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Yes, the problem lies in more aspects of the match-up, in TvP, besides Immortal and Marauder.
Basically, I think mauruader and immortals didn't "solve anything" because the game is more flawed than we expected (compared to obtaining the desired gameplay).
I do not think the game is more "flawed than we expected." Maybe what you expected. I think almost all of the match-ups are fun and works well. (Might not be perfect ofc). TvP is arguably the most problematic match-up IMO.
I still think we are at a crossroad atm.; Should we continue to try and solve the underlying issues here, or should we instead admit defeat and be fine with TvP being 20-minute stalemaling in 80%+ of games?
Why do you always put up two alternatives to everything?
- Either your way, or the worst possible way. We have to choose between the two.
Lets instead look at what causes the match-up to be stalemate. And there are indeed some things that causes it, as we have discussed already. I just do not agree on your solutions - for example make Warp in only work on Warp Prism, and not on Pylons. (Technically hard to make in the editor, and just a clunky solution)
Edit: Ok, I sit down with pen and paper and look for a solution I am satisfied with. Give me two hours and I will publish it here.
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This post will focus on TvP.
I will describe the problems the match-up has, how I want the match-up to be like, and what changes we can do, and in what way those changes can improve the match-up. (And other consequenses in the other match-ups)
I will write to keep the text short, centered on the core, and readable. There are ofc more areas to cover. Here we go:
Problems
+ Show Spoiler +TvP is a turtle fest. Every single game is not a turtle fest, but there is still too much potential for it. Both races have a hard time to attack/harass/pressure each other, and this problem has haunted TvP for a long time. Tools that make it possible for races to become almost competely safe vs harass/pressure: - Siege tanks (easy to mass) - Spider mines (hard to micro aganist, spammable, cheap, forces Observer to be present in every battle) - Turrets (cheap, massable) - Planetary Fortress (not a problem IMO) - Warp in (easy, fast, efficient, no downside) - Rift at Nexus (reinforcements come too quickly) - Cannons (cost efficient vs all Terran units, can only be engaged by Marauders) - Faster Viking/Scout speed compared to Dropship/Warp Prism. It is quite easy for Terran to get up enough Tanks + Spider mines + Turrets at each base, to make almost all smaller Protoss attacks futile. All harass attempts from Terran is easily shut down by Warp in or Cannons. Further more, it might be better to just safely take bases, turtle up a large enough army, and then pressure with it. For both races. Protoss also has an incredible strong harassment tool - Warp in with Warp Prism. T can not allow that to happen in his base during mid game, so it is better to play it safe. We can boil this down to two major problems: - Terran is incredible more efficient when Sieged up and Spider mines are everywhere, compared to being out of position. - Protoss can easily be safe vs harassment and smaller attacks, just via Rift, Warp in and Cannons. P is barely punished for having the army out of position. If both players play the optimal way, and want to win, Terran will always try to stay sieged up with mines everywhere. There is too much of a risk NOT being in perfect position, and almost no alternative way of playing. Beside the problems above, we also have/had these problems in TvP: - Bio could not push out in TvP (So easy for Stalkers to just kite the Marine push and dwindle it down one by one)
- Bio drops/harassment were too weak in TvP
- Mech was the only units needed in TvP. Led to predictable games.
- Stalker was the only core unit needed in TvP.
- Stalkers with Blink were too strong in TvP since T could not leave his base due to the risk of being Blinked
- Stalkers could "contain" Terran so neither T could push out, or P could push in. Led to lame games.
How do I want the match-up to be like?
+ Show Spoiler +
- Basically, it shall be more rewarding to do something, rather than doing nothing.
- Both races shall have strong ways of applying pressure, doing harassment (both in small and large scale), and have equally "hard" ways of defending. Preferably shall both races be able to apply low risk - low reward harass in the early game, and as the game progresses, the methods of harassing shall become stronger, but still stay in proportion to the defensive tools the races have access to. (Example, it would be broken if P could warp in units from the start, since that is stronger than Ts methods to defending at that point of time in the game)
- Players must have good incentives/reasons to attack each other, at various stages, throughout the game.
This is nothing new. I would argue we have almost reached this in PvZ, which IMO seems like the funniest and most varied match-up at the moment.
What can we do to reach this in TvP?
+ Show Spoiler +General areas where we can look for solutions: - T must be able to apply pressure/harass/attack, with units that are not needed to be in perfect position to work. (Maybe even be able to pressure early) - Warp in + Warp Prism, or Blink Stalkers, can not be so strong as a threat, so it forces Terran to secure every part of the base in the mid game. - P can not be so efficient at warping in units at every base, to stop smaller Terran pressure so easily. Or T must have ways to deal with warped in units. - T must have a way of dealing with Cannons - Viking/Scout must be slower, compared to Warp Prism/Dropship, so it does not completely prevent drop play. - Spider mines can not be as insane as they are. They prevent P from even moving towards T´s base, since it is so easy to just lose a big part of the army by a small misstake. (Observer slightly out of position) - P must have a way to deal with a Siege tank + Turret, or just mass Turrets, since neither ground or air units can engage such a position ATM. - T must have a way to punish P who only mass Stalkers.
My suggested detailed solutions:(In this "solution", I do not use Immortal or Marauder, and Sentinel is back at the Robotic facility, where it belongs ^^ ) I quote the problems I described above:
- T must be able to apply pressure/harass/attack, with units that are not needed to be in perfect position to work.
- T must have a way to punish P who only mass Stalkers.
- Siege tanks stronger when unsieged. +10 damage vs armored. - Marine + Medic BT shorter by 2 seconds. (Makes Barrack more efficient at producing units, compared to Gateways) - Marine dmg changed from 6 vs all, to 5 vs all, 6 vs armored. (Makes them strong vs Stalkers, weaker vs Zealots - Marine range changed from 4 to 5. - Medic starting energy changed from 50 to 75. (Allows them to cast Matrix AND Heal) Now T has three early/mid game units who can punish Stalkers. Zealots are instead needed in the P army. - T must have a way of dealing with Cannons The Marauder was added to do this. Can this be done without the Marauder, and without the need of teching to Dropships? (Which are worse compared to Medivacs) Lets look at the Reaper: - Reapers remain as they are in stats. - They can upgrade Flamebomb-upgrade, which still gives them small splash vs light units. - The Flamebomb-upgrade also unlocks the G-4 Charge ability for Reapers. Two possible ways for the ability to work: 1) Throw a bomb at target location. After 5 seconds, it explodes, and deals high damage vs especially structures. This solution allows the Reaper to place bombs at P units who are warped in to defend vs harassment. Might be broken to throw at workers in mineral lines. 2) Throw a bomb AT target structure. Up to 5 bombs can be at the same structure at the same time. After 8-10 seconds, the bombs explode, each dealing 100 dmg to the structure.
This solution allows Reapers to be more specific good vs structures, since their AoE attack is already good vs workers. Move in with Reapers, throw Bombs at Pylons, Cannons, back away, watch it explode, move back and shoot workers. Since there is a limit of the number of bombs at the same time, 20 Reapers can not just destroy a Nexus in a blink of an eye.Both of these solutions makes Cannons and Warp in less good to rely on. Instead P must use mobile units, Reavers, HT, Null Ward, or other things to defend his base. This solution would also make Reapers stronger as harassment units in TvT, since they do not trigger mines, and they can kill Turrets, Supply depots etc. (Which enables more drop play) - Viking/Scout must be slower, compared to Warp Prism/Dropship, so it does not completely prevent drop play. This is an easy fix: Just give the units the same movement speed. - P must have a way to deal with a Siege tank + Turret, or mass Turrets, since neither ground or air units can engage such a position ATM. Small adjustements can be made: - Turrets slightly more expensive so it is harder to cover larger areas, and completely make the base immune vs harass/drop - Turrets slightly weaker vs armored targets, like Dropships/Warp prism (Still strong vs Mutalisks etc) Give a new simple starting spell to the High Templar: - Costs 50 energy. Long range. Maybe 10-11. (Siege tanks have 13) Disable target defensive structure for 20 seconds. (Turret, Bunker, Cannon, Spince & Spore crawler) - Warp in + Warp Prism, or Blink Stalkers, can not be so strong as a threat, so it forces Terran to secure every part of the base in the mid game.
- P can not be so efficient at warping in units at every base, to stop smaller Terran pressure so easily. Or T must have ways to deal with warped in units.
The current quite weak Stalkers in the game are arguably not a game-winning threat anymore, even when Blinked into the T base. I think Warp in is one of the funniest things with the Protoss race, so I do not want to remove it. But it MUST be adjusted! Warp in can be solved in a couple of ways: - Increasing the reserach time of Warp gate from 160 seconds to 200 seconds. (If not enough, make it require Twilight council) - Make each unit cost an additional 25 minerals to warp in. (Makes it a bit "punishing" to warp in units, plus it requires extra investments into infrastructure, due to Warpgates being inefficient as macro buildings) - Increase the warp in time of each individual unit to 10 seconds or more. (Currently 7 seconds per unit. 5 seconds in SC2) - Give a small disadvantage to each warped in unit, so it is worse to warp them in exactly in combat, but better to warp them in a bit away. (Less Shield, or slowed/dizzy for a few seconds, or takes even more damage when attacked while warped in)
- Spider mines can not be as insane as they are. They prevent P from even moving towards T´s base, since it is so easy to just lose a big part of the army by a small misstake. (Observer slightly out of position)
I think this little thing needs a huge rework. The SC2 engine makes them too problematic to play against. One small misstake and P can lose a lot of units. Just too brutal : / Possible solutions: - Much lower damage (40 vs all, but explodes in a larger area) Makes it less frustrating and punishing to move into them by a small accident. (Takes more mines to kill units now, and T is encouraged to spread them over larger areas) - Ranged units can auto-attack them, BUT when the moving Spider mine is destroyed, it explodes at the spot and deals damage! - Give it a longer damage point, which makes it more possbile to drag them into Terran units. (And punish T for badly positioned Spider mines) Other detailed changes in TvP: Upgrades at the Barrack: - Stimpack for Marine + Medic - Increase extra starting energy for Medic by +25 (Two Matrixes from start) - Combat shield gives +15 life for Marines (100/100 BT 110, requires Factory) - Reaper splash upgrade, which gives both AoE attack and unlocks ability (100/100 BT 100, requires Factory) Since it requires Factory, we push Terran "up" the tech tree, instead of going into sideway inferior tech directions. This allows T to still use Marines in the midgame, since +15 extra HP will make them survive vs 2 extra Stalker shots. (I will discuss how this can effect TvZ later) This also allow Reapers to become a MUCH better harassment option vs P in the mid game. - Tanks supply cost increased from 2 to 3. - Tanks build time increased by 5 or 10 seconds. - Unsieged Tanks +10 dmg vs armored units (As I said above) This makes it harder for T to get insane amounts of Tanks as easily, and harder to defend all bases with them. It also makes each Tank more important, which also makes each Matrix more important, both in TvT and TvP, which help to promote Bio play! This will also help T to push out earlier with Tanks. - Vulture starting speed changed from 4.25 to 4.5. - Vulture starting damage changed FROM the current 8 vs all, 20 vs light, TO 8 vs all, 10 or 12 vs light. - No speed upgrade. - Can upgrade a damage upgrade that gives +8 or + 10 damage vs light. This basically makes Vultures faster, but less extreme at killing workers early. (As I said above, low risk-low reward harassment at the start) This also helps to make early Marines stronger in TvT, since Vultures earlier were so insanely cost efficent vs them.
Time for some questions/concerns before I move on:
+ Show Spoiler +Stalkers will just still rape Marines as they have always done!?
- Stalkers currently deals 14 vs medium and light units, 12 vs armored.
4-shots to kill a Marine. 6-shots if they have Combat shield.
Also keep in mind that Bio prodcution is faster, compared to P's Stalker production. Due to Medics extra energy, there is more room for early Matrix too.
If this is not enough, Stalker damage can be adjusted: 12 vs light, 13 vs armored, 14 vs medium. (Still 3-shot Zerglings, takes 4-shots instead of 3 to now kill a worker, still great vs Hydras and Mutalisks, since they are medium armor.)
Stalkers can not kill Tanks! P must have a unit who can kill Tanks!
Zealots are great at killing Tanks already. Why do we need the Immortal do to the same thing?
If each Tank becomes more important and crucial, we can lower the cost of Corsairs from 150/75 to maybe 125/75. (Make them slightly weaker in dmg, to balance PvZ) This would make each Graviton beam on Tanks more important.
We can also make Scouts deal bonus damage vs armored ground units, and get slightly longer attack range.
We still have the unexplored Safeguard spell at Sentinel, which is great for P to attack into Ts sieged up positions.
Without the Immortal, P must rely on air units to kill T!
It is only a problem if it leads to lame gameplay, and if it makes it possible for T to "lock" himself vs air play due to mass Turrets.
- Make Turrets expensive by +25 minerals
- Give P a way to shut down Turrets via a grond unit (New spell on High Templar, or something else.)
Stronger air units from P, even quite early in the game, will force T to mix Marines into his army, which opens up more room for Bio play. (And more harassment options for P)
How might TvP be with these changes?
+ Show Spoiler +Lets look at some unit relationships: Zealots deal with Tanks and Marines. Marines and Tanks deal with Stalkers Stalkers deal with Vulture, Reaper Reaper, Vulture deal with Zealot More details: + Show Spoiler +Zealot > Marine, Tank
Stalker > Vulture, Banshee, Reaper
Marine, Tank > Stalker
Reaper, Vulture > Zealot
Sieged AND unsieged Tank > Stalker
Sentinel, Scout, Corsair > Tank, Vulture
Marine, Viking > Sentinel, Corsair, Scout
Viking <> Scout
Stalker, Zealot > Goliath
Reaver, Null Ward > Bio
Spider mines > Zealot, Stalker
Warp prism drops > Tanks
Ghost > Reaver, Carrier
Things to shuffle this up:
- Marines generally counter Scouts, but Phase Missile can punish clumped up Bio
- Stalkers generally counter Vultures, but Spider mines can punish Stalkers
- Marines generally counter Sentinels. Null Ward with clever play can change this
- Reavers generally counter Bio, unless Bio does great splitting, or add in Ghosts
- Marines generally counter Stalker, with Blink can P still win/even out the fight.
- Zealots generally counter Marines, with Matrix can T still win. T now have two units who can push out vs P: Marines&Medic and unsieged Siege tanks. (The same function the Marauder intends to have.) Both of those units are strong vs Stalkers, which forces P to implement Zealots into their core army. The more Zealots P mixes into his army, the more vulnerable does he get vs Banshee + Drops. (Same indirect effect we try to reach with the Immortal) T now has another midgame harassment option with Reapers, and their new ability also allows them to punish Cannons and potentially warped in units. Besides killing workers, they can snipe Pylons, some tech structures etc, too. (Just as Marauders are suppose to do) If Tanks take a bit longer time to build, and require more supply, it will be harder to secure the entire base vs P'saggression/harassment. It also makes it more important for T to rely on earlier units, both in TvP and TvT. If Siege tanks are stronger unsieged, they also offers more attacking strength. (As I´ve said) In the same way, if we delay Warpgates, and makes them less efficient for Protoss macro, T does not need to be as defensive, since P does not have a deadly threat until much later in the game. (Warp in + Warp Prism, or Recall) With less annoying Spider mines, it might be easier for P to also try to be present on the map. (At least not as brutal as it currently is, where P sometimes does not dare to attack at all, since there are mines everywhere and so hard to micro Observer + army vs them) - We give Bio the role we want: Weak in late game when P adds Reaver, Storm, Archon, but quite strong in the early/mid game, and able to to harassment/multiple attacks. (Via stronger Reapers, plus more Matrixes) The current bio line up might be able to go even vs Protoss Gateway? Why would anyone still wanna do anything? Why not just turtle?I can never remove turtling entirely from the game. I can just make it less efficient as a "play style." We now have more reasons for both players to be out on the map, more options for harassment, harder for T to just deny any action from happening due to less tanks + reworked Spider mines, harder for P to instantly deny drops/small harassment and so on. I can not say this is perfect all of a sudden, but I think it can be a step in the right direction, in terms of desired gameplay. - Early game, Zealots will be stronger since Marines are now weaker vs them from start. 1-2 early Zealots can punish greedy play from T. - When 1-2 Vultures or Reapers hit the field, P must have a few Stalkers. If he gets too many Stalkers, Marines are massable, can be built fast, and can punish heavy Stalker play. - When P gets Sentinel, T need to make sure to have Marines. (Sentinels come into play before Starport or Goliath, and can do some harassment) - If T goes for heavy Bio, P need to mix in Zealots and tech to Reavers, which puts a clock on Terran to do damage before its too late, or transistion into heavier tech units, and so on.
How will this affect the other match-ups?
+ Show Spoiler +ZvZ: Uneffected
PvZ: Barely affected by these changes. Immortals removed. Saw play vs Ultralisks + Lurkers. How can we make P able to deal with Lurkers now? I think a small rebalance on the Lurker can fix this. Maybe change armor class, lower HP and some other adjustements. Change vs what units Lurker deal extra damage.
PvP: To prevent mass Stalkers vs mass Stalkers being a problem, if Stalker dmg vs light is changed from 14 to 12, Zealots will be more stronger, and more important to have in the match-up. Maybe should Stargate tech get a way to deal with Reaver + Warp Prism.
ZvT: Marines are reworked. They are stronger in production and range, but deal less dmg vs light units. Vultures are weaker from the start. If it is too easy to pressure vs Z early, they might need to get faster build time on Queens or other small modifications to their early units. Lurkers + Banelings will still be great vs Bio, despite the Combat shield upg. Hydras will even be a little bit better now vs Bio. If Banelings are changed to Light, maybe will T need to get Reapers vs them. Mutas will also be stronger vs Marines, or at least take less dmg from them.
TvT: Tanks will be harder to get early, Turrets maybe more expensive, which opens up more room for early Bio pressure and dropplay. Vultures will be worse vs Marines from the start, until upgraded. If Medics can use more Matrixes, we might be able to see more Dropships + Matrix to fly into the enemy base for drops. Reapers might be useful since they avoid Spider mines and can now snipe Supply depots, Turrets etc.
PvT: This have I discussed so much already.
The problems in the match-ups might be fixable with only balance adjustements?
How would Protoss and Terran look like now?
+ Show Spoiler +
Gateway/Warpgate: Zealot, Stalker, HT, DT (Archon)
Robotic facility: Sentinel, Observer, Warp Prism, Reaver
Stargate: Corsair, Scout, Arbiter, Carrier
Barrack: Marine, Reaper, Medic, Ghost
Factory: Vulture, Tank, Goliath
Starport: Viking, Dropship, Banshee, Vessel, BC
Ok, puh. Haha. That was a lot of writing. Hope this makes sense ^^
I can go on and on, since I did not cover everything I would like to cover, but my hands hurt now and I need to go anyways
I did not include the Immortal/Marauder in this, just cause I have not found a solution yet where these two units feel necessary and makes the game deeper.
Time for you all to butcher this!
Would this make sense?
What flaws do you see?
Does this sound like a good direction for the game?
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Textwall...
My concern is this will turn into a big game of rock-paper-scissors. ie P makes Stalkers, T MUST make marines/tanks, which forces P into zealot/air, which forces vultures and turrets, which forces HT.... The matchup could get quite predictable.
Also, I get the feeling toss is getting the short end of the stick in regards to harassment. You are making our best harass (WP) less effective, but you give Terran a better way of dealing with cannons, while making warp-ins less effective. Even with warp-ins and cannons I have a hard time handling Vulture drops, make those worse and you forces a lot of army to be left at every expansion. Then, when the Terran player pushes out with the improved bio and unsieged tanks, the Protoss army is spread out all over the place and needs to rapidly reposition or be cut apart piecemeal. Yes, air-based harass will be slightly better with more expensive turrets, but air units were never as strong at harassment as the WP, and the improved marines will be able to stop anything other than the very earliest air attacks. Overall, I think Terran comes out ahead in terms of harassment and harassment defense. This could lead to a HoTS-esque situation where Terran does all the harassment and the Toss army is stuck in their base defending.
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So much stuff.... I'll get more involved after next patch I think, I've fallen behind slightly 
Anyhow, I've gotten a lot of people following my twitch now because of my Braid speedrunning so I'd thought it would be wise to make a separate twitch channel for Starbow.
My new twitch which will be STARBOW ONLY! FOLLOW ME!!!
www.twitch.tv/SC2_Starbow
(Starbow was taken ...  )
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- Reapers remain as they are in stats.
- They can upgrade Flamebomb-upgrade, which still gives them small splash vs light units.
- The Flamebomb-upgrade also unlocks the G-4 Charge ability for Reapers. Two possible ways for the ability to work
Well there is your first flaw.Like the Reaper is pathetic, there is no way with its current stats that it will work lategame. It got 25 Health per Supply. 25!! You know which other unit have just 25 Health per supply? NONE it is the lowest of all. The second last is the Banelings, you know the unit designed for suicide!
Like the simple first solution would be to make them 1 supply and then work from there.
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On July 25 2013 23:47 Kabel wrote:This post will focus on TvP. I will describe the problems the match-up has, how I want the match-up to be like, and what changes we can do, and in what way those changes can improve the match-up. (And other consequenses in the other match-ups) I will write to keep the text short, centered on the core, and readable. There are ofc more areas to cover. Here we go:
Problems+ Show Spoiler +TvP is a turtle fest. Every single game is not a turtle fest, but there is still too much potential for it. Both races have a hard time to attack/harass/pressure each other, and this problem has haunted TvP for a long time. Tools that make it possible for races to become almost competely safe vs harass/pressure: - Siege tanks (easy to mass) - Spider mines (hard to micro aganist, spammable, cheap, forces Observer to be present in every battle) - Turrets (cheap, massable) - Planetary Fortress (not a problem IMO) - Warp in (easy, fast, efficient, no downside) - Rift at Nexus (reinforcements come too quickly) - Cannons (cost efficient vs all Terran units, can only be engaged by Marauders) - Faster Viking/Scout speed compared to Dropship/Warp Prism. It is quite easy for Terran to get up enough Tanks + Spider mines + Turrets at each base, to make almost all smaller Protoss attacks futile. All harass attempts from Terran is easily shut down by Warp in or Cannons. Further more, it might be better to just safely take bases, turtle up a large enough army, and then pressure with it. For both races. Protoss also has an incredible strong harassment tool - Warp in with Warp Prism. T can not allow that to happen in his base during mid game, so it is better to play it safe. We can boil this down to two major problems: - Terran is incredible more efficient when Sieged up and Spider mines are everywhere, compared to being out of position. - Protoss can easily be safe vs harassment and smaller attacks, just via Rift, Warp in and Cannons. P is barely punished for having the army out of position. If both players play the optimal way, and want to win, Terran will always try to stay sieged up with mines everywhere. There is too much of a risk NOT being in perfect position, and almost no alternative way of playing. Beside the problems above, we also have/had these problems in TvP: - Bio could not push out in TvP (So easy for Stalkers to just kite the Marine push and dwindle it down one by one)
- Bio drops/harassment were too weak in TvP
- Mech was the only units needed in TvP. Led to predictable games.
- Stalker was the only core unit needed in TvP.
- Stalkers with Blink were too strong in TvP since T could not leave his base due to the risk of being Blinked
- Stalkers could "contain" Terran so neither T could push out, or P could push in. Led to lame games.
- Basically, it shall be more rewarding to do something, rather than doing nothing.
- Both races shall have strong ways of applying pressure, doing harassment (both in small and large scale), and have equally "hard" ways of defending. Preferably shall both races be able to apply low risk - low reward harass in the early game, and as the game progresses, the methods of harassing shall become stronger, but still stay in proportion to the defensive tools the races have access to. (Example, it would be broken if P could warp in units from the start, since that is stronger than Ts methods to defending at that point of time in the game)
- Players must have good incentives/reasons to attack each other, at various stages, throughout the game.
This is nothing new. I would argue we have almost reached this in PvZ, which IMO seems like the funniest and most varied match-up at the moment.
What can we do to reach this in TvP?+ Show Spoiler +General areas where we can look for solutions: - T must be able to apply pressure/harass/attack, with units that are not needed to be in perfect position to work. (Maybe even be able to pressure early) - Warp in + Warp Prism, or Blink Stalkers, can not be so strong as a threat, so it forces Terran to secure every part of the base in the mid game. - P can not be so efficient at warping in units at every base, to stop smaller Terran pressure so easily. Or T must have ways to deal with warped in units. - T must have a way of dealing with Cannons - Viking/Scout must be slower, compared to Warp Prism/Dropship, so it does not completely prevent drop play. - Spider mines can not be as insane as they are. They prevent P from even moving towards T´s base, since it is so easy to just lose a big part of the army by a small misstake. (Observer slightly out of position) - P must have a way to deal with a Siege tank + Turret, or just mass Turrets, since neither ground or air units can engage such a position ATM. - T must have a way to punish P who only mass Stalkers.
My suggested detailed solutions:(In this "solution", I do not use Immortal or Marauder, and Sentinel is back at the Robotic facility, where it belongs ^^ ) I quote the problems I described above:
- T must be able to apply pressure/harass/attack, with units that are not needed to be in perfect position to work.
- T must have a way to punish P who only mass Stalkers.
- Siege tanks stronger when unsieged. +10 damage vs armored. - Marine + Medic BT shorter by 2 seconds. (Makes Barrack more efficient at producing units, compared to Gateways) - Marine dmg changed from 6 vs all, to 5 vs all, 6 vs armored. (Makes them strong vs Stalkers, weaker vs Zealots - Marine range changed from 4 to 5. - Medic starting energy changed from 50 to 75. (Allows them to cast Matrix AND Heal) Now T has three early/mid game units who can punish Stalkers. Zealots are instead needed in the P army. - T must have a way of dealing with Cannons The Marauder was added to do this. Can this be done without the Marauder, and without the need of teching to Dropships? (Which are worse compared to Medivacs) Lets look at the Reaper: - Reapers remain as they are in stats. - They can upgrade Flamebomb-upgrade, which still gives them small splash vs light units. - The Flamebomb-upgrade also unlocks the G-4 Charge ability for Reapers. Two possible ways for the ability to work: 1) Throw a bomb at target location. After 5 seconds, it explodes, and deals high damage vs especially structures. This solution allows the Reaper to place bombs at P units who are warped in to defend vs harassment. Might be broken to throw at workers in mineral lines. 2) Throw a bomb AT target structure. Up to 5 bombs can be at the same structure at the same time. After 8-10 seconds, the bombs explode, each dealing 100 dmg to the structure.
This solution allows Reapers to be more specific good vs structures, since their AoE attack is already good vs workers. Move in with Reapers, throw Bombs at Pylons, Cannons, back away, watch it explode, move back and shoot workers. Since there is a limit of the number of bombs at the same time, 20 Reapers can not just destroy a Nexus in a blink of an eye.Both of these solutions makes Cannons and Warp in less good to rely on. Instead P must use mobile units, Reavers, HT, Null Ward, or other things to defend his base. This solution would also make Reapers stronger as harassment units in TvT, since they do not trigger mines, and they can kill Turrets, Supply depots etc. (Which enables more drop play) - Viking/Scout must be slower, compared to Warp Prism/Dropship, so it does not completely prevent drop play. This is an easy fix: Just give the units the same movement speed. - P must have a way to deal with a Siege tank + Turret, or mass Turrets, since neither ground or air units can engage such a position ATM. Small adjustements can be made: - Turrets slightly more expensive so it is harder to cover larger areas, and completely make the base immune vs harass/drop - Turrets slightly weaker vs armored targets, like Dropships/Warp prism (Still strong vs Mutalisks etc) Give a new simple starting spell to the High Templar: - Costs 50 energy. Long range. Maybe 10-11. (Siege tanks have 13) Disable target defensive structure for 20 seconds. (Turret, Bunker, Cannon, Spince & Spore crawler) - Warp in + Warp Prism, or Blink Stalkers, can not be so strong as a threat, so it forces Terran to secure every part of the base in the mid game.
- P can not be so efficient at warping in units at every base, to stop smaller Terran pressure so easily. Or T must have ways to deal with warped in units.
The current quite weak Stalkers in the game are arguably not a game-winning threat anymore, even when Blinked into the T base. I think Warp in is one of the funniest things with the Protoss race, so I do not want to remove it. But it MUST be adjusted! Warp in can be solved in a couple of ways: - Increasing the reserach time of Warp gate from 160 seconds to 200 seconds. (If not enough, make it require Twilight council) - Make each unit cost an additional 25 minerals to warp in. (Makes it a bit "punishing" to warp in units, plus it requires extra investments into infrastructure, due to Warpgates being inefficient as macro buildings) - Increase the warp in time of each individual unit to 10 seconds or more. (Currently 7 seconds per unit. 5 seconds in SC2) - Give a small disadvantage to each warped in unit, so it is worse to warp them in exactly in combat, but better to warp them in a bit away. (Less Shield, or slowed/dizzy for a few seconds, or takes even more damage when attacked while warped in)
- Spider mines can not be as insane as they are. They prevent P from even moving towards T´s base, since it is so easy to just lose a big part of the army by a small misstake. (Observer slightly out of position)
I think this little thing needs a huge rework. The SC2 engine makes them too problematic to play against. One small misstake and P can lose a lot of units. Just too brutal : / Possible solutions: - Much lower damage (40 vs all, but explodes in a larger area) Makes it less frustrating and punishing to move into them by a small accident. (Takes more mines to kill units now, and T is encouraged to spread them over larger areas) - Ranged units can auto-attack them, BUT when the moving Spider mine is destroyed, it explodes at the spot and deals damage! - Give it a longer damage point, which makes it more possbile to drag them into Terran units. (And punish T for badly positioned Spider mines) Other detailed changes in TvP: Upgrades at the Barrack: - Stimpack for Marine + Medic - Increase extra starting energy for Medic by +25 (Two Matrixes from start) - Combat shield gives +15 life for Marines (100/100 BT 110, requires Factory) - Reaper splash upgrade, which gives both AoE attack and unlocks ability (100/100 BT 100, requires Factory) Since it requires Factory, we push Terran "up" the tech tree, instead of going into sideway inferior tech directions. This allows T to still use Marines in the midgame, since +15 extra HP will make them survive vs 2 extra Stalker shots. (I will discuss how this can effect TvZ later) This also allow Reapers to become a MUCH better harassment option vs P in the mid game. - Tanks supply cost increased from 2 to 3. - Tanks build time increased by 5 or 10 seconds. - Unsieged Tanks +10 dmg vs armored units (As I said above) This makes it harder for T to get insane amounts of Tanks as easily, and harder to defend all bases with them. It also makes each Tank more important, which also makes each Matrix more important, both in TvT and TvP, which help to promote Bio play! This will also help T to push out earlier with Tanks. - Vulture starting speed changed from 4.25 to 4.5. - Vulture starting damage changed FROM the current 8 vs all, 20 vs light, TO 8 vs all, 10 or 12 vs light. - No speed upgrade. - Can upgrade a damage upgrade that gives +8 or + 10 damage vs light. This basically makes Vultures faster, but less extreme at killing workers early. (As I said above, low risk-low reward harassment at the start) This also helps to make early Marines stronger in TvT, since Vultures earlier were so insanely cost efficent vs them.
Time for some questions/concerns before I move on:+ Show Spoiler +Stalkers will just still rape Marines as they have always done!?
- Stalkers currently deals 14 vs medium and light units, 12 vs armored.
4-shots to kill a Marine. 6-shots if they have Combat shield.
Also keep in mind that Bio prodcution is faster, compared to P's Stalker production. Due to Medics extra energy, there is more room for early Matrix too.
If this is not enough, Stalker damage can be adjusted: 12 vs light, 13 vs armored, 14 vs medium. (Still 3-shot Zerglings, takes 4-shots instead of 3 to now kill a worker, still great vs Hydras and Mutalisks, since they are medium armor.)
Stalkers can not kill Tanks! P must have a unit who can kill Tanks!
Zealots are great at killing Tanks already. Why do we need the Immortal do to the same thing?
If each Tank becomes more important and crucial, we can lower the cost of Corsairs from 150/75 to maybe 125/75. (Make them slightly weaker in dmg, to balance PvZ) This would make each Graviton beam on Tanks more important.
We can also make Scouts deal bonus damage vs armored ground units, and get slightly longer attack range.
We still have the unexplored Safeguard spell at Sentinel, which is great for P to attack into Ts sieged up positions.
Without the Immortal, P must rely on air units to kill T!
It is only a problem if it leads to lame gameplay, and if it makes it possible for T to "lock" himself vs air play due to mass Turrets.
- Make Turrets expensive by +25 minerals
- Give P a way to shut down Turrets via a grond unit (New spell on High Templar, or something else.)
Stronger air units from P, even quite early in the game, will force T to mix Marines into his army, which opens up more room for Bio play. (And more harassment options for P)
Lets look at some unit relationships: Zealots deal with Tanks and Marines. Marines and Tanks deal with Stalkers Stalkers deal with Vulture, Reaper Reaper, Vulture deal with Zealot More details: + Show Spoiler +Zealot > Marine, Tank
Stalker > Vulture, Banshee, Reaper
Marine, Tank > Stalker
Reaper, Vulture > Zealot
Sieged AND unsieged Tank > Stalker
Sentinel, Scout, Corsair > Tank, Vulture
Marine, Viking > Sentinel, Corsair, Scout
Viking <> Scout
Stalker, Zealot > Goliath
Reaver, Null Ward > Bio
Spider mines > Zealot, Stalker
Warp prism drops > Tanks
Ghost > Reaver, Carrier
Things to shuffle this up:
- Marines generally counter Scouts, but Phase Missile can punish clumped up Bio
- Stalkers generally counter Vultures, but Spider mines can punish Stalkers
- Marines generally counter Sentinels. Null Ward with clever play can change this
- Reavers generally counter Bio, unless Bio does great splitting, or add in Ghosts
- Marines generally counter Stalker, with Blink can P still win/even out the fight.
- Zealots generally counter Marines, with Matrix can T still win. T now have two units who can push out vs P: Marines&Medic and unsieged Siege tanks. (The same function the Marauder intends to have.) Both of those units are strong vs Stalkers, which forces P to implement Zealots into their core army. The more Zealots P mixes into his army, the more vulnerable does he get vs Banshee + Drops. (Same indirect effect we try to reach with the Immortal) T now has another midgame harassment option with Reapers, and their new ability also allows them to punish Cannons and potentially warped in units. Besides killing workers, they can snipe Pylons, some tech structures etc, too. (Just as Marauders are suppose to do) If Tanks take a bit longer time to build, and require more supply, it will be harder to secure the entire base vs P'saggression/harassment. It also makes it more important for T to rely on earlier units, both in TvP and TvT. If Siege tanks are stronger unsieged, they also offers more attacking strength. (As I´ve said) In the same way, if we delay Warpgates, and makes them less efficient for Protoss macro, T does not need to be as defensive, since P does not have a deadly threat until much later in the game. (Warp in + Warp Prism, or Recall) With less annoying Spider mines, it might be easier for P to also try to be present on the map. (At least not as brutal as it currently is, where P sometimes does not dare to attack at all, since there are mines everywhere and so hard to micro Observer + army vs them) - We give Bio the role we want: Weak in late game when P adds Reaver, Storm, Archon, but quite strong in the early/mid game, and able to to harassment/multiple attacks. (Via stronger Reapers, plus more Matrixes) The current bio line up might be able to go even vs Protoss Gateway? Why would anyone still wanna do anything? Why not just turtle?I can never remove turtling entirely from the game. I can just make it less efficient as a "play style." We now have more reasons for both players to be out on the map, more options for harassment, harder for T to just deny any action from happening due to less tanks + reworked Spider mines, harder for P to instantly deny drops/small harassment and so on. I can not say this is perfect all of a sudden, but I think it can be a step in the right direction, in terms of desired gameplay. - Early game, Zealots will be stronger since Marines are now weaker vs them from start. 1-2 early Zealots can punish greedy play from T. - When 1-2 Vultures or Reapers hit the field, P must have a few Stalkers. If he gets too many Stalkers, Marines are massable, can be built fast, and can punish heavy Stalker play. - When P gets Sentinel, T need to make sure to have Marines. (Sentinels come into play before Starport or Goliath, and can do some harassment) - If T goes for heavy Bio, P need to mix in Zealots and tech to Reavers, which puts a clock on Terran to do damage before its too late, or transistion into heavier tech units, and so on. ZvZ: Uneffected
PvZ: Barely affected by these changes. Immortals removed. Saw play vs Ultralisks + Lurkers. How can we make P able to deal with Lurkers now? I think a small rebalance on the Lurker can fix this. Maybe change armor class, lower HP and some other adjustements. Change vs what units Lurker deal extra damage.
PvP: To prevent mass Stalkers vs mass Stalkers being a problem, if Stalker dmg vs light is changed from 14 to 12, Zealots will be more stronger, and more important to have in the match-up. Maybe should Stargate tech get a way to deal with Reaver + Warp Prism.
ZvT: Marines are reworked. They are stronger in production and range, but deal less dmg vs light units. Vultures are weaker from the start. If it is too easy to pressure vs Z early, they might need to get faster build time on Queens or other small modifications to their early units. Lurkers + Banelings will still be great vs Bio, despite the Combat shield upg. Hydras will even be a little bit better now vs Bio. If Banelings are changed to Light, maybe will T need to get Reapers vs them. Mutas will also be stronger vs Marines, or at least take less dmg from them.
TvT: Tanks will be harder to get early, Turrets maybe more expensive, which opens up more room for early Bio pressure and dropplay. Vultures will be worse vs Marines from the start, until upgraded. If Medics can use more Matrixes, we might be able to see more Dropships + Matrix to fly into the enemy base for drops. Reapers might be useful since they avoid Spider mines and can now snipe Supply depots, Turrets etc.
PvT: This have I discussed so much already.
The problems in the match-ups might be fixable with only balance adjustements? Ok, puh. Haha. That was a lot of writing. Hope this makes sense ^^ I can go on and on, since I did not cover everything I would like to cover, but my hands hurt now and I need to go anyways I did not include the Immortal/Marauder in this, just cause I have not found a solution yet where these two units feel necessary and makes the game deeper. Time for you all to butcher this! Would this make sense? What flaws do you see? Does this sound like a good direction for the game?
General feel looks pretty good! Doubts about some changes, like the 25 mins more for each warp-in, i'd rather make a cannon more at each base, which seems like a more boring way to deal with harass than warping in units. I think making the cost to make a warpgate (like 50/50) is a better solution along with raising the warp-in time.
Something else i'd like to see is making the spider mine strong early game and weak late game, making for interesting micro earlygame (vulture vs stalker) both in harass and defense, makes vultures a safe opening in the early game. On the other hand it would make vultures as a mineraldump lategame less effective, effort of spamming mines vs cleaning them up is not balanced. So I think it's fine that a large stalkerball with detection doesn't take any damage from mines. I have no idea how you can exactly implement this, but I'm sure you will work something out .
On July 26 2013 03:50 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +- Reapers remain as they are in stats.
- They can upgrade Flamebomb-upgrade, which still gives them small splash vs light units.
- The Flamebomb-upgrade also unlocks the G-4 Charge ability for Reapers. Two possible ways for the ability to work Well there is your first flaw.Like the Reaper is pathetic, there is no way with its current stats that it will work lategame. It got 25 Health per Supply. 25!! You know which other unit have just 25 Health per supply? NONE it is the lowest of all. The second last is the Banelings, you know the unit designed for suicide! Like the simple first solution would be to make them 1 supply and then work from there.
What crazy stats are you pulling out of your ass? Health per supply? how is that even an important stat balancewise?
I'd design a unit with 1000 dps, 50 health and 8 supply just to troll you.
The reaper is not pathetic, it's not a combat unit, it's a raiding unit which still deals pretty ok with most units considering its mobility.
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like the 25 mins more for each warp-in, i'd rather make a cannon more at each base, which seems like a more boring way to deal with harass than warping in units. I think making the cost to make a warpgate (like 50/50) is a better solution along with raising the warp-in time.
Agree here - I think protoss's will choose to only gateway and instead add an extra cannon or 2 at each base. This is somewhat similar to removing warp tech without compensating protoss in an "interesting way".
Regarding vultures: Besides movement speed nerf, I am not sure this is the right approach (not there is any easy approach though). I don't think the issue here is really early game strenght of vultures. Its not even that they can't be dealt with as protoss without warp tech. But instead, the prolem is that it forces protoss to play disciplined as he needs to spread out his units correctly among his bases, while in realitiy he just wanna do stuff out on the map.
I think in BW it was actually somewhat similar (from having watched quite some vods as of late - and this is also why I suggested the immortal as the combo of stalkers + immortals could replicate dragoons with stupid AI), but at least in BW there was a stable metagame where terran usually would move out on the map, and then army trading occurs. And further, I am not actually sure whether that early metagame was that enjoyable. Sure in some games we saw a bit of drop play and vulture harass, but even in BW, it was pretty stale as well for the first 20 mins.
I feel like terran Starbow (at least with tanks at 2 supply) is more defensive oriented and scales way better than protoss late game (esp with current stats of immortals) - Thus as protoss you shouldn't really be disciplined in the early midgame. You should be able to make a bit of army trading while terran at the same time should be able to harass a bit - Solving this issue (making both the terran and the protoss "happy" at the same time) seems really hard, and I am not sure a 4.5 movement speed with a light upgrade does enough in this regard.
Maybe if we took at slightly different approach:
- Vulttures start with 8 + 5 (4 shots workers) and 4.5 movement speed
- There is an upgrade which increases damage vs light by 7. But this upgrade shouldn't come untill post 15-17 minute mark. Thus an armory requirement with a 150 second research time or so could probably do it.
This will have two effects on vulture harass early midgame;
- Higher rate of "succes" (since there is no warp tech for defense here).
- Lower punishment of the protoss player for being "caught" out on the map.
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What crazy stats are you pulling out of your ass? Health per supply? how is that even an important stat balancewise?
I'd design a unit with 1000 dps, 50 health and 8 supply just to troll you.
The reaper is not pathetic, it's not a combat unit, it's a raiding unit which still deals pretty ok with most units considering its mobility.
When it comes down to lategame viability it is all about power/supply. Now power is a rather arbitrary term that would be impossible to put an exact value on, as it incorperates several values like health, damage and range. Basicly how useful is the unit vs how much supply it costs. The reason why supply matters should be obvious. It is the most limiting factor of all the unit attributes. It is only in the early game that Power/Cost is dominating.
This leaves a noticeable effect even before players are maxed out, as having to spend more minerals on more early supply depots will leave a noticeable mark on the overall strength of the army even if the reaper is rather cheap for its supply.
TL;DR: The reaper sucks too much to be a 2-supply unit and will never be useable late or even mid-game with its current stats. One of the easiest ways to see that is by looking at how much health it got per supply. Because that is what matters.
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My concern is this will turn into a big game of rock-paper-scissors. ie P makes Stalkers, T MUST make marines/tanks, which forces P into zealot/air, which forces vultures and turrets, which forces HT.... The matchup could get quite predictable.
This happens in all match-ups, in various forms. Zerg makes Mutalisks, forces T to build Turrets, Marines etc.
It is boring when the outcome is clear:
Unit A always beat Unit B.
It becomes more interesting when:
Unit A will likely beat Unit B.
(And via micro can players change the outcome of the fight)
An example is Stalker vs Vulture. Generally, the Stalker will kill the Vulture. But with the use of Spider mine can the Vultures still beat the Stalker, but it is harder.
A rock-scissor-paper pattern happens with all units, regardless if there are 10 or 50 units in the game. Some units will be better vs others, thus players will get A vs B, then C vs B, then D vs A etc.
Also, I get the feeling toss is getting the short end of the stick in regards to harassment. You are making our best harass (WP) less effective, but you give Terran a better way of dealing with cannons, while making warp-ins less effective. Even with warp-ins and cannons I have a hard time handling Vulture drops, make those worse and you forces a lot of army to be left at every expansion. Then, when the Terran player pushes out with the improved bio and unsieged tanks, the Protoss army is spread out all over the place and needs to rapidly reposition or be cut apart piecemeal. Yes, air-based harass will be slightly better with more expensive turrets, but air units were never as strong at harassment as the WP, and the improved marines will be able to stop anything other than the very earliest air attacks. Overall, I think Terran comes out ahead in terms of harassment and harassment defense. This could lead to a HoTS-esque situation where Terran does all the harassment and the Toss army is stuck in their base defending.
Good points.
Warp gate shall not become obsolete. It will just need to come later in the game, so Warp Prism + Warp in does not pose a deadly early threat any longer, and preferably Warp gates should have some kind of disadvantage compared to Gateways.
Kabel, do you think the scout would be more useful if it were like an oracle? I think the oracle was always destined to replace the scout in starbow.
The Sentinel kinda already is the Protoss Oracle. There are also Arbiters. I don´t think a third flying spell caster is needed.
Doubts about some changes, like the 25 mins more for each warp-in, i'd rather make a cannon more at each base, which seems like a more boring way to deal with harass than warping in units. I think making the cost to make a warpgate (like 50/50) is a better solution along with raising the warp-in time.
Yeah, that might be too severe. The important thing with Warp Gate is to delay it a bit in the game, since it currently is a big concern in the early/mid game in PvT. (Forces T to turtle, since he can easily die from Warp in)
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This big proposal I did above is aimed at TvP, since that is the number one problem match-up. If there are better solutions, better ideas, or better ways to solve what I identify as problems, then feel free to share it. I always use the solution I think will be best for the game, no matter who invented it. Sometimes I do it right, sometimes I fail horribly. If you find a good way to use the Marauder/Immortal as a part of the solution to the match-up problems, I am all ears.
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Well i did some more digging and here is one of my old ideas.
Haywire round (Original Post)
This was one of my "marauder-ish" ideas. Basicly a single target ability that dealt damage to mechanical units.
It was however meant for firebats as they tended to be useless in the matchups where mechanical units appeared. I am not sure if such an ability would fit on the marauder. It would just make the marauder better at what it already does or the marauder would just feel clumsy to use if its armored damage was removed in exchange for this.
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On July 26 2013 05:25 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +
What crazy stats are you pulling out of your ass? Health per supply? how is that even an important stat balancewise?
I'd design a unit with 1000 dps, 50 health and 8 supply just to troll you.
The reaper is not pathetic, it's not a combat unit, it's a raiding unit which still deals pretty ok with most units considering its mobility.
When it comes down to lategame viability it is all about power/supply. Now power is a rather arbitrary term that would be impossible to put an exact value on, as it incorperates several values like health, damage and range. Basicly how useful is the unit vs how much supply it costs. The reason why supply matters should be obvious. It is the most limiting factor of all the unit attributes. It is only in the early game that Power/Cost is dominating. This leaves a noticeable effect even before players are maxed out, as having to spend more minerals on more early supply depots will leave a noticeable mark on the overall strength of the army even if the reaper is rather cheap for its supply. TL;DR: The reaper sucks too much to be a 2-supply unit and will never be useable late or even mid-game with its current stats. One of the easiest ways to see that is by looking at how much health it got per supply. Because that is what matters.
Ok, I get your thought process, but this reaper is designed to be a harass-unit and not be useless in an army. Kabel doesn't want people to max out on bio and being able to kill the enemy unless he is significantly behind. This means you don't want to build many reapers late game, rather a couple in the midgame to harass bases and keep using them if they survive until the lategame. I still don't see how this is such an important stat for this unit. And i'd rather just talk about supply-usage rather than healh/supply, as it still seems like a bad stat to balance things around, what if a siegetank did 1000 damage with a huge radius but costs 10 supply, i'd mass them, even if they cost a ton of supply.
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Also keep in mind that Bio prodcution is faster, compared to P's Stalker production
Why?
Zealot/stalker/sentinel. Relatively mobile and very low infastructure.
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Maybe if we took at slightly different approach:
- Vulttures start with 8 + 5 (4 shots workers) and 4.5 movement speed
- There is an upgrade which increases damage vs light by 7. But this upgrade shouldn't come untill post 15-17 minute mark. Thus an armory requirement with a 150 second research time or so could probably do it.
This will have two effects on vulture harass early midgame;
- Higher rate of "succes" (since there is no warp tech for defense here).
- Lower punishment of the protoss player for being "caught" out on the map.
Yeah this could work too!
"Also keep in mind that Bio prodcution is faster, compared to P's Stalker production"
Why?
If the build time of Marines + Medics is lowered by a few seconds, T will be able to produce more Marines, compared to how many Stalkers P can produce from the same amount of production buildings.
In other words, Barracks will convert minerals into units faster than Gateways convert minerals into Stalkers.
(Earlier P has been able to have more stuff out on the map, compared to T, due to superior production from Gateways)
Something else i'd like to see is making the spider mine strong early game and weak late game, making for interesting micro earlygame (vulture vs stalker) both in harass and defense, makes vultures a safe opening in the early game. On the other hand it would make vultures as a mineraldump lategame less effective, effort of spamming mines vs cleaning them up is not balanced. So I think it's fine that a large stalkerball with detection doesn't take any damage from mines.
The bolded part. One way to overcome it might be to add a long duration time on Spider mines. (3-5 minutes per Mine or something. ) This means that Terran must "update" the mine fields all game long, over and over again. Just spamming them and let them be for the rest of the game is not enough.
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On July 26 2013 05:51 Kabel wrote:Show nested quote +Maybe if we took at slightly different approach:
- Vulttures start with 8 + 5 (4 shots workers) and 4.5 movement speed
- There is an upgrade which increases damage vs light by 7. But this upgrade shouldn't come untill post 15-17 minute mark. Thus an armory requirement with a 150 second research time or so could probably do it.
This will have two effects on vulture harass early midgame;
- Higher rate of "succes" (since there is no warp tech for defense here).
- Lower punishment of the protoss player for being "caught" out on the map. Yeah this could work too! Show nested quote +"Also keep in mind that Bio prodcution is faster, compared to P's Stalker production"
Why? If the build time of Marines + Medics is lowered by a few seconds, T will be able to produce more Marines, compared to how many Stalkers P can produce from the same amount of production buildings. In other words, Barracks will convert minerals into units faster than Gateways convert minerals into Stalkers. (Earlier P has been able to have more stuff out on the map, compared to T, due to superior production from Gateways)
Yeh if these requirements are met;
- Teran can stay on 2 rax'es (1 reactor and one with tech lab) at around the 9-10th min mark.
- Terran can take a 3rd pre 10min mark
- Terran can have 1-2 dropships out at the 10-11 min mark.
- Protoss can go 2-3 gateways + stargate on 2-3 bases at the 10 min mark
- With these builds, protoss will have less production than the terran player.
- Protoss will be more cost efficient in a straight up fight.
then the desired dynamic is probably fulfilled.
Will, however, require some testing, and this is where we could actually use the 25 second bt on reactors quite a bit. Maybe like 5 seconds lower marine BT and 30-35 second reactor BT? Reapers in TvT won't be as imba as before as marines produce faster.
I still think cheaper starport tech is another are which probably should be looked at (now where banshee's aren't quite as good as before).
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Tank @ 3 supply; Its a dangerous approach, but could potentially give terran an incentive to attack with mech (as it will max out faster). But it will require a nerf of the other races late game units as well (stasis, ultralisks, dark swarm). Otherwise terran will be quite inferior late game.
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Now Tanks are hardly late game units themself through(at least not in terms of tech). Maybe it would be better if we added some more to the late-tiered units of terran rather than letting tanks be the all around answer to anything ground rather than nerfing other races late-game units.
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Yeh if these requirements are met;
- Teran can stay on 2 rax'es (1 reactor and one with tech lab) at around the 9-10th min mark.
- Terran can take a 3rd pre 10min mark
- Terran can have 1-2 dropships out at the 10-11 min mark.
- Protoss can go 2-3 gateways + stargate on 2-3 bases at the 10 min mark
- With these builds, protoss will have less production than the terran player.
- Protoss will be more cost efficient in a straight up fight.
then the desired dynamic is probably fulfilled.
I think this can be achieved, since it is basically a rearrangement on some numerical factors. (production time, cost for tech structures etc)
I think Protoss will still have the upper hand in Gateway combat vs Bio, with the stats I wrote above, if we assume no micro/abilities are used. Just in terms of pure stats. (I will try it more when I can) However, these combats can become more interesting and even, depending on how players use Matrix, Stimpack, Blink and a potential minor Zealot Charge ability. (And of course target fire, splitting, kiteing and so on)
This is all with the marauder and immortal removed correct? I feel that they don't really aid in the game, and their intended purpose was weak and unnecessary design wise. I think making these proposed changes would be more interesting.
My huge solution for PvT posted above involves neither the Marauder or Immortal.
Tank @ 3 supply; Its a dangerous approach, but could potentially give terran an incentive to attack with mech (as it will max out faster). But it will require a nerf of the other races late game units as well (stasis, ultralisks, dark swarm). Otherwise terran will be quite inferior late game.
This might be a bit risky yes.
One reason is to make Tanks more "costly" for the Terran army supply. Ofc they shall still see play and be important. But if they require more supply, it will be harder to put 2-5 Tanks + Turrets at each expansion for "super defence" vs ground, since this will now have a bigger impact on the total army supply.
(With 2 supply per tank, 5 tanks cost 10 supply. With 3 supply per tank, the same amount cost 15 supply)
The intention is to make it harder for Terran to turtle as efficiently, and as you say Hider, it might help to give incentives to attack more with them.
It also helps Bio armies be more "supply friendly", since you can keep 3 Marines in the army for the same supply cost as 1 Tank. (Instead of 2 Marines for 1 Tank, which IMO makes the Tank the far better option in TvT and TvP)
It might not be the correct approach though.
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Well changing the supply won't change the overall mechanics of how the unit work, only how strong the overall army of X constant supply is. So if mech doesn't have much reason to do an attack at 120 supply with say 12 tanks then they will still not want to do it either at 120 supply with now just 8 tanks or at the new 12 tank supply timing which would be at 132 supply. Plus the latter one would still be slightly later due to needing more supply depots.
What i am saying is, that we should look at the reasons why mech doesn't want to attack, behaps even ignoring the obvious answer of "turtling is more rewarding".
I think the simple answer is that mech can't retreat.Anything that a mech player moves out on the field is written off as a loss already or it is a victory attempt. Protoss got rift to evacuate quickly while zerg doesn't have any units that are too devastating to lose. Now i am not saying we should give recall to terran but they might need something similar. Normal dropships won't cut it i am afraid. I do have some ideas on the matter but it would be a rather long post so i would like to know what you think first.
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EPT
