EPTIn the recent Heart of the Swarm Preview at Blizzard HQ a few interesting questions and points were brought forth.
In one of the questions blizzard reflects on how certain units didn't meat expectectations and how they are, considering, changing them in the upcoming HotS expantion. Among them Immortal and Overseer were given as example of units with "problems".
David Kim:
As far as learning through the multiplayer, we learned that not everything works exactly as planned - the different roles for the units didn't work as well as we had planned. We planned to have the immortal be more of a meat shield, and have the hardened shield be one of the core mechanics; however, the burst damage ended up being the more important part of the unit.
As far as learning through the multiplayer, we learned that not everything works exactly as planned - the different roles for the units didn't work as well as we had planned. We planned to have the immortal be more of a meat shield, and have the hardened shield be one of the core mechanics; however, the burst damage ended up being the more important part of the unit.
Q: You guys said that you wanted to keep the unit pool small in a lot of interviews, how many units would you expect to add in the multiplayer, and how many would you expect to remove in order to keep the player experience good?
A: We have no idea how many we can add before it starts to feel watered down, we're starting to push Brood War unit numbers, every time we try to make a move we find that it's tough to keep the units and race abilities separate. We can easily add on, and tune and tweak, or in combination until we find the right mix for multiplayer.
For example, the Overseer is not a cool unit, it's basically a glorfied scout at this point. We're looking at either taking out or replacing these units that aren't as cool. The other thing that we need to watch out is how these units interact in combination.
We're starting to reach the number of units where the right answer isn't necessarily more; it doesn't mean that we can't get more, but how will we even know?
A: We have no idea how many we can add before it starts to feel watered down, we're starting to push Brood War unit numbers, every time we try to make a move we find that it's tough to keep the units and race abilities separate. We can easily add on, and tune and tweak, or in combination until we find the right mix for multiplayer.
For example, the Overseer is not a cool unit, it's basically a glorfied scout at this point. We're looking at either taking out or replacing these units that aren't as cool. The other thing that we need to watch out is how these units interact in combination.
We're starting to reach the number of units where the right answer isn't necessarily more; it doesn't mean that we can't get more, but how will we even know?
Obviously blizzard is just going to do their own thing, but it's interesting to find out what the community thinks, so...
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
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Thread summary, (this is only informative, not a complete or accurate list)
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
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Top picks
- Colosus -- some suggest axing it, some want it changed to a reaver, others want it reverted to the alpha version (forward/point lance; no sweep), some think just making it super slow will fix it
- Corruptor -- everyone seems to hate its "corruption" ability
- Roach/Hydra -- most want them switched in roles and tech, a lot recognize one or the other has a problem
- Marauder -- mostly because of concusive shell
- Immortal -- some thinks it needs a buff, some think it along with roach/marauder ruin the game; some think the immortal is just ruined by the colosus
- Thors
- Mothership -- people want to see a new unit replace it
- Reaper -- people want to see more mid-game, late-game use
- Sentry -- some hate it; some just hate FF
Others mentioned a few times
- Hellion -- in particular the blue-flame version
- Infestor \w fungal
- Overseer
- Raven -- some point at HSM along with it
- Ultralisk
- Colosus -- some suggest axing it, some want it changed to a reaver, others want it reverted to the alpha version (forward/point lance; no sweep), some think just making it super slow will fix it
- Corruptor -- everyone seems to hate its "corruption" ability
- Roach/Hydra -- most want them switched in roles and tech, a lot recognize one or the other has a problem
- Marauder -- mostly because of concusive shell
- Immortal -- some thinks it needs a buff, some think it along with roach/marauder ruin the game; some think the immortal is just ruined by the colosus
- Thors
- Mothership -- people want to see a new unit replace it
- Reaper -- people want to see more mid-game, late-game use
- Sentry -- some hate it; some just hate FF
Others mentioned a few times
- Hellion -- in particular the blue-flame version
- Infestor \w fungal
- Overseer
- Raven -- some point at HSM along with it
- Ultralisk
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
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In no particular order,
- warpin -- a lot suggest moving it to twilight council; others have suggested just removing it and warpgates from the game entirely
- concusive/fungal/ff -- ie. the anti-micro abilities
- HSM -- everyone hates it's range, price and how hard it is to use
- injection -- some hate it because it's "unforgiving" compared to the other mechanics; some also just hate it as a mechanic
- mules -- some say they are bad because the mineral pump just pushes for masses of marines
- moving shot -- see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769
- macro-mechanics -- a lot of people just think they should not be in the game; one reason (among many) brought up is that they kill the advantage of having multiple base play and also cap games at a max of 4 bases (ie. it makes no sense to have more bases); chrono boost is the only macro mechanic that doesn't get any complaining out of the three
- clumping - people typically want less clumping, see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889 An argument against this has been that there micro in "un-clumping" (typically patrol micro) ie. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132591 and Happy's marine micro
- abilities that negate self-micro -- ie. pheonix auto-fire, charge
- warpin -- a lot suggest moving it to twilight council; others have suggested just removing it and warpgates from the game entirely
- concusive/fungal/ff -- ie. the anti-micro abilities
- HSM -- everyone hates it's range, price and how hard it is to use
- injection -- some hate it because it's "unforgiving" compared to the other mechanics; some also just hate it as a mechanic
- mules -- some say they are bad because the mineral pump just pushes for masses of marines
- moving shot -- see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769
- macro-mechanics -- a lot of people just think they should not be in the game; one reason (among many) brought up is that they kill the advantage of having multiple base play and also cap games at a max of 4 bases (ie. it makes no sense to have more bases); chrono boost is the only macro mechanic that doesn't get any complaining out of the three
- clumping - people typically want less clumping, see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889 An argument against this has been that there micro in "un-clumping" (typically patrol micro) ie. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132591 and Happy's marine micro
- abilities that negate self-micro -- ie. pheonix auto-fire, charge
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
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- most are fine with the current state of things
- more (map) textures
- more imposing protoss voices
- more zergy zerg voices -- typically this has to do with variety, people think everything just sounds too similar
- people think the sound effects in starcraft two are very dumbed down compared to effects in Sc1
- more (map) textures
- more imposing protoss voices
- more zergy zerg voices -- typically this has to do with variety, people think everything just sounds too similar
- people think the sound effects in starcraft two are very dumbed down compared to effects in Sc1
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
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- Lurker
- some broodwar-esky units
- protoss harassment unit
- some broodwar-esky units
- protoss harassment unit
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My own 2 cents,
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game?
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1. Marauders - I believe it should be designed to work well with mech not bio. When you make marauders the techpath and choices you make should encourage you to mech.
2. Mothership is too much of a "hero unit", all it's spells should just be split over multiple caster each handling only one, and each probably requiring their own tech.
3. Thor - like the mothership I think it should be exed and replaced with other units. Or changed to something like structure status and degraded to slow awkward unit that can defend your base (with the help of your SCVs) and can be built by SCVs with minimal tech, but is otherwise total junk piece in the open field or in a attack with out SCVs around.
2. Mothership is too much of a "hero unit", all it's spells should just be split over multiple caster each handling only one, and each probably requiring their own tech.
3. Thor - like the mothership I think it should be exed and replaced with other units. Or changed to something like structure status and degraded to slow awkward unit that can defend your base (with the help of your SCVs) and can be built by SCVs with minimal tech, but is otherwise total junk piece in the open field or in a attack with out SCVs around.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
+ Show Spoiler +
1. Spellcasters
I find the design direction for spell casters very simplistic.
For the most part, (a lot of, but not all,) the casters in this game are no more then glass-cannons. There's less relying on abilities to give you an advantage and more relying on them just nucking the hell out of the enemy.
I believe this to be a large part of the reason why some heavy hitting units have become pretty much a no brainer. Why build a (specialized) unit when you can mass this spellcaster which will kill everything for free? Similarly unit compositions fair no better, since there's no reason to build a few units for say anti-air when your spell casters counter just about everything.
So basically my opinion is,
- spell casters should have just ONE specialized spell that is good against a certain composition
- other spells should just be "utility spells" nothing to merit the investment in the spellcaster by itself
- there should be more spellcasters rather then more spells on one spellcaster, to allow for casters to be scouted and countered, and also so that... (see next)
- spellcasters should (for the most part) be an aggressive choice. You should have plenty of viable options to survive with out them, and...
- mass spellcasters should always result into you auto-losing the game.
- spellcasters should be very very situational (ie. I need this caster to counter tanks, I need this caster to counter marine balls, I need this caster to counter heavy air, etc)
As far as their spells go, each race should have their own very distinct "flavor" of spells. Just as a example of what I mean, (aside from any "utility spells") Terran could have powerful single-target spells (some that buff and some that de-buff, like how lockdown, irradiate, defense matrix, etc worked), Protoss could have the aoe-damage spells (ie. storm, stasis fields, etc), and Zerg could have the aoe buff spells, ie. spells that are more effective the more units you have (things like range damage immunity, or armor type changing). Right now most are just terrible terrible damage spells: storm, hunter seeker, fungal.
Currently what I think (for the most part) are well designed spellcasters: Sentry (minus Hallucination), Ghosts, Queen (minus transfusion), Templar (minus feedback, should have hallucination).
On the other hand what are kind of crappy spellcasters: Raven (should have all spells for zoning like PDD), Mothership (should be split into multiple casters), Infestor (should be split into multiple casters; fungal should be the combination of two spells, or even completely axed for more army oriented abilities).
2. Unit Movement
Units in starcraft are extremely clever when it comes to movement. This looks great in some situations (mass of zerglings) but kind of lame in others (marine balls). It's been suggested on these forums that maybe units should return to broodwar mechanics, the advantage being armies would look grander, battles last longer, and a few other balance problems be solved (such as the efficiency of bio-balls, or protoss balls).
I believe instead of one or the other units should just have behaviour, so in that idea: zergling will try to form groups of 6 and each group has the current flow mechanic, but groups themselves would try to avoid each other, marines try to avoid each other, marauders push marines, tanks and thors push marauders and marines, etc, protoss units flow with units of the same type, but avoid units that are different, etc. Basically, each race could have very different ai for unit movement, adding to the racial traits.
On the topic of units and movement, massive ground (such as thors and ultralisk) units should have two collision boxes, one of the size of the current one that only interacts with other massive units and one the size of a roach that interacts with smaller (friendly) units. They should also be able to push any small units to the side (friendly or otherwise).
3. (Mobile) Detector
I believe the terran Raven is fine as long as it would have more spells like PDD that can help zone an area (possibly requiring a setup time, rather then be instant). In other words the terran detector would be a flying utility unit as was initially invisioned in the Alpha. Protoss having cloaked observer is well and good. Zerg I think should have spellcasters as detectors, every spellcaster aside from Queens should be a detector; of course this would mean they would have to have more spellcasters then just infestors.
4. Drops
I think the terran need more drop options. In particular options that are more threatening then just harassment. Protoss have warpins, zerg have mass overlord drops and nydus, both of which are "defend with your army" and can pop anywhere, while terran have mostly mineral line thread. Maybe the drop pods can be brouth back or the dropship given some obnoxious late game upgrade, such as say clock at fusion core.
I believe the idea was that the terran options would consist of dropping heavy harass units such as hellions and reapers covering everything else, but reapers seem to have failed that role.
Still on the topic of drops, I think warp-prisms should have a "auto-fairy" ability. Currently you can deploy it on the edge of a cliff and do a very neat ferry micro with it but it's not the most interesting thing to watch.
5. Balance of Doom-Units
There should be some simple spells that counter doom-units like Colosus. It's a little ridiculous how viable and efficient they are by comparison to say Carriers. I think part of the problem lies in how mobile they are. Tanks or Revers and Lurkers from BW were very destructive as well, but their immobility was their weakness. I think it's important for such units to as immobile as possible to avoid the death-ball problem. Of course dropships could mitigate the mobility but that would require micro, and the more you have the more micro intensive it would be, not to mention dropships aren't exactly the most durable units.
6. Defenders Advantage
I think the concept that "you have an advantage, and you lose the advantage" is sound. However the fact that you can so easily "lose the advantage" early on in the game is not. Abilities like the warpgate which nulifies distance should possibly be moved all the way to fleet beacon. Simple reasoning: does protoss need warpgates to survive early game? probably not. If anything it makes what would be a all-in proxy, not that all-in.
Similarly losing the advantage should not just equal "no advanatage". It might be better if units shooting up cliffs have get a -1 damage penalty to their damage (ie. +1 armor to advantage to the "defender"). Or, there should be some base mechanics that just favor the defender; in particular in mirror matchups.
I find the design direction for spell casters very simplistic.
For the most part, (a lot of, but not all,) the casters in this game are no more then glass-cannons. There's less relying on abilities to give you an advantage and more relying on them just nucking the hell out of the enemy.
I believe this to be a large part of the reason why some heavy hitting units have become pretty much a no brainer. Why build a (specialized) unit when you can mass this spellcaster which will kill everything for free? Similarly unit compositions fair no better, since there's no reason to build a few units for say anti-air when your spell casters counter just about everything.
So basically my opinion is,
- spell casters should have just ONE specialized spell that is good against a certain composition
- other spells should just be "utility spells" nothing to merit the investment in the spellcaster by itself
- there should be more spellcasters rather then more spells on one spellcaster, to allow for casters to be scouted and countered, and also so that... (see next)
- spellcasters should (for the most part) be an aggressive choice. You should have plenty of viable options to survive with out them, and...
- mass spellcasters should always result into you auto-losing the game.
- spellcasters should be very very situational (ie. I need this caster to counter tanks, I need this caster to counter marine balls, I need this caster to counter heavy air, etc)
As far as their spells go, each race should have their own very distinct "flavor" of spells. Just as a example of what I mean, (aside from any "utility spells") Terran could have powerful single-target spells (some that buff and some that de-buff, like how lockdown, irradiate, defense matrix, etc worked), Protoss could have the aoe-damage spells (ie. storm, stasis fields, etc), and Zerg could have the aoe buff spells, ie. spells that are more effective the more units you have (things like range damage immunity, or armor type changing). Right now most are just terrible terrible damage spells: storm, hunter seeker, fungal.
Currently what I think (for the most part) are well designed spellcasters: Sentry (minus Hallucination), Ghosts, Queen (minus transfusion), Templar (minus feedback, should have hallucination).
On the other hand what are kind of crappy spellcasters: Raven (should have all spells for zoning like PDD), Mothership (should be split into multiple casters), Infestor (should be split into multiple casters; fungal should be the combination of two spells, or even completely axed for more army oriented abilities).
2. Unit Movement
Units in starcraft are extremely clever when it comes to movement. This looks great in some situations (mass of zerglings) but kind of lame in others (marine balls). It's been suggested on these forums that maybe units should return to broodwar mechanics, the advantage being armies would look grander, battles last longer, and a few other balance problems be solved (such as the efficiency of bio-balls, or protoss balls).
I believe instead of one or the other units should just have behaviour, so in that idea: zergling will try to form groups of 6 and each group has the current flow mechanic, but groups themselves would try to avoid each other, marines try to avoid each other, marauders push marines, tanks and thors push marauders and marines, etc, protoss units flow with units of the same type, but avoid units that are different, etc. Basically, each race could have very different ai for unit movement, adding to the racial traits.
On the topic of units and movement, massive ground (such as thors and ultralisk) units should have two collision boxes, one of the size of the current one that only interacts with other massive units and one the size of a roach that interacts with smaller (friendly) units. They should also be able to push any small units to the side (friendly or otherwise).
3. (Mobile) Detector
I believe the terran Raven is fine as long as it would have more spells like PDD that can help zone an area (possibly requiring a setup time, rather then be instant). In other words the terran detector would be a flying utility unit as was initially invisioned in the Alpha. Protoss having cloaked observer is well and good. Zerg I think should have spellcasters as detectors, every spellcaster aside from Queens should be a detector; of course this would mean they would have to have more spellcasters then just infestors.
4. Drops
I think the terran need more drop options. In particular options that are more threatening then just harassment. Protoss have warpins, zerg have mass overlord drops and nydus, both of which are "defend with your army" and can pop anywhere, while terran have mostly mineral line thread. Maybe the drop pods can be brouth back or the dropship given some obnoxious late game upgrade, such as say clock at fusion core.
I believe the idea was that the terran options would consist of dropping heavy harass units such as hellions and reapers covering everything else, but reapers seem to have failed that role.
Still on the topic of drops, I think warp-prisms should have a "auto-fairy" ability. Currently you can deploy it on the edge of a cliff and do a very neat ferry micro with it but it's not the most interesting thing to watch.
5. Balance of Doom-Units
There should be some simple spells that counter doom-units like Colosus. It's a little ridiculous how viable and efficient they are by comparison to say Carriers. I think part of the problem lies in how mobile they are. Tanks or Revers and Lurkers from BW were very destructive as well, but their immobility was their weakness. I think it's important for such units to as immobile as possible to avoid the death-ball problem. Of course dropships could mitigate the mobility but that would require micro, and the more you have the more micro intensive it would be, not to mention dropships aren't exactly the most durable units.
6. Defenders Advantage
I think the concept that "you have an advantage, and you lose the advantage" is sound. However the fact that you can so easily "lose the advantage" early on in the game is not. Abilities like the warpgate which nulifies distance should possibly be moved all the way to fleet beacon. Simple reasoning: does protoss need warpgates to survive early game? probably not. If anything it makes what would be a all-in proxy, not that all-in.
Similarly losing the advantage should not just equal "no advanatage". It might be better if units shooting up cliffs have get a -1 damage penalty to their damage (ie. +1 armor to advantage to the "defender"). Or, there should be some base mechanics that just favor the defender; in particular in mirror matchups.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
+ Show Spoiler +
Concerning problems related to "space" maps:
- I think banshee should have their propelas replaced with some sort of gravity system, or some jets. At the most basic level, the propelas and struts could just be removed from the model and a little flame added bellow them.
- Flame effects should also be improved to be a little more along the lines of light effects, particularly on space maps. Currently the flames look like some kind of torch (like the back of the ship is on fire), and worse still it looks like that "torch" is just flickering in the wind (particularly silly in space).
- Mutalisk wings and zergling wings should have a little glowing effect when in space so that we can at least pretend they are not wind based.
It would be nice if buildings had more intriguing death animations, similar to how zerg buildings do. For example:
- terran buildings could leave rubble
- protoss buildings could have very long reverse warpin animation (eg. 1/3 of the time of warpin)
...and so on.
As far as sound goes. It would be nice if there was more variety, particularly when it comes to the map type and structure. Effects like echoes or just small alterations to the sound would make for a much more interesting viewing experience. More lighting effects such as those in the Xelnaga Caverns vegetation would also make for a more enjoyable viewing.
Zerg research animations should be more distinct and it would be nice if depending on what research is done the animation might be slightly different, both from a aesthetics perspective as well as a ingame mechanic.
- I think banshee should have their propelas replaced with some sort of gravity system, or some jets. At the most basic level, the propelas and struts could just be removed from the model and a little flame added bellow them.
- Flame effects should also be improved to be a little more along the lines of light effects, particularly on space maps. Currently the flames look like some kind of torch (like the back of the ship is on fire), and worse still it looks like that "torch" is just flickering in the wind (particularly silly in space).
- Mutalisk wings and zergling wings should have a little glowing effect when in space so that we can at least pretend they are not wind based.
It would be nice if buildings had more intriguing death animations, similar to how zerg buildings do. For example:
- terran buildings could leave rubble
- protoss buildings could have very long reverse warpin animation (eg. 1/3 of the time of warpin)
...and so on.
As far as sound goes. It would be nice if there was more variety, particularly when it comes to the map type and structure. Effects like echoes or just small alterations to the sound would make for a much more interesting viewing experience. More lighting effects such as those in the Xelnaga Caverns vegetation would also make for a more enjoyable viewing.
Zerg research animations should be more distinct and it would be nice if depending on what research is done the animation might be slightly different, both from a aesthetics perspective as well as a ingame mechanic.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
+ Show Spoiler +
A "something" to help zerg hold space. For example: Lurker building. Hydralisks morph into it. It can only root itself on creep. It's always submerged, hence cloaked. It dies off creep. It has fixed damage (like all defensive structures) and a small vision radius (something like 3) -- has good armor burrowed but low armor unborrowed and benefits from carapace. In essence you rely on tumors for vision and marines have a really hard time against them. With good detection you should be able beat them but it's hard just walking into them.
Terran base mechanics that in combination with marines/reapers/ghosts (and maybe ravens) make for hard to kill bases. Something like have all buildings be some type of bunker (albeit only 1-2 units can fit inside). Marauders should not fit into anything. This can be linked to the building upgrades. The idea being bio = defensive, techy, while mech = aggresive.
Terran base mechanics that in combination with marines/reapers/ghosts (and maybe ravens) make for hard to kill bases. Something like have all buildings be some type of bunker (albeit only 1-2 units can fit inside). Marauders should not fit into anything. This can be linked to the building upgrades. The idea being bio = defensive, techy, while mech = aggresive.
