes, etc. And it will be awesome like Saturday morning cartoons. Hell, Cobra Commander kinda looks like a Protoss, sort of. Clearly the creators of GI Joe had Starcraft in mind when they pioneered pew pewing and reaped its high entertainment value. They were paving the way for the future of PvP.
Point B Nobody actually cares about Starcraft canon, which is clearly the only reason why Protoss lasers are currently always blue. I mean, this is a universe where a Marine on drugs can run faster than a state of the art space fighter jet, but can't run even close to as fast as the speed of a Nydus Worms bowel movements, which bend spacetime to shit banelings onto islands.
If we put up with that, we can put up with Stalkers having red and purple and green lasers. Because the above is silly, but Stalkers shooting red lasers would just be awesome.
Point C I realize that a lot of you may be skeptic about how clearly awesome this change would be, so I took the liberty of creating a custom map in which Protoss's laser beams actually can be different colors. I played and recorded a TvP game vs. a red Protoss, in which the usual Colossus vs. Viking + MMM strategies were used.
I have the replay shown below, with a video of normal Protoss gameplay for reference, followed by the video on the new map where the lasers are red like the red Protoss player. I think you will agree that the video with the improved laser effect is much, much more entertaining.
I think based on these videos, it is clear that we would be much more entertained with Protoss gameplay, and PvP specifically, if their lasers could be different colors.
As usual, this is an extremely important issue that Blizzard desperately needs to address.
Thank you for your time.
The problem with PvP is a lot deeper than the Stalker lazor beam.
On March 26 2011 03:58 Cain0 wrote: The problem with PvP is a lot deeper than the Stalker lazor beam.
Of course it is, but this is in fact something which would be a relatively good improvement for spectators while it would be very easily implemented. In fact, I could implement it myself using the Galaxy editor's data editor. It is a small but good idea.
I made a video on editing team color strength to make that battle a little more clear, especially the stalker since that was sort of the focus of the thread. I didn't edit the projectiles, both because im not sure how lol, and also because I want to show how the team color on the units themselves is more at fault for confusion. However I do agree that colored projectiles might not be a bad idea at all, along with other things like colored ff's and scans for example.
If you watch it at 720 your not really gonna be too confused about whats on what team but its more when its at the 360 quality that its not as clear, or at least closer to how unclear it can be in certain situations like watching the gsl stream.
Making the zealot blades shine as much as possible might also help for them.
The full strength + glow looks insanely AWESOME. I would like to see what coloured projectiles would look like aswell though. But damn, that looked so much better!
On March 26 2011 19:00 Striding Strider wrote: The full strength + glow looks insanely AWESOME. I would like to see what coloured projectiles would look like aswell though. But damn, that looked so much better!
Nice work!
Thanks. Yeah i think there are many ways to improve how sc2 looks as a spectator sport. The colored projectiles would be cool, I wish i knew how to do it lol.
Actually im fairly sure (but not positive) that blizzard tried this out at one point in the alpha version but decided against it for whatever reason. I support the change tho, it would make spectating battles much more aesthetically pleasing.
EDIT:
On March 27 2011 05:36 da_head wrote: in the alpha blizzard had the idea of coloring pylons and archons in accordance to the player's respective color but they scrapped the idea (probably looked too odd).
in the alpha blizzard had the idea of coloring pylons and archons in accordance to the player's respective color but they scrapped the idea (probably looked too odd).
On March 27 2011 07:12 Flanagan wrote: Well... it makes sense. Zealot blades are already the color of the user, right? And that would be pretty sick, tbh.
Then they should change zerg colors imo, bring back the poison shot from hydras, and get that color going too ;o.
I'm actually not being sarcastic here. that'd be pretty sick to see. Banelings spewing pink acid...
its funny cuz when blizz did this people complained about it looking too fruity, from tl forums too. But i think that if they went back to making things more teamcolored and making team color stronger it would help sc2 as a spectator sport
I agree with the OP, but I don't think this should be limited to just Protoss laser colours. In general, the colour of all units is not as well-defined in SC2 as it was in BW.
The example that immediately comes to mind is Zerglings...in BW if you watch a Ling battle between say green and white, it's obvious who is winning because the Lings are actually green and white. In SC2 you can't really tell until you figure out who is attacking who, and which side the reinforcments are coming from...
On March 28 2011 10:37 FuRong wrote: I agree with the OP, but I don't think this should be limited to just Protoss laser colours. In general, the colour of all units is not as well-defined in SC2 as it was in BW.
The example that immediately comes to mind is Zerglings...in BW if you watch a Ling battle between say green and white, it's obvious who is winning because the Lings are actually green and white. In SC2 you can't really tell until you figure out who is attacking who, and which side the reinforcments are coming from...
That's so true.
Is it possible to make that map like people are talking about? I would insta try that out.
On March 28 2011 10:37 FuRong wrote: I agree with the OP, but I don't think this should be limited to just Protoss laser colours. In general, the colour of all units is not as well-defined in SC2 as it was in BW.
The example that immediately comes to mind is Zerglings...in BW if you watch a Ling battle between say green and white, it's obvious who is winning because the Lings are actually green and white. In SC2 you can't really tell until you figure out who is attacking who, and which side the reinforcments are coming from...
That's so true.
Is it possible to make that map like people are talking about? I would insta try that out.
well i guess ill get to working on that later tonight. ive done plenty of texture modification already so i have a head start.
EPT
