|
On September 05 2011 07:00 icarly wrote:
replace helion with reaver. Replace Thor with goliath, allow building without an armory. Reduce build time of battlecruiser. Concussive shells 100/100, doubled build time. Stim 200/200.
make charge 100/100 and reduce research time. Make warp gate research require twilight council. Reduce carrier build time. Reduce stalker attack damage vs armor, buff vs non armored. Make force fields attackable with hp. Reduce hallucination research time. Reduce speed and hp of Collosus.
Make fungal growth a slow. Allow overlord speed research before lair. Make roaches 1.5 supply. Reduce size of ultralisk. Reduce burrow time of spine crawler. Increase speed of Hydralisk.
there ya go, fixed the game.
There is some pretty good idea I haven't tough of in there. I don't agree with everything but for the most part, its some good suggestions imo =). The warp gate thing to twilight would be very interesting to see. They charge thing would be too strong xD, we would see some charge timing pushes against zerg that we wont be able to defend xD. Reduce burrow time on spine crawler isnt even a question, should be 6 sec not only for spores. Hydras suck right now so the speed would prolly fix them =)
|
"What about cool down free manual chargelots? You couldnt auto charge the whole map, only things in range; but if you made a line of pylons/probes? you could chain charges between them. this would effectively exponentially increase the Protoss skill cap, and allow charge harassment, in and out of warp prisms..."
I haven't read all 67 pages, but you can manually do this already by right clicking the charge icon. I think you are trying to make protoss harder, but making them have no cooldown would be ridiculous. As a terran player, at certain points in the game you are literally dependent on kiting chargelots to survive, so if you made them have no cooldown, it would basically be like terran units vs 150 hp zerglings. T.T
Also I like icarly's changes 
|
I was intrigued by Cryosin's recently closed thread, so I am quoting it here with my response. I hope that's OK, not withstanding the moderator's characterization of it as a "whine." If it isn't OK, please accept my sincere apologies.
Cryosin wrote:
These are mechanics that i think will always cause some form of imbalance in the game. Every race has them so don't take this as a "race is OP" post.
Let's begin:
Protoss:
Warpgates: The reason you cant expand in PvP is because of warpgate, not blink stalkers or 4-gate. Warp Gates
eliminate defenders advantage and creates some of the most unstoppable timing attacks in the game.
Solution: You should be allowed to warp in near your base and offensive warp-ins should require a Warp Prism.
Why a warp prism?
A) They are easy to spot and kill.
B) They require some investment(100 minerals is not an investment to completely ruin a defenders position.)
C) Their warp in radius is small, so you cannot simply warp in an entire army anywhere you want(unless you have
multiple warp prism's).
D) They require some micro and losing it should be something to avoid(whereas losing pylon is like whatever)
How do we make a "defensive warp in" work? I think a Nexus should give off its own field of energy. Any Plyon connected to this energy will spread it on its own field. Sort of like an energy creep. You can warp in units on this type of energy field OR you can warp in units from a warp prism.
You can still place pylons and buildings anywhere on the map, but not warp in units unless there is a nexus energy
connected to it.
So, for example:
Build a pylon near your nexus. Build another one a bit farther away. Then build another one a bit farther than that.
Eventually you want a string of pylons connected to a Nexus so you can warp in units throughout your base.
Forcefields: I feel the entire Protoss race is essentially balanced around this ability. I know a lot of players
find forcefields to be unneccessary, but try using them(using them correctly, that is). You'll quickly find that
battles you would've normally lost are now quickly sliding in your favor.Take any idea you ever had, add 5-8 sentries
to it, and you have a good army.
Zealot/Archon? Sure, get some sentries its great.
Carriers? What? ya! Just use some sentries and zealots,block half their army and watch Carriers and Zealots rip
everything to shreds.
Colossus? This one is self explanatory.
You get the deal. Forcefields work in every situation all the time and realistically, any army without sentries is
going to be significantly worse than it could have been.
Easy fix: Late game a big problem with sentries is that they can forcefield twice. Let's take a look at the big problem
here:
Forcefield costs 50 energy. A sentry can have up to 200 energy. So.. if you made 4 sentries and stocked up their energy
up until the mid-late game.. you have 16 forcefields. Now imagine if you had 8 sentries.... 32 forcefields. Realistically, youll be using about 4-6 forcefields each engagement. So if you made 8 sentries, kept them alive, and got into the mid game.. you can forcefield an army essentially as much as you want. This is a major balance issue. I think the sentry's max energy should be reduced to 150 at least. Personally, i think the sentries damage should go back to how it was in beta, but reduce its energy to 100. However, reducing the energy to 150 is a great start.
Long-term solution: I think forcefields should slow a units movement and attack speed, rather than trap them. The sentry should be doing more damage and the gateway units as a whole should be a bit better. this would not happen any time soon though but is something to look at.
Colossus? A lot of people complain about the colossus. Personally, i find it to be balanced but coupled with sentries it can lead to some big problems. So in the end i think the problem isn't the Colossus, but rather the sentry.
Terran:
Concussive Shells: I think the design of concussive makes it really good when it shouldn't be and really useless when it should be good. Early game the ability completely shuts down Protoss, but late game it does very little since there are so many units on the field. It also doesn't last long enough to really get that final kill(unless the unit is already weak).
Solution: The concossive shells should be added on to the factory instead of tech lab, but it should be given a small(i mean small, maybe 2 or 3 units instead of 1) aoe radius. This will allow the upgrade to be very beneficial in the mid-late game while preventing infinite zealot kiting in the early game.
Hellions: Hellions i think are not as overpowered as many people state, but they are overpowered at what they do. That is, they are ridiculously good against light units.
Let's compare a hellion to a colossus:
A hellion roasts light units, is really fast, but is really bad against everything else.
A colossus roasts light units, does good against other units, but is really slow and vulnerable(without support).
If people are massing hellions, that tells you something: They are insanely cost efficient. It is better to gaurantee economy damage by massing Hellions than it is to make an army and stay alive. That is not healthy for the game.
Solution: I am actually okay with the nerf to the hellions damage against light, HOWEVER, increase its base damage against non-light. Have you seen a hellion hit a roach or marauder? Its really a sad joke. Make the unit more versatile. I feel that if you have a few sitting back and safely doing damage to an army it wouldn't be overpowered. Right now they are just so weak its not worth even fighting with them unless you see lots of light units(which most players would stop making if they saw hellions).
Zerg:
Fungal Growth: Fungal growth does too many things at once. Its not the damage, its not how fast you get it. The fact it's so versatile is what makes people complain about it, and for good reason:
Good damage, roots, hits air units, can be used for harass, defense, offense.
There are too many ways to use fungal growth and they are all powerful. There have been many solutions posted on these forums, and i think blizzard needs to try them ALL out. Yes, even the crazy ones. Look at what might have the potential to function well and start there. Here are some issue's right now with balancing fungal growth:
You reduce its damage: If you reduce its damage, Zerg will just build more infestors than they did last time. If you reduce the damage too much, nobody will build infestors and they will suck. The fact it does damage has to either stay or go.(but if it goes go there has to be a reason to get infestors).
If Fungal can't hit air units: ZvZ will always be a muta battle. Infestor's are the only real counter to mutas, as Hydras die to banelings and Roaches. Hydra's aren't very cost efficient and i've never lost a game because of hydras. The infestor will also be useless because Phoenixes and Banshees will just find them and rip them to shreds. Nobody will go infestors because you will be vulnerable to air.
The root: Many have mentioned a slowing effect. Im not against this. Its something worth testing.
All in all, infestors are a be all unit. Im waiting for someone to win the GSL by building nothing but infestors. It's bound to happen.
Give infestors a role and make it worthwhile, but don't make them do everything at once.
Mutalisks: "Wait what? Are you crazy? Mutalisks?" You might ask...
Hear me out...
I do know that mutalisks are really bad in a head on fight, with GROUND!
Name one air unit(aside from maybe corrupters) that sufficiently counters a mutalisk?
Viking: You spent all your money rushing to vikings to counter mutalisks. You also made marines. Now lings and banelings swarm your marines. Since you have no medivacs or tanks your marines die very quickly. At best you broke even with the mutalisks and now you have 1 or 2 vikings left to fight a hoard of zerglings and banelings.'
"What if i just use the vikings for base defense and macro?" You might ask....
When's the last time being defensive against a normal macro zerg a good idea? Building Vikings basically says "im not going to attack you anytime soon." Building one or two for scouting/map control is not what im talking about. Im not talkinga bout one or two vikings for map control here, i am saying massing up vikings to counter mutalisks.
Phoenix: If you have perfect micro and where massing them all game long, then sure, its a great counter. Except now, you have a million zerglings in your base and a bunch of gateway units with no AOE.... There goes your mineral line. Usually your phoenix will be outnumbered to the mutas. If you dont micro your phoenix mutas are actually efficient, and if the mutas and lings attack you at the same time, you can't really micro your phoenix aroudn because Mutas will just hit that small amount of ground units you have after massing phoenix.
But the big problem here isn't that the mutalisk is strong. Its that both races don't have an AIR unit that is an answer.
In Starcraft 1 there where Corsairs and Scouts for Protoss and valkyries(amazing against mutas) for Terran.
Now Protoss has Archons and Stalkers while Terran has Thor's and Marines. Forcing all the counters to ground units gives Zerg complete map control once mutas hit the field.
So i guess its not the mutalisk thats overpowered, but the other two races need a reasonable response to them.
Zerg has infestors and Corrupters(or just make mutalisks yourself), so the ZvZ matchup isn't as bad as the other two.
Anyway, that is all.
I know its a long post and if you made it this far you are awesome. Post what you think should be done for some of these changes, maybe blizzard will actually notice.
I think the T and P suggestions are really interesting. Z less so, partially because I know less about Z and partially because it seems like more of a rehash of familiar territory.
But I think both T suggestions are excellent. The Conc Shells in particular makes a load of sense. I also like making Hellions better in the late game, and I wonder if we could also make Reapers better in the late game?
I like the concept of the Nexus power field, but I am concerned a) that it's too much like creep and b) that compared to creep spreading it's too expensive, at 100 minerals per pylon. I would suggest that the Nexus have a radius that appears on the owners map, and it should be roughly the size of a Sensor Tower, or maybe 1.5X that. Any pylon in that range provides Nexus power. This would be a much simpler mechanic, and would encourage expanding towards the enemy in order to have forward Nexus power. Meanwhile, Nexus' are expensive enough and slow building enough that the proxy Nexus would be rare, except for a handful of instantly-famous pro games ala Huk Mothership rush. This also alleviates a problem with the OP's proposal, which would be long chains of easily-sniped pylons.
Force Fields I am a little more unsure about. I think the OP's point that the problem with the Colossus is actually a problem with the Sentry is astute, but I'm not sure I like any of the fixes you suggest. The thing about it is that they are SO important to survival in the early game. In that respect, lowering total energy is better than making the spell more expensive, for sure, but it still makes me uneasy. Hmm.
|
I like the concept of the Nexus power field, but I am concerned a) that it's too much like creep and b) that compared to creep spreading it's too expensive, at 100 minerals per pylon. I would suggest that the Nexus have a radius that appears on the owners map, and it should be roughly the size of a Sensor Tower, or maybe 1.5X that. Any pylon in that range provides Nexus power. This would be a much simpler mechanic, and would encourage expanding towards the enemy in order to have forward Nexus power. Meanwhile, Nexus' are expensive enough and slow building enough that the proxy Nexus would be rare, except for a handful of instantly-famous pro games ala Huk Mothership rush. This also alleviates a problem with the OP's proposal, which would be long chains of easily-sniped pylons.
Genius idea!
My 2 cents. I would love the above nerf, only being able to build pylons in the nexus radius thing, with pylons extending the radius itself. It would remove the 4/6/7 gate allins from being as potent as they are now, requiring a warp prism to have a similar effect. (and maybe make warp prisms require a robo bay upgrade to transform into pylon mode so PvP doesnt become a warp prism 4gate fest.)
Forcefield nerf would also be great... our strats are too reliant on them and make us borderline OP with some of our builds, but at the same time to compensate our gateway units have been nerfed to oblivion. I would gladly trade the above mentioned warpgate nerf and sentry (maybe colossus too?) nerf for, say, a buff to zealots and moreso, stalkers.
|
I've also always liked the concept of a Nexus power field. My personal first instinct with that was this... warp in is exactly the same in the power field, but warp-in takes 10 seconds longer outside of it. So, for example:
Zealot inside pylon + nexus range: 5 for warp-in, 28 for cooldown, zealot every 33 seconds.
Zealot inside pylon range but outside nexus range: 15 for warp-in, 28 for cooldown, zealot every 43 seconds.
The reason why this will work? Well, let's bring everything back to the root problem with warp gate. Warp gate does too much to mitigate the defender's advantage of base distance. In any RTS, the defender's advantage works to give the game back and forth. The attacker has to have a good timing or outplay the defender, or else the game will go back to even. This mechanic will allow for defensive warp-ins near any base without any penalty, and still allow for offensive warp-ins... just at a penalty. Try and press the attack too long, and the defender will regain his advantage through your penalized production times.
Also, graphic wise, the nexus field can be yellow. This allow for a very intuitive system. Blue means you can warp in. Blue + yellow = green, which means you can warp in without penalty. (Because green means go.)
Anyway, obviously such a major change wouldn't happen until HotS. But still fun to think about, no?
|
If you had to do a pylon chain from your nexus for warp-ins, how would you ever put early pressure on your opponents by pushing out and reinforcing your army with a proxy pylon? it would force every build to include a robotics facility for warp prisms just to reinforce your push.
i also don't understand making warpgate research require a twilight council. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. we already have to research it, and they have already increased research time, so why do we have to add a building requirement to that research as well?
|
On September 05 2011 14:52 sharktopus. wrote:
If you had to do a pylon chain from your nexus for warp-ins, how would you ever put early pressure on your opponents by pushing out and reinforcing your army with a proxy pylon? it would force every build to include a robotics facility for warp prisms just to reinforce your push.
i also don't understand making warpgate research require a twilight council. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. we already have to research it, and they have already increased research time, so why do we have to add a building requirement to that research as well?
The only reasonable change to warp-in is to change the cooldown so it actually takes MORE time if you use warp-in compared to straight up building the units in a Gateway, so you have to decide between "get more units faster or from fewer buildings" and "get units wherever you want" ...
|
On September 05 2011 14:52 sharktopus. wrote:
If you had to do a pylon chain from your nexus for warp-ins, how would you ever put early pressure on your opponents by pushing out and reinforcing your army with a proxy pylon? it would force every build to include a robotics facility for warp prisms just to reinforce your push.
i also don't understand making warpgate research require a twilight council. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. we already have to research it, and they have already increased research time, so why do we have to add a building requirement to that research as well?
Agreed. Sadly Protoss is balance completly around Warpgates and Force Fields. If these things are nerfed too much Protosss will lose all competaive viability.
The change to not allow warp in from proxy Pylons is great for PvP but inc 0% win rates PvT and PvZ at diamond and up. The defenders advantage is how Zerg and Terran hold off pushs against each other some times. If Protoss couldn't negate that advantage with warp-ins all potoss timing-pushs would be dead. Their stuff just isn't good enough at cost vs the other two races until several upgrades are bought.
Another thing is Protoss harrasment is by far the worst of the 3 races and this change would make the worst, worse.
You wanna reduce Sentry Energy to 150 or 100? GG. How are we suppose to hold off rushes? How are we suppose to win mid game battles? Protoss NEEDS those 20+ forcefields 5+ sentrys can provide in order to stand a chance. IMO that is terrible game design by Blizzard more then anything.
|
On September 05 2011 11:09 Sunrunner wrote:I was intrigued by Cryosin's recently closed thread, so I am quoting it here with my response. I hope that's OK, not withstanding the moderator's characterization of it as a "whine." If it isn't OK, please accept my sincere apologies. Show nested quote +Cryosin wrote:
These are mechanics that i think will always cause some form of imbalance in the game. Every race has them so don't take this as a "race is OP" post.
Let's begin:
Protoss:
Warpgates: The reason you cant expand in PvP is because of warpgate, not blink stalkers or 4-gate. Warp Gates
eliminate defenders advantage and creates some of the most unstoppable timing attacks in the game.
Solution: You should be allowed to warp in near your base and offensive warp-ins should require a Warp Prism.
Why a warp prism?
A) They are easy to spot and kill.
B) They require some investment(100 minerals is not an investment to completely ruin a defenders position.)
C) Their warp in radius is small, so you cannot simply warp in an entire army anywhere you want(unless you have
multiple warp prism's).
D) They require some micro and losing it should be something to avoid(whereas losing pylon is like whatever)
How do we make a "defensive warp in" work? I think a Nexus should give off its own field of energy. Any Plyon connected to this energy will spread it on its own field. Sort of like an energy creep. You can warp in units on this type of energy field OR you can warp in units from a warp prism.
You can still place pylons and buildings anywhere on the map, but not warp in units unless there is a nexus energy
connected to it.
So, for example:
Build a pylon near your nexus. Build another one a bit farther away. Then build another one a bit farther than that.
Eventually you want a string of pylons connected to a Nexus so you can warp in units throughout your base.
Forcefields: I feel the entire Protoss race is essentially balanced around this ability. I know a lot of players
find forcefields to be unneccessary, but try using them(using them correctly, that is). You'll quickly find that
battles you would've normally lost are now quickly sliding in your favor.Take any idea you ever had, add 5-8 sentries
to it, and you have a good army.
Zealot/Archon? Sure, get some sentries its great.
Carriers? What? ya! Just use some sentries and zealots,block half their army and watch Carriers and Zealots rip
everything to shreds.
Colossus? This one is self explanatory.
You get the deal. Forcefields work in every situation all the time and realistically, any army without sentries is
going to be significantly worse than it could have been.
Easy fix: Late game a big problem with sentries is that they can forcefield twice. Let's take a look at the big problem
here:
Forcefield costs 50 energy. A sentry can have up to 200 energy. So.. if you made 4 sentries and stocked up their energy
up until the mid-late game.. you have 16 forcefields. Now imagine if you had 8 sentries.... 32 forcefields. Realistically, youll be using about 4-6 forcefields each engagement. So if you made 8 sentries, kept them alive, and got into the mid game.. you can forcefield an army essentially as much as you want. This is a major balance issue. I think the sentry's max energy should be reduced to 150 at least. Personally, i think the sentries damage should go back to how it was in beta, but reduce its energy to 100. However, reducing the energy to 150 is a great start.
Long-term solution: I think forcefields should slow a units movement and attack speed, rather than trap them. The sentry should be doing more damage and the gateway units as a whole should be a bit better. this would not happen any time soon though but is something to look at.
Colossus? A lot of people complain about the colossus. Personally, i find it to be balanced but coupled with sentries it can lead to some big problems. So in the end i think the problem isn't the Colossus, but rather the sentry.
Terran:
Concussive Shells: I think the design of concussive makes it really good when it shouldn't be and really useless when it should be good. Early game the ability completely shuts down Protoss, but late game it does very little since there are so many units on the field. It also doesn't last long enough to really get that final kill(unless the unit is already weak).
Solution: The concossive shells should be added on to the factory instead of tech lab, but it should be given a small(i mean small, maybe 2 or 3 units instead of 1) aoe radius. This will allow the upgrade to be very beneficial in the mid-late game while preventing infinite zealot kiting in the early game.
Hellions: Hellions i think are not as overpowered as many people state, but they are overpowered at what they do. That is, they are ridiculously good against light units.
Let's compare a hellion to a colossus:
A hellion roasts light units, is really fast, but is really bad against everything else.
A colossus roasts light units, does good against other units, but is really slow and vulnerable(without support).
If people are massing hellions, that tells you something: They are insanely cost efficient. It is better to gaurantee economy damage by massing Hellions than it is to make an army and stay alive. That is not healthy for the game.
Solution: I am actually okay with the nerf to the hellions damage against light, HOWEVER, increase its base damage against non-light. Have you seen a hellion hit a roach or marauder? Its really a sad joke. Make the unit more versatile. I feel that if you have a few sitting back and safely doing damage to an army it wouldn't be overpowered. Right now they are just so weak its not worth even fighting with them unless you see lots of light units(which most players would stop making if they saw hellions).
Zerg:
Fungal Growth: Fungal growth does too many things at once. Its not the damage, its not how fast you get it. The fact it's so versatile is what makes people complain about it, and for good reason:
Good damage, roots, hits air units, can be used for harass, defense, offense.
There are too many ways to use fungal growth and they are all powerful. There have been many solutions posted on these forums, and i think blizzard needs to try them ALL out. Yes, even the crazy ones. Look at what might have the potential to function well and start there. Here are some issue's right now with balancing fungal growth:
You reduce its damage: If you reduce its damage, Zerg will just build more infestors than they did last time. If you reduce the damage too much, nobody will build infestors and they will suck. The fact it does damage has to either stay or go.(but if it goes go there has to be a reason to get infestors).
If Fungal can't hit air units: ZvZ will always be a muta battle. Infestor's are the only real counter to mutas, as Hydras die to banelings and Roaches. Hydra's aren't very cost efficient and i've never lost a game because of hydras. The infestor will also be useless because Phoenixes and Banshees will just find them and rip them to shreds. Nobody will go infestors because you will be vulnerable to air.
The root: Many have mentioned a slowing effect. Im not against this. Its something worth testing.
All in all, infestors are a be all unit. Im waiting for someone to win the GSL by building nothing but infestors. It's bound to happen.
Give infestors a role and make it worthwhile, but don't make them do everything at once.
Mutalisks: "Wait what? Are you crazy? Mutalisks?" You might ask...
Hear me out...
I do know that mutalisks are really bad in a head on fight, with GROUND!
Name one air unit(aside from maybe corrupters) that sufficiently counters a mutalisk?
Viking: You spent all your money rushing to vikings to counter mutalisks. You also made marines. Now lings and banelings swarm your marines. Since you have no medivacs or tanks your marines die very quickly. At best you broke even with the mutalisks and now you have 1 or 2 vikings left to fight a hoard of zerglings and banelings.'
"What if i just use the vikings for base defense and macro?" You might ask....
When's the last time being defensive against a normal macro zerg a good idea? Building Vikings basically says "im not going to attack you anytime soon." Building one or two for scouting/map control is not what im talking about. Im not talkinga bout one or two vikings for map control here, i am saying massing up vikings to counter mutalisks.
Phoenix: If you have perfect micro and where massing them all game long, then sure, its a great counter. Except now, you have a million zerglings in your base and a bunch of gateway units with no AOE.... There goes your mineral line. Usually your phoenix will be outnumbered to the mutas. If you dont micro your phoenix mutas are actually efficient, and if the mutas and lings attack you at the same time, you can't really micro your phoenix aroudn because Mutas will just hit that small amount of ground units you have after massing phoenix.
But the big problem here isn't that the mutalisk is strong. Its that both races don't have an AIR unit that is an answer.
In Starcraft 1 there where Corsairs and Scouts for Protoss and valkyries(amazing against mutas) for Terran.
Now Protoss has Archons and Stalkers while Terran has Thor's and Marines. Forcing all the counters to ground units gives Zerg complete map control once mutas hit the field.
So i guess its not the mutalisk thats overpowered, but the other two races need a reasonable response to them.
Zerg has infestors and Corrupters(or just make mutalisks yourself), so the ZvZ matchup isn't as bad as the other two.
Anyway, that is all.
I know its a long post and if you made it this far you are awesome. Post what you think should be done for some of these changes, maybe blizzard will actually notice. I think the T and P suggestions are really interesting. Z less so, partially because I know less about Z and partially because it seems like more of a rehash of familiar territory. But I think both T suggestions are excellent. The Conc Shells in particular makes a load of sense. I also like making Hellions better in the late game, and I wonder if we could also make Reapers better in the late game? I like the concept of the Nexus power field, but I am concerned a) that it's too much like creep and b) that compared to creep spreading it's too expensive, at 100 minerals per pylon. I would suggest that the Nexus have a radius that appears on the owners map, and it should be roughly the size of a Sensor Tower, or maybe 1.5X that. Any pylon in that range provides Nexus power. This would be a much simpler mechanic, and would encourage expanding towards the enemy in order to have forward Nexus power. Meanwhile, Nexus' are expensive enough and slow building enough that the proxy Nexus would be rare, except for a handful of instantly-famous pro games ala Huk Mothership rush. This also alleviates a problem with the OP's proposal, which would be long chains of easily-sniped pylons. Force Fields I am a little more unsure about. I think the OP's point that the problem with the Colossus is actually a problem with the Sentry is astute, but I'm not sure I like any of the fixes you suggest. The thing about it is that they are SO important to survival in the early game. In that respect, lowering total energy is better than making the spell more expensive, for sure, but it still makes me uneasy. Hmm.
I don't see how you guys are saying concussive shell needs a buff. It's already an amazing ability on a great unit, if it hit more units, I'm pretty sure it would completely break the early and midgame, not to mention it's a 50/50 upgrade that has a very short build time.
|
Surprisingly progressive and effective thread so far. I'm really glad someone thought to do this. The discussions have been some of the most civilized balance discussions since sc2's beginning!
Terran ground army is basically good in my eyes (By good i mean complete). Subtle changes aside, i think that the terran ground composition and options are pretty much ideal atm. Terran air I feel is lacking something and yet is too powerful all at the same time. I think that the Banshee is a bad unit. It, much like the zerg infestor is simply too viable in most every situation. It serves as both an extremely effective harass unit as well as a legitimate army unit (mostly in pvt but also tvt) and it can be molded into just about any terran strategy. I don't claim to be an expert, that's just my opinion on that particular unit.
I think that Zerg is pretty good army wise but they could definitely use a caster that isn't a direct damage aoe jerk that does everything. Defilers are better for the game than infestors and yet defilers would actually BREAK sc2 so i'm kind of stumped T.T Corruptors and Broodlords are both kind of jenky imo but Broodlords are a more reasonable unit than corruptors. Corruptors are actually just kind of lame and don't add anything to the zerg race besides being a unit that is necessary to counter some protoss stuff
Protoss needs reavers or something like that to replace colossi. I don't honestly think that protoss units are that much easier to control or anything like that but honestly colossi are pretty lame to play with and play against. Also the fact that they are hit by AA really just seemed like something blizzard did to throw "cool stuff" at us and hope for the best. It resulted in this weird matchup where 1 or 2 deciding battles happens. Protoss needs good aoe in the form of a unit that can also harass without being a gigantic liability. If protoss is going to have the least mobile army, it needs to have the most fearsome army to fight as it seems to want to possess the role of the terran army in scbw
I know some of what i said is probably going to come off as stupid. Maybe it is. These are just the thoughts of a tired recently circumcised master leaguer who is on too much pain medication so go easy on me TL <3
|
I haven't been playing long, and I'm only plat, but so far I've been super impressed with SC2's balance! It doesn't seem like any race has a huge advantage in any matchup, 2/3 mirrors are currently interesting to me (something should, IMO, be done about PvP), and nothing's so strong you can just get one, fifteen minutes in, and the game turns upside down (I'm looking at you, devourer!).
Honestly, maybe some things could use a little tweaking (PvP mainly, but potentially another bunker salvage reduction, and potentially increased time of infestor upgrades), but I'm absolutely in love with this game and its excellent balance is a big part of that.
Anyway, this wouldn't be the balance thread without some sort of weird-ass idea to fix things that are perceived as broken, so here's my contribution: Counter 4gate in PvP. Just strengthen something so it can defend it, or weaken it to the point where it can be defended, without impacting other matchups significantly. Maybe steal the sensor tower for protoss, so you can see where he's warping in units and go kill the pylon? Maybe make it a little easier to get immortals going quickly?
Hell, maybe tosses should just start opening sentry/void ray. :D
|
I think the hellion nerf is good since 2 BFH can't 1-shot probes, but it still doesn't solve the problem of a couple hellions roasting the entire mineral line in no time.
Instead of only nerfing the damage, they should nerf the range. Right now, hellions can kite queens. If the range is lowered to 4, at least they will take one or two hits from queens.
The other problem is that hellions can easily roast away entire mineral fields. If hellion range is lowered, it will do less splash damage. The hellion will also have to get closer to its target, which makes it slightly harder to instantly roast away an entire mineral line.
I also think the siege tank range needs to change... not how far it can shoot, but how close it can shoot. Two siege tanks side-by-side can shoot at melee units that are attacking the other tank. I think that's too close.
|
On September 05 2011 17:16 CaptainPlatypus wrote:
I haven't been playing long, and I'm only plat, but so far I've been super impressed with SC2's balance! It doesn't seem like any race has a huge advantage in any matchup, 2/3 mirrors are currently interesting to me (something should, IMO, be done about PvP), and nothing's so strong you can just get one, fifteen minutes in, and the game turns upside down (I'm looking at you, devourer!).
Wait what? XD (I think you mean Defiler :p).
|
On September 05 2011 11:09 Sunrunner wrote:I was intrigued by Cryosin's recently closed thread, so I am quoting it here with my response. I hope that's OK, not withstanding the moderator's characterization of it as a "whine." If it isn't OK, please accept my sincere apologies. Show nested quote +Cryosin wrote:
These are mechanics that i think will always cause some form of imbalance in the game. Every race has them so don't take this as a "race is OP" post.
Let's begin:
Protoss:
Warpgates: The reason you cant expand in PvP is because of warpgate, not blink stalkers or 4-gate. Warp Gates
eliminate defenders advantage and creates some of the most unstoppable timing attacks in the game.
Solution: You should be allowed to warp in near your base and offensive warp-ins should require a Warp Prism.
Why a warp prism?
A) They are easy to spot and kill.
B) They require some investment(100 minerals is not an investment to completely ruin a defenders position.)
C) Their warp in radius is small, so you cannot simply warp in an entire army anywhere you want(unless you have
multiple warp prism's).
D) They require some micro and losing it should be something to avoid(whereas losing pylon is like whatever)
How do we make a "defensive warp in" work? I think a Nexus should give off its own field of energy. Any Plyon connected to this energy will spread it on its own field. Sort of like an energy creep. You can warp in units on this type of energy field OR you can warp in units from a warp prism.
You can still place pylons and buildings anywhere on the map, but not warp in units unless there is a nexus energy
connected to it.
So, for example:
Build a pylon near your nexus. Build another one a bit farther away. Then build another one a bit farther than that.
Eventually you want a string of pylons connected to a Nexus so you can warp in units throughout your base.
Forcefields: I feel the entire Protoss race is essentially balanced around this ability. I know a lot of players
find forcefields to be unneccessary, but try using them(using them correctly, that is). You'll quickly find that
battles you would've normally lost are now quickly sliding in your favor.Take any idea you ever had, add 5-8 sentries
to it, and you have a good army.
Zealot/Archon? Sure, get some sentries its great.
Carriers? What? ya! Just use some sentries and zealots,block half their army and watch Carriers and Zealots rip
everything to shreds.
Colossus? This one is self explanatory.
You get the deal. Forcefields work in every situation all the time and realistically, any army without sentries is
going to be significantly worse than it could have been.
Easy fix: Late game a big problem with sentries is that they can forcefield twice. Let's take a look at the big problem
here:
Forcefield costs 50 energy. A sentry can have up to 200 energy. So.. if you made 4 sentries and stocked up their energy
up until the mid-late game.. you have 16 forcefields. Now imagine if you had 8 sentries.... 32 forcefields. Realistically, youll be using about 4-6 forcefields each engagement. So if you made 8 sentries, kept them alive, and got into the mid game.. you can forcefield an army essentially as much as you want. This is a major balance issue. I think the sentry's max energy should be reduced to 150 at least. Personally, i think the sentries damage should go back to how it was in beta, but reduce its energy to 100. However, reducing the energy to 150 is a great start.
Long-term solution: I think forcefields should slow a units movement and attack speed, rather than trap them. The sentry should be doing more damage and the gateway units as a whole should be a bit better. this would not happen any time soon though but is something to look at.
Colossus? A lot of people complain about the colossus. Personally, i find it to be balanced but coupled with sentries it can lead to some big problems. So in the end i think the problem isn't the Colossus, but rather the sentry.
Terran:
Concussive Shells: I think the design of concussive makes it really good when it shouldn't be and really useless when it should be good. Early game the ability completely shuts down Protoss, but late game it does very little since there are so many units on the field. It also doesn't last long enough to really get that final kill(unless the unit is already weak).
Solution: The concossive shells should be added on to the factory instead of tech lab, but it should be given a small(i mean small, maybe 2 or 3 units instead of 1) aoe radius. This will allow the upgrade to be very beneficial in the mid-late game while preventing infinite zealot kiting in the early game.
Hellions: Hellions i think are not as overpowered as many people state, but they are overpowered at what they do. That is, they are ridiculously good against light units.
Let's compare a hellion to a colossus:
A hellion roasts light units, is really fast, but is really bad against everything else.
A colossus roasts light units, does good against other units, but is really slow and vulnerable(without support).
If people are massing hellions, that tells you something: They are insanely cost efficient. It is better to gaurantee economy damage by massing Hellions than it is to make an army and stay alive. That is not healthy for the game.
Solution: I am actually okay with the nerf to the hellions damage against light, HOWEVER, increase its base damage against non-light. Have you seen a hellion hit a roach or marauder? Its really a sad joke. Make the unit more versatile. I feel that if you have a few sitting back and safely doing damage to an army it wouldn't be overpowered. Right now they are just so weak its not worth even fighting with them unless you see lots of light units(which most players would stop making if they saw hellions).
Zerg:
Fungal Growth: Fungal growth does too many things at once. Its not the damage, its not how fast you get it. The fact it's so versatile is what makes people complain about it, and for good reason:
Good damage, roots, hits air units, can be used for harass, defense, offense.
There are too many ways to use fungal growth and they are all powerful. There have been many solutions posted on these forums, and i think blizzard needs to try them ALL out. Yes, even the crazy ones. Look at what might have the potential to function well and start there. Here are some issue's right now with balancing fungal growth:
You reduce its damage: If you reduce its damage, Zerg will just build more infestors than they did last time. If you reduce the damage too much, nobody will build infestors and they will suck. The fact it does damage has to either stay or go.(but if it goes go there has to be a reason to get infestors).
If Fungal can't hit air units: ZvZ will always be a muta battle. Infestor's are the only real counter to mutas, as Hydras die to banelings and Roaches. Hydra's aren't very cost efficient and i've never lost a game because of hydras. The infestor will also be useless because Phoenixes and Banshees will just find them and rip them to shreds. Nobody will go infestors because you will be vulnerable to air.
The root: Many have mentioned a slowing effect. Im not against this. Its something worth testing.
All in all, infestors are a be all unit. Im waiting for someone to win the GSL by building nothing but infestors. It's bound to happen.
Give infestors a role and make it worthwhile, but don't make them do everything at once.
Mutalisks: "Wait what? Are you crazy? Mutalisks?" You might ask...
Hear me out...
I do know that mutalisks are really bad in a head on fight, with GROUND!
Name one air unit(aside from maybe corrupters) that sufficiently counters a mutalisk?
Viking: You spent all your money rushing to vikings to counter mutalisks. You also made marines. Now lings and banelings swarm your marines. Since you have no medivacs or tanks your marines die very quickly. At best you broke even with the mutalisks and now you have 1 or 2 vikings left to fight a hoard of zerglings and banelings.'
"What if i just use the vikings for base defense and macro?" You might ask....
When's the last time being defensive against a normal macro zerg a good idea? Building Vikings basically says "im not going to attack you anytime soon." Building one or two for scouting/map control is not what im talking about. Im not talkinga bout one or two vikings for map control here, i am saying massing up vikings to counter mutalisks.
Phoenix: If you have perfect micro and where massing them all game long, then sure, its a great counter. Except now, you have a million zerglings in your base and a bunch of gateway units with no AOE.... There goes your mineral line. Usually your phoenix will be outnumbered to the mutas. If you dont micro your phoenix mutas are actually efficient, and if the mutas and lings attack you at the same time, you can't really micro your phoenix aroudn because Mutas will just hit that small amount of ground units you have after massing phoenix.
But the big problem here isn't that the mutalisk is strong. Its that both races don't have an AIR unit that is an answer.
In Starcraft 1 there where Corsairs and Scouts for Protoss and valkyries(amazing against mutas) for Terran.
Now Protoss has Archons and Stalkers while Terran has Thor's and Marines. Forcing all the counters to ground units gives Zerg complete map control once mutas hit the field.
So i guess its not the mutalisk thats overpowered, but the other two races need a reasonable response to them.
Zerg has infestors and Corrupters(or just make mutalisks yourself), so the ZvZ matchup isn't as bad as the other two.
Anyway, that is all.
I know its a long post and if you made it this far you are awesome. Post what you think should be done for some of these changes, maybe blizzard will actually notice. I think the T and P suggestions are really interesting. Z less so, partially because I know less about Z and partially because it seems like more of a rehash of familiar territory. But I think both T suggestions are excellent. The Conc Shells in particular makes a load of sense. I also like making Hellions better in the late game, and I wonder if we could also make Reapers better in the late game? I like the concept of the Nexus power field, but I am concerned a) that it's too much like creep and b) that compared to creep spreading it's too expensive, at 100 minerals per pylon. I would suggest that the Nexus have a radius that appears on the owners map, and it should be roughly the size of a Sensor Tower, or maybe 1.5X that. Any pylon in that range provides Nexus power. This would be a much simpler mechanic, and would encourage expanding towards the enemy in order to have forward Nexus power. Meanwhile, Nexus' are expensive enough and slow building enough that the proxy Nexus would be rare, except for a handful of instantly-famous pro games ala Huk Mothership rush. This also alleviates a problem with the OP's proposal, which would be long chains of easily-sniped pylons. Force Fields I am a little more unsure about. I think the OP's point that the problem with the Colossus is actually a problem with the Sentry is astute, but I'm not sure I like any of the fixes you suggest. The thing about it is that they are SO important to survival in the early game. In that respect, lowering total energy is better than making the spell more expensive, for sure, but it still makes me uneasy. Hmm.
Some of these changes made by Cryosin are actually pretty good.
I think the most important thing to note is that they are not only mere balance changes, but also gameplay improvements.
I actually believe that for its short life span SC2 is overall pretty well balanced. Sure, there is some stuff that has to be looked, but for a game that is one year out is already looking okay in terms of balance.
However - and here comes the "rant" - watching SC2 has become boring and uninteresting to me by now and I resorted to watching SC BW (I never really played this game aside from the campaign) and DOTA2.
And the reason for this is that some MUs may be balanced in terms of "chances to win the match", but they are horrible to watch from times to times.
One factor is for instance Protoss being balanced around FF and Warpgates. Yeah PvT (apart from 1-1-1) is probably balanced as well as PvZ still it is just rediculous to see a Terran get off the money EMPs on the Protoss' HTs and just stomp the Protoss army. Same goes for the Terran losing his ghosts without EMPing properly and getting destroyed by Storm.
In general casters are too important and too much of a staple unit. Count the numbers of Defilers, HTs, Arbiters or Vessels in SC:BW that are out on the battlefield at the same time and compare those to the number of casters in SC2. It is a legit strategy to mass ghosts, to mass infestors and to mass Sentries and HTs to some degree. They are core units, not auxilary units.
Another thing that I find really disturbing is the pace of battles. Look at BW, Dota (1 or 2), hell yeah even look at the "oh-so terrible" WC3. Battles are somewhat "slower" as the DPS to HP ratio is lower than in SC2. People have been complaining about the lack of micro and blamed it on "bad unit design". Well, I guess it is not only that, I believe the fact that everything dies so quickly also plays a huge part in it.
That being said, I don't know if Cryosin's propositions would improve balance (I am not the one to tell), but they would most likely improve game play and make the game at least for me as a fellow esports fan who seeks entertainment more interesting,
The question is: What is Blizzard's point of view on this?
They have their "numbers" and "make combat tool" and what not, but will they go so far and rework Warpgate or are they too stubborn?
When TFT came out for WC3 there were some quite huge changes to the mechanics greatly improving the multiplayer of it.
HotS is the chance for Blizz to elevate SC2 into the state where other games already are.
I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I'd like to throw some questions out there:
1.) How can "balance design" and "gameplay design" be distinguished?
2.) How do they interact?
3.) Do you think that they are two distinct elements or do you thinkt that balance and gameplay go hand in hand?
I don't know what Blizzard's policy is in this. They nerfed the Thor's Cannon a while ago to get rid of the mass Thor push against Protoss. However, as stated by Blizz, they didn't do so because of balance concerns, but because "they don't want the Thor to be a unit that gets massed", because mass Thors armies look shitty. In this "balance" change aesthetical aspects actually played the major role. Bearing this in mind I could imagine Blizz to rework some stuff to not balace, but to improve the gameplay of the game.
|
@Iamyournoob
if you watch the Dustin browder interview, where he stands on a podium and makes fun of people ( yes, calling people noobs is making fun of people ) while saying such people hate him for putting in 'skill' based abilities like blink stalker spam, you will also see that he goes on to say "We wanted this game to go back and forth like football, to have the ability where a wild upset can occur, just from misplacing a single unit, etc". paraphrased, but essentially this is the reason for:
Huge DPS.
Spell casters having so much capability.
Force Field.
Blink.
Banelings. (even moreso because if it works perfectly against the other guy, you gain a huge advantage, if it hits tanks, or just dies alone without doing any damage, its a huge loss for you)
basically, they put things in the game that are powerful, especially in small army vs small army confrontations. The issue is that players are always looking for that edge, and massing unit that has "tide turning power X", is the most intuitive choice to make.
DB may have done these things to, in his words, "make it more exciting to watch like football, where at any second of the game there can be a huge upset, and that there's degrees of success like just missing or just making a 1st down (he seems too much of a wannabe jock-head to make good decisions for a strategy game but whatever), and all this is done to make it an e-sport", but that appears to be working against it as an e-sport.
After all, whats exciting about mass thor?
Whats exciting about mass blink stalker?
Whats exciting about mass ghost/mass marine micro wars?
Whats exciting where the only viable strats are "standard builds" that do the same thing over and over?
At least brood war had tons of variance in play. especially for zerg.
And the hole "buy HoTS to fix the game" issue is a real pile of crap. Its basically forcing you to spend more money to fix a game's problems. how can people not see that as simply a slimy business tactic?
|
On September 01 2011 19:00 Dezire wrote:
what i dont get is that zerg have with fungle an equally strong spell as storm, that zerg are allowed to have an energy upgrade for it so they can fungle right away with 7-8 infestors popping out, but when protoss could insta storm it is considered imbalanced...
simple. because you cant spawn infestors right in someone's base, and fungal requires more micro and control.
|
Russian Federation473 Posts
since the very begin of the beta test, i've been repeating one thing: HT's feedback is imbalanced vs. T.
Feedback is the reason why terrans always go marine marauder - because feedback hard counters any other terran unit composition (be it air or thors).
feedback counters
ghost
medivac
banshee
raven
battlecruiser
thor
when you can instantly snipe a unit for 200 gas (raven), using just 50 energy at a range of 9, it's over the top.
when you can instantly destroy 40 supply of enemy's army (in medivacs) just with one unit and 4 mouse clicks, it' too much.
when you can cripple both tier 3 terran units (thor and battlecruiser) instantly with the same unit, it's just ridiculous.
when, on top of that, you have equal chances of killing the unit that is supposed to counter you (ghost), it's just inacceptable.
protoss often complain about sniper round's 10 range (compared to 9 range of feedback). what they fail to mention, is that sniper round has a delay, and feedback is instant. actually if you send 4 ghosts at a single templar with sniper rounds queued up and a single templar at 4 ghosts with 4 feedbacks queued up, all ghosts will die.
if you say "emp", i'll remind you that emp removes only 100 energy, leaving enough energy for up to 2 feedbacks.
some other facts:
seeker missile has a range of 6, auto-turret and PDD of 2 and 3 respectively.
yamato has a range of 10, and takes 3 seconds (!!!!!!!!) to launch. feedback interrupts it in 99.9999 % of the cases, even after an emp.
250-mm strike cannons have a range of 7 and require 150 energy (!!!!!!!!!) and 2 seconds (!). Is it not ridiculous?
i've been saying it since beta: feedback is broken.
what do i propose? make it remove up to 100 energy/health instead of all energy. it won't be enough, but it will make it somehow fair. it won't affect HT vs ghost/infestor play by any means btw.
i'll try to make a replay on the unit test map and show all the broken issues about the feedback.
|
Russian Federation2 Posts
On September 05 2011 11:09 Sunrunner wrote:I was intrigued by Cryosin's recently closed thread, so I am quoting it here with my response. I hope that's OK, not withstanding the moderator's characterization of it as a "whine." If it isn't OK, please accept my sincere apologies. Show nested quote +Cryosin wrote:
These are mechanics that i think will always cause some form of imbalance in the game. Every race has them so don't take this as a "race is OP" post.
Let's begin:
Protoss:
Warpgates: The reason you cant expand in PvP is because of warpgate, not blink stalkers or 4-gate. Warp Gates
eliminate defenders advantage and creates some of the most unstoppable timing attacks in the game.
Solution: You should be allowed to warp in near your base and offensive warp-ins should require a Warp Prism.
Why a warp prism?
A) They are easy to spot and kill.
B) They require some investment(100 minerals is not an investment to completely ruin a defenders position.)
C) Their warp in radius is small, so you cannot simply warp in an entire army anywhere you want(unless you have
multiple warp prism's).
D) They require some micro and losing it should be something to avoid(whereas losing pylon is like whatever)
How do we make a "defensive warp in" work? I think a Nexus should give off its own field of energy. Any Plyon connected to this energy will spread it on its own field. Sort of like an energy creep. You can warp in units on this type of energy field OR you can warp in units from a warp prism.
You can still place pylons and buildings anywhere on the map, but not warp in units unless there is a nexus energy
connected to it.
So, for example:
Build a pylon near your nexus. Build another one a bit farther away. Then build another one a bit farther than that.
Eventually you want a string of pylons connected to a Nexus so you can warp in units throughout your base.
Forcefields: I feel the entire Protoss race is essentially balanced around this ability. I know a lot of players
find forcefields to be unneccessary, but try using them(using them correctly, that is). You'll quickly find that
battles you would've normally lost are now quickly sliding in your favor.Take any idea you ever had, add 5-8 sentries
to it, and you have a good army.
Zealot/Archon? Sure, get some sentries its great.
Carriers? What? ya! Just use some sentries and zealots,block half their army and watch Carriers and Zealots rip
everything to shreds.
Colossus? This one is self explanatory.
You get the deal. Forcefields work in every situation all the time and realistically, any army without sentries is
going to be significantly worse than it could have been.
Easy fix: Late game a big problem with sentries is that they can forcefield twice. Let's take a look at the big problem
here:
Forcefield costs 50 energy. A sentry can have up to 200 energy. So.. if you made 4 sentries and stocked up their energy
up until the mid-late game.. you have 16 forcefields. Now imagine if you had 8 sentries.... 32 forcefields. Realistically, youll be using about 4-6 forcefields each engagement. So if you made 8 sentries, kept them alive, and got into the mid game.. you can forcefield an army essentially as much as you want. This is a major balance issue. I think the sentry's max energy should be reduced to 150 at least. Personally, i think the sentries damage should go back to how it was in beta, but reduce its energy to 100. However, reducing the energy to 150 is a great start.
Long-term solution: I think forcefields should slow a units movement and attack speed, rather than trap them. The sentry should be doing more damage and the gateway units as a whole should be a bit better. this would not happen any time soon though but is something to look at.
Colossus? A lot of people complain about the colossus. Personally, i find it to be balanced but coupled with sentries it can lead to some big problems. So in the end i think the problem isn't the Colossus, but rather the sentry.
Terran:
Concussive Shells: I think the design of concussive makes it really good when it shouldn't be and really useless when it should be good. Early game the ability completely shuts down Protoss, but late game it does very little since there are so many units on the field. It also doesn't last long enough to really get that final kill(unless the unit is already weak).
Solution: The concossive shells should be added on to the factory instead of tech lab, but it should be given a small(i mean small, maybe 2 or 3 units instead of 1) aoe radius. This will allow the upgrade to be very beneficial in the mid-late game while preventing infinite zealot kiting in the early game.
Hellions: Hellions i think are not as overpowered as many people state, but they are overpowered at what they do. That is, they are ridiculously good against light units.
Let's compare a hellion to a colossus:
A hellion roasts light units, is really fast, but is really bad against everything else.
A colossus roasts light units, does good against other units, but is really slow and vulnerable(without support).
If people are massing hellions, that tells you something: They are insanely cost efficient. It is better to gaurantee economy damage by massing Hellions than it is to make an army and stay alive. That is not healthy for the game.
Solution: I am actually okay with the nerf to the hellions damage against light, HOWEVER, increase its base damage against non-light. Have you seen a hellion hit a roach or marauder? Its really a sad joke. Make the unit more versatile. I feel that if you have a few sitting back and safely doing damage to an army it wouldn't be overpowered. Right now they are just so weak its not worth even fighting with them unless you see lots of light units(which most players would stop making if they saw hellions).
Zerg:
Fungal Growth: Fungal growth does too many things at once. Its not the damage, its not how fast you get it. The fact it's so versatile is what makes people complain about it, and for good reason:
Good damage, roots, hits air units, can be used for harass, defense, offense.
There are too many ways to use fungal growth and they are all powerful. There have been many solutions posted on these forums, and i think blizzard needs to try them ALL out. Yes, even the crazy ones. Look at what might have the potential to function well and start there. Here are some issue's right now with balancing fungal growth:
You reduce its damage: If you reduce its damage, Zerg will just build more infestors than they did last time. If you reduce the damage too much, nobody will build infestors and they will suck. The fact it does damage has to either stay or go.(but if it goes go there has to be a reason to get infestors).
If Fungal can't hit air units: ZvZ will always be a muta battle. Infestor's are the only real counter to mutas, as Hydras die to banelings and Roaches. Hydra's aren't very cost efficient and i've never lost a game because of hydras. The infestor will also be useless because Phoenixes and Banshees will just find them and rip them to shreds. Nobody will go infestors because you will be vulnerable to air.
The root: Many have mentioned a slowing effect. Im not against this. Its something worth testing.
All in all, infestors are a be all unit. Im waiting for someone to win the GSL by building nothing but infestors. It's bound to happen.
Give infestors a role and make it worthwhile, but don't make them do everything at once.
Mutalisks: "Wait what? Are you crazy? Mutalisks?" You might ask...
Hear me out...
I do know that mutalisks are really bad in a head on fight, with GROUND!
Name one air unit(aside from maybe corrupters) that sufficiently counters a mutalisk?
Viking: You spent all your money rushing to vikings to counter mutalisks. You also made marines. Now lings and banelings swarm your marines. Since you have no medivacs or tanks your marines die very quickly. At best you broke even with the mutalisks and now you have 1 or 2 vikings left to fight a hoard of zerglings and banelings.'
"What if i just use the vikings for base defense and macro?" You might ask....
When's the last time being defensive against a normal macro zerg a good idea? Building Vikings basically says "im not going to attack you anytime soon." Building one or two for scouting/map control is not what im talking about. Im not talkinga bout one or two vikings for map control here, i am saying massing up vikings to counter mutalisks.
Phoenix: If you have perfect micro and where massing them all game long, then sure, its a great counter. Except now, you have a million zerglings in your base and a bunch of gateway units with no AOE.... There goes your mineral line. Usually your phoenix will be outnumbered to the mutas. If you dont micro your phoenix mutas are actually efficient, and if the mutas and lings attack you at the same time, you can't really micro your phoenix aroudn because Mutas will just hit that small amount of ground units you have after massing phoenix.
But the big problem here isn't that the mutalisk is strong. Its that both races don't have an AIR unit that is an answer.
In Starcraft 1 there where Corsairs and Scouts for Protoss and valkyries(amazing against mutas) for Terran.
Now Protoss has Archons and Stalkers while Terran has Thor's and Marines. Forcing all the counters to ground units gives Zerg complete map control once mutas hit the field.
So i guess its not the mutalisk thats overpowered, but the other two races need a reasonable response to them.
Zerg has infestors and Corrupters(or just make mutalisks yourself), so the ZvZ matchup isn't as bad as the other two.
Anyway, that is all.
I know its a long post and if you made it this far you are awesome. Post what you think should be done for some of these changes, maybe blizzard will actually notice. I think the T and P suggestions are really interesting. Z less so, partially because I know less about Z and partially because it seems like more of a rehash of familiar territory. But I think both T suggestions are excellent. The Conc Shells in particular makes a load of sense. I also like making Hellions better in the late game, and I wonder if we could also make Reapers better in the late game? I like the concept of the Nexus power field, but I am concerned a) that it's too much like creep and b) that compared to creep spreading it's too expensive, at 100 minerals per pylon. I would suggest that the Nexus have a radius that appears on the owners map, and it should be roughly the size of a Sensor Tower, or maybe 1.5X that. Any pylon in that range provides Nexus power. This would be a much simpler mechanic, and would encourage expanding towards the enemy in order to have forward Nexus power. Meanwhile, Nexus' are expensive enough and slow building enough that the proxy Nexus would be rare, except for a handful of instantly-famous pro games ala Huk Mothership rush. This also alleviates a problem with the OP's proposal, which would be long chains of easily-sniped pylons. Force Fields I am a little more unsure about. I think the OP's point that the problem with the Colossus is actually a problem with the Sentry is astute, but I'm not sure I like any of the fixes you suggest. The thing about it is that they are SO important to survival in the early game. In that respect, lowering total energy is better than making the spell more expensive, for sure, but it still makes me uneasy. Hmm.
I agree. His post needs more discussion. His suggestions on P and T are really valid and worth some discussion, especially the one about concussive shells. It is ok per se, but it is a bit misplaced, as suggested by the author.
|
On August 31 2011 00:12 ToastieNL wrote:
FOR FUCKING HELLS SAKE!
I had an early expo, concave advantage, 20 supply more of units that were microed, (Immortals-Thors, Stalkers-Banshee/Raven, Guardian Shield), Already forced his PDD TWICE (No in main battle) and engaged in a choke on my natural, had 2 collosi+ range targeting Marines, and STILL FUCKING LOST
HOW THE....!??!
he has 0 APM during the fight. ZERO! WHAT THE FUCK!?
In other words, what to do different vs Thor/Marine/Banshee/Raven All-In? I just don't understand :'(
Im guessing an archon or two, since coloss will be redundant and will also not do damage to sky units, and will be quickly focused down, while archon is faster to produce and hits the bio ball nasty.
next time, try hugging his army like a zerg would, and apply an archon from behind.
And I sympathize with you. Against Z its also a ridiculous unit comp. luckily we have banes and fungal.
What I think is silly, is that terran can go banshees or vikings Vs colossus. and if its an all ground army, banshee is actually the better deal, since being light it takes reduced damage from stalker, and being that it does loads of ground damage, its not useless after taking out coloss.
viking, can hit air, morphs to hit ground.
banshee, can hit ground, which is most of the DPS and counter units from Z and P come from anyway.
Soooo versatile compared to zerg... sigh.
|
In general casters are too important and too much of a staple unit. Count the numbers of Defilers, HTs, Arbiters or Vessels in SC:BW that are out on the battlefield at the same time and compare those to the number of casters in SC2. It is a legit strategy to mass ghosts, to mass infestors and to mass Sentries and HTs to some degree. They are core units, not auxilary units.
Spellcasters in SC2 wouldn't be hard to fix.
1st change, make it so that the main support casters do not counter each other. Science vessels and arbiters worked like a lot of spell caster micro battles because arbiters didn't directly threaten science vessels resulting a micro war that affected the armies more greatly as a result. Feedback vs EMP and snipe is not the same dynamic not to mention they come out much earlier when the game is more volatile.
Changes
Ghost - 70 HP
EMP as a slow researching middling cost upgrade (150/150/120)
EMP has a range of 7
Snipe does slightly more damage, but targets ground and has a slightly longer delay. Essentially it has to be aimed with great micro. Snipe range increased to 10. Deals damage ignoring shields.
High Templar
Feedback injures but will not completely kill. Range reduced to 8
Psi storm energy cost increased to 100, damage increased to 120 over 8 seconds. Cooldown removed, range decreased to 7
Infestor
Fungal growth range increased to 10
Stuns unit on hit for 1 second, slows units for 4 seconds. Stun cannot stack and fungal slow will not reset until effect wears off.
Infested terran requires a quick 100/100 research upgrade. Infested terran hatch slightly more quickly.
Raven
Cost changed to 150/150, build time changed to 65
PDD starts with 100 less energy, but has 50 more health.
PDD range increased to 9 (10 with upgrade)
Energy now recharges like protoss shields
Durable materials cost decreased to 50/50/80
Corvid reactor cost decreased to 100/100
Hunter seeker missile energy reduced to 100
Hunter seeker missile now has 30 health and can be targeted, but has low priority.
Seeker missile movement speed increased from 2.5 to 2.953.
Sentry
Could be changed but not sure if worth it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
