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On November 19 2012 09:19 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 09:11 Orcasgt24 wrote:
This is just a giant balance whine thread. Albeit a well written one. Why hasn't it been closed? Because there is a difference between balance whine and critiquing game design that creates unfun gameplay. Or game design that consists of hindering the other players units more than controlling your own units better. Zerg's could be even generally winning against Protoss overall and it can still be a legitimate critique because it's not about OP or imba, but what sort of gameplay does it promote.
I'll be honest, whenever I have to deal with FFs as Zerg (I switch between Z and P regularly nowadays), I just don't have fun because I feel like I'm at the will of the other player. I either get into his army before he FFs, he FFs poorly and I kill him, he FFs well and all my stuff dies, or I just run away. As P it feels too stressful and unfair for me to have to FF well and have that be what decides the game. It's an incredible amount of importance placed on just one ability so early in the game, it feels completely imbalanced from a designed perspective. Terrain manipulating spells just feel wrong when you have to balance maps and create positional play with room for creativity and micro. It isn't there nearly as much with FF and blizzard won't admit it. They'll just say something about internal testing they did and shoo us off while making another odd change like what they did to detection to make the widow mine work. It all feels forced, like they wanted to shoehorn ideas in because they thought they were cool and don't want to admit they aren't working right.
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LOL @ the first 3 responses.
Anyway...
Yeah, we all know how much heavy reliance on forcefield hurts Protoss design, but the real question is; Is Blizzard willing to completely redesign protoss early game?
They've already acknowledged that Protoss balance and design heavily revolves around ff, and they seemed satisfied. Is the community able to convince blizzard otherwise? We're going to need alot more support for this, it would be a massive design redirection.
Dustin Browder will never, ever, ever, ever, revert WGs or FF. They are in the game, and will never change in any dramatic way. The problem is that if he does in any way shape or form make any major change to these things, it means that he is all but admitting that his ideas were bad, and as such he was wrong despite the fact that we had plenty of pros on this very forum tell him his ideas were atrocious since the beta.
People put too much weight and negative criticism on Dustin. It isn't just him, its a whole team. Yeah, he leads the whole thing, but it doesn't mean that he has majority influence. If this beta has proved anything, its proved that he and his team are open to criticism and are actually (starting) to make decent design changes.
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On November 19 2012 09:32 MasterCynical wrote:LOL @ the first 3 responses. Anyway... Yeah, we all know how much heavy reliance on forcefield hurts Protoss design, but the real question is; Is Blizzard willing to completely redesign protoss early game? They've already acknowledged that Protoss balance and design heavily revolves around ff, and they seemed satisfied. Is the community able to convince blizzard otherwise? We're going to need alot more support for this, it would be a massive design redirection. Show nested quote +Dustin Browder will never, ever, ever, ever, revert WGs or FF. They are in the game, and will never change in any dramatic way. The problem is that if he does in any way shape or form make any major change to these things, it means that he is all but admitting that his ideas were bad, and as such he was wrong despite the fact that we had plenty of pros on this very forum tell him his ideas were atrocious since the beta.
People put too much weight and negative criticism on Dustin. It isn't just him, its a whole team. Yeah, he leads the whole thing, but it doesn't mean that he has majority influence. If this beta has proved anything, its proved that he and his team are open to criticism and are actually (starting) to make decent design changes.
There might be hope in Starcraft 3 
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On November 19 2012 09:15 superstartran wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 09:03 YyapSsap wrote:On November 19 2012 08:47 PH wrote:
They need to get rid of force field and make gateway units not suck balls. Gateway units dont suck contrary to popular belief. The way protoss functions, you need that key AOE dealing unit/caster (insert FF for SC2) to make these units effective on the field in PvZ. Pure gateway armies dont actually work in BW PvZ either outside some all in (dragoons get raped so much harder than stalkers vs lings/hydras+lurkers melt zealots in droves). But again we see that pattern. HTs and reavers literally kill off half (or less) of that threat compensating for the lack of cost efficient troop choices in this matchup. The difference in BW was that Z couldn't exponentially create units at a ridiculous rate that would run over a P player. Sure you had some lame ass 3 hatch Hydra play that was hard as fuck to stop, but that was possible to stop without AoE or very minimal amounts of AoE. Without FF, Protoss is literally fucked in SC2 in the early to mid game. Period. In smaller numbers, Zealot/Goon could actually murder the living fuck out of Z units, and could handle Hydras fairly well as long as the Z wasn't making Hydras en masse. This is espec true when Zeals got leg upgrades. It wasn't until Z got his economy really going that he could outproduce and just run you over with Hydra/Lurkers, but at that point your AoE is already on the field in the form of Archons/Reavers/HT. [
I completely agree with what your saying.
But you have exactly said the same thing I have! Because of the zerg macro mechanic in SC2 (larvae inject), you get huge influx of zerg troops ready at your disposal. Because in BW there was a hard cap and no larvae inject, Ps had an easier time in getting their tech and what not. In SC2, its quite the opposite. Because of such mechanic, alot more zerg units are out at times of the game which didn't happen in BW (which limits that small number vs small number example alot in game). Plus the AOE damage dealing units in the P arsenal is severely lacking against for instance 200/200 roach spams in comparison to their BW counterparts.
That is why the game now revolves around FFs in SC2 because of the lack of damage that the P army has against such a high hitpoint low cost roach based compositions which are plentiful in the early/mid game before winfestors hit the field. Its what keep SC2 Protoss on an even footing with zerg where as BW Protoss would be AOE/magicks/high tech units. Fighting large numbers with high tech AOE units mixed in with your gateway army.
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Hell, as a Protoss player this was apparent to me very early on in the game, but for different reasons. The Protoss early and mid game is just hyper dependent on this. I can't tell you how many games I won or lost when I was in the lower leagues learning the game basically entirely on hitting or flubbing forcefields in the early game (even on simple things like force fielding my ramp, which I couldn't even do consistently when I first started). Take the forcefield out, and Protoss needs to be redesigned in a major way. Redesign the ability, and Protoss still needs some redesign (imagine, for example, how useless forcefields become against those medivac timing pushes which Terran do with the relatively high DPS of the terran bio army.)
So, I agree, but I have no idea how Blizzard could realistically address this issue without changing pretty much the entire game at this point, since we know how small changes can ripple through the entire meta game.
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does anyone else feel like warpgates are impossible to balance? if you nerf the Wg units to make them used by the warpgate then they need the sentry to survive, if they removed the sentry and made zealot/stalker better not only would warpgate all ins be completely ridiculous, but blink timings would be even worse... that timing doens't rely on sentry (vs Terran) and would be hugely impacted by any changes. i dont think it's realistic to change forcefield, something just has to be done about the rate of production from zerg/warpgates before anything large in changes can be considered.
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possible solutions:
-make forcefields smaller
-make forcefields 75 energy, possibly with a pathogen glands style upgrade from the twilight council
-reduce immortal shields, or possibly make hardened shields an upgrade (both options might make PvP more interesting as well)
-raise base HP on stalkers to help compensate
Then nerf brood lord range by 1, roll burrow movement for roaches into the burrow upgrade and give them a researchable burrowed movement speed upgrade.
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Two issues I have:
1. Forcefields are invincible. This is just stupid, and I'm utterly amazed that it has not changed. Forcefields should be neutral destructibles. The amount of HP they have can be up to balance, but I was thinking around 400-600 HP or something.
A person should not be able to deny an entire army from doing anything just by expending 50 energy; It's absolutely absurd, and removes all sorts of skill from the game. Giving forcefields 400 HP won't really change anything except the situations where there's a large (and mostly ranged) army going against just a handful of units
2. This is more of a biased expression sympathizing with zerg, and not too related to the subject at hand, but something I still think is relevant:
Zergs have a major lack in versatility and/or late-game power. The words I chose in the last sentence may not entirely be correct, but it's hard to word it properly. What I mean is that zerg has only 2 fighter units that can attack both air and ground (When not considering mutalisk or queen to be fighter units, rather as defense/harass units, but maybe it's a bit unreasonable to say that for the mutalisk): the Hydralisk which is terrible and no one uses [for very good reasons], and the infestor. This makes the infestor innately important for zerg, since it's pretty much the only [zerg] thing used in a fight that can hit air and ground without dying super fast.
Infestor, corruptor, and Brood Lord are the only [good] units (hydralisk does not quality) that have reasonable range (more than 4) so that's another unsurprising reason to see them being used.
For comparison, Protoss has void ray, carrier, phoenix (somewhat), tempest, and stalker (didn't bother to include mothership or high templar), which all have generally good range as well. Terran have marine, thor, battlecruiser, raven, and viking.
Sure zerg is supposed to be swarmy and stuff, which worked in Brood War, but the current rendition of "swarmy" doesn't work well for SC2 I'd say.
In brood war zerg was quite swarmy, but due to the mechanics of the game, there were less units on the field at once generally, and units wouldn't clump up as much, making swarmy units quite good. Hydralisks were also more powerful and useful, and even if it did come to death ball situations, there were strong counter-measures (plague, dark swarm)
HotS seems to address these issues at least reasonably well though (from what I can tell, have not really played it much), but I still have issue with the force fields.
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How about if the active effect of FF was lessened in duration, but it started out as dormant 'trap' that lasts longer. Tone down the anti-micro but also maybe give it some early AoE, albeit fairly weak, which seems to be one of the things people always say protoss needs to survive. I give you:
The Force Prison
- 50 energy, same casting range as forcefield
- Cast on the ground, the sentry places a ward of energy that waits for units to walk over it. When sprung the trap shortly envelopes a few nearby units with a shield of energy, immobilizing and disabling them, but protecting them from further harm (think stasis).
- The casting animation and the activated effect are visible, but the trap itself can only be seen with a detector in range.
- Has a one second "warm up" after being cast where it cannot activate, a 20 second "dormant" phase while it waits to activate, and a 5 second "active" duration.
- The trap takes a split second to trigger after being stepped on, possibly letting a player pull their units away from the trap, but also letting more than one hapless unit walk into the area of effect.
- If triggered, there's an additional effect to the spell once the field ends: the stasis field shatters, doing light AoE damage to enemy units standing outside of the effect, but leaving the originally trapped prey unharmed. This helps dissuade from people spam clicking to get past the force field as it's ending.
I dunno, what do you think. Probably great against zealots and zerglings, maybe not so effective versus terran bio and roaches. Slightly levels the playing field between skill levels for the protoss, as there's more need and opportunity to place traps thoughtfully, early, and less ability to spam out really beautiful FF or die trying to.
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Figure it out in HOTS. That's my recommendation to Blizzard. More midgame options for zerg to cope with it while not depriving protoss of its ability to survive early game with these present. More midgame options for zerg to cope with it while giving protoss new or changed methods to controlling a mass of zerg units in early and midgame. Browder was in that audience, and I'm sure David Kim was there or watching elsewhere. From the opposite point of view, if I had to say that the ability would work just fine with minor modifications (massive was one) for roughly the span of a 2-year game, I'd say put the damn thing in every time.
Get a new beta-test-build out for Parting and the other top-micro Protosses and pay them by the hour to ram WoL tactics into the zerg army against top-skilled zergs. It'll help see what kind of solutions develop after that. It's really very hard to see through at this point. What change can help zerg see a tech path (scouting path) and micro options to defeat a well-played immortal sentry allin? What change simultaneously leaves protoss in the same position to defeat masses of attacking units or ranged, fast units (or both) with micro and skill? It's pretty clear with the "oh balance this and balance that too" comments that there isn't an easy, workable solution around yet.
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On November 18 2012 21:49 cythaze wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2012 21:45 randoomguy wrote:
welcome to tvz for a terran player actually: no, this isnt the same. tvz its atleast splitting/target fireing vs hitting fungals and getting good surrounds/baneling connections. If both players just amove into each other the battle is never as onesided as a pvz battle where the protoss player is lacking forcefields in the situation the op is describing.
What world do you live in?
The battle is just as completely one sided as the pvz battle. The terran player has to spread out their units sufficiently so that the battle will last long enough for medivacs and/or seige tanks to start making a difference in the battle.
The only advantage that terran and protoss have (before infestors) is that the zerg player will pay a price if they engage before they are willing to commit completely (stim, seiged tanks, forcefields).
Forcefield is a necessity in both PvT (before T3) and PvZ (everything) or a protoss player would just die. Zergs have ways to deal with sentry based pushes... why do you think mutalisks became popular in PvZ in the first place.
Sentries are GOOD for the game. They promote decision making by both players and make getting units that rely on maneverability and positional play more viable (Medivac, Mutalisk)
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I think that basing this all off of the immortal sentry all in being potent is a little early. If you guys don't remember, the Stephano-style roach ling max was wiping the ground with protoss for about 2 months straight before protoss players started to get a hang of how to hold it. I think the OP is somewhat correct in that before zerg has infestors out, there isn't much micro to do for the zerg player. But, once infestors are out, there is a plethora of ways for zerg to micro (infestors and sentries are two of the most difficult spell-casters to micro). I don't see this as much of an issue.
Also, with regards to the 15 minute pre BL push from protoss, I think zerg just needs to adapt. Either find a new way to hold it or perhaps don't play so greedily and go for super late game tech so early without having a standing army to protect you? I know it sounds kind of harsh but I feel like a lot of the zerg complaining is very premature. We hear this same stuff over and over again every time a sick new timing comes onto the scene. I'd say we still need more time.
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On November 19 2012 10:14 negativedge wrote:
possible solutions:
-make forcefields smaller
-make forcefields 75 energy, possibly with a pathogen glands style upgrade from the twilight council
-reduce immortal shields, or possibly make hardened shields an upgrade (both options might make PvP more interesting as well)
-raise base HP on stalkers to help compensate
Then nerf brood lord range by 1, roll burrow movement for roaches into the burrow upgrade and give them a researchable burrowed movement speed upgrade.
have fun with blink allins.
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On November 19 2012 10:59 skyyan wrote:
I think that basing this all off of the immortal sentry all in being potent is a little early. If you guys don't remember, the Stephano-style roach ling max was wiping the ground with protoss for about 2 months straight before protoss players started to get a hang of how to hold it. I think the OP is somewhat correct in that before zerg has infestors out, there isn't much micro to do for the zerg player. But, once infestors are out, there is a plethora of ways for zerg to micro (infestors and sentries are two of the most difficult spell-casters to micro). I don't see this as much of an issue.
Also, with regards to the 15 minute pre BL push from protoss, I think zerg just needs to adapt. Either find a new way to hold it or perhaps don't play so greedily and go for super late game tech so early without having a standing army to protect you? I know it sounds kind of harsh but I feel like a lot of the zerg complaining is very premature. We hear this same stuff over and over again every time a sick new timing comes onto the scene. I'd say we still need more time.
People simply are up in arm over BWC results.
Reality is this:
"I get it, BWC finals, everyone going to jump on the bandwagon and circlejerk (see bottom as this is what sparked morrow to make his post in the first place).
I don't give a fuck, 4 world class protoss playing vs mediocre zergs in quarterfinals (stephano, nerchio and moonglade did not make it out of their zerg heavy groups (also vibe) AND curious gets knocked out in a zvz vs Sen. Nor trying to take anything away from the players at the event but this is the truth.
I am fine with FF being the target of criticism but ALL antimicro shit must go then. Goodbye to vortex, and fuck you fungal growth. We all know rooting everything is complete bullshit. Also free units is complete bullshit.
So sick of all the bias, you want to knock something fine but acknowledge the big picture...
morrow on TL:
"im sure we all just saw the amazing tournament that just happened (wcs world) after i saw parting win against sen with immortal sentry allin 3 games in a row and afterwards seeing sen get destroyed by rain 3 games in a row with timing attacks before broodlord tipped me over the edge to finally go ahead and get this off my chest."
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On November 19 2012 11:16 kinglemon wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 10:14 negativedge wrote:
possible solutions:
-make forcefields smaller
-make forcefields 75 energy, possibly with a pathogen glands style upgrade from the twilight council
-reduce immortal shields, or possibly make hardened shields an upgrade (both options might make PvP more interesting as well)
-raise base HP on stalkers to help compensate
Then nerf brood lord range by 1, roll burrow movement for roaches into the burrow upgrade and give them a researchable burrowed movement speed upgrade. have fun with blink allins.
yeah, that's a problem that would need to be addressed. maybe increase the CD on blink? increase the research time?
charge might also have to be cheaper to help offset FF nerfs in PvT
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On November 19 2012 10:25 Resistentialism wrote:
How about if the active effect of FF was lessened in duration, but it started out as dormant 'trap' that lasts longer. Tone down the anti-micro but also maybe give it some early AoE, albeit fairly weak, which seems to be one of the things people always say protoss needs to survive. I give you:
The Force Prison
- 50 energy, same casting range as forcefield
- Cast on the ground, the sentry places a ward of energy that waits for units to walk over it. When sprung the trap shortly envelopes a few nearby units with a shield of energy, immobilizing and disabling them, but protecting them from further harm (think stasis).
- The casting animation and the activated effect are visible, but the trap itself can only be seen with a detector in range.
- Has a one second "warm up" after being cast where it cannot activate, a 20 second "dormant" phase while it waits to activate, and a 5 second "active" duration.
- The trap takes a split second to trigger after being stepped on, possibly letting a player pull their units away from the trap, but also letting more than one hapless unit walk into the area of effect.
- If triggered, there's an additional effect to the spell once the field ends: the stasis field shatters, doing light AoE damage to enemy units standing outside of the effect, but leaving the originally trapped prey unharmed. This helps dissuade from people spam clicking to get past the force field as it's ending.
I dunno, what do you think. Probably great against zealots and zerglings, maybe not so effective versus terran bio and roaches. Slightly levels the playing field between skill levels for the protoss, as there's more need and opportunity to place traps thoughtfully, early, and less ability to spam out really beautiful FF or die trying to.
This would perhaps work for PvZ and PvT but it will bring back 4gates in PvP because sentries will be unable to keep remaking forcefields at the ramp with a 5 sec duration forcefield.
Balancing against 4gates is one of the reason it is so difficult to make changes to the forcefield.
Any changes that will allow the opponent to get through forcefield through micro or otherwise(i.e slow/destructible forcefields) means that a 4gating player can just waltz up the ramp and start warping in stuff on the high ground.
Warpgate is also another one of those design issues that needs to be fixed. Personally, I would rather both FF and Warpgate be removed and have Gateway unit stats tweaked to balance it out.
I can't think of any ways blizz can balance forcefields in WoL and not affect PvP early game drastically. HotS might allow for such changes though with pylons not powering the high ground anymore. Might work once that happens.
Just my 2 cents. Peace~
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On November 19 2012 11:21 negativedge wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 11:16 kinglemon wrote:On November 19 2012 10:14 negativedge wrote:
possible solutions:
-make forcefields smaller
-make forcefields 75 energy, possibly with a pathogen glands style upgrade from the twilight council
-reduce immortal shields, or possibly make hardened shields an upgrade (both options might make PvP more interesting as well)
-raise base HP on stalkers to help compensate
Then nerf brood lord range by 1, roll burrow movement for roaches into the burrow upgrade and give them a researchable burrowed movement speed upgrade. have fun with blink allins. yeah, that's a problem that would need to be addressed. maybe increase the CD on blink? increase the research time?
Any tweak to FF requires gateway units buff which in turns makes warpgate better.
Remember the first year of the game? Almost nothing but 4, 5, 6 gateway timings in every MU.
There are fundamental problems with the game (mules, Wg & FF, zerg free units, fungal root).
You can't change FF without changing the entire game...
* edit: accidentally a word
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On November 19 2012 11:24 yrt123 wrote:I can't think of any ways blizz can balance forcefields in WoL and not affect PvP early game drastically. HotS might allow for such changes though with pylons not powering the high ground anymore. Might work once that happens.
don't forget planetary nexus
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Typical zerg tears.
People have been dealing with FF's for 2 years and now they are an issue? Your logic is fail.
All this proved is how good Korean protoss is.
Typical whine thread from zerg (and they have OP BL infestor yet they still whine lol).
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Cool post but people have been posting about this issue for 2 years and nothing has ever been done. I doubt it will be now.
I was hoping for HOTS rework but its coming out in 3 months so they won't be performing the necessary changes.
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EPT
