EPTBut Protoss in BW doesn't have warp gates and looks like a thoroughly well designed race (at least PvZ and PvT in BW are awesome to watch), however it also suffers the same fate of easy to learn for casual players but hard to consistently perform on highest level. I wonder what part of design contributes to that.
Semi-standard Protoss Crying Post - Page 15
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Nasigil
137 Posts
But Protoss in BW doesn't have warp gates and looks like a thoroughly well designed race (at least PvZ and PvT in BW are awesome to watch), however it also suffers the same fate of easy to learn for casual players but hard to consistently perform on highest level. I wonder what part of design contributes to that. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26002 Posts
On February 23 2024 05:30 Vindicare605 wrote: Here's where that little argument falls apart. I love Protoss in Brood War. On a thematic and lore side of things, I adore Protoss. When I think back to the first time I played Protoss in middle school and the first time I heard the iconic warping in of a building with the Protoss music playing in the background I still get chills of nostalgia. I don't hate Protoss. I hate what Blizzard DID to Protoss in Starcraft 2. There is a huge difference. I want the race to be better than it is currently along with everybody else in this thread. But I honestly don't see any other way to do this and do it right long term without fixing what has always been a mistake with SC2's design for Protoss. We've tried every other option and it hasn't worked. I’ll chip in as a historic Protoss player in both BW (casually) and SC2 more competitively, it’s just irked me forever. I’m sure I have posts bemoaning the constrictive box that warpgate puts the race in, as long as a decade ago. Relatively speaking, I was pretty decent mechanically in terms of macro. My micro was pretty damn solid from years of WC3, I always felt these were just less relevant because I picked Protoss and I was just gimped for choosing the race I felt was the coolest aesthetically. I basically got my Terran up to my Protoss level in less than a month. There’s been a dual issue forever with Protoss design, especially noticeable on ladder with its Bo1 versus many non-repeating opponents (until very higher MMR). The skill floor to be decent is lower, I think most would agree, equally the achievable ceiling is also lower. Thus it’s easier to hit a GM level as Protoss, but when you hit a level where a Serral can just read you look a book, you fall off hugely when your Book of Bullshit starts falling off. However it’s done, it would have, and would still be good for the game if Protoss was both harder to play, but also scaled better, especially mechanically. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16097 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:05 Nebuchad wrote: It doesn't, no. I don't get why you say yes at "Did you deserve to win". I don't see why you would deserve to win just because you poured every part of yourself into this one moment. You deserve to be there and to participate, and you are, and you do. But there's a win condition and someone else is meeting it better than you are, so considering that there's only one winner I don't see why you would be deserving to win when they're there being better than you. Because I don't believe that what someone deserves is based on what they are blessed with, and what the final outcome of a fair competition is. I believe that every person who makes it to the Olympics, who has devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of their singular passion. That are obsessed enough with it, to make it to the event in the first place and has done all of the work neccessary to get that chance to win. I believe all of them DESERVE to win. Sports is all about watching all of these people who are equally deserving of winning, fight it out until only one person actually DOES win. Winning doesn't make someone deserving. It's everything you do, to give yourself a chance of winning that makes you deserving. Losing doesn't mean you didn't deserve to win, it means you just didn't win. Not everyone in this world gets what they deserve. Not everyone who gets something in this life truly deserved it. The best we can do is to make the competition for everybody to have a chance at being the one to win, as fair as possible. | ||
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FFXthebest
75 Posts
On February 22 2024 20:40 ejozl wrote: I think the idea is that Protoss used to be the cost efficient race and so you macro up and get to 200 supply and win. So that is similar to BW mech. When you talk about WG mechanic being problematic, we are simply talking about the Warp Prism, right? We almost don't see proxy gates incorperated into macro play. But yes, Warp Prism is basically the Mothership Core, hero unit of today. It's the strongest unit in the game and if you play Protoss without it, you are simply missing out. You have Blink for all your units and fast Warp-in. But how many Warp-in allins do we really see where a gateway unit buff would destroy the meta?, we have 4Gate Blink, we have some Adept + Prism strong attacks vs. Zerg. There are more timings, but it becomes harder to think them up. I think a bigger reason why we cannot buff Gateway units, is because the economy is switched. In HotS Terran used to be up half a base and these days it is Protoss that is up bases. We have almost the same units, but the economy favours Protoss in the early+mid games. When we had the Marauder split attack, the issue was Protoss overwhelming Terrans with units, rather than Terrans dying to all-ins. Both Terran and Protoss cannot move out on the map vs. Zerg, because of the existence of Zerglings, but Terran make use of Medivacs, which makes it viable to harass all over. Protoss can do the same to an extend when they have Twilight Upgrades. Protoss mobility is actually stronger than ever and it even surpasses Terran, so it does also not hold up the theory that LotV economy makes it so Protoss cannot keep up. Protoss has a lot of issues, but I don't think it's the Warp Gate mechanic or that they lack mobility, though the race is fickle with almost no defenders advantage and a small amount of units. The current issues with Protoss imo. is defenders advantage, Shield Battery nerf (this also means that Protoss cannot be greedy and then capitalize on stronger eco in LotV), non-Warp Gate units are absolutely atrocious. Immortal cost the same as an Ultralisk and is a sitting duck that doesn't even serve its purpose of destroying Lurkers/Tanks, because those units also destroy the Immortal. The Colossus is single purposed, but is pretty strong at this function. The Disruptor is now just weak, it's a worse Siege Tank/Liberator that requires more effort to have work. Void Ray, Carrier doesn't win you games if the opponent is half way decent. When Z/T hits 3/3 then Protoss is also nerfed because Shields scale badly. EMP+Fungal delete Protoss units, while Storm just tickles Zerg/Terran units. And we also have the supply nerfs, making the maxed out Protoss army absolutely miniscule. So Toss needs to win before 3/3 for the opponents and with a strong eco that is hard to get because we don't have Battery Overcharge and units like Disruptor to actually deal with the spamming of low tier units that aren't Light (Colossus can deal with Light units). Good post. We Protoss keep getting nerfs and there was no buffs to counteract it. Just nerfs across the board for years. While terran and Zergs do they nerfs, but they also get buffs to counteract it. All Protoss units has been nerfed that it’s literally so trash against the other races. First buff Protoss need is to revert the cost increase on immortal and warp prism. That nerf was dumb as fuck back then, it sure as well is dumb as fuck now. That was a different build, we could threaten Zerg and terran with. Now every game is garbage stargate opening, and seriously give the dps back to the oracle. Why should Protoss only early harass unit be so trash while widow mines and bane lings literally demolish toss mineral line within seconds And also give back our REAL carriers. Not these trash carriers and long intercept building time | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12318 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:25 Vindicare605 wrote: Because I don't believe that what someone deserves is based on what they are blessed with, and what the final outcome of a fair competition is. I believe that every person who makes it to the Olympics, who has devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of their singular passion. That are obsessed enough with it, to make it to the event in the first place and has done all of the work neccessary to get that chance to win. I believe all of them DESERVE to win. Sports is all about watching all of these people who are equally deserving of winning, fight it out until only one person actually DOES win. Winning doesn't make someone deserving. It's everything you do, to give yourself a chance of winning that makes you deserving. Losing doesn't mean you didn't deserve to win, it means you just didn't win. Not everyone in this world gets what they deserve. Not everyone who gets something in this life truly deserved it. The best we can do is to make the competition for everybody to have a chance at being the one to win, as fair as possible. Okay so you are just using deserve in a way that is specific to you. When the rest of us say deserve to win, we're referring to being good enough to win. The notion that in an equal situation, this person ought to win over this person, because they're better. One of the coolest things about sports in general is that nobody ever deserves to win. We put people in the same conditions, we have them compete, and then we see who gets there. Some people get there more often than others, and they become champions, but once they're champions we don't give them a headstart on the next run because they deserve it, we still put them in the same situation as the others. This is all great, and then some of you will be attracted to games in which the same people win every time like tennis because you like simple hierarchies, and some of us will be attracted to games in which the edges are slim like hockey because there's tension and suspense. All of that is very common (and please don't react to me trashing tennis that's mainly directed at my dad who will never read this :D ). | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16097 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:34 Nebuchad wrote: Okay so you are just using deserve in a way that is specific to you. When the rest of us say deserve to win, we're referring to being good enough to win. The notion that in an equal situation, this person ought to win over this person, because they're better. One of the coolest things about sports in general is that nobody ever deserves to win. We put people in the same conditions, we have them compete, and then we see who gets there. Some people get there more often than others, and they become champions, but once they're champions we don't give them a headstart on the next run because they deserve it, we still put them in the same situation as the others. This is all great, and then some of you will be attracted to games in which the same people win every time like tennis because you like simple hierarchies, and some of us will be attracted to games in which the edges are slim like hockey because there's tension and suspense. All of that is very common (and please don't react to me trashing tennis that's mainly directed at my dad who will never read this :D ). I suppose I can accept that there are two different ways to look at sports, because they stem from the same place of fair competition over everything else. Either everyone deserves to win, or no one deserves to win. I can accept that. You think nobody at the Olympics deserves to win until they do. I believe everyone who's worked hard enough to make it to the Olympics deserves to win. I suppose we're just putting our value in different places. But it fundamentally goes to the same place. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12318 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:37 Vindicare605 wrote: I suppose I can accept that there are two different ways to look at sports, because they stem from the same place of fair competition over everything else. Either everyone deserves to win, or no one deserves to win. I can accept that. You think nobody at the Olympics deserves to win until they do. I believe everyone who's worked hard enough to make it to the Olympics deserves to win. I suppose we're just putting our value in different places. But it fundamentally goes to the same place. Yeah I can agree with that. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26002 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:34 Nebuchad wrote: Okay so you are just using deserve in a way that is specific to you. When the rest of us say deserve to win, we're referring to being good enough to win. The notion that in an equal situation, this person ought to win over this person, because they're better. One of the coolest things about sports in general is that nobody ever deserves to win. We put people in the same conditions, we have them compete, and then we see who gets there. Some people get there more often than others, and they become champions, but once they're champions we don't give them a headstart on the next run because they deserve it, we still put them in the same situation as the others. This is all great, and then some of you will be attracted to games in which the same people win every time like tennis because you like simple hierarchies, and some of us will be attracted to games in which the edges are slim like hockey because there's tension and suspense. All of that is very common (and please don't react to me trashing tennis that's mainly directed at my dad who will never read this :D ). Even tennis doesn’t fully fit here. They slowed grass courts down over the years, while a surface like clay remained largely unchanged. So Roger Federer goes from being absolutely unassailable on the surface, to beatable by a baseline grinder like Nadal, or a defensive counter-puncher like Murray or Djokovic. Which I think is at least somewhat analogous to balancing a video game. See also golfs attempts to adjust courses so guys who can blast it an extra 50 metres don’t dominate players who have a better short game. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12318 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:45 WombaT wrote: Even tennis doesn’t fully fit here. They slowed grass courts down over the years, while a surface like clay remained largely unchanged. So Roger Federer goes from being absolutely unassailable on the surface, to beatable by a baseline grinder like Nadal, or a defensive counter-puncher like Murray or Djokovic. Which I think is at least somewhat analogous to balancing a video game. See also golfs attempts to adjust courses so guys who can blast it an extra 50 metres don’t dominate players who have a better short game. Did they make those changes specifically to give other people a better chance? That's embarrassing if they did, I don't follow either of these sports so I don't know | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26002 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:49 Nebuchad wrote: Did they make those changes specifically to give other people a better chance? That's embarrassing if they did, I don't follow either of these sports so I don't know I’m unsure why specifically, my best case is that slower = more epic rallies and that’s more entertaining to the average viewer. So I don’t think it was intentionally targeted in any sense, but it was a de facto nerf for Federer’s strengths versus the competition. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16097 Posts
On February 23 2024 07:49 Nebuchad wrote: Did they make those changes specifically to give other people a better chance? That's embarrassing if they did, I don't follow either of these sports so I don't know This is VERY common in pro sports. Pro Sports adjust the rules all the time, for any variety of reasons. You look at how NBA Basketball was played in the early 2000's and it looks NOTHING like how it looks today. You watch an NFL game from the 1990's and it looks very different from how it's played now. The NBA is the sport that I've followed the most in my life so I can come up with all kinds of ways the NBA has tweaked the game for a reason good or bad, much like the way Starcraft has been changed through balance changes. Some rule changes like additional penalties for dirty fouls would be kind of like Starcraft patching a cheese build out of the game because it was getting oppressive and hurting how people viewed the game. Other times they change the game with rules about how defense can be played to encourage scoring, not unlike what SC2 did to encourage games to speed up through the LOTV Economy changes. Not every change the NBA has made has made the game better in my opinion, but some parts of it has. | ||
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Kyadytim
United States886 Posts
On February 22 2024 10:33 Nasigil wrote: Protoss's racial identity of a core army of high durability, low damage output, relatively slow units is simply not good in an RTS that looks like Starcraft. Protoss is forever chasing high damage units that are wrecking their economy - Zerglings, Vultures, Hellions and Cyclones, stimmed bio in SC2, Hydralisk in BW - with slower units that are not super effective at killing the things they're being sent to stop.It's interesting that, although SC2 and BW are very different in terms of balance and design, but through out the decade long life span of both games, the races ended up behaving almost the same: it's a long history of Zerg and Terran bonjwas taking turns to dominate, and Protoss just plays a supporting role. There were some great Protoss players emerging from time to time, but they never really reached the consistent and all-around dominance of the likes of Boxer, Savior, iloveoov, Nada, Flash, Jaedong, Mvp, Innovation, Rogue, Maru and Serral in their prime. And somehow, Protoss in both games are considered the easier and OP race for casual players. There's probably something in the core design of Protoss across two games that make them easier to learn but harder to reach the ceiling as high as other two races. When windows of opportunity to get damage done are small, fast units with high damage output are more effective than slow units with a lot of health. Zerglings, Vultures, Hellions and Cyclones, BW Hydralisks, and SC2 bio can get in, do damage, and leave with minimal casualties. Protoss needs either a larger window for Zealots and Dragoons or Stalkers to get in, kill workers or buildings or they need to commit expensive, vulnerable tech units like High Templar. Sort of related, people sometimes compare mass warp-ins with a prism to mass drops from Terran or Nydus Worms from Zerg, but unlike those, a mass warp-in has no exit strategy. Outside of what fits in the prism, those units are dying in the enemy base. The other thing that really stands out to me as a shared weakness of Protoss across both games is that the Zealot is absolute trash before it gets its relatively high tech speed upgrade. Cost for cost, Psi for Supply for Control, Zealots do not effectively fight anything a Terran or Zerg is going to be fielding in the early game. Not Zerglings, not Marines, not tier 1.5 units with speed upgrades like Hydralisks, not Roaches (especially on creep). Zealots don't effectively present an offensive threat. They also are not effective scouts, being expensive, relatively slow, and easy for Terran and Zerg to kill without permitting vision. There are exceptions in BW when Protoss wants to donate a bunch of Zealots in something of a tempo play, but generally speaking unless the defending player was excessively greedy or completely botches things it's going to be *incredibly* cost inefficient for the Protoss. Somehow, in addition to not being good units for being sent across the map, Zealots are somehow worse defensively. All of those units the other races might be fielding can either run pass Zealots if the Protoss does not have a tight wall and then run circles in the Protoss base scouting and harassing workers, or just kite and kill the Zealots outright. The cherry on top of the cake of Zealot uselessness is that incredibly, they don't have any synergy whatsoever with Protoss defensive structures. Shield Batteries do not stop Zealots from being abused by fast ranged units and do not prevent fast units running past the Zealots. Photon Cannons can deter runbys, but have a really terrible interaction with Zealots regarding ranged units where either the Cannons can cover the Zealots or the Zealots can cover the Cannons, but not both. There's an extended rant + Show Spoiler + I am aware that offensive use of Protoss defensive structures is a thing, but this post is about why Protoss struggles with having a stable, sort of generic macro play that wins tournaments In total, Protoss is not built to be a good race for skilled players. It is bad at doing a lot of the things that skilled players are doing that normal players aren't, such as detached harassment forces, eking more effectiveness out of units with better control, and defending against sharp timing attacks. In SC2, Protoss has historically been very good for sharp timing attacks, except that basically every time one is developed that can outright win games, it gets nerfed until it needs to be all-in to work. It's beyond the scope of this post, but I can't imagine that not being able to present a lethal threat without being all-in in any way helps Protoss get to the midgame in a comfortable position. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3453 Posts
Post Charge Zlots are better on the offensive, they can kill stuff, while they are slow to kill, whereas on defense, they just get kited to death. They run out of battery,cannon and ranged unit ranges. You can say the same about Adepts, their Shade makes them very proactive, so by deciding where you fight, they are stronger, meaning that they are stronger on offense as well. So mb if you think Warp Gate research is a problem, mb by scaling back these abilities, they could have stat boosts. The defensive units are so bad, Immortal, Disruptor, Sentry, Void Ray and Stalkers that we see Protoss defend with Colossus, Phoenix, Cannons, Batteries and HT's. | ||
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THERIDDLER
Canada126 Posts
Remember how hero came up with "revolutionary PvZ with mass gateway!" after 2 zealot buffs, 1 stalker buff and 5 sentry buffs? | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3453 Posts
I'm not just talking about herO, also the Zest Adepts. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16008 Posts
On February 23 2024 23:50 THERIDDLER wrote: Innovation/revolution is done with existing units. If you come with a new strategy with a unit that just got 20 buffs, thats not innovation thats abusing a patch. Remember how hero came up with "revolutionary PvZ with mass gateway!" after 2 zealot buffs, 1 stalker buff and 5 sentry buffs? Are you living in an alternative reality? The only change that got introduced at that time was that Queens couldn't transfuse off-creep anymore | ||
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THERIDDLER
Canada126 Posts
On February 23 2024 23:55 ejozl wrote: I remember Sentry buffs, he doesn't use Sentries though and I also think those buffs were after as well. I'm not just talking about herO, also the Zest Adepts. yea zest adept builds back in 2020 is a pretty good example. he has always been a build innovator | ||
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Moonerz
United States457 Posts
But really Kyad's post is pretty accurate most of the units are just bad and the race doesn't scale as well with player skill overall. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3453 Posts
Protoss without herO hasn't won a GSL-caliber-or-higher tournament ever since Stats won GSL in 2017. Protoss hasn't won a world championship, or similar event since LotV. Always, there's talk about skill level in relation to balance, so how about we actually try to do something about it? Larvae produce 75% of what it did in HotS, and the MULE is even stronger, so actually if LotV Chrono is to be as strong as it was in WoL it should probably last 22 seconds. Now it's not exactly fair, because we also got Recall and Overcharge now. But I suggest we make Chrono cost 25E like it did in WoL and have the duration be 11 seconds. It'd be ever so slightly stronger than it is now, but it would also require a lot more busy work, especially more attention if you want your upgrades to finish at the same times as currently. Personally, I would like no cooldowns on the other Nexus spells and have them cost more, so that the spells are balanced around energy rather than cooldowns, but I'll forfeit this idea, as it is probably too hard to convince ppl of this idea. Protoss upgrades should have the same research times as the other races, Chrono Boost is supposed to be a boost, a boon for the race, not something that you invest in so that you catch up to the other two races. I wouldn't mind a slight cost nerf (25/25) and (50/50) on the 2nd and 3rd tier weapon upgrades, it's clearly the strongest Protoss upgrade. Gateway units are the high attention Protoss units, barring a few others, like it or not Zealots are peak Protoss skill. It's not because Zealots aren't a-move units, but because it's what top pros use to force Zergs and Terrans to spend extra attention. Fighting many places at the same time both favours Protoss, but it also requires high skill from the Protoss, since fighting at many places is obviously multi task intensive. Increase Zealots shields from 50->60. This was the original value, but was nerfed due to Zlot rushes, this is not much of an issue anymore, in fact, it would be cool to see more Protoss cheeses. Protoss early games is extremely fragile on the defensive, and on the offensive, it's just cool to see, and it's actually kind of iconic Protoss to be on the offensive in this stage. Once upgrades kick in, this change won't have much effect, since Shields won't be upgraded until late, late into the game and when Protoss is already winning. A few other things you can focus on: Protoss late game suffers from supply bloat, Void Rays, Disruptors and Tempests could all use a -1 supply buff, and it wouldn't break the game. Ppl wanna nerf EMP, I don't think this is a good idea, though you could nerf the AoE so that it only removes 60 shields pr. EMP. I do think EMP should be more of an anti caster spell, having it also hit shields should be more of a neat feature of the spell, rather than the sole reason you get it. EMP should remove 200 energy from a unit, so that if you actually manage to hit the HT, you can't still get hit by a Storm from the very same unit. A better nerf is to remove some of the movement speed that the unit received, the Ghost is currently too strong in two matchups and this would require Terrans to be more delicate with their Ghost usage. Liberators would be more of a must to protect them, and Disruptors would actually serve as a counter to the unit, since the Ghost would have a harder time running away from the novas. The inherent mobius reactor is also bullshit, the same for the Infestor, the same for the Raven, but this is also a larger fought battle, which I probably won't win. If you wanna further nerf the Ghost, you could make it Light, but then I would advise also to nerf the Infestor, Fungal is OP in its current state, the +1 range buff in the last patch was such a cabal move. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26002 Posts
I’m not sure what it would look like, but it’s the macro mechanic that really drops off the longer the game runs | ||
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