EPTOn September 16 2016 06:51 Edowyth wrote:
Well, I'm not really concerned about balance. I want improvements to the race that seem fun and interesting. Changes to the design of both the adept and the immortal could excite me -- a really late blink and a poorly-thought-out tempest change (among others) simply don't.
Well, lots of Protoss players know what they want ... it's just that we're different people so we all want different kinds of things.
Arguably, there's a lot of similarity between what Protoss players want and what others want for / from Protoss:
- Weaker / removed PO
- Weaker / removed early-game attacks (shades, pulsar beam, the silly tempest ability they added)
- Power reduced in late-game compositions (MS, Tempests, Storm death-ball)
in exchange for:
- Stronger defensive early-game units
- More flexible mid-game gateway units (movers-and-shooters)
- Better distinction between tech paths
Protoss has just as many weird design choices (if not more) as any other race. Why was nothing terribly exciting done here? Just because they're doing well balance-wise hardly means that they don't need design work.
Among other things, all of these abilities contribute to Protoss' late-game power:
- revelation impossible to do anything about
- storm has immense range and damage as well as being "stockpile-able" through the energy mechanic so that very little supply is devoted to extremely powerful zone control
- cannons are the best late-game defensive (zoning) structures because they shoot both up and down
- purification nova is a very-long ranged zoning tool that has the potential to end the game with every shot, as well as making certain units from the opponent completely defunct
- Protoss units generally have the highest health, so in a late-game battle with multiple abilities, tons of micro, and more than even top pros can handle ... Protoss armies simply tend to live the longest
Protoss, as a race, has the weirdest power curve you can imagine. Early game attacks are immensely strong (and what everyone's going for at or near the top), but Protoss without a threat of early pressure is so far behind in the mid-game. Meanwhile, their late game is oppressively strong if the map isn't so heavily spread out that their death-ball can't answer threats everywhere at once (with tempests' range, PO, and tanky adept / difficult to kill DT warp-ins -- the map has to be spread out widely indeed).
Protoss is arguably the most ridiculously designed race of them all. It depends upon early-game attacks (or the immense threat thereof) to influences the rest of the game while having a ridiculously poor mid-game and a too-strong deathball in the late game ...
And looking at representation data on ladders (including how the race is split up among leagues) Protoss is not only currently the least-fun race (least played by far and decreasing overall share over time), but it's also the hardest race to play in the lower range (being short in representation from Masters all the way to the bottom of the ladder).
So, even if they don't want to do the things that I've pointed out, Blizzard should really try to excite Protoss players ... or the game is headed for more of the same frustrations we've all pointed out recently and that have labelled Protoss as the "gimmicky", "all-in", and "a-move" race since the beginning of WoL.
Protoss could absolutely have work done to make it a better race. For the sake of the game, I hope the work gets done.
Well, I'm not really concerned about balance. I want improvements to the race that seem fun and interesting. Changes to the design of both the adept and the immortal could excite me -- a really late blink and a poorly-thought-out tempest change (among others) simply don't.
Well, lots of Protoss players know what they want ... it's just that we're different people so we all want different kinds of things.
Arguably, there's a lot of similarity between what Protoss players want and what others want for / from Protoss:
- Weaker / removed PO
- Weaker / removed early-game attacks (shades, pulsar beam, the silly tempest ability they added)
- Power reduced in late-game compositions (MS, Tempests, Storm death-ball)
in exchange for:
- Stronger defensive early-game units
- More flexible mid-game gateway units (movers-and-shooters)
- Better distinction between tech paths
Protoss has just as many weird design choices (if not more) as any other race. Why was nothing terribly exciting done here? Just because they're doing well balance-wise hardly means that they don't need design work.
Among other things, all of these abilities contribute to Protoss' late-game power:
- revelation impossible to do anything about
- storm has immense range and damage as well as being "stockpile-able" through the energy mechanic so that very little supply is devoted to extremely powerful zone control
- cannons are the best late-game defensive (zoning) structures because they shoot both up and down
- purification nova is a very-long ranged zoning tool that has the potential to end the game with every shot, as well as making certain units from the opponent completely defunct
- Protoss units generally have the highest health, so in a late-game battle with multiple abilities, tons of micro, and more than even top pros can handle ... Protoss armies simply tend to live the longest
Protoss, as a race, has the weirdest power curve you can imagine. Early game attacks are immensely strong (and what everyone's going for at or near the top), but Protoss without a threat of early pressure is so far behind in the mid-game. Meanwhile, their late game is oppressively strong if the map isn't so heavily spread out that their death-ball can't answer threats everywhere at once (with tempests' range, PO, and tanky adept / difficult to kill DT warp-ins -- the map has to be spread out widely indeed).
Protoss is arguably the most ridiculously designed race of them all. It depends upon early-game attacks (or the immense threat thereof) to influences the rest of the game while having a ridiculously poor mid-game and a too-strong deathball in the late game ...
And looking at representation data on ladders (including how the race is split up among leagues) Protoss is not only currently the least-fun race (least played by far and decreasing overall share over time), but it's also the hardest race to play in the lower range (being short in representation from Masters all the way to the bottom of the ladder).
So, even if they don't want to do the things that I've pointed out, Blizzard should really try to excite Protoss players ... or the game is headed for more of the same frustrations we've all pointed out recently and that have labelled Protoss as the "gimmicky", "all-in", and "a-move" race since the beginning of WoL.
Protoss could absolutely have work done to make it a better race. For the sake of the game, I hope the work gets done.
This is the kind of post that needs to be made and shared, the feedback that is required, wich only helps prove my point.
If theres something you need/want to be changed, you need the feedback to be read and discussed
Seriously you make really good points, and probably a lot of protoss players agree with you, but you can't expect to get something if you don't ask of it first, you should put more effort into making the feedback know, god knows how many post, discussion and constant feedback it took until Blizz decided to make this patch to help mech.
