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On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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.
If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway....
Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it.....
Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid.
I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership.
Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee.
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Yeah, lorewise the mothership implementation is pretty lame.
But functionalitywise it is pretty good for a 400/400/8 unit imo.
Also, though its attack animation isnt impressive, personally I could do with even less visual blocking in the game. The big obvious ones - Colossi/Voidray - aside there is lots of other stuff making it hard to follow single units in combat. The size of the mothership and the airstacking engine of SC make it already a very unpleasant unit to watch in combats, no need for more effects.
I think Capital Ships as they are in the game don't really fit Starcraft. I like the idea of a smaller hit&run carrier. Similarily I would like the idea of a weaker BC focused on its role to take out targets through yamato. E.g. by scaling its stats and costs down by 25-50% but leaving yamato roughly untouched.
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On October 30 2014 06:40 Big J wrote:
Similarily I would like the idea of a weaker BC focused on its role to take out targets through yamato. E.g. by scaling its stats and costs down by 25-50% but leaving yamato roughly untouched.
In b4 IMBAAAAAA
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On October 27 2014 21:10 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2014 20:46 Grumbels wrote:
You could allow reapers to make use of the existing bio upgrades. There are various options:
- reapers with stim pack, combat shields
- concussive shells turned into an upgrade that changes both marauder and reaper attack
- additional reaper upgrade at the tech lab
- ghost academy changed into academy with some bio upgrades placed there
Reapers are so useless past a certain point that you could honestly go wild with T2+ upgrades. But why? What problem does making Reapers useful later in the game solve? What deficiency does late-game Terran have that requires the Reaper to be different? It does its job. It doesn't need to be useful throughout the whole game. Plenty of units aren't useful throughout the whole of a game, or are only used situationally in response to a specific enemy composition.
Having a lot of fun and useful units to play with beats being shoehorned into doing the same thing over and over again.
Then again, Blizzard has developed this annoying habit of nerfing every unit that is even slightly interesting or fun (or god forbid, both).
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On October 30 2014 07:06 maartendq wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 27 2014 21:10 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2014 20:46 Grumbels wrote:
You could allow reapers to make use of the existing bio upgrades. There are various options:
- reapers with stim pack, combat shields
- concussive shells turned into an upgrade that changes both marauder and reaper attack
- additional reaper upgrade at the tech lab
- ghost academy changed into academy with some bio upgrades placed there
Reapers are so useless past a certain point that you could honestly go wild with T2+ upgrades. But why? What problem does making Reapers useful later in the game solve? What deficiency does late-game Terran have that requires the Reaper to be different? It does its job. It doesn't need to be useful throughout the whole game. Plenty of units aren't useful throughout the whole of a game, or are only used situationally in response to a specific enemy composition. Having a lot of fun and useful units to play with beats being shoehorned into doing the same thing over and over again. Then again, Blizzard has developed this annoying habit of nerfing every unit that is even slightly interesting or fun (or god forbid, both).
But you can do other stuff if you want. You just have to realise that other compositions aren't going to be as flexible/mobile/powerful as bio.
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On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee.
I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right?
'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department.
The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits.
And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. 
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On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see.
The supply problem is not an efficiency problem.
X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time.
When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings
When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example)
When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example)
When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply.
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On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply.
Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability.
To give an example:
In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently.
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Lets just introduce Epic units and get this over with. Some 30 suply heavy unit that is good vs everything, has lots of spells at dissposal and so on and so forth.
Ohhh wait...no that wont be so good on second thought...
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On October 30 2014 02:12 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Carriers take more time fully chronod than Colossi do without chrono (each chrono lets 30 seconds of work to be done in 20, 120 seconds total therefore 80 seconds per Carrier, Colossus is 75 without any boosts). And who doesn't chrono their Colossi when possible? I don't think "getting them too quick" is likely to be an issue until you're getting to the point of doubling the speed of production.
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On October 30 2014 19:24 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 02:12 SC2Toastie wrote: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. Carriers take more time fully chronod than Colossi do without chrono (each chrono lets 30 seconds of work to be done in 20, 120 seconds total therefore 80 seconds per Carrier, Colossus is 75 without any boosts). And who doesn't chrono their Colossi when possible? I don't think "getting them too quick" is likely to be an issue until you're getting to the point of doubling the speed of production.
They're build time is long, I know. But you HAVE to keep in mind we're talking about multiple major buffs to a unit that barely has any counters. What checks Carriers after these proposed buffs? Vikings, Corruptors, Infestors, Ravens, possibly Marines. Note these are all EASILY dealt with by using HT.
All these battles snowball real hard; the Carrier player in theory has Recall, but the opponent will not be able to succesfully disengage. It's dangerous to make Carriers too accessible, IMO. They're not bad units, buffing their attack AND build time AND cost can make them OP really fast.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for experimenting with the carrier, but a unit that versatile should be treated with great care.
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Only problem i see is that interceptors die too fast.
They need to buff armor of them, health or buildtime/cost.
Carriers are a good unit and its accessible if you know the builds right.
Particulairly in PvP carriers are viable.
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On October 30 2014 21:19 Eraz0rZ wrote:
Only problem i see is that interceptors die too fast.
They need to buff armor of them, health or buildtime/cost.
Carriers are a good unit and its accessible if you know the builds right.
Particulairly in PvP carriers are viable.
What.
Tempest are the most ridiculous fucking hardcounter to Carriers I can think of. Sorry, but Tempest take 2/3rds of the supply, cost almost half, have 8 more range and I think they 5/6 shot Carriers?
Interceptors dieing fast is part of the Carrier, obviously. Repairing them within the carrier and reducing the cost allows static defense and marine/hydra/queen etc. to delay Carrier critical mass.
Apparantly the Carriers are viable at your level. If they were viable, we'd see them by those guys that earn their money by winning, don't you think...
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On October 30 2014 22:10 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 21:19 Eraz0rZ wrote:
Only problem i see is that interceptors die too fast.
They need to buff armor of them, health or buildtime/cost.
Carriers are a good unit and its accessible if you know the builds right.
Particulairly in PvP carriers are viable. What. Tempest are the most ridiculous fucking hardcounter to Carriers I can think of. Sorry, but Tempest take 2/3rds of the supply, cost almost half, have 8 more range and I think they 5/6 shot Carriers? Interceptors dieing fast is part of the Carrier, obviously. Repairing them within the carrier and reducing the cost allows static defense and marine/hydra/queen etc. to delay Carrier critical mass. Apparantly the Carriers are viable at your level. If they were viable, we'd see them by those guys that earn their money by winning, don't you think...
hahah
Its all about the build dude. I got my own few builds pros havent even figured out yet.Tempest are strong vs carrier. But not versus voidrays, they do minimal damage to voidrays. And with a few of your own tempest backing it up...
Think, voidrays are closest range so they take aggro, they are also the "strong" protoss faster air unit... Perfect counter to tempest.
Not to forget if you want to tech safely versus a standard composition You need 5 tempest to oneshot a collosi. And from there magic can happen.
My build is atm; chargelot archon fast 3rd if i see collosi double stargate/tripple if he has more then 3. Build 5 tempest, make more chargelot archon if he doesnt engage insta start building carriers. If he does, snipe collosi win with chargelot archon (the more archons you have the stronger your composition is due to the enemy not having decent splash)
At this stage you should either be able to build a few carriers, or your maxed out, or hes constantly trading vs chargelot archon with gateway units.
If he doesnt aggro you and your maxedout, harrass with half of your zealots on his natural and third at the same time + warpprism in main, Or slowly aggro with a few zealots so you can stay maxed if hes out on the map.
So far i can hold any 2 base allins with pure chargelot archon on 3 base. and because im harrassing at multiple fronts i have time to build carriers.
Im r23 masters on EU btw.
Maybe i should do a tutorial here.
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On October 30 2014 16:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply. Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability. To give an example: In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently.
So... we want capital ships to do work in low numbers. But, to extrapolate from that, they would be nigh unstoppable in high numbers (barring crucial preparation with hard counters, like an extensive counter-fleet of vikings or tempests; lord knows what Zerg needs to build).
That's kind of the odd logic I'm getting at. If we want to make capital ships better--be it by time or by power, though I'm more supportive of the latter--we also need to account for potential endgame scenarios. If shortening carrier build time by a few seconds grants the Protoss player enough opportunity to amass a golden armada, that's a little different than trying to make lone carriers work.
But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; perhaps I should wait for buffs before suggesting nerfs. Still, I think army quantity may become a critical factor if capital ships become viable as standalone vehicles.
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On October 30 2014 23:07 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 16:26 Big J wrote:On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply. Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability. To give an example: In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently. So... we want capital ships to do work in low numbers. But, to extrapolate from that, they would be nigh unstoppable in high numbers (barring crucial preparation with hard counters, like an extensive counter-fleet of vikings or tempests; lord knows what Zerg needs to build). That's kind of the odd logic I'm getting at. If we want to make capital ships better--be it by time or by power, though I'm more supportive of the latter--we also need to account for potential endgame scenarios. If shortening carrier build time by a few seconds grants the Protoss player enough opportunity to amass a golden armada, that's a little different than trying to make lone carriers work. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; perhaps I should wait for buffs before suggesting nerfs. Still, I think army quantity may become a critical factor if capital ships become viable as standalone vehicles.
For carrriers to be useful, what they don't need is power but interaction.
Carriers were useful in PvT because they could abuse terrain, but goliaths could not. In open combat carriers would lose every time. But hit and runs of the interceptor swarms *actually* happened. Because carriers could be leveraged against their counters, and their counters could swarm them, there was an advantage to gaining air dominance in BW.
You can't run to the cliffs from vikings.
You can't retreat while a force of zealots stalls the ground forces vs vikings.
Wraiths were also a great game vs carriers. If you snipe all the observers, then carriers instagibs the carriers. So on and so forth. Without a dynamic like that, carriers will be no different than just making more stalkers.
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On October 30 2014 23:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 23:07 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 16:26 Big J wrote:On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply. Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability. To give an example: In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently. So... we want capital ships to do work in low numbers. But, to extrapolate from that, they would be nigh unstoppable in high numbers (barring crucial preparation with hard counters, like an extensive counter-fleet of vikings or tempests; lord knows what Zerg needs to build). That's kind of the odd logic I'm getting at. If we want to make capital ships better--be it by time or by power, though I'm more supportive of the latter--we also need to account for potential endgame scenarios. If shortening carrier build time by a few seconds grants the Protoss player enough opportunity to amass a golden armada, that's a little different than trying to make lone carriers work. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; perhaps I should wait for buffs before suggesting nerfs. Still, I think army quantity may become a critical factor if capital ships become viable as standalone vehicles. For carrriers to be useful, what they don't need is power but interaction. Carriers were useful in PvT because they could abuse terrain, but goliaths could not. In open combat carriers would lose every time. But hit and runs of the interceptor swarms *actually* happened. Because carriers could be leveraged against their counters, and their counters could swarm them, there was an advantage to gaining air dominance in BW. You can't run to the cliffs from vikings.
You can't retreat while a force of zealots stalls the ground forces vs vikings.Wraiths were also a great game vs carriers. If you snipe all the observers, then carriers instagibs the carriers. So on and so forth. Without a dynamic like that, carriers will be no different than just making more stalkers.
Which goes to show that typically air vs air battles are quite boring. Especially vikings or corruptors versus capital ships.
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On October 30 2014 23:07 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 16:26 Big J wrote:On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply. Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability. To give an example: In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently. So... we want capital ships to do work in low numbers. But, to extrapolate from that, they would be nigh unstoppable in high numbers (barring crucial preparation with hard counters, like an extensive counter-fleet of vikings or tempests; lord knows what Zerg needs to build). That's kind of the odd logic I'm getting at. If we want to make capital ships better--be it by time or by power, though I'm more supportive of the latter--we also need to account for potential endgame scenarios. If shortening carrier build time by a few seconds grants the Protoss player enough opportunity to amass a golden armada, that's a little different than trying to make lone carriers work. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; perhaps I should wait for buffs before suggesting nerfs. Still, I think army quantity may become a critical factor if capital ships become viable as standalone vehicles.
I haven't given any suggestion right here what should be done. The conclusions you draw here - accounting for endgame armies - are the same as mine. Which is why I prefer solutions that change how those units work.
E.g. I was talking about a -1damage +2 vs light for the Carrier a few pages back. Which would give it more of a role as anti-light unit, but weaken it against other units, hence, make it more counterable.
Or focusing the BC on his ability to Yamato - which would give it more a counterrole to big units - then to focus it on overall combat strength.
In particular I think BCs are not well-designed, they are flying stalkers without blink. Yamato is at a powerlevel where it kills the BCs designated counters - like Corruptors - but isn't overkill, while it offers no strategic value as to why you would build BCs to begin with. In general, there is no reason to build a BC besides having too many resources and the unit being a little harder to deal with than just massing Thors instead.
Carriers are interesting, but plainly badly implemented - Interceptors don't behave like units on their own, but just like delayed attacking range 8 carriers. And still somewhat lack a role, given that they are kind of good vs everything, but again, not really good enough that you would consider going carrier if you see something in particular from your opponent, minus Mech I guess (which is again pretty weak to begin with vs Protoss, so you can do whatever you want...).
On October 30 2014 23:35 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2014 23:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 23:07 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 16:26 Big J wrote:On October 30 2014 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 30 2014 10:38 Spect8rCraft wrote:On October 30 2014 06:08 DinoMight wrote:On October 30 2014 04:30 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I still think capital ships should require more supply.
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. If they required any more nobody would build them. We seldom see the huge Tier 3 capital units anyway.... Though if you make my Mothership 20 supply and give me the Independence Day weapon..... I might go for it..... Also, while we're discussing this.. I think the Mothership is pretty lame. Yeah it cloaks stuff, but it actually loses an ability, and its attack animation is stupid. I want a huge ship either with huge guns on it or that releases thousands of little ships that shoot lasers. Something that feels like a mothership. Right now its just a big slow cloaking frisbee. I highly doubt supply is going to be the biggest deterrent to building capital ships (or really anything, from marines and roaches to colossi and brood lords). After all, if they were supply efficient, then it wouldn't matter if they were 50 supply, so long as they were worth the army they would replace, right? 'Course, that's taking the logic to its extreme. Even raising capital ships to, say, 10 supply could give a bit more breathing room in the buff/change department. The intent is to avoid going into the "mass capital ships, get to 200 supply and roll out like Autobots" kind of game, and try to find a happy balance like where the colossus sits. And yes, the mothership with the purifier ability would be something to see. The supply problem is not an efficiency problem. X supply produced over Y time. Meaning everytime a unit is in production you will be down X supply over Y time. When X is low and Y is low, its a unit you spam like marines/zerglings When X is high, but Y low, you can hit very strong timings (Muta tech switch for example) When X is low, but Y is high, you can support them with low tier units and replace those low tier units over time (zealots slowly replaced by Archons for example) When X is high and Y is high, then you will essentially be nuking your current army as you wait 2-4 minutes while being down 12-18 supply. Yes, this is the problem. Now other units have high production times and are somewhat costly as well, but Carriers/BCs PTs are extraordinarily high while they aren't units that are really powerful one at a piece. Their design makes them useless in the low numbers which leads to having long phases of vulnerability. To give an example: In the time you have 3 Carriers in production (1050/750/18;80-120second, depending on chronoboost) a Terran opponent can build two medivacs with 12-16supply of bio units (given a standard lategame production setup; 42seconds), load them up, cross the map (~30second rush distance by air with speedivacs), harass with the units and get out before the carriers even pop. And then you have 3 Carriers which aren't going to be changing the world as they are just flying stalkers currently. So... we want capital ships to do work in low numbers. But, to extrapolate from that, they would be nigh unstoppable in high numbers (barring crucial preparation with hard counters, like an extensive counter-fleet of vikings or tempests; lord knows what Zerg needs to build). That's kind of the odd logic I'm getting at. If we want to make capital ships better--be it by time or by power, though I'm more supportive of the latter--we also need to account for potential endgame scenarios. If shortening carrier build time by a few seconds grants the Protoss player enough opportunity to amass a golden armada, that's a little different than trying to make lone carriers work. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; perhaps I should wait for buffs before suggesting nerfs. Still, I think army quantity may become a critical factor if capital ships become viable as standalone vehicles. For carrriers to be useful, what they don't need is power but interaction. Carriers were useful in PvT because they could abuse terrain, but goliaths could not. In open combat carriers would lose every time. But hit and runs of the interceptor swarms *actually* happened. Because carriers could be leveraged against their counters, and their counters could swarm them, there was an advantage to gaining air dominance in BW. You can't run to the cliffs from vikings.
You can't retreat while a force of zealots stalls the ground forces vs vikings.Wraiths were also a great game vs carriers. If you snipe all the observers, then carriers instagibs the carriers. So on and so forth. Without a dynamic like that, carriers will be no different than just making more stalkers. Which goes to show that typically air vs air battles are quite boring. Especially vikings or corruptors versus capital ships.
Air battles are boring because of air stacking. Air in Starcraft is only really interesting in the context of ground vs air units. With air stacking there is no positioning, flanking or other formations. There is only clumping up as much as possible so that everything can attack and in case of splash, spreading out. There is no difficulty to get units into the battle or out of the battle. Every target is always reachable or unreachable by unit design, but never situation dependend.
In air vs air it is always just a numbers game until splash - which is nearly always a ground thing - comes into play. Then it is engage spread or don't engage at all.
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Valkyrie from broodwar is an interesting unit?
It has the positioning atleast.
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EPT
