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On April 12 2012 20:52 Bommes wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 18:52 FrogOfWar wrote:On April 12 2012 18:14 NukeD wrote:On April 12 2012 17:29 SmileZerg wrote:On April 12 2012 17:24 Disastorm wrote: Does anyone understand what new ability they are talking about with the Viper, we already knew they had an aoe cloud that made units in it get a range of 1...
And WOOt Viper gets Consume, is that what they meant by new ability?! It sounds like the Blinding Cloud has been changed. Previously it created a "smog tile" that reduced units under it to range 1 but they could micro out. Now it sounds like it hits units in an AoE and they stay blinded (range 1) regardless of where they move for an unknown duration, HOWEVER only bio is affected now. This makes the ability stronger against Terran M&M and zerg roach/hydra armies, but it can no longer be used versus Protoss balls, siege tank lines, mech or bunkered units. This is my understanding anyways. If this is true that basically means we get Infestor #2, with a difference that this one doesnt kill units and works only on bio. Yes I would definitely prefer this ability over fungal when im in the mood for trolling my opponent. First I drain his one mineral then when his marine comes I pull him under me and make him blind then poo creep on him. Then I plant Mushrooms in his main. Can't wait to try this ;-) But why do you assume he has only 1 marine? But seriously, I agree that the new aoe spell seems to overlap a little too much with infestor/fungal. Marines get owned by infestor with ling/bling already, so no need to blind them. And in roach/hydra battles the infestor already seems enough to make these fights less linear and predictable. With blinding added in, the spellcasting could become redundant and confusing. As a zerg, I still find abduct potentially useful, but silly. Looking forward to the worms though. How can it overlap when one of the casters is flying and the other one is not? Thats already completely different circumstances from a gameplay point of view. Also one of them needs an additional building, the other one does not. One is crucial for getting vision of invisible things in the midgame, the other one is not. In my opinion viper is designed to be aggressive, while Infestors are the classic super defensive unit choice (with an added sneakiness bonus with burrow movement, but you will usually only see this in the lategame because they are too valuable before that).
True, the viper being a flyer opens up a range of quite different applications. But I didn't say the units are are identical, I said their spells overlap. One needing an extra building has nothing to do with that. Not sure what you mean by getting vision in the midgame. Fungal? In the midgame you have overseers and evo chambers, no? You can roughly sum up the overlap I was referring to by saying that both spells render the units in their aoe relatively useless for a limited period of time.
But in general I think that all we have at this point are very vague ideas, and I consider much of the criticism to be premature. We have to wait and see. As for the people who hate SC2, they have every right to hate it. I simply don't understand why they're here. If you just want BW with better graphics, there is SC2BW for ya. Everyone's happy.
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On April 12 2012 17:21 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 17:15 Gosi wrote:On April 12 2012 16:51 Big J wrote:On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: Really a move in the right direction, However I suggest:
Take the opportunity of a new expansion to implement the 6m1g (or even 6m2g, with slightly lower gas income). Take care of all those 1 base all-ins (and even 2 bases) that make the game what it sadly is right now. Make it more dynamic, force the players to play on more bases, raise the population cap to 250 or so (a good macro player gets 80+ workers... almost half of the total population he's allowed to have). way more testing has to be done, especially among the prolevel to see if it even does what it should do. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: Add in map control units: -the shredder as a protoss unit (non-droppable, to avoid harassing with it) -spider mines... and vultures to replace helions. Why did they even change it? Vultures had more uses and required more skill than helions because spider mines would be broken with clumping and the pure mineral cost of vultures; also everything required "more skill" in BW, because the AI was terrible. Doesn't mean that it would require more skill in SC2. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: -LURKERS, not swarm host... yes the swarm host is original, but why bother trying originality when the lurker was one of BW's best unit? They bother, because the lurker was not being played when it was in the game and it was the last unit to be removed, not because they didn't want it, but because it had no use in SC2. Not to mention that the swarm host is a completly different unit. People keep on comparing it with lurkes because it does something while burrowed... The host is a longrange artillery that needs support, the lurker was a midrange (the SC2 version in the lategame also a longrange, but not as long as swarm host), powerful combat unit. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: MORE RESEARCH AND UPGRADES, I don't like the fact that medivacs can heal AND drop without an upgrade, nor the phoenix having the graviton beam (or however it's called) without a small upgrade, nor infestors being able to cast 2 spells without an upgrade. In BW, spellcasters were practically useless without an upgrade of some kind. More upgrades require an higher investment in the tech tree the player is deciding to go for, and this is what this game needs. depends; if you do mineral only upgrades, it is basically the same idea as barrins (taking money out of the game), if you do it with the standard (for SC2 and BW) gasheavy costs, you just limit the game to more lowtier units. (--> one factor why Ravens are not being used a lot, is the amount of passive costs that come with it in the form of upgrades, techlabs and starports needed for them) On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: I'm not saying I want SC2 to be BW, but just watch a BW game and then watch a SC2 game.... BW games generally do NOT end with one big fight. They require movement and map domination. They force the player to make the other one starve as all his bases run out of ressources, and apart from SC2's TvT, I rarely see those situations. I did, I still prefer a good SC2 game. I like how SC2 is about fighting your opponent, while BW is about fighting the AI to fight your opponent. Saying spider mines would be broken cuz of clumping is like saying banelings and baneling bombs are broken too. But in your mind they aren't because you are zerg and biased. a baneling costs more than a vulture would probably cost; If they make vultures cost gas, it would be OK - though it would break mechs back. (though there would still be the issue that SC2 overlords aren't detectors) Things have to be balanced around their costs. 75minerals (or make it 100) for a ranged, fast unit + 3 mines... That sounds pretty ridicolous to me, when one comparable SC2 mine costs 50/25.
Wait... who said the vulture would cost 75 minerals and have 3 mines? I meant the idea of a light and fast mech unit with X number of mines is a way more interesting unit than a motorcycle with a flamethrower, isn't it?
By removing spider mines and only giving them to zergs (to a certain extend) has severely reduced the depth of going mech in SC2.
I understand that not every unit can do a transition from BW to SC2 without a change: The reaver with a good AI, along with the clumping up dynamic of SC2 would be insanely OP. HOWEVER, by changing from an embarassingly slow "artillery" unit which required a shuttle to move efficiently, to a 1a unit that follows the main army perfectly, the game has been dumbed down.
In the transition from BW to SC2, 2 SC2 units are,IMHO, improvements over their ancestors (balance aside): Guardians --> BroodLords Scouts --> Void Rays
In most other cases, an unit with subtility and specific controls has become a 1a unit.. this is dumbing down the game.
Edit: Stalkers (Blink) are also more interesting than the dragoon was.
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On April 12 2012 19:02 Osteriet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 18:58 iKill wrote: Yeah, I don't get all the hate for Mass Recall on Nexus as well. It's one of the most underrated abilities in the game (partly because it's so massively outshined by Vortex), and I really feel like moving it to the nexus (and more importantly, down the tech tree) will give Toss a lot more options in the midgame. Why do toss players feel like Recall on nexus is a bad thing? I guess it is because having the ability to reposition your army against any form of harass will be so OP that it will have to call for a nerf of the warp gate units to be balanced.
Yeah, I really don't understand Blizzard's obsession with infinite mobility for Protoss (warp gates, mass recall, nexus recall)
I mean, the whole "insta-build units to defend a base" is no more suited to Protoss than it is to Terran or even Zerg really... It just serves to gimp all of the Gateway units for the sake of itself. If Marines could come from drop pods, they wouldn't be War Pigs, they would be War Piglets.
They just need to ditch that warping shit and rebalance the units. Mothership recall is late enough and infrequent enough to be fine though.
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On April 12 2012 21:45 LavaLava wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 19:02 Osteriet wrote:On April 12 2012 18:58 iKill wrote: Yeah, I don't get all the hate for Mass Recall on Nexus as well. It's one of the most underrated abilities in the game (partly because it's so massively outshined by Vortex), and I really feel like moving it to the nexus (and more importantly, down the tech tree) will give Toss a lot more options in the midgame. Why do toss players feel like Recall on nexus is a bad thing? I guess it is because having the ability to reposition your army against any form of harass will be so OP that it will have to call for a nerf of the warp gate units to be balanced. Yeah, I really don't understand Blizzard's obsession with infinite mobility for Protoss (warp gates, mass recall, nexus recall) I mean, the whole "insta-build units to defend a base" is no more suited to Protoss than it is to Terran or even Zerg really... It just serves to gimp all of the Gateway units for the sake of itself. If Marines could come from drop pods, they wouldn't be War Pigs, they would be War Piglets. They just need to ditch that warping shit and rebalance the units. Mothership recall is late enough and infrequent enough to be fine though.
I completely agree with this post.. maybe make the warp prism the only unit with limited warp-in ability (along with mothership's recall), and then maybe gateway units will be able to be balanced correctly to deal with roaches and marauders which are overwhelmly superior units.
PvP would actually become decent, instead of being the matchup that makes me want to switch to T or Z.
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Seems like they are in a good direction. Replicant was indeed awful and good they are getting rid of it. I'm sad they still keep oracle on stargate (there needs to be viable harass on robo tech please!). I love the idea for a terran super long range weapon which will only be viable in tank vs tank wars. This way you spicen up mech vs mech wars without changing mech's performance against other races much, the only difficult thing about such a unit is that it might impose some problems in map making as sieging bases from behind cliffs etc get's too easy with it perhaps. As long as mech is not too dominant and other races can simply move out to kill this (plus make it a late late tech unit) that shouldn't be a problem. If they would keep the thor but instead give it an ability for a long range shot like this, call it mortar, which fires a shell at range 15 which does about a tanks hp in damage it would be good. Removing warhound seems fine, didn't like that unit at all. Don't like battlehellion either but will have to see.
I'm sad they are keeping the overseer though. Zero population units are boring by default because they are either worth spamming later if they have some worthy way to interact with combat or they simply have a bunch of glorified 'do nothing' abilities like the overseer has now. I guess they were unhappy with adding the mobile detection role to the viper though as that would mean it's directly available upon tier 2.
It's just so hard to see if it will end up well, I just hope they don't make some critical mistakes. Don't make too much stuff viable turning the game into more of a lottery that it already is. Give protoss some good and fun ways to get rid of deathball syndrome, give some unit worth dropping please. Don't let the only unit worth dropping really be countered by the same unit as the dropping itself.. Zerg additions seem pretty great so far. I had rather seen the siege unit work without spawning stuff (too much like broodlord) but perhaps it works out well. Why not just lurker though, such a cool unit that could function in the same way...
Always a bit afraid Dustin Browder suffers not invented here syndrome and doesn't want to copy too much of the broodwar units even if they would be the perfect solution to some of the current problems and already be immensely popular.
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On April 12 2012 20:52 Bommes wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 18:52 FrogOfWar wrote:On April 12 2012 18:14 NukeD wrote:On April 12 2012 17:29 SmileZerg wrote:On April 12 2012 17:24 Disastorm wrote: Does anyone understand what new ability they are talking about with the Viper, we already knew they had an aoe cloud that made units in it get a range of 1...
And WOOt Viper gets Consume, is that what they meant by new ability?! It sounds like the Blinding Cloud has been changed. Previously it created a "smog tile" that reduced units under it to range 1 but they could micro out. Now it sounds like it hits units in an AoE and they stay blinded (range 1) regardless of where they move for an unknown duration, HOWEVER only bio is affected now. This makes the ability stronger against Terran M&M and zerg roach/hydra armies, but it can no longer be used versus Protoss balls, siege tank lines, mech or bunkered units. This is my understanding anyways. If this is true that basically means we get Infestor #2, with a difference that this one doesnt kill units and works only on bio. Yes I would definitely prefer this ability over fungal when im in the mood for trolling my opponent. First I drain his one mineral then when his marine comes I pull him under me and make him blind then poo creep on him. Then I plant Mushrooms in his main. Can't wait to try this ;-) But why do you assume he has only 1 marine? But seriously, I agree that the new aoe spell seems to overlap a little too much with infestor/fungal. Marines get owned by infestor with ling/bling already, so no need to blind them. And in roach/hydra battles the infestor already seems enough to make these fights less linear and predictable. With blinding added in, the spellcasting could become redundant and confusing. As a zerg, I still find abduct potentially useful, but silly. Looking forward to the worms though. How can it overlap when one of the casters is flying and the other one is not? Thats already completely different circumstances from a gameplay point of view. Also one of them needs an additional building, the other one does not. One is crucial for getting vision of invisible things in the midgame, the other one is not. In my opinion viper is designed to be aggressive, while Infestors are the classic super defensive unit choice (with an added sneakiness bonus with burrow movement, but you will usually only see this in the lategame because they are too valuable before that).
Then explain to me how does exactly Lurker overlap with Banelings because thats apparently the reason why they were removed from the game ( according to Blizzard).
If two units so different can overlap, why couldnt the same be the case for Infestor and Viper. Well the answer is: If the Blinding Cloud abillity is cast on units rather than on the ground it will by all means overlap with Infestor's Fungal Growth.
A better question is will Broodlords overlap with Swarm Host?
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Well this is some good news even though I dont play as much anymore and I am not even sure if I am going to buy Heart Of The Swarm. Cause I kind of seen it all.
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On April 12 2012 21:45 LavaLava wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 19:02 Osteriet wrote:On April 12 2012 18:58 iKill wrote: Yeah, I don't get all the hate for Mass Recall on Nexus as well. It's one of the most underrated abilities in the game (partly because it's so massively outshined by Vortex), and I really feel like moving it to the nexus (and more importantly, down the tech tree) will give Toss a lot more options in the midgame. Why do toss players feel like Recall on nexus is a bad thing? I guess it is because having the ability to reposition your army against any form of harass will be so OP that it will have to call for a nerf of the warp gate units to be balanced. Yeah, I really don't understand Blizzard's obsession with infinite mobility for Protoss (warp gates, mass recall, nexus recall) I mean, the whole "insta-build units to defend a base" is no more suited to Protoss than it is to Terran or even Zerg really... It just serves to gimp all of the Gateway units for the sake of itself. If Marines could come from drop pods, they wouldn't be War Pigs, they would be War Piglets. They just need to ditch that warping shit and rebalance the units. Mothership recall is late enough and infrequent enough to be fine though.
I like the idea of toss as the mobility race. Then terran can e the mech race.
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What I'd like for protoss to have is a way of detection while being in any tech path he choses. He could choose to have TC to HT or DT path while having a way of mobile detection, or going stargates and have mobile detection (didn't mention robo because it already has obs). That way, protoss could go to a tech path he chooses, and not being forced to go to for robo all the time in fear of the cloaked banshees or moving tunneled banelings.
Also, the warp-in ability is fine I guess, it's needed to cope up with insane zerg mobility or terran flexibility...what I don't like about it is its role in PvP...maybe make stalkers a bit stronger to cope up with the insane power of other races' early game and have the warp-in ability placed in the robo bay?
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The most interesting thing here for me is a spell caster feeding off minerals to recharge it's energy. Sounds like a really cool dynamic.
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On April 12 2012 21:41 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 17:21 Big J wrote:On April 12 2012 17:15 Gosi wrote:On April 12 2012 16:51 Big J wrote:On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: Really a move in the right direction, However I suggest:
Take the opportunity of a new expansion to implement the 6m1g (or even 6m2g, with slightly lower gas income). Take care of all those 1 base all-ins (and even 2 bases) that make the game what it sadly is right now. Make it more dynamic, force the players to play on more bases, raise the population cap to 250 or so (a good macro player gets 80+ workers... almost half of the total population he's allowed to have). way more testing has to be done, especially among the prolevel to see if it even does what it should do. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: Add in map control units: -the shredder as a protoss unit (non-droppable, to avoid harassing with it) -spider mines... and vultures to replace helions. Why did they even change it? Vultures had more uses and required more skill than helions because spider mines would be broken with clumping and the pure mineral cost of vultures; also everything required "more skill" in BW, because the AI was terrible. Doesn't mean that it would require more skill in SC2. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: -LURKERS, not swarm host... yes the swarm host is original, but why bother trying originality when the lurker was one of BW's best unit? They bother, because the lurker was not being played when it was in the game and it was the last unit to be removed, not because they didn't want it, but because it had no use in SC2. Not to mention that the swarm host is a completly different unit. People keep on comparing it with lurkes because it does something while burrowed... The host is a longrange artillery that needs support, the lurker was a midrange (the SC2 version in the lategame also a longrange, but not as long as swarm host), powerful combat unit. On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: MORE RESEARCH AND UPGRADES, I don't like the fact that medivacs can heal AND drop without an upgrade, nor the phoenix having the graviton beam (or however it's called) without a small upgrade, nor infestors being able to cast 2 spells without an upgrade. In BW, spellcasters were practically useless without an upgrade of some kind. More upgrades require an higher investment in the tech tree the player is deciding to go for, and this is what this game needs. depends; if you do mineral only upgrades, it is basically the same idea as barrins (taking money out of the game), if you do it with the standard (for SC2 and BW) gasheavy costs, you just limit the game to more lowtier units. (--> one factor why Ravens are not being used a lot, is the amount of passive costs that come with it in the form of upgrades, techlabs and starports needed for them) On April 12 2012 16:24 Patate wrote: I'm not saying I want SC2 to be BW, but just watch a BW game and then watch a SC2 game.... BW games generally do NOT end with one big fight. They require movement and map domination. They force the player to make the other one starve as all his bases run out of ressources, and apart from SC2's TvT, I rarely see those situations. I did, I still prefer a good SC2 game. I like how SC2 is about fighting your opponent, while BW is about fighting the AI to fight your opponent. Saying spider mines would be broken cuz of clumping is like saying banelings and baneling bombs are broken too. But in your mind they aren't because you are zerg and biased. a baneling costs more than a vulture would probably cost; If they make vultures cost gas, it would be OK - though it would break mechs back. (though there would still be the issue that SC2 overlords aren't detectors) Things have to be balanced around their costs. 75minerals (or make it 100) for a ranged, fast unit + 3 mines... That sounds pretty ridicolous to me, when one comparable SC2 mine costs 50/25. Wait... who said the vulture would cost 75 minerals and have 3 mines? I meant the idea of a light and fast mech unit with X number of mines is a way more interesting unit than a motorcycle with a flamethrower, isn't it? By removing spider mines and only giving them to zergs (to a certain extend) has severely reduced the depth of going mech in SC2. I understand that not every unit can do a transition from BW to SC2 without a change: The reaver with a good AI, along with the clumping up dynamic of SC2 would be insanely OP. HOWEVER, by changing from an embarassingly slow "artillery" unit which required a shuttle to move efficiently, to a 1a unit that follows the main army perfectly, the game has been dumbed down. In the transition from BW to SC2, 2 SC2 units are,IMHO, improvements over their ancestors (balance aside): Guardians --> BroodLords Scouts --> Void Rays In most other cases, an unit with subtility and specific controls has become a 1a unit.. this is dumbing down the game. Edit: Stalkers (Blink) are also more interesting than the dragoon was.
well, I basically agree with you, apart from the vulture>hellion part. I'm not sure, I think hellions are a very interesting unit with their line splash low range and their speed and one of the harder units to control properly imo And yeah, spider mines could be interesting, but the question is: how to make them work. Mineral only unit from a reactor with more than 1 spidermine sounds pretty strong, for as long as the spidermine is still a strong way to control Terrain and the unit that comes with it is not complete garbage. On the other hand, gasrequirements on the unit that deploys spidermines would just not go well with siege tanks and thors (or goliaths or vikings; whatever your antiair mech unit of choice would be in such a game). Maybe there could be a sweet spot of balancing (costs and stats for a mineral only unit; probably some form of: only comes with spidermines when produced by a techlab factory), around which those spidermine units could work in SC2, but I'm not really sure if the outcome would be interesting.
Also on another note, I don't think that a lot of the "1a-ishness" of certain units is a matter of design or balance, it's rather the AI + amount of mineral units in the game (--> see Barrin breadth of gameplay thread) are making certain units too expendable and too much balanced around throwing them away and reinforcing with more, rather than keeping them alive (I'm looking at you, roaches, zealots, bio, workers, zerglings...) For example splitting the hydra into two units - roaches and hydralisks - seems like a brilliant idea. It turns a boring "can attack air and ground, nothing more unit" into a diverse army that you need to keep the right ratio of. The problem is rather, that the intern balance of the composition is off (roaches to good without hydras, hydras rather crappy expensive addition to a composition that has no lategame potential). Now add to that that roaches best use is to trade them off as long as you can and we are back to "too expendable, no regeneration ability needed/used". And there are a ton more examples of great design BW-->SC2, it's just not really working out the way it could have gone in a (slightly?) different enviroment.
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bring back science vessels and vultures!
please!
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In other news, terran scientists have researched a spider mine capable of flight.
Well, I guess that's it then...
...*bang*
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"The tempest is currently a very long-ranged aerial siege weapon that can strike both air and ground targets." Good news everyone, we are removing the Carrier in favor of a new capital ship intended to do exactly the same 
Seems cool, I didn't really liked the Gundamesque new Terran unit, and the shredder looked pretty cheesy, so I'm good with those changes. The replicator was indeed risky design wise, and avoiding production of the power units that have good synergy with the Protoss army makes sense as a counter. I'm fine without it too. I think The Oracle was the most interesting Protoss unit at Blizzcon, and I'm glad they are still working on it. I don't know what to think about the new Nydus Worms, I'd like to see them in action to further build an opinion.
Anyway, maybe we'll be able to see some new interesting things going on, soon™.
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On April 12 2012 22:22 OskO wrote:"The tempest is currently a very long-ranged aerial siege weapon that can strike both air and ground targets." Good news everyone, we are removing the Carrier in favor of a new capital ship intended to do exactly the same 
but you seem to overlook the most important thing they do terrible terrible splash damage.
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Am i the only one who think vultures won't work? I mean I can pciture chargelots pulling dozens of mines into a siege tank line and the terran player just burtsing into tears.
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On April 12 2012 22:35 di3alot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 22:22 OskO wrote:"The tempest is currently a very long-ranged aerial siege weapon that can strike both air and ground targets." Good news everyone, we are removing the Carrier in favor of a new capital ship intended to do exactly the same  but you seem to overlook the most important thing they do terrible terrible splash damage. And lazorz can't be taken down like interceptors.
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I really don't like blizzard's mindset. SC2 is a step backwards in all aspects from BW (besides the user modern-friendly in-game UI) and all because they are stubborn and follow the "we know best" policy when it's clear they are doing things wrong since release. They remove key units and replace them with "fun and cool" stuff that ruin the almost perfect balance of BW. Colossus, marauder, roach, larvae inject mule etc etc etc. Why fix something that it's not broken? It's been two years since release and the game is seems stale and uninteresting. Why don't they swallow their pride and hire pros to balance and fix the game for them? Will it really hurt their image? Do they really want every unit to be "cool" at the cost of long term balance? As it is, HotS will drag along all the fundamental problems that are holding SC2 back. Problems that are hidden under a very enthusiastic and supportive community.
/endrant tl;dr: As someone else posted it this thread, SC2 is just mediocre RTS, it's BW's momentum that is keeping the game alive, not actual game quality.
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Hmmm... if they remove all this stuff, will there be more than one new unit per race?
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I honestly fear that whatever Blizzard will do no matter how good their intentions are the balance will be completely messed up because so far it seems they want to implement some units and gimmicks so badly which make no sense at all at this point to me and besides they cannot allow for the player's creativity to abuse certain things (can't blame them for that) that will end up in another long period of balance patches leaving some units completely useless. We already have so many units in the game that somehow malfunction and/or have major design flaws and trying to make up for that by bringing more units is just not right in my opinion. Then again without seeing the actual numbers it is hard to make assumptions how good/bad units are but knowing the whole terrible terrible damage philosophy leaves little room for hope to me.
Besides I really dislike every post proposing dull things like "bring back lurkers/vultures/science vessels" (and the inflationary use of the word "metagame" but that's another story). I could just say "gief grenadier from the original C&C" without providing any reasons why this unit will have a reason to be in this game. As much as I do love BW, SC2 works completely different and you just have to go adrift from its predecessor.
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