On December 02 2014 01:01 JCoto wrote: I'm with most of you.
The ravager is not only a better Roach. Even if it is true that it has better range, health, DPS and base speed than a Roach, and straight fighting control is basically the same.However, the Ravager has not the assault functionality of the Roach, having burrow movement (Stealth) and fast health regeneration (skirmisher). The ravager is more something like a moving siege unit, able to cast a mortar skillshot on the move.
If you considerate that, the Roach is a plain fighting unit that scalates into an skirmisher/assault unit.It is not able to stand well against antiarmored compositions (MMM, heavy mech/tanklines, well microed Zealot/Stalker/sentry, Stalker/sentry/immortal, Void ray/chargelot.The ravager is a frontal charge unit with siege breaking functionality. If you have observed closely, it is designed to crreate oportunities in situations where Roaches couldn't work. I think that with reasonable costs and balance, it could be a good addition, specially against MMM, Soultrains and ZvZ roach wars. It's not that difficult: regulate cost and tech requirements, and control ability usage.
IMAO, design-wise it is something like the hellbat: it adds optional functionality to a unit that in most cases is very straight and has many counters, but loosing their main strengths (in this case, burrow micro and regeneration) in the process of overcoming its previous counters. Roaches are quite dispensable, reheal very well when upgraded and have stealth possibilities. The ravager loses that traits (specially being dispensable) for firepower. So no, it's not simply a better roach. Basic stats aren't everything.
By the way, manual charge and reviewing Charge/ Concussive shells interaction is IMAO far much more interesting for the game than making the dual attack marauder. Otherwise, you are simply motivating the addition of sentries in the deathball. Drops will stay 99% the same, the tactic of pressuring/gaining upgrade advantage will be strict meta for terran, and lategame will be more protoss favoured. As a protoss I like the marauder dual-attack because I will be able to pressure much more with some sentries and All-ins are going to be simply crazy, but in terms of design, the interactions between the Protoss ball and the MMM ball are going to remain the same, now simply more protoss favored in terms of damage reduction. Reviewing the efficiency of kiting vs charge and maybe applying a slight nerf over the vs armored damage of the marauder is maybe a better way, specially with ultralisk armor buff incoming. Just do numbers or test the LotV custom mod.
If we don't review the basic interactions and the way units really work, what we are doing is just playing with math in most cases. Just like some governements do.
I agree especially with that last sentence. It sums up nicely how numbers in raw fighting efficiency are often misleading.
I want to answer on the chargelot issue though. I feel like if blizzard finally manages to lower the efficiency of colossus deathball stacking, they should look at chargelots a little. Currently zealots in general are just a mineral dump or a way to spend money while being low on ressources and high on production + a bunch of early push timings vs Z. I wished there was a way chargelots/zealots could be a bit more usable apart from dropping them into mineral lines. Like they could use a higher base movement speed or sth.
Chargelots/zealots are the shield of toss deathball buying time for stalkers and colossi to deal damage. That is their role. I agree that they deserve a higher base movement speed upon the charge upgrade, but that would only make them die sooner.
In that scenario mb. But if you think more bases, less colossi, more spread out skirmishes then a bit more base MS allows P to play this way without relying on deathballs.
On December 02 2014 01:01 JCoto wrote: I'm with most of you.
The ravager is not only a better Roach. Even if it is true that it has better range, health, DPS and base speed than a Roach, and straight fighting control is basically the same.However, the Ravager has not the assault functionality of the Roach, having burrow movement (Stealth) and fast health regeneration (skirmisher). The ravager is more something like a moving siege unit, able to cast a mortar skillshot on the move.
If you considerate that, the Roach is a plain fighting unit that scalates into an skirmisher/assault unit.It is not able to stand well against antiarmored compositions (MMM, heavy mech/tanklines, well microed Zealot/Stalker/sentry, Stalker/sentry/immortal, Void ray/chargelot.The ravager is a frontal charge unit with siege breaking functionality. If you have observed closely, it is designed to crreate oportunities in situations where Roaches couldn't work. I think that with reasonable costs and balance, it could be a good addition, specially against MMM, Soultrains and ZvZ roach wars. It's not that difficult: regulate cost and tech requirements, and control ability usage.
IMAO, design-wise it is something like the hellbat: it adds optional functionality to a unit that in most cases is very straight and has many counters, but loosing their main strengths (in this case, burrow micro and regeneration) in the process of overcoming its previous counters. Roaches are quite dispensable, reheal very well when upgraded and have stealth possibilities. The ravager loses that traits (specially being dispensable) for firepower. So no, it's not simply a better roach. Basic stats aren't everything.
By the way, manual charge and reviewing Charge/ Concussive shells interaction is IMAO far much more interesting for the game than making the dual attack marauder. Otherwise, you are simply motivating the addition of sentries in the deathball. Drops will stay 99% the same, the tactic of pressuring/gaining upgrade advantage will be strict meta for terran, and lategame will be more protoss favoured. As a protoss I like the marauder dual-attack because I will be able to pressure much more with some sentries and All-ins are going to be simply crazy, but in terms of design, the interactions between the Protoss ball and the MMM ball are going to remain the same, now simply more protoss favored in terms of damage reduction. Reviewing the efficiency of kiting vs charge and maybe applying a slight nerf over the vs armored damage of the marauder is maybe a better way, specially with ultralisk armor buff incoming. Just do numbers or test the LotV custom mod.
If we don't review the basic interactions and the way units really work, what we are doing is just playing with math in most cases. Just like some governements do.
I agree especially with that last sentence. It sums up nicely how numbers in raw fighting efficiency are often misleading.
I want to answer on the chargelot issue though. I feel like if blizzard finally manages to lower the efficiency of colossus deathball stacking, they should look at chargelots a little. Currently zealots in general are just a mineral dump or a way to spend money while being low on ressources and high on production + a bunch of early push timings vs Z. I wished there was a way chargelots/zealots could be a bit more usable apart from dropping them into mineral lines. Like they could use a higher base movement speed or sth.
Chargelots/zealots are the shield of toss deathball buying time for stalkers and colossi to deal damage. That is their role. I agree that they deserve a higher base movement speed upon the charge upgrade, but that would only make them die sooner.
In that scenario mb. But if you think more bases, less colossi, more spread out skirmishes then a bit more base MS allows P to play this way without relying on deathballs.
Skytoss could've been a good alternative had void ray not been nerfed in HotS. You know, it used to be so IMBA that you can laser a rock to get charged and burn ten marines to ashes before they finish the stimpack upgrade.
On December 01 2014 14:31 ETisME wrote: The unit sound in bw is cool until you put on the earphone imo, some sounds are way too sharp and low res.
Not that sc2 is better though.
Nostalgia covers up a lot of things--like late 90's level sound design.
Not sure what you're getting at. It was almost universally agreed upon that BW sound design was superior in almost all ways. Every thing from unit voice overs to attacks/weapon sounds and buildings sounded way, way better, more mysterious, more futuristic more bad ass. I still hate Blizzard for making Protoss sound like fucking space elves.
If I had an option to replace most unit and building sounds from SC2 to BW I'd totally go for it.
Games with better sound design than BW
The Halo Series Call of Duty Series Dragon Age Series Street Fighter Series Smash Brothers Series Hearthstone etc....
There are a shit tonne of games with MUCH better sound quality, design, and implementation than BW. Not that BW sound is bad--but its definitely not the most bad ass, or the most scifi, or the most mysterious. So many games do it so much better in every category. SC2 is not one of those games, but beating SC2 at sound design does not mean that 90's sound design stands the test of time.
I know it's silly to talk about balance at this point, but I wonder how protoss will be able to deal with mutas or drops in LotV given the warpgate nerf. If they buff gateway units or photon cannons, that would create a bunch of other big balance problems.
On December 04 2014 10:36 AndAgain wrote: I know it's silly to talk about balance at this point, but I wonder how protoss will be able to deal with mutas or drops in LotV given the warpgate nerf. If they buff gateway units or photon cannons, that would create a bunch of other big balance problems.
Not quite, it seems very possible that they want to make gate units stronger, besides its not like it will be the only thing that will bring problems, besides right now things like ravagers seem more like a problem than mutas lol
I still think it would be awesome to have a stalker hp reduction for a damage buff. and of course the proper attack upgrade scaling, not gimped like its now.
But anyway I'm really interested to see what blizzard come up with (as long as they DO come up with something more for toss)
On December 04 2014 18:50 Foxxan wrote: I would like to see blink nerfed and stalkers stats buffed. About time the game focus more on micro vs micro and not one sided micro-fests.
I mentioned this earlier, but I think both the ravager and the stalker have quite spammy abilities that don't give enough room for counterplay because the cooldown is so low.
Also, does anyone know the cooldown of the herc's grappling hook?
On December 04 2014 18:50 Foxxan wrote: I would like to see blink nerfed and stalkers stats buffed. About time the game focus more on micro vs micro and not one sided micro-fests.
I mentioned this earlier, but I think both the ravager and the stalker have quite spammy abilities that don't give enough room for counterplay because the cooldown is so low.
Also, does anyone know the cooldown of the herc's grappling hook?
On December 04 2014 18:50 Foxxan wrote: I would like to see blink nerfed and stalkers stats buffed. About time the game focus more on micro vs micro and not one sided micro-fests.
I mentioned this earlier, but I think both the ravager and the stalker have quite spammy abilities that don't give enough room for counterplay because the cooldown is so low.
Also, does anyone know the cooldown of the herc's grappling hook?
Last time i checked, 7sec.
Hm, so even stalkers won't be able to get away from hercs? (Since you can grapple up and down cliffs too)
On December 04 2014 18:50 Foxxan wrote: I would like to see blink nerfed and stalkers stats buffed. About time the game focus more on micro vs micro and not one sided micro-fests.
I mentioned this earlier, but I think both the ravager and the stalker have quite spammy abilities that don't give enough room for counterplay because the cooldown is so low.
Also, does anyone know the cooldown of the herc's grappling hook?
Last time i checked, 7sec.
Hm, so even stalkers won't be able to get away from hercs? (Since you can grapple up and down cliffs too)
Herc is an anti-baneling unit, and maybe anti-zealots. It's unlikely to be a threat to stalker or any other ranged units. ---------------------------------- One of the worst new unit designs in HotS is the Mothership Core. According to someone's post, "it's like Blizzard's developers chalked up all of P's weaknesses in the early game on a blackboard and created MSC as the solution." It is a solution, but this solution takes away so much fun. P's entire macro mechanism is flawed. Here are some thoughts of improvement, which are about giving nexus some spells, making it function like a CC:
- Remove MSC - and Mothership altogether; - Remove Chronoboost; - Nexus starting with 0 energy; - A 50-energy spell for nexus that increases nearby probes' mining efficiency by 50% for a short period of time (each probe gathers 50% more minerals and gases at a time like mining a gold mine); - Mass Recall for nexus, 75 energy; - A passive ability that makes nexus invulnerable to all damages for a short period of time, automatically activated when the nexus's shield is reduced to zero but with a long cooldown (2 - 3 minutes, perhaps). This would prevent a base from being destroyed by a drop or a rush, but at the same time P needs to push the enemy back with its forces instead of a temporary Planetary Fortress.
On December 04 2014 18:50 Foxxan wrote: I would like to see blink nerfed and stalkers stats buffed. About time the game focus more on micro vs micro and not one sided micro-fests.
I mentioned this earlier, but I think both the ravager and the stalker have quite spammy abilities that don't give enough room for counterplay because the cooldown is so low.
Also, does anyone know the cooldown of the herc's grappling hook?
Last time i checked, 7sec.
Hm, so even stalkers won't be able to get away from hercs? (Since you can grapple up and down cliffs too)
Herc is an anti-baneling unit, and maybe anti-zealots. It's unlikely to be a threat to stalker or any other ranged units. ---------------------------------- One of the worst new unit designs in HotS is the Mothership Core. According to someone's post, "it's like Blizzard's developers chalked up all of P's weaknesses in the early game on a blackboard and created MSC as the solution." It is a solution, but this solution takes away so much fun. P's entire macro mechanism is flawed. Here are some thoughts of improvement, which are about giving nexus some spells, making it function like a CC:
- Remove MSC - and Mothership altogether; - Remove Chronoboost; - Nexus starting with 0 energy; - A 50-energy spell for nexus that increases nearby probes' mining efficiency by 50% for a short period of time (each probe gathers 50% more minerals and gases at a time like mining a gold mine); - Mass Recall for nexus, 75 energy; - A passive ability that makes nexus invulnerable to all damages for a short period of time, automatically activated when the nexus's shield is reduced to zero but with a long cooldown (2 - 3 minutes, perhaps). This would prevent a base from being destroyed by a drop or a rush, but at the same time P needs to push the enemy back with its forces instead of a temporary Planetary Fortress.
Heh, this was what the original Protoss macro mechanic was. It was stopped because it was considered mindless with no other utility (queens can be used for defense, transfuse, spreading creep, etc. while you can choose between orbital vs planetary, scans vs mules, etc.). They also used to have recall at the nexus.
Personally, I think the Nexus should simply act as a big ass shield battery.
Yeah, that was called Proton Charge, looked cool at least.. It seems like a good idea to make the Nexus invulnerable to defend itself instead of having a giant annoying weapon, though making it more resistant and not invulnerable could be better and even less annoying, too bad it kinda overlaps with the new Barrier ability, conceptually.
Chronoboost isn't bad, when to boost what makes it very unique (applies to early to mid game) Look at sos vs mkp games, early chrono helped sos to apply pressure that he wouldn't if he mindlessly boost in probes.
terran left over energy for mule and scans are both incredibly good and same applies to zerg creep inject and transfuse.
On December 08 2014 18:48 ciox wrote: Yeah, that was called Proton Charge, looked cool at least.. It seems like a good idea to make the Nexus invulnerable to defend itself instead of having a giant annoying weapon, though making it more resistant and not invulnerable could be better and even less annoying, too bad it kinda overlaps with the new Barrier ability, conceptually.
I actually really dislike the idea of invulnerability. I think it's good you can get punished for being caught out of position.
On December 01 2014 14:31 ETisME wrote: The unit sound in bw is cool until you put on the earphone imo, some sounds are way too sharp and low res.
Not that sc2 is better though.
Nostalgia covers up a lot of things--like late 90's level sound design.
Not sure what you're getting at. It was almost universally agreed upon that BW sound design was superior in almost all ways. Every thing from unit voice overs to attacks/weapon sounds and buildings sounded way, way better, more mysterious, more futuristic more bad ass. I still hate Blizzard for making Protoss sound like fucking space elves.
If I had an option to replace most unit and building sounds from SC2 to BW I'd totally go for it.
Games with better sound design than BW
The Halo Series Call of Duty Series Dragon Age Series Street Fighter Series Smash Brothers Series Hearthstone etc....
There are a shit tonne of games with MUCH better sound quality, design, and implementation than BW. Not that BW sound is bad--but its definitely not the most bad ass, or the most scifi, or the most mysterious. So many games do it so much better in every category. SC2 is not one of those games, but beating SC2 at sound design does not mean that 90's sound design stands the test of time.
I think you are confusing sound design with quality. The sound design of BW is definitely unique and to most iconic. Almost every BW sound file I immediately recognize as "it's from BW"(or at least most of them). That is true for like 1 Halo theme, the street fighter themesong and some SSB stagesongs, but with BW it's almost every single sound and song because of it's very distinct sounds and themes[for Terran the "space cowboy" thing etc, the alien insectoid sounds of zerg and the dark weird alien sounds from Protoss] (And yes, I played all of the games you listed)
That lies in the simplistic way it was made though. BW sounds are very rustical and "rough"; it's hard to explain actually and I just recall that Extra Credits made an episode on it.
It doesn't fit 100% to this topic, but it should get my point across. To me, Call of Duty music, even though I enjoyed many of their games and played it a ton, is just not recognizable for me. I didn't play that much BW(still longer than the other games but not all my life) but yet here I am hearing all the different sounds in my head just thinking about it.
SC2 sound design suffers from the same problem as CoD though, it's shit.
On December 01 2014 14:31 ETisME wrote: The unit sound in bw is cool until you put on the earphone imo, some sounds are way too sharp and low res.
Not that sc2 is better though.
Nostalgia covers up a lot of things--like late 90's level sound design.
Not sure what you're getting at. It was almost universally agreed upon that BW sound design was superior in almost all ways. Every thing from unit voice overs to attacks/weapon sounds and buildings sounded way, way better, more mysterious, more futuristic more bad ass. I still hate Blizzard for making Protoss sound like fucking space elves.
If I had an option to replace most unit and building sounds from SC2 to BW I'd totally go for it.
Games with better sound design than BW
The Halo Series Call of Duty Series Dragon Age Series Street Fighter Series Smash Brothers Series Hearthstone etc....
There are a shit tonne of games with MUCH better sound quality, design, and implementation than BW. Not that BW sound is bad--but its definitely not the most bad ass, or the most scifi, or the most mysterious. So many games do it so much better in every category. SC2 is not one of those games, but beating SC2 at sound design does not mean that 90's sound design stands the test of time.
I think you are confusing sound design with quality. The sound design of BW is definitely unique and to most iconic. Almost every BW sound file I immediately recognize as "it's from BW"(or at least most of them). That is true for like 1 Halo theme, the street fighter themesong and some SSB stagesongs, but with BW it's almost every single sound and song because of it's very distinct sounds and themes[for Terran the "space cowboy" thing etc, the alien insectoid sounds of zerg and the dark weird alien sounds from Protoss] (And yes, I played all of the games you listed)
That lies in the simplistic way it was made though. BW sounds are very rustical and "rough"; it's hard to explain actually and I just recall that Extra Credits made an episode on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgHrz_Wv6o
It doesn't fit 100% to this topic, but it should get my point across. To me, Call of Duty music, even though I enjoyed many of their games and played it a ton, is just not recognizable for me. I didn't play that much BW(still longer than the other games but not all my life) but yet here I am hearing all the different sounds in my head just thinking about it.
SC2 sound design suffers from the same problem as CoD though, it's shit.
Anyway, I digress. Just wanted to point that out!
Recognizability is different from sound quality and has more to do with nostalgia. The Mario games, for instance, is highly recognizable and immediately immerses you (and even non-gamers) into the feel and essence of their world. I can listen to a street fighter game and just by sound alone I can already tell who is using what moves at what time and for the most part I can tell who is winning and losing just on sound alone, something impossible to tell with BW if graphics didn't exist and all you heard was sounds.
BWs sound is great, don't get me wrong, but it not the best like many pretend it to be. The quality is not high, and the recognizability is dwarfed by many other games. But it's definitely solid, especially for an old game.
EPT
