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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 02 2009 01:24 Krikkitone wrote:
That's it.
Although with Team melee you also start off with workers from additional races.... so
1 base
multiple players
multiple races
Nah, you can pick races too just make sure you pick races for the vacant slots as well, or you end up with those being random 
So if you play a 2v2 team melee you have to pick TTTT if you want only terran.
But yeah it's basically 100% what he described.
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Reposting an updated version on this page for more exposure.
Some unit changes I and FA have been thinking of. :D
Hellion
Two new abilities, upgraded at Tech Lab at Factory.
- Napalm Trace
When activated, this ability causes the Hellion to leave a napalm trace behind it during X seconds' time. Afterwards, the trace is automatically set on fire, and burns for Y time. Units which get in contact with it start to burn, which lasts for those Y seconds (i.e. damage over time). Units standing directly in the napalm trace suffer from more damage than those that leave it ASAP.
This ability can be used to effectively cut off areas, be it in battle (cutting of narrow passages, preventing flanks, cutting off reinforcements), when defending, harassing (to prevent workers from escaping or even directly damaging them) or you could even leave a napalm trace behind LOS-blockers to inflict terrible, terrible damage to unsuspecting enemies. ^_____^
- Nitro
Gives the Hellion a temporary speed boost.
Both Nitro and Napalm Trace share a common cooldown, so you can't use both at the same time and you have to use them wisely. :D
Those abilities emphasize on the Terran's theme of defending with units (Bunkers, Mines, Tanks in BW) by allowing for lots of creativity regarding making pushes/encampments, as well as harassing with those very units (legacy of the Vulture ).
Corruptor
They're now the new Scourges, so to speak, i.e. produced two at a time, take 0.5 pop, cheap, massable, about the same resource costs (they're obviously smaller too).
The difference is, they now have a melee attack much like air mode Stingers from Armies of Exigo.
What's more, they'd be able to corrupt enemy air units, effectively turning their wrecks into flying incubators (immobile) for new Corruptors. The incubators would be temporary in the sense that they'd start at the corrupted unit's full HP and then gradually lose it (like Zerg buildings off creep). Over the course of their life they'd spawn their popcap worth of new Corruptors at a steady rate - the enemy killing them prematurely would mean they wouldn't be able to spawn all Corruptors.
Corrupting would work that way: when the enemy unit has green HP you can't corrupt it; when it has yellow HP it'd take the popcap equivalent of them to corrupt them; and when they're in their red HP it'd take half of their popcap equivalent to corrupt them, meaning you can spawn twice as many new Corruptors if you target units with red HP only!!
Additionally, you wouldn't be able to kill Corruptors inside your units, but they'd died on their own after some time unless the unit gets fully corrupted on time. So the best way to combat Corruptors would be moving the partially corrupted units to safety until the effect wears off (Corruptors inside die).
Example:
You want to corrupt a Viking, which costs 2 supply. Each Corruptor costs 0.5 supply.
Green HP - you can't do that.
Yellow HP - it takes 4 Corruptors.
Red HP - it takes 2 Corruptors.
Let's say you corrupted a Viking with red HP. It now turns into a flying incubator with 125 HP (Viking's full HP) and spawns 4 new Corruptors as it slowly dies. You just got twice as many Corruptors as you invested!
I think that version of the Corruptor would be much more fun to play with than generic stationary turrets. It capitalizes on the Zerg's swarm and infestation themes both at the same time. What's more, it allows for a much higher skill cap and more interesting interactions between the two players. ;]
Revenant - MotherShip replacement
Judicators, after losing their high status in the Protoss society, are long gone, however, they have left their monumental ships, the Arbiters, behind. The Dark Templar have taken advatage of that, and profanated them, turning them into ressurected Arbiters - the Revenants.
Some stats: speed the same as Arbiter's, energy pool up to balance, HP+shields about the same as Arbiter's but the ration tilted heavily towards shields (vulnerable to EMP).
Three abilities:
- Cloaking Aura - a more powerful incarnation of the Cloaking Aura from BW, it's now capable of cloaking buildings too, however, it's a channeling spell, meaning it drains energy over time (just like Ghost's Cloak)
- Psionic Inhibitation Aura - this aura makes the Revenant one of the most formidable offensive support units in StarCraft history: it reduces the line of sight and range of all units within its radius to 1, effectively turning them into crippled melee units, but not without any drawbacks - it affects both enemy AND friendly units, meaning you have to be careful while using it; drains energy over time as well, requires an upgrade.
Later on, the Psionic Inhibitation Aura can be upgraded to also prevent casters from casting spells (like Silence in WC3, but an aura), again, both enemy and friendly. It makes the Revenant a strong anti-caster unit.
- Bonding - Recall reimagined. Requires an upgrade.
After this ability is researched, Observers can turn into Beacons (fully reversable, just like Siege Mode, etc.) at the cost of becoming visible. Revenants can now teleport two those very Beacons, taking any nearby friendly (ground?) units with them.
This puts even more emphasis on the Observer positioning for the Protoss players, while forcing others to be much more aware of those stealthed spies at the same time. It gives the Protoss A LOT of flexibility simple Warp-in does not provide.
The idea of Revenants seems to me as much more fitting both gameplay as well as lore wise. I mean, giant ships coming to the rescue as Protoss are in such a critical condition? What the heck were they doing when the Protoss were at their peak? Couldn't they save them from the Zerg opression? As for gameplay, this unit seems like a worthy successor of the Arbiter, as opposed to the generic MotherShip.
More to come (redesigned Corruptor, MotherShit replacement, reworked Nighthawk and Archon, and more).
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Minor tweaks:
Ghost abilities:
cloak
psi sensing (passive)
nuke
emp
snipe
Ultra - speed upgrade back
Warp Prism - must land in order to switch to warp mode, changing back takes quite some time (or warp mode is irreverisble) to ensure the whole process is more thoughtful and not as cheap
BC variants:
D-Matrix
Yamato
Thor:
vs. ground - HUGE pneumatic hammers (+ vs. armor/buildings), i.e. melee
vs. air - gol rockets vs. valk rockets - toggle between the two (one of them has to be upgraded)
Archon:
immolation (passive, works like in WC3)
"mana shield" - allows the Archon's energy to act as extra HP
feedback
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I have noticed alot of concern over the balence of Roaches in ZvZ, and as a zerg player myself i find myself worried about it a bit. So what if we attached an effect to a zerg unit(not sure what fits the role) that counteracted natural regen(not healing from an outside source such as medivac) for X seconds. This adds risk to using roaches and doesn't make ZvZ rely solely on roaches early game.
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I dig the corruptor idea. given, it's basically a face-hugger from alien, but it beats the hell out of stationary turrets. I mean, seriously. they turn into turrets? fuckin bleh.
doubtless you considered the spawn-all-at-once approach. any reason you chose gauntlet-style spawning instead? is the former imba?
for that matter, while the idea sounds great on paper, I'm not sure how this unit would fulfill its role. a couple of corruptors aren't going to be sniping vessels and dropships anytime soon. therefore we have nothing but glorified, dirt-cheap queens, since enough dmg has to be done before corruption can even begin, let alone complete. I think the attack mode really needs to be revised; otherwise you'll basically have lings in air.
I suppose if corruption is intended to be a gimmick like infested ccs and only useful for picking off lone shuttles or something, I guess that's fine too. potential reproduction and not pew pew corsair except melee ought to be the corrupter's main threat though.
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The reason why they wouldn't spawn all at once is the fact that spawning gradually gives the opposing player the incentive to kill the incubators in order to diminish the amount of Corruptors spawned.
As for your other concerns, I think this could be balanced by tweaking the amount of Corroptors needed to corrupt a unit. Maybe base it on the enemy unit's size? Dunno, I'm just proposing a somewhat unrefined idea here, obviously.
Oh, and "lings in air" - in Armies of Exigo Ling equivalents could literally fly, and everybody seemed to have liked the mechanic.
Corruptors would still be perfect for sniping lone Dropships since you'd get ALL your Corruptors back, unlike Scourges. And when used in conjunction with other units or their melee attack, you could spawn twice as many Corruptors as you've used.
So, keep in mind that if you snipe that Dropship with those 4 Corruptors you get them back via the Incubator, unless it gets killed.
edit:
So, ultimately, corruption could be used to snipe key units, ESPECIALLY if you can make sure Incubators stay alive for long enough.
It can also be used to heavily overwhelm the enemy in air battles by corrupting whittled down (red HP) units and thus spawning dozens of new Corruptors.
In other words, Corruptors allow for everything Scourges did and much more than that.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Yeah, it was an upgrade for the zergling equivalent - stingers - which enabled all of them to fly.
I actually think it wouldn't be a half-bad idea to allow lings to morph into "corrupters" once you have a spire (sort of like they can morph to banelings).
Btw, another thing to consider when talking lings in air, is that there is not nearly as much anti-air splash in SC2! The phoenix doesn't have splash, the viking doesn't have splash.. Which will make swarmy melee air more viable.
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perhaps my qualms weren't presented clearly enough. when an opponent realizes his dropship got scourged, it's already too late. since this unit is apparently a spiritual successor to the scourge, this situation should be paralleled. considering the unit's stats, it would need, relatively speaking, a pretty buff melee to make corruptors able to damage lone air units quickly enough to corrupt them.
here's the kicker: if we're getting flying lings, why not just forget the whole corruption mechanic and pump lots of em out anyway until you have a critical mass? zerg equivalent of bisu build basically. but if air melee is nerfed to discourage this strategy, how can lone corruptors possibly be able to snipe units, since they have to do enough damage in the first place before the opponent is duly able to react (and then of course wait for lost corruptors to be replaced)? granted bw players don't just randomly mass scourge, but again: now there's flying zerglings. it's a paradoxical situation, deciding the roles of melee and corruption.
also, in the instant-spawn situation, it's not like corruptors should be made immediately. allow some gestation time before they spawn. I must have forgot to imply it.
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On May 14 2008 18:12 h3r1n6 wrote:
I would like to see a much improved observer mode. This would help the e-sport nature of the game, since it can be more exciting to watch.
One thing that has been mentioned already is the ability to zoom out for observers, which is a good idea.
My suggestion would be a complete different UI for observer mode, that takes up less space on the screen, to make more of the game visible, and only concentrates on the key features it needs:
-Resource/supply counters for the players
-Toggable statistic windows during the game, like a unit table showing the numbers for each unit type a player has, a little window showing the current research status etc.
-Dramatic health numbers, when a building has very few hp left, the game will show a red number above it (drop targeting a hatchery), showing its health points. This might need a clever algorithm for to when show those numbers and when not, because otherwise it could be annoying.
-Research/train bars over buildings, showing the current research/unit beeing researched/built in that building with its progress.
I'll throw in a few more ideas for the observer UI here:
- ability to highlight a certain unit type on the minimap (diffrent colour, shining or something) for each race. In sc:bw this would be useful for example to see the mutalisk movement in a ZvZ, shuttles of the P and scourges of the Z, DTs and overlords, arbiters and science vessels, etc. im sure there are similar things in sc2 as well.
- a toggle that gives you minmap pings (or other notification, even sounds maybe) when any player gets an "we are under attack", when a shuttle unloads, etc. I would suggest also notifications for start of upgrades etc, but that is allready implemented on the observer HUD if ive understood correctly. Just to not miss any of the action when multitasking goes on.
- some hotkey to show all rally points on the minimap (or the real map, or both) for both player.
- income rate for both players is in the game already, right?
- show not only how many units are in the game, but also seprately what is being built atm. to clearer se when someone is switching. there would then be 15 mutas in game, but 8 hydras and nu mutas building for example. While having just 15 mutas and 8 hydras on the list wouldnt make it very clear if the player plans to do some kind of mix, or do a complete switch.
ok, I'll stop here. Sorry if this is a repost or anything. My only research was to "show all" pages of this thread and do a search for "observer" and "replay"... I didnt want to read through 26 pages, sorry. 
And gj from the blizzard developers, i'm looking forward to play the final version, whenever it may be done. Thanks, and gl with the last tunings.
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starcraft 2 looks sick eh? MBS and automining will definetely make the game more competitve
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On May 19 2009 04:45 proscplaya wrote:
starcraft 2 looks sick eh? MBS and automining will definetely make the game more competitve
are trolls/flamebating banned?
anyway, i really really like the hellion ideas. A lot.
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Artosis, SDM, and Tasteless all as units SDM replacing mothership
I don't like how people are getting complicated with the corruptor. Its a good concept, but really thats going to be gay to manage in-game.
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On May 19 2009 04:45 proscplaya wrote:
starcraft 2 looks sick eh? MBS and automining will definetely make the game more competitve
ban
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One of my main concerns with SC2 is a lack of required scouting.
I don't think I need to go into why scouting is important in SC or why it makes it a more entertaining game to watch and play.
How about unique colors/mechanics assigned to building upgrades?
I know that sounds a little confusing so let me explain in broodwar terms.
Right now there is no distinguishing feature between a dragoon range upgrade or an air 1 weapons upgrade at the cybernetics core. A player can see the building spinning and knows resources are being invested, however there is no indication as to what is being upgraded. The templar archives has no indication of production whatsoever.
I think a distinguishing feature between the two upgrades... say the color green for the range upgrade, but the color white and some distinct animation for the air upgrade.. would direct players to check opponents mains, not just for production capability but upgrade/tech routes as well.
At the risk of removing a small portion of the meta game, I think it would encourage consistent scouting throughout the game and perhaps prod new players towards the importance of scouting.
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On May 23 2009 02:55 Diggity wrote:
One of my main concerns with SC2 is a lack of required scouting.
I don't think I need to go into why scouting is important in SC or why it makes it a more entertaining game to watch and play.
How about unique colors/mechanics assigned to building upgrades?
I know that sounds a little confusing so let me explain in broodwar terms.
Right now there is no distinguishing feature between a dragoon range upgrade or an air 1 weapons upgrade at the cybernetics core. A player can see the building spinning and knows resources are being invested, however there is no indication as to what is being upgraded. The templar archives has no indication of production whatsoever.
I think a distinguishing feature between the two upgrades... say the color green for the range upgrade, but the color white and some distinct animation for the air upgrade.. would direct players to check opponents mains, not just for production capability but upgrade/tech routes as well.
At the risk of removing a small portion of the meta game, I think it would encourage consistent scouting throughout the game and perhaps prod new players towards the importance of scouting.
I don't really agree with this. First of all part of starcraft is not knowing exactly what your opponent is doing. As cited, even if you do scout you cannot be 100% certain what upgrades your opponent is going for. Although this is a bad example, because early game you can be about 99.9% sure he is going range. Which brings me to my second point which is that a part of the skill of SC is knowing what should be going on. For example and experienced zerg player will know that his protoss enemy is going going +1 weapons if the Forge is spinning, because that is the smart thing for the protoss to do.
So basically my point is this: why add another feature to the game that is essentially unnecessary that will reduce the required knowledge to play the game at a certain level. It would just make the game more "noob accessible", instead of guiding new players to the importance of learning timings and upgrade advantages. Just my thoughts on the matter.
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Which brings me to my second point which is that a part of the skill of SC is knowing what should be going on. For example and experienced zerg player will know that his protoss enemy is going going +1 weapons if the Forge is spinning, because that is the smart thing for the protoss to do.
I remember reading this sudoku book that talked about the difference between a hand made puzzle and a computer generated puzzle. The gurus of sudoku puzzle making create a puzzle that shifts the focus of the participant around the puzzle in a natural and fluid way, ultimately delivering a zen like experience. Having done a few of these puzzles I have to agree that the hand made puzzles are much better.
In the same manner, I think that this might guide new players to think about the game differently through the natural flow which would create a more pleasant gaming experience. Its a matter of perspective but I don't agree with the notion of intentionally creating a unnecessarily high learning curve. High learning curves don't necessarily make the game a better competitive sport and I definitely don't think that it creates a fun gaming experience. (this from the guy who loves nethack...)
I also don't think its a critical or skill shifting feature but I do think it would add some polish to the game. Never the less I understand your perspective.
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Another thought:
I assume that apm measurement will be a natural listing in the replay system. I also assume that apm will be monitored and measured to show progress or perhaps link players of the same skill level together in the new battle.net.
After a lot of observation I think that change of frame is a better measure of multi-tasking than apm. By change of frame, I mean the rate of change of the actual viewing screen through hotkeys, function keys and quick mouse movement. Perhaps a combination of change of frame rates and apm could be linked up with a player's record to find suitable match ups on battle.net
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On May 23 2009 17:32 Diggity wrote:Show nested quote +Which brings me to my second point which is that a part of the skill of SC is knowing what should be going on. For example and experienced zerg player will know that his protoss enemy is going going +1 weapons if the Forge is spinning, because that is the smart thing for the protoss to do.
I remember reading this sudoku book that talked about the difference between a hand made puzzle and a computer generated puzzle. The gurus of sudoku puzzle making create a puzzle that shifts the focus of the participant around the puzzle in a natural and fluid way, ultimately delivering a zen like experience. Having done a few of these puzzles I have to agree that the hand made puzzles are much better. In the same manner, I think that this might guide new players to think about the game differently through the natural flow which would create a more pleasant gaming experience. Its a matter of perspective but I don't agree with the notion of intentionally creating a unnecessarily high learning curve. High learning curves don't necessarily make the game a better competitive sport and I definitely don't think that it creates a fun gaming experience. (this from the guy who loves nethack...) I also don't think its a critical or skill shifting feature but I do think it would add some polish to the game. Never the less I understand your perspective.
It isn't so much about there being a higher learning curve, as so much as to "get in your opponent's head". By doing so you get a view of what may/is happenening, and to have new players play without this thought process would hamper there ultimate knowlege of the game. Let me explain. So as a zerg one may scout a spinning forge, and assume that the protoss is going 1+ weapons. This is known because of timings and general game knowlege (ie zealots will now two hit lings). The zerg will then take appropriate counter measures. This may be getting lurkers, getting 1+ carrapace or harrassing economy ect., as one could assume that the protoss will use some strategy involving zealots/ ground push. Also the zerg can assume that the push will follow the upgrade, giving the protoss a window of advantage. All this can be gathered and combined with other scouting information to aid the zerg. This really isn't that high level thinking.
However, if a newer player didn't understand the methodology to why the protoss is getting the upgrade, and just knows that he is getting 1+ weapons; the response will not be apt. There will be a reaction, but I don't think that it will be the same. By seeing exactly what is going on will allow people to just "see what they scout", instead of having to think about what it is they are seeing. In this way it isn't creating a higher skill curve, yet decreasing the thought that has to be put into a portion of the game. This, in my opinion guides to a more natural flow of the game. Instead of just reacting to what you see, you have to think about what you see- and respond appropriately. To bring sudoku back in the mix, think of how boringly repetitive it would get if you used the same pattern to solve every puzzle, you didn't have to think about how to attack each unique layout of the board. Adding this feature would be a step in that direction, the direction of being more pattern that thought.
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Semi-serious suggestion:
Add a "Nazi KeSPA Mode" where the only in-game chat allowed is "gg" and "ppp" (except when paused, obviously).
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I really like the Napalm trace idea for the Hellion, as well as the Revenant unit concept. However, I think the Corruptor idea is too complex and circumstantial. I think units die too fast to make that ability useful.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6338/napalmtracekopia.jpg)
