EPTSeems like a massive distraction from sensible matters.
Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1179
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antiRW
United Kingdom117 Posts
Seems like a massive distraction from sensible matters. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
Especially zerglings and zealot vs bio. I want more war between these two and more micro for both sides. Stutterstepping isnt "real micro" when its done all the time. More improvisation in the micro while tactic is very relevant also should be the way to go. What ever happened to this quote(not 100% the words) If i can attack from behind and take out the hydras, then i will win this fight Something along these lines were made by Dustin browder. I see so little tactic in this game. And the strategies are usually dull overall to. No race in this game feels..Good. Protoss feels the worst for sure though. But the game needs a redesign completely. Lotv news soon. If blizzard fails this time i will have to save RTS esport by making my own mod. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
Is there anyone who is against reducing this? At all? Can we petition Blizzard to just do it? | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:07 DinoMight wrote: On the topic of Carrier build time though.. Is there anyone who is against reducing this? At all? Can we petition Blizzard to just do it? I'd rather see cost for interceptors greatly reduced, to like 10m/unit. Also, make their attacks single instead of double, Interceptors attack with low damage, twice per shot. Making that one shot makes the damage a lot higher when, in lategame, everything has 3/4/5 armor. As for time, maybe slightly. Rember dat chrono, which nobody takes into account. | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:12 SC2Toastie wrote: As for time, maybe slightly. Rember dat chrono, which nobody takes into account. I did take that into account, though. In practice, you need to use all your chrono on Carriers when building them. Relative to Colossus builds, Carriers need a lot more upgrades in order to get the same efficiency. So at the same time as needing more Chrono on upgrades, it also takes more Chrono on production. This might be solved with aggressive expansions, but I'm not sure. Lowering the building time might create issues in tech-switch situations lategame, e.g. in PvZ. But other than that, I don't see any issues. I still don't think it'll be strong given how widow mines work. | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:19 SatedSC2 wrote: Finding a timing to get Carriers out is more important re: viability than what they actually do at the moment. Finding a timing is hard because of multiple reasons. A) Carriers are HELLA expensive B) Carriers take very long to transition into C) Carriers do not pull their weight until HIGH numbers. On October 30 2014 02:23 TokO wrote: I did take that into account, though. In practice, you need to use all your chrono on Carriers when building them. Relative to Colossus builds, Carriers need a lot more upgrades in order to get the same efficiency. So at the same time as needing more Chrono on upgrades, it also takes more Chrono on production. This might be solved with aggressive expansions, but I'm not sure. Lowering the building time might create issues in tech-switch situations lategame, e.g. in PvZ. But other than that, I don't see any issues. I still don't think it'll be strong given how widow mines work. Indeed, Carriers suck your chrono down like no tomorrow. On the other hand, you shouldn't go for this transition on 3 bases, probably not even on 4. On 5 bases and in lategame, that's like 18/20 Chronoboosts you've got saved up anyways. Now, that can cut A LOT of time out of 2 Cyber/1FB/5Stargate construction times. I just want to experiment with Carriers that you'd get slightly faster (10-15-20 seconds), have a single attack and much cheaper interceptors. Adjust from there. And while we're at it, Battlecruisers get halved fire rate for double damage, same reason as the armor for Carriers. And they gain Defensive Matrix spell, 100 energy, gives ~150 HP not affected by bonus damage. Hydralisk gain a Hive upgrade for addition damage, Same with Stalkers. WOAH, a myriad of new lategame options 0.0! I'd like to see that :-) A man can dream right? | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
Balance wise for lategame compositions, I think Carriers are fine in terms of combat potency, there's just not any point in the game where it would be desirable to go them. Other options are often just as good, but you don't take a hit to your tempo, that you would do if you tried to go Carriers. | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:35 TokO wrote: Actually, I brought up Carriers in terms of a macro option to go instead of Colossus in PvT, on 2 bases initially. Sorry I didn't clarify that in my post. Nope. In that case I disagree. Capital ships should not be made on 2 bases as a solid macro option. Go make Voidrays instead  | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
1) They take too long to get out so the window where you can be counter-attacked once you trade some army to free up Carrier supply is too big. You need to be able to trade out some supply and then reinforce with Carriers before you get rolled over because half your supply is still building. 2) Their damage is too affected by armor. Consider 3 air attack carriers doing 5(+3) x 2 x 8 = 128 damage per volley. Now consider +3 armor vikings. They take 5(+3-3) x 2 x 8 = 80 damage per volley. A 5 armor BattleCruiser is taking 48 damage per volley. A thor takes 64 (half damage). They're just not strong enough.... 3) Range. At 8 launch range, the Carrier is already getting shot at by Thors (10) and Vikings (9) before the interceptors leave the Carrier.... 4) Interceptors are too weak. At 40/40 a single widow mine hit can wipe out all 8 interceptors. Too often you see interceptors dying to untargeted fire rather than what SHOULD be happening (opponent being forced to target fire or losing). 5) Opportunity cost. Really, if you're making carriers, you could have killed them with anything. Compared to the Brood War Carrier..... SC2 Carrier has 2 less base armor, 1 less interceptor damage per shot, costs 50 gas more, and is outranged by the units that kill it (Wraiths/Scouts/etc. actually had to fly into Carriers to engage them). | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:45 DinoMight wrote: Problems with Carriers, IMO 1) They take too long to get out so the window where you can be counter-attacked once you trade some army to free up Carrier supply is too big. You need to be able to trade out some supply and then reinforce with Carriers before you get rolled over because half your supply is still building. 2) Their damage is too affected by armor. Consider 3 air attack carriers doing 5(+3) x 2 x 8 = 128 damage per volley. Now consider +3 armor vikings. They take 5(+3-3) x 2 x 8 = 80 damage per volley. A 5 armor BattleCruiser is taking 48 damage per volley. A thor takes 64 (half damage). They're just not strong enough.... 3) Range. At 8 launch range, the Carrier is already getting shot at by Thors (10) and Vikings (9) before the interceptors leave the Carrier.... 4) Opportunity cost. Really, if you're making carriers, you could have killed them with anything. Compared to the Brood War Carrier..... SC2 Carrier has 2 less base armor, 1 less interceptor damage per shot, costs 50 gas more, and is outranged by the units that kill it (Wraiths/Scouts/etc. actually had to fly into Carriers to engage them). Opportunity cost and risk of counter attacks because you lack supply is reduced by increasing their initial strenght, you don't NEED to go 5 star carrier immediatly. Also, making Interceptor damage apply to armor only once is a good thing. I don't want the range too big as it overlaps bigtime with the tempest if you do that. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
Goliaths were the real AA response to carriers. But since carriers fly over cliffs and goliaths did not, you would get a back and forth where carriers used terrain to prevent getting swarmed while mech TvP swapped mobility roles with goliaths acting like a swarm of hydralisks. Viking vs carrier is more clump vs clump without care about the terrain of the map. | ||
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JCoto
Spain574 Posts
Also carrier theme is pretty developed here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxDRbuMuVOfYYWxHUUdRZkpLZmM/view?usp=sharing | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1300 Posts
On October 30 2014 02:49 SatedSC2 wrote: I still think that the time it takes to build Carriers is the biggest barrier. Cost isn't much of an issue unless you're trying to build them from two bases, and that you need a decent number of them is aided by making them faster to build because you can get to a decent number much faster. Unfortunately, as I already posted, the real problem with Carriers is that the best composition to utilise alongside them is Chargelot/Templar. We can't really open Chargelot/Templar reliably so that's kinda out. Not to mention that Widow Mines also counter Carriers themselves, not just the ideal supporting units for them. Carriers can't really be made in PvT at the moment unless the opponent is incompetent. Carriers are already a "possibility" in PvZ if you want to be weird. Arium does it on Deadwing by opening with a FFE at the third base, taking a fast third and then rushing Carriers. You could also use a myriad of Chargelot/Templar/Void Ray builds to transition in Carriers if you really wanted to do it. It's only the build time that really stops people from building them because you might as well just mass Void Rays instead since Templar are already dealing with AoE burst damage. yep, carriers are pretty effective for their cost, but that is justified by their strength per supply, which is one of the best in the game, it's getting a sizeable fleet that's a problem. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On October 30 2014 03:03 Thieving Magpie wrote: Also, big important part of BW carriers in TvP. Goliaths were the real AA response to carriers. But since carriers fly over cliffs and goliaths did not, you would get a back and forth where carriers used terrain to prevent getting swarmed while mech TvP swapped mobility roles with goliaths acting like a swarm of hydralisks. Viking vs carrier is more clump vs clump without care about the terrain of the map. Good points. On top of this, both units could micro versus each other. And it was fun while doing it. In sc2, this kind of micro is none-existent. I am not sure why so much focus on getting carrier into the game more since the unit is terrible boring. | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On October 30 2014 04:13 TokO wrote: Surely it's less boring than most other air units. The fact that interceptors cost minerals makes the Carrier much more interesting than almost all of the other units. Allows for multiple ways to play against. I wish we had the VR and Carrier switch places though. It would be cool with a smaller faster Carrier with 4 interceptors as a strike unit. In fact, we could probably remove VR and just have Tempest as our Capital ship if we had a 4-supply Carrier. Eh, I'm not too keen on that. I like massive Carrier fleets. It's just SO COOL. Swarms of interceptors flying around everywhere remind me of the movie Independence Day. Instead you have these big oafy things that you can't really build otherwise you lose  | ||
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Spect8rCraft
649 Posts
It's a strange and somewhat counterintuitive way of balancing them, but the way I see it is that capital ships can become imbalanced on a dime, and that is usually due to quantity; having more capital ships has an exponential impact as more hit the field. I presume that's the knife's edge Blizzard doesn't want to walk on; that if capital ships were buffed so that lone units could hold their own, they'd easily be able to subsequently amass a fleet with ease. This is more true than, say, massing colossi since capital ships tend to be more multipurpose (colossi tend to be good against massed non-armored units, brood lords are great against any ground unit that can't get under it, carriers and battlecruisers can hold their own against most any unit to one extent or another, usually to a low extent, though, if they're sufficiently upgraded) And since SC2 is a max-oriented game, with one-big-pushes a very realistic theme, buffing capital ships means whichever side doesn't have them may suffer a major disadvantage. Ergo, it may make sense to increase the supply of capital ships so that one couldn't build like 10 of them without taking a significant hit to secondary army supply. In other words, we trade supply size for faster ships and/or stronger ships. From there we can buff damage or DPS or whatever with less fallout than with smaller-supply units. That way they can be more like lite motherships--their presence have an immediate impact on the battlefield. Except, y'know, thirty of 'em won't swarm over your opponent like a zergling runby. | ||
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