On January 13 2014 14:09 rift wrote: A few graphical questions
-Will scourge always be flying banelings? -Will defilers stay as large as they are? (larger than in BW) this particular model also looks like a lobster compared to the SC2BW model -Is it just me, or is plague and swarm harder to see? maybe the former could use a modified fungal graphic -The reaver scarab has more of "laser" feel than a separate projectile--again, looking at the SC2BW model -Did you want spider mines to shoot across the ground like widow mines?
1+ Maybe community should chip in a couple of models for Starbow, I've seen good model work before...
On January 13 2014 13:37 JazzJackrabbit wrote: So basically what I'm gathering is that people just wanted a game that was mostly BW except with updated graphics. Yeah who gives a shit about trying to change things up with SC2. Blizzard totally should have just remade a game 1999 instead of coming up with new things.
Its the best of both world. People who like Starbow can play it and enjoy it. Hell, they can set up an ICcup matching system if they want. People who like SC2 can ladder. Its not one or the other.
I like watching SC2 and I like watching games of Starbow. I like watching Dota and and Hearth Stone too. It not about better or worse, though some people will get hung up on that.
Starbow's definitely come a long way. I would agree with it not being about being better or worse-- some things are better, some things look as bad or worse than they were in SC2, and there are other things that look (to my eye) as if they'll regress to a more SC2-like state as the mod gets more figured out. Still interesting to watch.
I do disagree with the notion that there's a lot more action all over the map than there is in SC2. It looks like there might be slightly more, but I don't see the huge change that others are reporting.
Having no deathballs make starbow so much better that I happily ignore any downsides of the mod. And I'm pretty sure anything is fixable as long as the core idea is right.
I totally saw some death blobs of dragoon and carriers. Even some tank blobs. The death ball is still there, just in new formats.
There are still battles where large clumps of units battle one another, but it's never to the same extent as what you see in SC2. It's that difference in extent that makes it so much more enjoyable.
at a pro level how mechanically intensive will starbow be? would be interesting to see a higher skill ceiling to separate the very best players from the decently good players.
On January 13 2014 13:37 JazzJackrabbit wrote: So basically what I'm gathering is that people just wanted a game that was mostly BW except with updated graphics. Yeah who gives a shit about trying to change things up with SC2. Blizzard totally should have just remade a game 1999 instead of coming up with new things.
Its the best of both world. People who like Starbow can play it and enjoy it. Hell, they can set up an ICcup matching system if they want. People who like SC2 can ladder. Its not one or the other.
I like watching SC2 and I like watching games of Starbow. I like watching Dota and and Hearth Stone too. It not about better or worse, though some people will get hung up on that.
Starbow's definitely come a long way. I would agree with it not being about being better or worse-- some things are better, some things look as bad or worse than they were in SC2, and there are other things that look (to my eye) as if they'll regress to a more SC2-like state as the mod gets more figured out. Still interesting to watch.
I do disagree with the notion that there's a lot more action all over the map than there is in SC2. It looks like there might be slightly more, but I don't see the huge change that others are reporting.
Having no deathballs make starbow so much better that I happily ignore any downsides of the mod. And I'm pretty sure anything is fixable as long as the core idea is right.
I totally saw some death blobs of dragoon and carriers. Even some tank blobs. The death ball is still there, just in new formats.
There are still battles where large clumps of units battle one another, but it's never to the same extent as what you see in SC2. It's that difference in extent that makes it so much more enjoyable.
Ehhh I don't know if I agree with this. From what I've seen thus far the big battles look pretty much the same (other than the obvious differences in units and abilities).
mechanically, if your not used to playing at 200 apm its a big difference. in sc2 i can play at 240 apm and spam in between. but in starbow i play 240 EPM cause I always had something to do since injects are 15 seconds. makes zerg more mechanically based.
lol this game actually makes me miss the normal inject, medivac and mules i like some aspects of the game but ZvT is so spell focused that I don't really like it and ZvZ, god that muta clump, I can't count how many mutas he has at all lol
On January 13 2014 13:37 JazzJackrabbit wrote: So basically what I'm gathering is that people just wanted a game that was mostly BW except with updated graphics. Yeah who gives a shit about trying to change things up with SC2. Blizzard totally should have just remade a game 1999 instead of coming up with new things.
Its the best of both world. People who like Starbow can play it and enjoy it. Hell, they can set up an ICcup matching system if they want. People who like SC2 can ladder. Its not one or the other.
I like watching SC2 and I like watching games of Starbow. I like watching Dota and and Hearth Stone too. It not about better or worse, though some people will get hung up on that.
Starbow's definitely come a long way. I would agree with it not being about being better or worse-- some things are better, some things look as bad or worse than they were in SC2, and there are other things that look (to my eye) as if they'll regress to a more SC2-like state as the mod gets more figured out. Still interesting to watch.
I do disagree with the notion that there's a lot more action all over the map than there is in SC2. It looks like there might be slightly more, but I don't see the huge change that others are reporting.
Having no deathballs make starbow so much better that I happily ignore any downsides of the mod. And I'm pretty sure anything is fixable as long as the core idea is right.
I totally saw some death blobs of dragoon and carriers. Even some tank blobs. The death ball is still there, just in new formats.
blobs and deathballs are different.
basically deathball rolls over you and finishes you off. Pack of dragoons clearing spidermines is not exactly a deathball. Marine/medic/vessels might be close, but still, it needs constant resupply and needs to be controlled intelligently.
its not the bw balance. its the bw units that gives and unit control / macro. its a whole nother game basically. more units to counter units and focus more on mechanics
On January 13 2014 13:37 JazzJackrabbit wrote: So basically what I'm gathering is that people just wanted a game that was mostly BW except with updated graphics. Yeah who gives a shit about trying to change things up with SC2. Blizzard totally should have just remade a game 1999 instead of coming up with new things.
Its the best of both world. People who like Starbow can play it and enjoy it. Hell, they can set up an ICcup matching system if they want. People who like SC2 can ladder. Its not one or the other.
I like watching SC2 and I like watching games of Starbow. I like watching Dota and and Hearth Stone too. It not about better or worse, though some people will get hung up on that.
Starbow's definitely come a long way. I would agree with it not being about being better or worse-- some things are better, some things look as bad or worse than they were in SC2, and there are other things that look (to my eye) as if they'll regress to a more SC2-like state as the mod gets more figured out. Still interesting to watch.
I do disagree with the notion that there's a lot more action all over the map than there is in SC2. It looks like there might be slightly more, but I don't see the huge change that others are reporting.
Having no deathballs make starbow so much better that I happily ignore any downsides of the mod. And I'm pretty sure anything is fixable as long as the core idea is right.
I totally saw some death blobs of dragoon and carriers. Even some tank blobs. The death ball is still there, just in new formats.
There are still battles where large clumps of units battle one another, but it's never to the same extent as what you see in SC2. It's that difference in extent that makes it so much more enjoyable.
I think he ment in comparison to BW. Units still clump significantly more than in BW. You might not have actually noticed this if you only watched BW, but not played it. Armies literally moved in Conga lines if not controled properly of course in progames you'd literally never see that because they had the sufficient APM to keep their armies clumped, but when playing you most definitely notice that your army is easier to control, position and maneuver.
Honestly, I think the primary difference in the way TvP plays out is that Vultures + mines are so insanely strong against Protoss. The existence or threat of mines is the only thing that really prevents one-sided stompfests when Protoss has the advantage. Additionally, mines combined with the extreme speed of Vultures means that offensive warp-ins are pretty much a non-issue if you're paying attention.
On January 13 2014 15:22 RampancyTW wrote: Honestly, I think the primary difference in the way TvP plays out is that Vultures + mines are so insanely strong against Protoss. The existence or threat of mines is the only thing that really prevents one-sided stompfests when Protoss has the advantage. Additionally, mines combined with the extreme speed of Vultures means that offensive warp-ins are pretty much a non-issue if you're paying attention.
Interesting... From what I've seen mines seem relatively weak compared to their BW counterparts.
On January 13 2014 15:22 RampancyTW wrote: Honestly, I think the primary difference in the way TvP plays out is that Vultures + mines are so insanely strong against Protoss. The existence or threat of mines is the only thing that really prevents one-sided stompfests when Protoss has the advantage. Additionally, mines combined with the extreme speed of Vultures means that offensive warp-ins are pretty much a non-issue if you're paying attention.
Interesting... From what I've seen mines seem relatively weak compared to their BW counterparts.
Yes and no. Harder to trigger, but they still hit hard when triggered. And the time bought by having to clear the mines before moving forward is their biggest benefit.
It's not that they're difficult to clear out, it's that you HAVE to clear them out to keep pushing.
On January 13 2014 01:11 dani` wrote: ^ I assume there is no way to apply damage reduction after armor instead of before? That would be the obvious solution to this, so I suppose it was already considered and impossible but just to be sure I'll ask.
Lets actually math that out vs 2 points of armor. Dragoon 20-2=18/2=9 Marine 6-2=3/2=1.5
Again, still doesn't exactly seem like a very good solution. Better yes, but not something I'd like to see in the game. As far at technical feasability, I am pretty sure the armor formula cannot be manipulated in that manner. I can do it with damage types vs different sizes but not here. I wouldn't be surprised if someone discovered a method for it though.
And true. I think WC3 was worse off to stuff like extremely critical RNG drops on creeps.
I made several posts before on the battle.net forums but there used to be a way to completely manipulate damage.
What used to happen was that behaviors that negated damage still had a check for triggers.
However they updated it and "fixed" it if "Unit Takes Damage" and if a unit had a behavior that negated damage, the trigger couldn't read the value.
What I wanted them to do was add an option (either in the behaviors section or the trigger sections) that let behaviors that negate or reduce damage still allow triggers to either read the full damage (without the behavior) or the damage after the behavior changed the damage.
Before then, here is what I used to do (when it still worked).
If I wanted to modify any damage, all I had to do was give every unit a behavior that completely negated all damage (well from a certain type, I kept a type of damage that still went through). Lets say I made the behavior negate all damage except (spells) for example. (For spells, I'd use them for triggers only. Also in situations where I wanted an ability to reduce spell damage, I'd just make a trigger and put a list of conditions that listed all spell damage types that I wanted to reduce, and do it that way manually. I'd put this in the main damage trigger though.)
And in this situation, (the armor types apply through before anything), what I would want to do is actually make armor damage reductions all done manually (through this trigger). So that all units in the game, their armor type is actually a dummy number (lets say, all units actually have armor as in the game, but all damage types still ignored the armor). So everything will still look normal but all damage types actually just ignore armor now.
From here, I'd just have a trigger calculate then apply all damage (after armor) normally.
"However" that was only the case when the behavior negated damage but triggers still reading the full damage still worked. (Again, sadly after a patch, Blizzard "fixed" this issue and made it so triggers always read the damage taken after behavior calculations instead of when before it just ignored them).
What I did (and what used to work, not sure if Blizzard added an option to change this or not since I haven't used the editor in a while) (and also take note, the steps here do not work anymore sadly since there isn't an easy way to prevent damage taken but still have the trigger read the full damage): + Show Spoiler +
1. Give all units a behavior that had 100% chance to negate all damage (set it to) 0 except spell damage type.
2. Triggers still read the damage. "Unit Takes Damage" I'd make a special damage type as an exception; Condition Damage Type of Damaging effect is not = Triggered damage (I forgot if this was the one I used, I haven't used the SC2 editor in a while).
3. Then for the actions, I'd make it calculate all that, whatever I wanted to do.
For calculating armor, it'd go like this:
Set Local Variable #1 (Real) = Local Damage Taken Before Calculations = Triggering damage taken. Set Local Variable #2 (Real) = Local Damaged Unit Armor Value = Local Damaged Unit Armor Value (again, earlier I said that I kept all armor values on all units except all damage types in the game ignored armor, so those are just for show and also can still be used for triggers).
Set Local Variable #3 (Real) = Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation = "Local Damage Taken Before Calculations" - Local Damaged Unit Armor Value.
If Then Else If "Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation" is less than 0.5 Set Local Variable #3 (Real) = Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation = 0.5 (Or whatever the default minimum damage taken is with maxed out armor. I think it is 0.5 in default SC2). Else (Leave Blank)
Now this is how you could calculate armor (if the behavior thing still worked).
And for high ground advantage, you could put the calculations after this. Though I am not sure how you guys do or detect high ground (if it's triggered, then that's great because then somewhere, you can add the function in between these triggers).
For example, after this.
Another If Then Else If damaging unit is (whatever you guys used to detect if a unit is damaged from high ground or not) is true. Then set Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation = Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation Divided by 2. (Since these variables used are set as real numbers, decimals will work.)
Then finally, after all the above is applied.
Do cast spell (From Damaging unit to damaged unit) damaging unit casts "Triggered Spell Damage" with + "Local Damage Taken After Armor Calculation" to damaged unit.
(Also I forgot to add that I would kept "Triggered Spell Damage" as spell damage and with an initial value of zero. That way I can simply use the + damage trigger.)
Last I checked (I think after HotS was just released), I don't remember if Blizzard ever added an alternative or a way to prevent damage taken "but" still allow a trigger to read that damage.
If not, then I think that's an important thing for Blizzard to add (for map makers in general).
I was working on a mod where I wanted to use the WC3 armor system. To do that, I used to do the above (since the above - using a behavior that had 100% chance to set all damage to 0, except spells, since I needed at least one damage type to get through "and" since at the time, the trigger "Unit Takes Damage" actually ignored behavior damage reduction), I could easily manipulate the damage.
Though as you said in the later posts, an alternative and good solution is to give each unit two weapons with the high ground weapon only having a 0.5 damage reduction per armor.
Still though, I am a bit disappointed Blizzard never added an option to prevent damage taken but still let the trigger read it. (or have a trigger that lets you just modify the damage taken on the spot). Technically you could heal a unit using triggers to reduce damage but that doesn't prevent lethal damage (in that case, you could give each unit a death time of at least 1, and if after the calculations, the unit still has life remaining, you could revive it and set the HP to the appropriate amount but I'm not sure if that will mess up with things like units in control groups or selected units).
EPT
compared to the SC2BW model
.
