EPTWarp gates are a late game mechanic anyway. Move that tech to late game, making it require a new tech structure. Remove FF. Remove Immortals. Buff stalkers and Zealots.
That's what your game looks like.
A fundamental issue about forcefield - Page 25
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KingAce
United States471 Posts
Warp gates are a late game mechanic anyway. Move that tech to late game, making it require a new tech structure. Remove FF. Remove Immortals. Buff stalkers and Zealots. That's what your game looks like. | ||
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KnowNothing
69 Posts
Seems ok to me, but if lings need to be more effective as a deterrent to this kind of push, maybe you could just change FF so it can't be cast on top of your own units. That would mean that surrounding your army with FFs without letting a significant number of lings in would be more difficult. | ||
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bokeevboke
Singapore1674 Posts
On November 20 2012 15:13 KnowNothing wrote: Okay, just want to start by saying I'm by no means a good SC2 player, but I do watch some pro games. From my perspective, I don't really see what Morrow's concern is. If the zerg has good map presence, they should almost always be able to find a point where they could engage the protoss army on reasonably open ground. If they do, it should be impossible to forcefield the whole area, at least not without significantly weakening the push. Seems ok to me, but if lings need to be more effective as a deterrent to this kind of push, maybe you could just change FF so it can't be cast on top of your own units. That would mean that surrounding your army with FFs without letting a significant number of lings in would be more difficult. You've got only viewer's perspective. MorroW plays the game 24/7 on PRO level. Your nickname couldn't be more accurate in this situation. No offense  | ||
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NDDseer
Australia204 Posts
On November 20 2012 08:56 Grumbels wrote: Or give forcefield to the oracle instead of time warp and then give time warp to the sentry. (terrible idea probably) I like this idea. Obs ff can still be really powerful if used properly, and plus having ff on flying might make some cool things possible (ff mineral line to prevent mining if they don't have static defence or units properly positioned to kill the fragile oracle). | ||
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MutaDoom
Canada1163 Posts
I miss plague  Also, GGLords' ability to hold units still with Broodlings is... ridiculous. They make me miss Guardians. I miss micro. Fuck it, gonna go play some BW. | ||
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contv
35 Posts
Any discussion is good discussion | ||
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HolydaKing
21253 Posts
On November 18 2012 21:52 Fenrax wrote: Fungal and Forcefield are both bad for the game because they reduce the ability to Micro. Frustrating to watch, frustating to play against. That is probably the main reason why all matchups with T are the most fun to watch. Their units actually just fight. You found the right words. Exactly what i think is the problem. | ||
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Glorfindel21
France51 Posts
Truth is the real weapon of zerg relies in position and perfect surround, notions that Stephano applies among zergs. If you engage at a moment when protoss moves on the map from every angle, or slow down enough the protoss, you force him to spend FF, to delay his push. If you succeed in engaging him from all directions (i've seen some crazy stuff from Stephano), FF micro will be harder for toss, and the zerg will get a higher chance to win the battle. And don't forget this also depends on metagame. Stracraft is mostly a play of minds. Why not burrowed banes to make those sentries explode on their path to your base ? (Yeah i know, observers, but observer delays the push for 30 sec). | ||
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Toffa
5 Posts
Using this mechanic also adds a lot of the missing micro as a zerg has to move his massive units around to destroy critical FF. So where are zergs massive units? Where is the use of the ultralisk. Are ultralisks too late game to be used for this purpose? Maybe make queens massive for easier base defending against early sentry heavy pushes? (You have great mobility on creep to walk on FF, but off creep queens are too slow to be effective) | ||
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
On November 20 2012 03:59 KawaiiRice wrote: Even sun Tzu couldn't account for constantly changing terrain Lol, exactly. I always thought the map was like the one sacred piece of an rts that should not be trifled with. Imagine a real-life wizard that could create choke points wherever he wanted. No one could ever beat his army... without missiles. | ||
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-Celestial-
United Kingdom3867 Posts
On November 20 2012 23:13 danl9rm wrote: Lol, exactly. I always thought the map was like the one sacred piece of an rts that should not be trifled with. Imagine a real-life wizard that could create choke points wherever he wanted. No one could ever beat his army... without missiles. I know right? Nobody in real world warfare ever does anything to change territory in a fight to make it in their favour. Like fortifying a position thats narrow by throwing down some sand bags and setting up there. Or blowing up bridges to cut off routes. Or destroying train lines and roads. Or using explosives to make impassable obstacles either by blowing trenches or collapsing things in the way. Nobody has ever had to deal with anything as silly as a changing battlefield. Oh wait... Whilst your point may or may not be invalid as far as SC2 maps are concerned, please think before making RL comparisons. Battlefields CAN and DO change in the real world over time, even very rapidly. On November 20 2012 23:10 Toffa wrote: What I miss in the discussion is the role of massive units against FF. FF can be shattered by massive units. That's why you don't see them in PvP, because any competent player shatteres them with Archons or Collossi making them useless in the late game. Using this mechanic also adds a lot of the missing micro as a zerg has to move his massive units around to destroy critical FF. So where are zergs massive units? Where is the use of the ultralisk. Are ultralisks too late game to be used for this purpose? Maybe make queens massive for easier base defending against early sentry heavy pushes? (You have great mobility on creep to walk on FF, but off creep queens are too slow to be effective) I believe the usual argument against the Ultra is it comes out late...really late. Its a similar tech level to the Broodlord. And given a choice between Broodlords and Ultras vs a Protoss army you're ALWAYS going to want to take the Broodlords (because of the power of Infestor/Broodlord). Also a massive queen would result in "LOLVOIDRAYALLIN" every game until Zerg is forced to start making really early hydras or a LOT of early spores. And hydras just get roasted by Colossi. So you could probably afford to Stargate > get couple of Void Rays > do almost guaranteed damage > get colossi > win. On reflection I'm not sure why I'm arguing against this idea. I play Protoss, sounds awesome. ;P | ||
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jliu
282 Posts
Also I like this post about decreasing forcefield duration time, although it would be worth considering that you would probably need more than 3 sentries to forcefield a ramp if you changed the duration. How would that affect PvP or PvT? | ||
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-Celestial-
United Kingdom3867 Posts
On November 21 2012 00:51 jliu wrote: Maybe decrease the gas cost or research time of overlord drops? It would make banerain or roach/ling drop more viable as a standard playstyle against midgame timings which introduces more multitasking for the zerg player in PvZ. It also reduces the weight given to the protoss player's micro, which was morrow's original point. Also I like this post about decreasing forcefield duration time, although it would be worth considering that you would probably need more than 3 sentries to forcefield a ramp if you changed the duration. How would that affect PvP or PvT? I agree overlord drops are underused. Although I fear that if we encourage Zerg to start using it more it'll prove to be absurdly overpowered (ton of overlords full of absurdly hard to kill roaches incoming all over your Colossi). >_> I've seen the suggestion to reduce forcefield duration before. The discussion in the past has usually boiled down to the fact that reducing forcefield time would make it a lot harder to hold a lot of early game pressures and all-ins on just a few sentries. A fact which is critical in many cases to Protoss' ability to survive or expand. So long as units like Roaches and Marauders are as strong as they are Protoss would just die to a lot of stuff. Although I HAVE seen a suggestion to half both duration and the energy cost to balance it. But for high-level players this just means more APM spent and puts the matchup on even more of a knife edge with forcefields. | ||
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Thienan567
United States670 Posts
On November 21 2012 00:44 Lightspeaker wrote: I know right? Nobody in real world warfare ever does anything to change territory in a fight to make it in their favour. Like fortifying a position thats narrow by throwing down some sand bags and setting up there. Or blowing up bridges to cut off routes. Or destroying train lines and roads. Or using explosives to make impassable obstacles either by blowing trenches or collapsing things in the way. Nobody has ever had to deal with anything as silly as a changing battlefield. Oh wait... The thing is, all the things you listed take time and preparation to do and carry out. Key word: preparation. The most similar thing in SC would be if a terran fortifies his position with bunkers, turrets, etc. Or zerg massing spines, toss pylon blocking ramps, etc. They take time, and tend to stay for a time until it's not needed anymore. This isn't so with FF: FF is instantaneous, and being able to instantly change the terrain however you want in a strategy game is going to be downright bullshit unless you create MASSIVE workarounds for everything else. + Show Spoiler + It's why I think the sentry should get defense matrix instead of FF but hey I'm not a pro | ||
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-Celestial-
United Kingdom3867 Posts
On November 21 2012 01:01 Thienan567 wrote: The thing is, all the things you listed take time and preparation to do and carry out. Key word: preparation. The most similar thing in SC would be if a terran fortifies his position with bunkers, turrets, etc. Or zerg massing spines, toss pylon blocking ramps, etc. They take time, and tend to stay for a time until it's not needed anymore. This isn't so with FF: FF is instantaneous, and being able to instantly change the terrain however you want in a strategy game is going to be downright bullshit unless you create MASSIVE workarounds for everything else. + Show Spoiler + It's why I think the sentry should get defense matrix instead of FF but hey I'm not a pro Clearly firing a missile at a building to collapse it to make a barricade takes time. Or at a bridge similarly. Sorry but all I'm hearing is excuses on that one. Again: whilst the argument may or may not hold true for SC2 maps the fact remains trying to pretend in the real world it isn't as simple as that. So making "lol in IRL its not like this" is invalid. Not to mention how fundamentally silly that is as an argument for a computer game that doesn't pretend to be all about realism. | ||
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chaos021
United States258 Posts
I can see if he's just fed up with the same old stuff happening over and over again. What I don't get is that outside of the couple sets he called out, we have seen in high level tournaments ways to get around forcefields (mutas, banelings drops, mass overlord drops, nydus, roaches w/ burrowed movement, etc). Yea, I know some of those require surviving past the 12 min mark that he mentioned, but I also believe a strong part of that is not playing so greedy all the time. Anyone else remember when zergs used to crush greedy FFE with roach all-ins? I'm not saying that's the answer, but you can't expect protoss players to watch most zerg players build only 2 to 4 lings with maybe up to 4 queens for an army and sit on that until they get 3 bases operational. That's just plain stupid. | ||
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HoLe
Canada183 Posts
On November 18 2012 21:45 randoomguy wrote: welcome to tvz for a terran player User was warned for this post That doesn't even make sense... | ||
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YumYumGranola
Canada344 Posts
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playnice
Malaysia299 Posts
On November 20 2012 16:57 NDDseer wrote: I like this idea. Obs ff can still be really powerful if used properly, and plus having ff on flying might make some cool things possible (ff mineral line to prevent mining if they don't have static defence or units properly positioned to kill the fragile oracle). Strange that I've also been thinking about this idea a lot, to have Time Warp with the cost and duration of FF and a similar radius on Sentries. Here's how(I think) this addresses the issues OP pointed out: Protoss player needs great micro, zerg needs protoss not to have + Show Spoiler + Instead of a-moving and hope that protoss misses a FF, time warp will punish an a-move army. Zerg has to micro the units away from charging into the temporal fields, and have a better chance to pull out since Sentries no longer cutout and render Zerg units completely useless. Yet every Time Warp casted will unlikely be a complete dud. Casting on top of the Zerg units will slow the advance/retreat, and as long as it is on the map Zerg can't be careless to have units move or rally across it. It rewards good player with good micro and positional awareness, and decreases the binary relationship that FF introduced. In other words, it's more forgivable, but not OP if your micro is really good. Closing the distance + Show Spoiler + Unlike FF, Time Warp doesn't prevent engagements completely. FF zones out lings and roaches and Zerg DPS gets reduced drastically, to the point of uselessness. As OP pointed out, absolute top players abuses this ability. Replacing FF with TW I feel makes it difficult for Protoss to pull off timings that straight out win games, as TW is more about positioning to slow down reinforcing defenders, do as much damage as possible and then run away. And here lies another cool thing about TW vs FF. It addresses the issue of Protoss units retreating, something I think Blizzard talked about before and FF cannot do unless maps are built with narrow chokes everywhere. It was the same reason why MsC has Mass Recall. One of the reason Protoss relies heavily in timing to win games is because early game Protoss can't harass, leaving Zergs to get to the ultimate composition untouched. Units sent across the map doesn't come back alive (unless they are blink Stalkers). Imagine a Protoss army retreating across the map after a timing and only have 4 FFs left. Now imagine it with 4 TWs. One of these does not simply die to a-move Zergs when Protoss hits their AoE concussive shells. Its all about the force fields + Show Spoiler + It's all about the time warps? If this means perfect TW in a battle will reduce any Zerg player to the same skill level then no. TW in place of FF gives Zerg player more options which can be exploited if the Zerg is skillful. You could either bait, micro around, spread, retreat or even brute forced your way across with overwhelming numbers. Likewise being more forgiving in nature, TW will likely always be useful during defense. Protoss does not need to rely on instant reflex perfect FF to stop run-bys. Good placements of TWs will slow down Zerg units and create temporary chokes. Keep in mind that MsC is also around in HoTs to fend off mass roach attack. I have a feeling Void Rays will be changed to become a better defensive unit too( I would love to see it charged while stationary). FF in place of TW on Oracle + Show Spoiler + FF on the Oracle can be the new Entombed. FF actually has all the qualities that Entombed was supposed to have. It also conveniently does not have the qualities(don't know if this is the right word) that everyone hated about Entombed. Entombed was designed to harass mineral lines in a unique way, impeding income rate without destroying workers, but was a boring 1-clicked spell, and doesn't have any other use at all. Players with good reaction will always find the damage negligible, which is why it was then given Void Siphon so it can be perceived as a bigger threat. We all know how well that went. FF on the other hand, rewards your good placement by guaranteeing the effects of disrupting income, mineral as well as gas, and doesn't kill anything. FF are still the good old incredible Force Fields. Protoss will definitely find ways to use it in other areas. Though a flying Sentry does sound like a nightmare to Zergs, but note that Oracle requires Stargate tech, is more expensive, and takes up 3 supplies. Any WoL timings will not be practical at all. And regarding making Oracle threatening to opposing players, I don't think you can get any scarier than late game Immortal drop Warp In into your main while a zippy Oracle force fields the main ramp. This makes Oracle a high priority target that it was supposed to be, even without an attack. Additional reasons for TW and FF to be switched is to preserve the continuity of FF familiarity and micro in HoTS. TW on Sentries is similar enough that the skills obtained by Protoss players can be transfered. Hopefully with this changes in place, and some number tweaking, Zergs can now win battles without hoping for Protoss to screw up. Feel free to discuss about the idea. I hope pro-players of both races would provide their insights too on what they see in this. | ||
Falling
Canada11261 Posts
On November 21 2012 02:30 YumYumGranola wrote: BW was balanced because each race had a bunch of OP units. In this spirit I propose that we leave FF as is and instead buff zergs abilities which can help counter FF. force field is an original, cool, and awesome ability which has defined Protoss as a race. Lets not water the differences between Toss and Zerg down by simply balancing it so unmicroed armies fight to a draw. Instead let's buff overlord drops or burrow. Maybe let Zerg get burrow earlier, or make drop upgrades cheaper/ increase upgraded overlord movement speed (perhaps make drops come with a minor spew boost which compounds with overlord speed.) this way, Protoss can still micro against Zerg drops and burrow in the way morrow describes, but this allows Zerg to have a chance to use their own micro to counter (for example dropping from multiple angles, etc.) we shouldn't punish spells which bring out awesome micro, we should promote spells which aren't capable of being microbes effectively. People say this. But the OP-ness of units wasn't in the ability to lock down entire armies with a couple spells- whether Fungals or FF's. The reason the spells could be so OP is that they were HARD to cast many, many spells in a row. If lockdown in BW had smart-casting, we would have similar frustrations and we wouldn't be so much in awe of the handful of times that someone like Boxer actually did lockdown a fleet of carriers. When these sorts of spells are in every game... The OP-ness of units had more to do with their quick handling, coming on and off the attack rather than the ability to prevent the other side from moving. Yes there was stasis, but it was very late game, huge energy cost, could be EMP'd by Vessels and were pretty expensive. And spreading units was easier in BW so stasis wouldn't necessarily hit that many units unless you didn't bother to spread your tanks. | ||
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