Balance Patch Coming Soon - July 22 - Page 20

Ye? Sure.
But getting x and y vs x and y beeing "equal" would be easier.

On July 24 2014 19:35 Hider wrote:


Doesn't this apply to zerg as well? Zerg can in various phases of the game completley outproduce it's opponent.

On July 24 2014 19:38 Foxxan wrote:

Yes.
I obviously wanna change the creep speed effect and the inject.

On July 24 2014 19:35 Goofinator wrote:
Imo the best/most simple way to solve the defenders advantage problem with warpgate and to give a valid choice between gateways and warpgate is to make it so that warped in units start with no shields whereas units produced from gateways have full shields. This means that reinforcing an attack is not going to be as effective because your units are going to be weaker until their shields come online so attacks cannot snowball as easily and also means that protoss are punished for not having units in position to defend defensively (sure you can warp in a bunch of zealots to defend a drop, but if you do then they are not as strong as if you had had them in position beforehand and gained their shields).

This would help with PvP as well because there is a major defenders advantage to having units produced with gateways with shields as opposed to units produced wiith warpgate without shields. This means that the mothership core and photon overcharge can be changed to not ruin games. I don't know why this wasn't done ages ago.

On July 24 2014 19:35 Goofinator wrote:
Imo the best/most simple way to solve the defenders advantage problem with warpgate and to give a valid choice between gateways and warpgate is to make it so that warped in units start with no shields whereas units produced from gateways have full shields. This means that reinforcing an attack is not going to be as effective because your units are going to be weaker until their shields come online so attacks cannot snowball as easily and also means that protoss are punished for not having units in position to defend defensively (sure you can warp in a bunch of zealots to defend a drop, but if you do then they are not as strong as if you had had them in position beforehand and gained their shields).

This would help with PvP as well because there is a major defenders advantage to having units produced with gateways with shields as opposed to units produced wiith warpgate without shields. This means that the mothership core and photon overcharge can be changed to not ruin games. I don't know why this wasn't done ages ago.

On July 24 2014 19:41 Hider wrote:


But in this case your looking to solve a macromechanic issue by tweaking stats.
Wouldn't it be possible to apply the same reasoning to protoss production?

On July 24 2014 19:29 Foxxan wrote:

Ye? Sure.
But getting x and y vs x and y beeing "equal" would be easier.

Getting it 1:1 in one versus one is probably hard, yes.
But getting 1:1 in two versus two or three versus two etc is probably easier.
Atleast closer with "equal" macro against each other.


My opinion is that stalker is a pretty weak unit, yes.
I know about this supply effecient versus zerg but that comes later, much later.
Versus terran however, he is plain bad overall in fighting power.
And i cant care less if stalker is strong later in the game, its still a shitty boring unit for me with his boring blink.

Yes, my opinion, boring ability yet its a strong ability initself.

Also, you truly believe a warpgate like this is possible to get it "right"?
Two units the first round, no walking distance, can morph from a pylon which can be built anywhere.

28sec cooldown on the zealot+5sec warpin. CB can reduce the cooldown by 10sec~ .

Maybe you are clueless about the game?

Of course you can pin it on the warp-ins, you can also pin it on a lot of other things. If I was to create a warpgate myself, I surely wouldn't put a stalker or HT/Archon type of unit on it. I would make it much more limited in terms of what it can produce, just like you don't put a siege tank on a techlabbed barracks or how you don't let Zerg open with Terrain-ignoring, combatcapable mutalisks at 7mins.

On July 24 2014 19:46 Hider wrote:


So you want:
A) PO to be nerfed
B) Warptech to be nerfed both offensively and defensively,

How is protoss gonna be compensated here? How is protoss gonna defend various harass/pressure-plays? If you suggest you can balance it by buffing WG-units, doesn't that also just imply that protoss 200/200 ball is stronger?

So from my perspective, it looks as if this solution creates multiple new issues that needs to be adressed. That's why I belive my solution is a ton simpler, becasue it buffs protoss in one way and nerfs it in another while still creating a larger defenders advantage wihtout buffing the 200/200 ball:

A) Protoss gets buffed by Robo-tech being more accessible.
B) Protoss gets nerfed by a slight weakning of the combat stats of WG-units --> effectively increases defenders advantage.

On July 24 2014 19:16 Hider wrote:


So I kinda see this as the "naive" game-designers dream. This dream consist of wanting to create tradeoffs everywhere in order to create as many decisions as possible into the game. The warptech/gateway-tradeoff reminds me a lot of the debate when Speedmedivacs were introduced as people wanted to have a cost to the usage of the speed-boost.

The reason why I called this line of thought naive is that it ignores whether the added "decisions" makes gameplay more fun over the longer haul.

The main question that should be asked for Speedmedivac was whether restricting terrans from using the speedboost would make the game more fun to play. I always spoke against that as would be a nerf to dropplay + a nerf to pickup units after a battle and then escape them. Overall that would lead to more passive play.
And while making Starcraft more decisions-based (at the expense of mechanics/gameplay) perhaps can make the game interesting for a week or two, the optimal usage of the "decisions"-based abilities will be figured out quite quickly and then the game will be quite unfun.

So add decision into the game if it will create new dynamics and interactions that have potential to be fun even when the game is figured out. But don't add decisions at the exepense of gameplay.

The parallels I draw here to warptech and gateway is that I do not think it's fun at all to switch back and fourth between WG and Gateways. If that really was the case every protoss player in Starbow would just do that all the time. But noone really seems to be willing to learn that even though it theoretically has clear advantages.

Further, it doesn't even add any unique mechanics to protoss. Protoss already has the decision behind a normal productionfacilitiy in the Robo and the "instant" production facility in WG. WG's doesn't need to have a "normal" option as well - That will just make it overlap more with the way Robotics Facility works.

Rather, I suggest to make the Robo cheaper and then create a real decision behind how many robo's you want relative to warpgates. While this suggestion mainly is due to gameplay reasons, it does also create a more interesting tradeoff as well.

That is something that would make for actual decisions, warp in here and risk having the production on cooldown, or crank out units faster from the regular gateway.

On July 24 2014 20:19 Hider wrote:


But this is kinda my point. When your adding risks your creating a tradeoff, but that isn't interesting in it self. Let me try to use a real-world example to illustrate my point. Let's say I go out to buy groceries and has the options between buying some healthy food that tastes kinda medicoore and some snakcs that taste really well, but isn't healthy. Do I really say, wow this tradeoff is so interesting, thank you god/evolution/science for making the world this way. Or wouldn't I prefer that snacks both tasted better and was more healthy at the same time?

The latter is IMO a superior scenario and thus my point is that if there is a tradeoff between boring options and fun options as a replacement for only having a fun option, then adding the tradeoff isn't good.

On July 24 2014 20:14 Squat wrote:

Maybe I should have clarified, in addition to creating incentives to use regular warp gates, there should be a straight up nerf to WG, which could allow for some other interesting options as well, even tinkering with the t1 protoss units. That is something that would make for actual decisions, warp in here and risk having the production on cooldown, or crank out units faster from the regular gateway. Being able to teleport units in a massive strong ability, and the choice between warping in and building normally could absolutely be both interesting and significant. It just takes a carefully balanced trade off between the two.

Furthermore, that decision will be highly fluid, it will depend on maps, on economy, on the enemy unit comp, on your unit comp etc, there are so many variables to a choice between WG and gateway, assuming there is a realistic choice in the first place, that I strongly doubt there will ever be a one-size-fits-all answer to whether to warp in or not.

As for promoting heavier robo play, that is plausible, but that runs into the brick wall of protoss robo units being so hugely powerful, again as a direct result of their T1 units being rather bad. If we want to make multiple robo builds a more standard thing, we can't leave the units as they are. The idea of weakening t1 protoss units further is something I very strongly disagree with, protoss does not need to lean or their t2-3 gas units any more than they already do. If anything we should be looking to do the opposite.

On July 24 2014 20:25 Squat wrote:

I find this argument very strange. Races are supposed to have weaknesses. Just because something is fun to play with does not mean it's good for the game. Again, your analogy is bad. There is no downside to a meal that is both healthy and tasty. There are definite downsides to elements in games what may be fun, but have deleterious effect on the game as a whole.

And arguing about whether something is fun or boring is fallacious either way, fun is subjective. I think a WG/gateway dynamic is a lot more interesting and fun than just WG.

On July 24 2014 20:33 Goofinator wrote:
Your example with techlab rax and gateways is terrible. With techlab rax you have to actually be in the base to manage the add-ons (if you are switching them around) whereas if you wanted to switch from gateways to warpgate all you need to do is press two keys, one to select the gateways and second to transform them. It is very simple and would add depth - playing defensive? Use gateways so you have shields. Want to reinforce a timing attack? Use warpgate to try and mass the units to win the game (and micro your units so your low shield units are at the back replenishing their shields).

On July 24 2014 20:29 Hider wrote:


Yes races have downsides:

Warptech = Weaker units, faster production
Robo = Stronger units but slower production.

The different types of combinations and strategies you can apply through mixing these units together are interesting becasue it adds variety to gameplay. This type of variety makes the game more fun to watch long-term.

What does a player switching back and forth add to the experience? If this was implemented, then the first couple of times you watched pros' do it, you would say "wow cool". But after a while, you wouldn't care as the units, the micro, the multitasking are still the same.

My point is here: This isn't a fun mechanic at all, and the decision it creates won't have any longlasting charm.

It adds things by allowing changes in other areas. This is what you're missing, you seem completely focused on the WG mechanic itself. By reducing its impact on the game, it opens up opportunities to change other things, like protoss t1-t2/3 power curve.

I just don't see WG being an inherently good or fun mechanic, it should not be treated as something that is just presumed to be better for the game than gateway production. I

Again, your reaper example is just bad. The reaper is relevant for the first few minutes, after which the game segues into the mid and late game. A WG vs Gateway dynamic would be relevant the entire game, and likely change as the game progressed. I'm having some troubles with your analogies dude, they are not very persuasive.

You have absolutely zero basis for making this claim. Do not claim knowledge you do not possess.