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On December 02 2015 23:09 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I think energy is a bit boring in SC2 which is why I am often cool with more cooldowns instead. Why? Generally speaking I prefer cooldowns of 20-50 seconds for abilities, regardless of whether its energybased or not, and I also dislike when you can cast more than one ability during a short period. You can create this type of effect with maximum energy of 100 and energy regeneration of 1.5 for most spellcasters. Blizzard has for some reason opted for 0.56 and 200 maximum energy for all spellcasters which is one of the reasons why spellcasters feel so boring in Sc2. The only real difference (after you make the above adjustment) is that energy can create opportunity cost between using differnet types of abilites. Hence I prefer energy when you have more than one ability and if you only have one ability, cooldowns should be the default.
I think 20-50 second cooldowns with high impact abilities can lead to "boring strategies", in the sense that you will try to get the free damage of those abiliities to trade and otherwise stay defensive. e.g. Swarm Hosts and Disruptors. This depends on the effect obviously, but in general if there is only cooldown there is less tension around using it just for the sake of something like zoning.
Maybe it's also just that the cooldowns of the particular examples are on the lower end of 20-50 seconds that creates this dynamic though.
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On December 02 2015 23:09 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I think energy is a bit boring in SC2 which is why I am often cool with more cooldowns instead. Why? Generally speaking I prefer cooldowns of 20-50 seconds for abilities, regardless of whether its energybased or not, and I also dislike when you can cast more than one ability during a short period. You can create this type of effect with maximum energy of 100 and energy regeneration of 1.5 for most spellcasters. Blizzard has for some reason opted for 0.56 and 200 maximum energy for all spellcasters which is one of the reasons why spellcasters feel so boring in Sc2. The only real difference (after you make the above adjustment) is that energy can create opportunity cost between using differnet types of abilites. Hence I prefer energy when you have more than one ability and if you only have one ability, cooldowns should be the default.
I kind of agree with you on this, I think it tends to make the start of some fights a bit messy if there is no cooldown on abilities, but it is nice to have energy that you have to store for being able to use a spell even more than once every few seconds. You can store energy by not using the ability when you know it would be more useful later, or for being able to use it more than once in a battle, or for being able to use another ability that takes a lot of energy later. I think there is a bit more strategy involved thx to energy but cooldown helps not make it messy where you tend to want to spam the abilities of all your casters asap when some battles start and these become too important. 20-50 seconds is really huge though, depending on what the ability is something like several seconds seems nice already to give an interesting tempo.
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On December 02 2015 18:45 Swisslink wrote:
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One thing that confused me was the comparison with real sports and that real sports aren't changed the sams way SC2 is.
Of course they are?
It might not be the game that changes, but the way the game has to be played due to changes in the surrounding environment, may it be material or new rules. Both happen quite frequently and these changes affect the sports an insane amount. New material brings new possibilities which are most likely gonna be abused. Either these changes are accepted (-> The sport changed), or it's denied (-> Rules change), but the sport changes either way.
Ski Jumping changed due to new materials, which allowed for new techniques. Initially the technique everyone uses nowadays was critizised, nowadays everything else is not accepted anymore. It's just blatantly wrong to say that normal sports don't change due to the environment the sports is in. And I'd assume that's not too bad of a comparison: Athlets in these sports got to change the way the sport is executed due to the surrounding environment and can't really do anything about it, because someone else makes the rules and comes up with new material which innovates the sport. Same as a StarCraft player has to adapt to patches which change the way their sport is played.
Even closer to the situation in eSports are sports that are highly dependant on the technology - which is the case for StarCraft as well. Formula 1 for example radically changes the rules every few years, explicitly to avoid a stale environment in the sport. Many other sports with a technological, rather than purely manpower related background deal with similar situations. And quite frequently the rules are explicitly changed in order for the sport to get more exciting for the viewers.
thanks for putting my argument into better words, i couldnt state it that eloquently, but thats exactly what i meant 
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So you would you say that some caster units (say, the sentry, infestor, high templar) could be improved by adding a ~5-10 seconds cooldown to their main ability on top of the energy requirements? It would still leave the strategic implications of energy intact while preventing the spamming of abilities at the start of fights. For instance, if you have five sentries you can only cast five forcefields at a time while waiting for the cooldown period to pass.
Though honestly, I don't think it would make that much difference since you are always supposed to pace your use of abilities in order not to exhaust your energy reserves, and to use them with caution for specific tactical purposes.
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On December 03 2015 04:34 Grumbels wrote:
So you would you say that some caster units (say, the sentry, infestor, high templar) could be improved by adding a ~5-10 seconds cooldown to their main ability on top of the energy requirements? It would still leave the strategic implications of energy intact while preventing the spamming of abilities at the start of fights. For instance, if you have five sentries you can only cast five forcefields at a time while waiting for the cooldown period to pass.
Though honestly, I don't think it would make that much difference since you are always supposed to pace your use of abilities in order not to exhaust your energy reserves, and to use them with caution for specific tactical purposes.
yeah, maybe not so much difference though yeah
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I'm super late to the party here but my reaction is this: Lilbow abandoned Blizzcon so he could practice enough to get knocked out in groups at DreamHack
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I think 20-50 second cooldowns with high impact abilities can lead to "boring strategies", in the sense that you will try to get the free damage of those abiliities to trade and otherwise stay defensive. e.g. Swarm Hosts and Disruptors
Really depends on how the abilities are designed and how the countertools are designed. E.g. in PvP the countertool to Disruptors is the Tempests which efficiently stale the game as it doesn't have any counter itself. With a better gamedynamic the opponent should have 1-2 tools to engage the Disruptor/Tempest army.
Alot of the LOTV-game design issues atm revolves around the poor ground to air balance/design. Stalkers are generally too weak in low numbers and Psi storm/Archons doesn't contribute enough. If one of the former units could deal with Tempests (and those units also had other weakness's) it could create a much more dynamic gameplay where players would constantly adjust their compositions throughout the game.
With regards to the HOTS-Swarm Host, it's efficient range is gigantic and while the Disruptor can also be used to engage the opponent (like break Siege Tanks and Lurkers - which is very good design btw), the HOTS-SH could do neither. It could just turtle.
Anyway, the above is a range issue, not a CD issue. You can just look at Ravagers and Reapers with their 10 second skillshots. Neither really leads to stalemales.
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On December 02 2015 23:44 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2015 23:09 Hider wrote:I think energy is a bit boring in SC2 which is why I am often cool with more cooldowns instead. Why? Generally speaking I prefer cooldowns of 20-50 seconds for abilities, regardless of whether its energybased or not, and I also dislike when you can cast more than one ability during a short period. You can create this type of effect with maximum energy of 100 and energy regeneration of 1.5 for most spellcasters. Blizzard has for some reason opted for 0.56 and 200 maximum energy for all spellcasters which is one of the reasons why spellcasters feel so boring in Sc2. The only real difference (after you make the above adjustment) is that energy can create opportunity cost between using differnet types of abilites. Hence I prefer energy when you have more than one ability and if you only have one ability, cooldowns should be the default. I kind of agree with you on this, I think it tends to make the start of some fights a bit messy if there is no cooldown on abilities, but it is nice to have energy that you have to store for being able to use a spell even more than once every few seconds. You can store energy by not using the ability when you know it would be more useful later, or for being able to use it more than once in a battle, or for being able to use another ability that takes a lot of energy later. I think there is a bit more strategy involved thx to energy but cooldown helps not make it messy where you tend to want to spam the abilities of all your casters asap when some battles start and these become too important. 20-50 seconds is really huge though, depending on what the ability is something like several seconds seems nice already to give an interesting tempo.
My problem with multiple abilities per spellcaster within a very short period is that it takes the game away from movement-based micro. I think abilities should only be a tool to reward players for move their units around and/or create some type of new dynamic.
But when you start to have abilities like Forcefiel, WOL-fungal or PDD that you can store up and then spam without any movement-based counter play, it makes the plaing experience worse. Because rather than you casting one ability and then moving your units around, you prioritize casting abilities for the first part of the engagement which is a less interesting form of micro.
So in general my philsophy is to make abilities/spellcasters the least taxing on APM as possible while balancing them being quite impactful with proper counterplay.
And I think one ability (per spellcaster) every 40th second (or so) functions better than 2-3 abilities being cast within 2 seconds every 120 second.
Note that if you want to balance abilites around counterplay (thus no guaranteed impact - like a skillshot) it also "feels" better with higher energy regeneration rate since your not putting all of your eggs into landing one ability as you have time for a second ability relatively quickly afterwards.
Like imagine if Disruptors had a 60-second CD. Suddenly the game would be a ton more volatile since protoss players would take a much bigger hit if they missed the initial ball.
So you would you say that some caster units (say, the sentry, infestor, high templar) could be improved by adding a ~5-10 seconds cooldown to their main ability on top of the energy requirements? It would still leave the strategic implications of energy intact while preventing the spamming of abilities at the start of fights. For instance, if you have five sentries you can only cast five forcefields at a time while waiting for the cooldown period to pass.
What I said was that you can create the same effect with lower maximum energy and higher energy regeneration without adding any CD.
A little OT, but one ability that noone seems to be talking about, but probably should is Consume. What is its purpose (relative to higher reg rate) besides adding mechanics for the sake of mechanic?
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On December 02 2015 21:45 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2015 12:50 jalstar wrote:
Post-DH? I have a hard time believing that TY and Bomber are worse than the numerous foreign Protoss and Zerg who took Bo3s off them. Bomber is not very good on LotV right now. Please have a look at the replay pack of Dreamhack, Bomber rely on the old push/strategies that worked in WoL/HoTs, it can work but not playing the new units doesn't seems optimal for a terran.
I mean, Bomber is probably not the player you'd expect to adapt most quickly to LotV. Hell, he never really adapted to HotS.
That said, if we're talking about his series against you, I don't think his problem was not making new units. He even made a lot of reapers one game, which isn't technically a new unit but the only reason you'd make that many is because of the grenade.
I'd say pretty obviously his problem was, he didn't know how to defend a nydus worm attack. Is liberator the answer to that? I'm pretty sure it's not cyclone, and I was kind of under the impression tanks were the way to go to defend that attack.
Obviously you know more about the strategy than me, though. Do you feel liberators are really the best way to defend a nydus worm attack?
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EPT
