|
On April 13 2013 08:05 MerciLess wrote:
It's like a big, strong guy who can hold his own against a smaller kickboxer and smaller Jiu Jitsu fighter, but only because of his size and strength. The more interesting fight is always going to be between the two trained fighters. Eh, maybe that's a shitty analogy, but hopefully it gets my point across
This made me laugh, and I think the analogy is right on point. I started in WoL playing protoss because they were the coolest and most sci-fi of the races. Now fast forward, I'm a crappy yet competent player, and am watering at the mouth for a matchup that feels even remotely like ZvT. Take for example the Fantasy v. True game... It was amazing, the back and forth was breathtaking, and there was always hope. I do not feel like a protoss can a.) be that recklessly aggressive and b.) remotely recover like those two players did.
It's win or lose with each confrontation with protoss. Miss a drop? You lose. Miss a forcefield? You lose. Kill a few marines early, pat yourself on the back? No, terran makes more and wins.
|
-Really inflexible. Really, Protoss looks exactly the same for the first 5 minutes in almost every game.
-No contrasting styles of play. The only choice is what order you make things: If the game goes long enough you'll probably make every single unit and your end game army will look the same.
-No flow from early game harass to mid game builds.
-Few units that benefit greatly from micro
-Seems to be some sort of economy problem with mineral dumps. What does it say when suiciding 1ks of minerals for marginal benefit is a reasonable strategy?
|
Well-written post sir but the theoretical solutions near the end that are proposed are quite dramatic.
Maybe warp gate functionality could be changed instead? All warp gates could have some communal build pool which wouldn't allow instant armies but rather to allow more efficient reinforcement/rally mechanics? Something like keeping build time in the equation... Here is an idea:
Warping in a unit takes the same amount of build time to warp it in. However! Multiple warp gates allow this production time to be shortened by dividing the warp time by X where X is the number of powered Warp gates the player controls. You can still queue multiple units to be warped but they are not warped in at the same time but rather in succession (the next begins to warp only after the previous has finished warping). Just an idea but it could solve the instant reinforcements issue for Protoss while still allowing them to have a unique deployment mechanic. Also, this also allows gateway unit's difference in build times to still be relevant after warp gates are researched.
|
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote:
There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that.
- There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences:
-- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing.
-- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
I completely agree.
|
Honestly I think Protoss players would like their armies to be more microable and not in a spell casting sense. For example, BW zealots were very microable when you had speed, but unfortunately speedlots were replaced by chargelots which are not nearly as fun to micro. While they are charging, they are moving too fast to reliably control them in a beneficial way, but when they are not charging, they don't move fast enough to justify microing them over controlling something else. I can list more examples, but I think we all already know them. What I want to see is Blizzard possibly slightly nerfing Protoss stats (dps, hp, etc.) and rebalancing around greater speed or range. This will theoretically reward players who have better control since a larger disparity of speed equates to more difficult army control and optimizing a range advantage is hard to achieve via a-move, but most importantly it would be more fun for Protoss players in general.
|
While this line of conversation is of great interest to me, I find it all a little pointless. The balance design team has stated in HotS beta that they are absolutely not going to remove sentries or warp gates from the game (FFs and warp-ins most agree being the two reasons necessitating weak early game units for Protoss). Even after soliciting feedback from the community about Protoss design, the most that we got were simple tweaks to the Mothership Core which have changed the metagame in an insignificant way. So what useful purpose does dreaming about these solution accomplish? Can the goals of a more interesting Protoss game be accomplished in a few simple tweaks for the lazy balance designers, as this seems to be the extent of their clout over the game?
I don't want to pee in the corn flakes of the people who posted in this thread - I even agree with most of what I read. I just fail to see the point of bringing up changing these design decisions that were made in the year 200x over and over again when there's close to zero chance they will ever change.
|
I somewhat agree with the OP about the Sentry issue. There is a problem with balancing according to this though.... As you say well placed sentry spells can win or lose a battle. This actually "does" fit the definition of skill-based balance - if you perform it well you win if you perform it poorly you lose. Would removing or nerfing the sentry give more options? Maybe, but they would be taking a large piece of what fits the definition of skill based, so this will probably never happen.
Some of the rest of your post I disagree with though. For example, saying there is no risk for early Terran or Zerg? I can agree about Terran somewhat (although if you scout their harassment properly that is definitely a risk to them), but Zerg definitely has early game risk. Unless Zerg is doing some sort of all-in they are near 100% reactive, which is inherently a risk, since if you do not perform your response perfectly you are likely to lose.
I also disagree with your suggestions for changes. By that it sounds a bit too much like your nostalgia for SC1 coming through rather than rational discussion.
But aside from that, good write up. I do think it would be a good idea to assess early game of Protoss to be a bit less spell reliant and give more options. Even though it's skill based, it could be skill based in other ways. Or even keep these options but add more. I actually think Zerg could use some of the same treatment as well, as Zergs early game is pretty limited on options. Protoss and Zerg don't need as many options as Terran, but early game does get a bit stale imo, and these type of changes would make early game more exciting and scouting more important.
(Edit: I also think BearStorms post 2 above this one hit the nail on the head. Protoss is definitely spell reliant micro focused, and it sounds like more microable units is what people want. Maybe a good solution would be to assess the gateway units upgrade placement, or adjust their upgrade functionality a bit, to support this as an OPTION, but also keep spellcasting styles as an option?)
|
Why don't you try doing 3gate aggression with MSC to protect you in PvT?
Then you can expand, switch to an air army to be aggressive with for a bit (like 2 or 3 oracles to kill SCVs and scouting marines and 3 phoenixes I guess to take out drops) and then get HTs/Archons.
Then, once you 'em, just make void rays and all in when you have like 2 or 3 voids.
Hell, you could actually try to play a normal game I guess, and instead of all-ining, you could just go Robo and then go fast tech.
I'm guessing you'd expand to your natural ~6:30 mins so it looks like an attack is coming to the Terran so he spends money on Bunkers which will delay his Barracks. Then you'd get your 3rd while attacking the Terran's base (remember to run away home when he starts winning the fight and make sure you don't lose all your forces or else the Terran will just go attack you if he's any good).
I'm totally just theorizing here, since I play Terran, but this seems like an actual idea you could use... Just get proficient at it, and see what I missed with my plan and fix it. Or you could just totally disregard it if it fails you often enough. But I mean, why not try it out, doesn't really seem that bad to me, gaining air control is huge for defending drops and you can use it to tech up to some pretty strong shiznip. You can also delay your upgrades a bit to start at 9mins or something, if you chrono boost properly you'll still beat the terran to 3-3 anyhow. All you'll really need is +1 air attack for upgrades I think.
|
It would be a huge change but how about get rid of warp gates all together and implement a new source of macroing.
|
Agree whole-heartedly with the OP. I didn't realise it until this post but when I'm playing as my beloved tech-savvy aliens I find myself trying to survive until midgame or later in PvT and PvZ. However I don't think anything will be patched to improve this before LotV when they might implement a better macro mechanic. Also it really bums me out that a terran can mass marines - the basic terran army unit - upgrade them and still roll over most army comps from zerg and protoss. A friend of mine wanted to get from silver to master so he used the staircase method that was shown by Jakatak if im not mistaken. He set his benchmarks for masters level and was level three of the staircase (SCV, marine, marauder, command centre, barracks, bunker, supply depot, refinery, tech lab, reactor, sensor tower) but since he hates marauders he would only get mass marines with combat shields and stim, throw in an engineering bay for upgrades as the game progressed. And he did it - got to masters on NA easily. I was shocked but in all three match ups people werent prepared for it. And coming off the rant back to the OP I find the only reason I do well as Protoss is because of contingency planning for everything (and guardian shields :p)
|
The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
Even if Protoss was the "least interesting race" as so many posts here suggest, getting rid of its most interesting unit is not the way to fix things.
Similarly, warp ins are fantastic! They provide a ton of strategic options while also greatly adding to Protoss' unique feel. Yet people in this thread want to eliminate the warp in mechanic and make their units build just like Terran's so that gateway units can be redesigned to be stronger in a straight up fight, again just like Terran's.
I'm not saying Protoss is perfect. It's my least favorite race too. But the proposals to fix Protoss by removing what are easily the best parts about them are absurd.
|
They should just introduce a new research on the cybercore that enables all gates to produce all units twice as fast. So that the protoss has to decide, if he wants research speedgate or warpgate first.
The sentry needs a rework. The force field is a very interesting ability, but it comes with a great price. The whole race is balanced around one ability. I almost want to go as far and say that the forcefield is a second vortex. If the protoss has no energy, he is dead. If he has, he will live to fight another day.
The forcefield also hurts the mapmaking community. Almost all maps pretty much have to look the same, or otherwise one or two forcefields could break everything. The only option is to rework the sentry and to rebalance all gateway units accordingly.
Protoss needs a lot more units that rely on positioning. Remove the colossus and replace it with a reaver-ish unit. I also want to see more inbetween robo and gateway units. The also could just transfer the sentriy to the robotics facility. So that the sentry would become more a midgame unit instead of an early game necessity.
|
On April 13 2013 08:24 Rainling wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote:
There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that.
- There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences:
-- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing.
-- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved. I completely agree.
I feel like a quick fix for this is to make the transformation from gateway to warpgate take longer (not the upgrade research time but the actual transformation)
|
The myth that Protoss gateway units are "weaker" is as dangerous of a myth as the myth that Zerg HAS to be a base ahead. We have seen thousands of games that have ended as a grand debunking of this myth, but it still persists.
|
On April 13 2013 08:24 Rainling wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote:
There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that.
- There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences:
-- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing.
-- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved. I completely agree.
Came to post something like this. It's so true and I've said it forever. It would be so cool if Protoss strats revolved around warp gate and regular with trading off build time in a logical way. Playing defensive switch off warp gate. Going aggressive switch back on. Mid game maybe you keep 3 gates regular 3 gates warp. But the logic is so mind boggling.. You can warp units in anywhere AND it takes less time? Should be reversed than you could beef gateway units up a touch, tone down the AoE some in exchange and get less engagements with death balls where if you lose your expensive gas units the game is over.
|
The MSC allows you to gateway expand against Zerg. That's a difference. Protoss can go skytoss now, where they couldn't before? I don't really see the problem.
Protoss needs to be made harder to play before they nerf it. Deathball is still way strong
and you have like 25 million allins I dont see the problem.
You complain about non-commital aggression when YOU CAN USE RECALL ON THE MSC...
That means you can 7 gate, kill a third, recall, and be fine.
|
I really think right now in HotS the mindset of Protoss players in general hasn't been changed at least in the pro scene, in what im concerned the gimmicky play will be replaced soon by greedier tech heavy builds that rely more on multitasking and a smooth balance between Macro and Micro than just stupid Timings like in WoL. Over all I really like the Warp gate because is a mechanic that is so protoss and goes with the theme of teleportation and really high tech of the protoss race lore wise, but FF is what i think should be either removed or just nerfed to the ground to get better Gateway units. Some time ago i thought about reworking the Stalker and make them more of harassment based unit with less hp, less cooldown on blink,higher damage output, tier 2 and also more expensive and with higher supply in order to dont get massed and also Bring back the Dragoon to have an staple Ranged damage dealer and buffing Zealots hugely to compensate the lack of FF.
|
On April 13 2013 11:30 RainF4ll wrote:
They should just introduce a new research on the cybercore that enables all gates to produce all units twice as fast. So that the protoss has to decide, if he wants research speedgate or warpgate first.
The sentry needs a rework. The force field is a very interesting ability, but it comes with a great price. The whole race is balanced around one ability. I almost want to go as far and say that the forcefield is a second vortex. If the protoss has no energy, he is dead. If he has, he will live to fight another day.
The forcefield also hurts the mapmaking community. Almost all maps pretty much have to look the same, or otherwise one or two forcefields could break everything. The only option is to rework the sentry and to rebalance all gateway units accordingly.
Protoss needs a lot more units that rely on positioning. Remove the colossus and replace it with a reaver-ish unit. I also want to see more inbetween robo and gateway units. The also could just transfer the sentriy to the robotics facility. So that the sentry would become more a midgame unit instead of an early game necessity.
As I said in the OP, protoss early game design is actually brilliant. The units are expensive, weak, and hard to use, excellent RTS design. However, this is not the case for Z/T, especially in the vP matchups. Either you have to give risk to zerg and terran, or take away the risk from protoss.
|
If i word the OP post similarly for terran, I can make terran sound like a gimmicky race.
Along the lines of :
We have seen it countless times, the terran is forced to go for gimmicky strategies like the 1/1/1 or marine allins because they cannot compete with the protoss in the midgame (insert pictures)
Protoss has so many solid build orders, all leading to a safe midgame (dual forge, fast storm, Colossus...)
and so on.
All races have gimmicky stuff and honestly if i had to chose a race to have the most , it would be protoss, yet thats not a bad thing.
However you have a few valid points there
|
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote:
The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
