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Cascade, I don't think you understood what they said. The mothership has been given warp aura PLUS they tweaked warp in. Those are 2 separate changes. Building motherships will not allow you to build faster. It will allow you to do the same thing you were doing since t1, but at where your mothership is at. Which you can already do with phase prisms anyway. They just added it to the mothership as well.
Terrans already have a production increasing mechanisms. Which is an addon called reactor which you can plug to any production building. Some builds ago the reactor would make that building produce twice as fast, then they changed it to just increase queues, then I don't know exactly how it works on the current build.
But if they really really really wanted to add clicks to production, I'm sure they rather just remove MBS instead. It makes zero sense to make a change, then make additional changes to "make up" for that change.
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I admit that I found the formulation on the mothership a bit unclear. But still, the mothership makes the warp agtes build faster if you have the attention to spare right?
And the reactor isnt the same thing, because it works passively. I want things that you actually must spend clicks on.
The reason they want to keep the MBS is that it makes it more newb friendly, right? And that people find it overly complicated to "fight the UI". Unfortunately this removes the speed requirement for a perfect macro, which the more competetive players mourn.
Well, we can now get both. We keep the MBS for the newbs, and it will still feel easy to reasonably quickly build up a satisfying army. And the pros can still macro the hell out of mortals by abusing these extra speed-demanding macro possibilities.
of course the exact ideas will have to be tuned and reformulated, but i think the general idea of abilities that speeds up/partially refunds is a potential solution to the MBS problem.
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On April 17 2008 07:38 Cascade wrote:
The reason they want to keep the MBS is that it makes it more newb friendly, right? And that people find it overly complicated to "fight the UI". Short: No. Long: This is no place and time, read some of the other 10 thousand threads about it.
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hey, Im trying to be constructive, dont group me up with the MBS mobs please.  I had an idea and I posted it in the "new ideas" thread, what is wrong?
If you know a better place to post the idea, please redirect me.
If it is not a new idea, then could you please show me where it was proposed before.
Sorry for being defensive, could we try to stay on topic now? 
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1) a list of hidden modifiers, armor types, and definitions (of concusive explosive or whatever) in the help section
2) autoclick joining: when the message that your firend has joined a game appears, the name of the game is a hyperlink, and you can clikc it to join right away
3) some form of a shield battery/ shield bubble, preferably on the nexus to spiff it up the protoss main building.
4) have the default command be "unburrow" when you click "u" while having selected a mixed group of burrowed and unburrowed units. the purpose is that when you get burrowed units discovered, it's almost impossible to tell your units en masse to unburrow and engage if you have the default command be "burrow". instead of everything unburrowing and engaging, you merely tell the ones that are getting fired at to burrow. and in your frustration your whole burrwoed army dies.
-on the other hand, it's not very hard to burrow and unburrow units in your own base, when you are not getting attacked. and they usually aren't discovered in your base if they unburrow. having unburrow as the default command for "u" when having selected a mixed group of burrowed and unburrowed units only makes sense, and i hope they implement this.
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Hey i just had an idea for a really cool new spell:
A spell that changes the type of unit between robotic/alive.
You know, like it would give something robotic a soul, or take the soul of something living.
That would create new possibilities for uses in combination with spells that only affect one of the types.
Eh? Eh?
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I don't think they should have automine. It seems too... unlike starcraft to take out all the multitasking.
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This is more directed towards Samwise Didier since he's in charge of the art departement of SC2 I believe.
I wanna briefly discuss about the art of the lurker because its really the thing that strikes me the most at this point. And realistically, I think that discussions about art is more suitable since SC2 is still in alpha phase and discussing balance is kind of pointless to a certain degree.
I think that the lurker looks too much like a mix of a crab and dinosaur at this time. I was hoping it would look a little bit more spiderlike, with edgier/sharper features. The head looks similar to a triceraptops and I dont think that dinosaur looks really suit the zerg. I think lots of people brought similar remarks when the lurker was first revealed so maybe a bit of reworking on this unit would be a good thing.
I mean, the Siege tank has had its art upgraded, so I hope that our beloved zerg lurker will receive a similar amount of love.
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I'm just gonna post to express another vote in favour of changing the dark templar art. Looks like he's gonna trip over his weapon, and the death animation is just lol
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And here's another vote for changing the DT art!
And I just thought of a random idea to get the zerg roach healing to be balanced. Why not make it that roach's super heal require energy to use (like healing in SC1) but its only to itself and it's auto-used. So when it's finished energy there's no heal until it regens back reaal slow the energy. I mean it'll be really awesome to send in a swarm of roaches and you know they only can last like 10sec with their super heal before they gotta retreat. Makes for some interesting play eh?
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Couple new game mechanics introduced by Blizzard has interesting side-effect concerning huge 192x192 and 256x256 maps. As you probably know this kind of maps is extremely rare except for sole fun games - long distances make aggressive style ineffective and force slow-paced, viscous, overextended and defensive play. SC2 could give potential for these maps. But is it supposed to be a good thing? Well, firstly, this will open even more doors for mapmakers and in long run that means longer life for the game. And secondly, together with "team-based start locations" feature in map-editor that could make 2v2 games more tech and macro based, and what's much more interesting, that could create such term as "competitive 3v3".
For protoss this new mechanics is Warp-Gates. Obviously, nothing can change early-game pace on such maps, but in the middle-game protoss player has got a mean to just ignore part of the map and virtually move production line closer to the opponent.
On the other hand, we have Zerg with Nydus Worm. And although developers themselves didn't yet define its concept, we can pretty much assume that Zerg will be at least on par with Protoss in terms of mobility. So three match-ups - PvP, ZvP, ZvZ - could turn out to be quite dynamic on really huge maps.
Terran, though, has nothing. And that made me think, maybe that's what we can cogitate about?
What is Terran in developers' mind? That's a race of nomads. Race, that comes, eats resources and leaves nothing behind - that's one of the reasons why Salvage ability was born. Terran can't afford abandoning buildings. They take them to pieces and fly away. "Fly" rang the bell for me and that was first premise. Second premise was old Stardock concept and even though it was scrapped, idea behind still sounds good for me. Suggestion I end up with is give Terran upgrade which:
1. Dramatically increases buildings' fly speed
2. Allows buildings to produce units in the fly mode
3. In contrast to Warp-Gates, once researched, affects all buildings immediately.
Sounds ridiculously imbalanced, probably, so you should keep in mind couple very important points:
- That should be middle-game upgrade. It shouldn't bear on early-mid game in any way and shouldn't give Terran another cheap cheese strategy
- Command Center shouldn't be affected at all
- Add-ons are unavailable when building is in the air, therefore flying building can build only basic units and only twice as slow as if it had reactor attached
- Mapmakers can control where you are able to land buildings and where not.
How does it improves the game?
I. Much better playability of large maps. Though Terran's mechanic is less effective than Protoss', it's more reliable - much easier to destroy pylon or Phase Prism than factory, and if costly Warp-Gates are attacked Protoss is in serious trouble, when Terran can try to fly away (if there is room to fly away of course).
II. Increased viability of Salvage. Outside of bunker rushing, it has very limited use right now, as salvaging Supply depots (and diminishing food count for a period of time) in order to move them in another place makes no sense since they can go underground and the safest place for them is near production buildings. Salvaging add-ons also doesn't look effective. Both of these could change with this suggestion. Besides salvage (with rebuilding later), land/liftoff and building movement are all base management abilities. Increasing their utility potentially increases time player would spend managing his base.
III. The idea isn't revolutionary nor original, yet it gives Terran's gameplay new fresh feeling. It's merely an evolution of already existent concept, just like add-ons mechanics or Nydus Worm mechanics. And that's good.
Although concept isn't final and it can take plenty of fixes (for example, reduce add-on build time if previously same add-on was salvaged), I think that's a good direction to think in.
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From what I've heard from people who attended blizzcon, terran buildings already move quite a bit faster than the original
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
InRaged, large maps are broken not due to distances, they are broken due to minimap.
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I was thinking about this... what about getting rid of the roach and putting the ultralisk in its place (with the current abilities it has now with probably less hps). Then be able to get an upgrade later that will let the the ultralisk egg evolve into the torrasque, that not only has the roach's healing ability (probably nerfed), but has like 8 armor like in SC1. I can just imagine the ultralisk evolving in big fucken eggs, then morphing into torrasques (like twice as big as ultras).
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The helicopter gunship idea is the best that I've seen in this thread. Flying bunker FTW. Aside from the inherent awesomeness of having a flying bunker, if Blizzard is really fixated on the medivac dropship idea (which for the record is really bad), you can just put medics in the dropships and have them fly around dumping yellow sparks. Magical!
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On April 18 2008 03:45 gwho wrote:
4) have the default command be "unburrow" when you click "u" while having selected a mixed group of burrowed and unburrowed units. the purpose is that when you get burrowed units discovered, it's almost impossible to tell your units en masse to unburrow and engage if you have the default command be "burrow". instead of everything unburrowing and engaging, you merely tell the ones that are getting fired at to burrow. and in your frustration your whole burrwoed army dies.
-on the other hand, it's not very hard to burrow and unburrow units in your own base, when you are not getting attacked. and they usually aren't discovered in your base if they unburrow. having unburrow as the default command for "u" when having selected a mixed group of burrowed and unburrowed units only makes sense, and i hope they implement this.
actually, what would be even better is if they added an extra button, or just make the unburrow/burrow button use 2 shortcuts. u for unburrow, and b for burrow.
didn't they say they were adding more command buttons? maybe they could spare another button for this.
seems to me since drones morph into buildings/structures, they could use a letter from the word morph. r, p, h, o, all good. m is move already. currently b is for build structure or morph building or something like that so if v is advanced then h is nearby...
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 08 2008 20:13 Caller wrote:
New Unit Idea:
Upgrade from Dropship (purchasable for each dropship)
Dropship
100 Minerals/100 Gas
Carrying Capacity: 8
160 HP
2 Armor
Upgrade for the Dropship:
Gunship Upgrade
Requires the dropship to "land" for a time, about 10 seconds, in order to add the extra armor/capabilities/engines. During this time it cannot move and is vulnurable to ground attack, but not air. After this time, it turns into a fully operationable gunship.
(+100 Minerals, 25 Gas)
The Gunship gains +50 HP and + 2 Armor, but it can now only carry infantry units and it's capacity is reduced to 4. However, the infantry onboard the gunship can now shoot outside of it using the firing slits. Due to the high altitude and velocity of the Gunship, all weapons range are reduced by 1 instead of increased.
Essentially, you're paying 200 minerals and 125 gas, or 3/4ths of an ultralisk, to get a 250 HP flying thing that can do about 24 damage/second at a smaller range. It's essentially a flying ultralisk, as an ultralisk's attack speed is equal to that of the marines. Not to mention the 4 marines that should be put inside, and you're looking at a 300/125 expensive unit that can easily be sniped by a few immortals or hydras. However, against light air units, such as mutalisks, the Terrans now have an option to attack without using vikings. I'm not too sure about the possibility of launching nukes out of it, but it'd be like dmatrixing a ghost... and making it fly.
Although the thought of a trio of fully loaded gunships running past and shreddnig a force of zerglings is entertaining.
I love this idea and want to talk some more about it, I'll definitely make sure to include this in my monthly report to blizzard.
I talked to Waxangel on MSN about it and he brought up a very good point about it's role as a fighter, ie how good should it actually be? Is it fair for a dropship (strong harassing unit) to also be one of the terran's primary air fighters (he brought up the example of a corsair getting a drop upgrade). And if it's too weak, all it does is make it a stronger harasser (ie can kill scourge - not that they are currently in the game - , can kill small air forces). But yeah, having the capacity go down from 8 to 4 or 5 is definitely a good way to solve this.
Other things to figure out tho;
- AA only/both?
- It's role in the terran air force: support fighter? Main terran AA vs Zerg, Viking vs protoss ?
Etc, I absolutely adore this idea tho, liked it in Armies of exigo too but no idea how the balance was there.
Oh and I think I prefer the name Gunboat over Gunship.. Anyone else agree/disagree? It's obviously trivial but still :D
On March 19 2008 07:51 Famehunter wrote:
Concept: Terran reactor v 2.0 (maximizing macro play for experienced players).
Just something I was thinking about when I saw a post somewhere that mentioned that the terran building upgrade called reactors would no longer allow production of 2 units at once but rather increased the production queue (wich is completely useless if you ask me, even counter productive).
The way I was thinking the reactor could work is, it would give a boost in the unit building time but in order to do so , a SCV would have to be moved inside the reactor (make a small animation with a door that lets the SCV inside). Once the SCV enters the reactor, the production speed of the next unit from that facility is increased.
Once the unit is finished being produced, the SCV is ejected from the reactor, requiring the players attention to send it back inside another time if he wants to speed up the production for the next unit in queue. This would add an element of skill, as micromanagement of the SCV would require the players attention everytime he wants to "boost" the production of units.
This is also a nice way of optimizing macro play for experienced players and takes no advantage of the MBS feature, rather requiring the player to actually perform mechanical manoeuvres with the mouse (by sending the scv inside the reactor) in order to boost unit production.
I don't like this idea because it's 1) Very arbitrary, not having MBS is just.. easier. 2) SCVs getting hit and running away, trying to find them, scvs cluttering up your base etc.. Nah I don't want to 20 scvs sitting outside my buildings.
On March 28 2008 06:04 VIB wrote:I think there could be periodical Map contests. Blizzard staff would choose one map say every week from the community, to take part in the official ladder map list. I know thousands of people would love this
I like this idea - once a week is too often tho. Also, your replay idea is good but I think many of the top players would resent having their replays shared 
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 17 2008 07:38 Cascade wrote:
I admit that I found the formulation on the mothership a bit unclear. But still, the mothership makes the warp agtes build faster if you have the attention to spare right?
And the reactor isnt the same thing, because it works passively. I want things that you actually must spend clicks on.
The reason they want to keep the MBS is that it makes it more newb friendly, right? And that people find it overly complicated to "fight the UI". Unfortunately this removes the speed requirement for a perfect macro, which the more competetive players mourn.
Well, we can now get both. We keep the MBS for the newbs, and it will still feel easy to reasonably quickly build up a satisfying army. And the pros can still macro the hell out of mortals by abusing these extra speed-demanding macro possibilities.
of course the exact ideas will have to be tuned and reformulated, but i think the general idea of abilities that speeds up/partially refunds is a potential solution to the MBS problem.
One problem is that building units, mbs or no mbs, is simple. These timesinks are not bad ideas, but they are (and sort of have to be by their very nature) quite convoluted.
Both MBSers and anti-MBSers want something slick and intuitive I think, although we disagree about other things. Not gonna outright say timesinks like the ones you proposed are bad, but I'm dubious as to how fun they really are to use.
As VIB said, I feel a bit like if they are going to add something as advanced as that, they might as well revert to no MBS (I wouldn't mind this xDDD).
I think VIB meant this isn't the thread to discuss MBS btw, it's the perfect thread for your first post (the one with the macro-solution ideas I mean).
EDIT: Phew, now I've finished reading this thread from start to finish..
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Sweden33719 Posts
There's a couple of things I want to talk about and I'm not sure they deserve their own thread.. Well one of them might, but here goes: the Jackal.
I've heard very little about it but so far I'm a little disappointed. It appears to be a slow/normal speed bike that fires a lurker-esque AoE attack. Well.. what's so disappointing about this you might ask? Here's the answer:
Because that's what replaced the vulture. To me this is confusing, why would they downgrade from a hoverbike to a regular one? Why would they suddenly stop using mines? Now, I'm not saying "bring back my 75 mineral vulture!".
What I do think tho, is that they should bring the model - that is a hover bike - back. If they then remove the mines and give it boosters, I don't care, just bring it back plz The jackal, from what I've seen, looks like a vulture that's just not hovering, anyway.
Now that the game is in 3D, some more could even be made of the hover concept, ie the unit could be slightly wobbly (but not at the expense of control) and so on.
It might just be that I don't know enough about the jackal, does anyone have any real info (preferably first hand if you went to play it at the zerg release..)?
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EPT
