|
#zaphod
iam sorry man, that i havent participated in earlier discussions so its not my fault i cant keep up right?
iam sorry again but u are a dumbass, kabel has said directly he wanna put in alot more bw balance. And from there tweak or redesign or whatnot.
and just because i wanna do this, start with bw balance. Makes me wanna have this game purely bw? What kind of logic is that?
#kabel
final thoughts, well yes.
Hard to do excaclty now maybe,
but i feel the economy boosters favors protoss to big in the opening right now and it
disfavors balance, and gameplay
|
@Hider
+ Show Spoiler +I think that's a bit unfair to say. Yes that specific post was a bit too much ala "BW in this way, thus we should change it to the same as BW". However, in general he can differentiate between the bad parts of BW (Dark Swarm, Stasis), while trying to promote Starbow to go into the direction of the good parts of BW. I wouldn't say he is partilularly biased, rather he is just like everyone else, that has their subjective preferences.
He is correct with IMO all of his assesment of the flaws of Sbow. For instance just look at TvP early game relative to BW. In Sbow we have;
- Vultures being worse
- Chrono boost giving a signifciant advantage for protoss. OC being close to irrelevant early game for terran.
- Stronger air openings vs terran
- Stalkers raping marines + vultures much harder than dragoons did with maurauders not being a strong enough unit to offset it.
So while one could argue that this could be offset by the fact that terran has stronger midgame harass options in terms of dropships + banshee's, that doesn't actually function properly atm. due to the fact that protoss easily can afford to invest in air units for the purposes of
A) Nullifying a potential air harass/drop-threat threat
B) Forcing goliaths which terran really don't want to invest in in the early game
C) Forcing higher infastructure costs with ebay + turrets before terran can start the 3rd base.
So I agree with Dirtybag, that this is a weird way of balancing the game, and I think we should give him credit for pointing out the assymetric flaws of the MOD, which he has done a great job of finding out. Thus, I believe he has contributed more to the understanding of the game than anyonelse has since he became active.
I have to agree on that. Dirtybag/Foxxan is indeed a skilled player with valuable game insight. He helps to reveal imbalances, and when we compare it to BW, it is easier to see what works and what does not. Many of the current values in Starbow are "built on top of each other." One change here, then one change there, then a third one there. Over time, a lot of strange values/stats have been accumulated.
That is why I am so eager to use BW as a reference point. Once and for all get this MOD together. But ofc everything can not be BW. (As you all know)
@Worker values
Here is what I have in mind:
- Worker build time 19 seconds
- Larva spawn time 17 seconds (instead of 18)
That isn't anywhere near enough for the ZvP imbalances. Rather this is likely to buff protoss even more in that matchup. You still have chronoboost which makes 2-gate too strong. You probably need to add another 5 seconds or so to zealot build time if you dont buff larva more than that.
final thoughts, well yes.
Hard to do excaclty now maybe,
but i feel the economy boosters favors protoss to big in the opening right now and it
disfavors balance, and gameplay
I was suprised that BW larvas spawn every 17 second. I was certain it was every 15 second.
Is the Zealot pressure vs Zerg the early main problem? Or does it feel like Z has too few larvas in early TvZ too?
If Zealot pressure is too strong, maybe Zealot BT just needs to be increased. (If it is isolated to being trouble in only early ZvP)
The larva number is such an important value, since it affects the game at all stages in the game. If I make it 15, despite it not being so in BW, I fear it will be too strong.
The patch is not uploaded yet. I am fixing minerals on the maps. I guess we just have to determine a worker value, and a larva value. Then we try it today. Any thoughts?
|
Danko has been doing some tests as well.
Hydras killed zealots in 30 shots because of shield regen.
They should have roughly the same exact attack speed (I side by side compared this). Our hydras because zealots only have out of combat burst regen take them down in 27 hits.
Shield regen is actually a HUGE factor for zerglings and hydra dps. It is sort of like an extra point of armor that comes into effect every 2 or 3 attacks (depending on dps).
How do people actually feel about quickly regenerating shields out of combat vs constant shield regeneration.
SC2 versions rewards clashing, and then quickly running away with the entire army, and then doing it again.
BW's version you are not rewarded so heavily for pulling the entire army out of combat for a kind of global temporary heal to your army. You pull back the injured ones away from combat yes, let low shield units get swapped out.
In addition you take higher attrition casualties. In my eyes this is the most important factor.
Starcraft is a game of sending your forces to die and constantly remaking them. Protoss had this aspect because while they did regen shields they also had a bigger pool of hp, not to mention that everything did full to shield.
Terran on the other hand had bio which could heal but had really low hp pools. Mech had really big hp pools but recquired a ton of time and scv's to actually heal up.
Z had generally low hp units, but its high hp units took forever to regenerate.
All units had mortality.
@Working on SBOW
I'll on at like 8:30 pm norwegian time I think. Been out of town yesterday.
@Vulture micro
with the new vulture you can actually a-move somethwhere and the vultures will do a moving shot regardless of when you issued the command. They start slowing down after you fire just like in BW, so pull them back as soon as most of your vultures get their shot off.
If you a-move into a group of melee units they will run into them while shooting without hesitation so use them carefully.
@Air speed
Its a mess
|
Trying it now, seems pretty sweet actually
|
The larva number is such an important value, since it affects the game at all stages in the game. If I make it 15, despite it not being so in BW, I fear it will be too strong.
Probably, but there are quite some imbalances in early game. The most clean overall solution to create symmetry is to make chrono boost + rift an upgrade for 75-100 minerals. Since protoss is OP vs zerg and terran, and since both these have to invest ressources into benefitting from their homebuilding abilities, this creates a clean solution.
Alternatively you will have to;
A) Buff zealot BT quite a bit --> For TvZ purposes
B) Buff maruauder quite a bit (may have uninteded consequences)
C) Buff vultures by a lot (this should happen regardless though).
And still this may not even be enough. If you want to create BW balance then nexus upgrade is the best way of balancing it I believe.
|
@Air speed
Its a mess
Yep, it is. As the economy etc gets settled, I will continue goi through more and more units and adjust their relationships according to BW.
Will the air unit micro system you talk about affect much of it?
Ps. Tell me when you need to work/look more on the file! (So we do not work past each other)
@Chrono boost
That is a potential solution yes, to make all races pay to unlock their macro boosts. P will have the cheapest one though, since it only requires one upgrade to give it to all Nexi. (While each Queen and each Orbital costs money.)
On the other hand, everything should not be completely symetrecial either? Maybe P just can be "strongest" in the early game, but in other phases of the game, T and Z gain other advantages? (or something)
@Patch
Patch will be up in ca 30 minutes. Almost done with all maps. I will go for worker BT 19 second and larva spawn every 17. Then we evaluate it from there. Now we atleast is closer to BW.
There are indeed more balance problems, but I will intend to solve them in future patches. I think I am free tomorrow evening to do more work in the editor, and I can start to look closer at unit values.
Would be cool if we can try some PvZ and TvZ today.
|
On the other hand, everything should not be completely symetrecial either? Maybe P just can be "strongest" in the early game, but in other phases of the game, T and Z gain other advantages?
To me its a clear no atleast, in this case the economy thing, i want it to be equal as much as possible income wise.
We already have differentiaces when it comes to how they work: queen , cb, ob.
Also, make every nexus upgrade it? Just like queen and ob?
Makes it more "decision" for everyrace, i kinda like that.
Maybe reduce cost of them all three? 75 for OC and OB, queen 125? i dunno about math now, having protoss only upgrade once for all nexus is "unfair".
Advantage in different time settings is bad overall
Like Protoss advantege first 6min, then terran have advantage 5min after that
It makes it cat and mouse to much
=
bad gameplay=stale
Yes, they have different advantages the races ofcourse, that is very fun
but when it comes to economy. Its alot different there.
Terran may have better dropharass options than protoss at 10min. ITs fine while tosshav better mapcontrol.
Things like this is fun but economy advantage different times is screaming for trouble, and big troubles
|
On the other hand, everything should not be completely symetrecial either? Maybe P just can be "strongest" in the early game, but in other phases of the game, T and Z gain other advantages? (or something)
This will give you trouble for a long time I think cus its gonna be hard to make it work correctly But theoretically (looking only at TvP mech), you'll need to balance it this way;
- Protoss gets ahead early on --> Terran cant do any really aggressive build in this phase as he simply has less stuff.
- At 10 minute mark or so terran can start to do overpowered tank dropship + banshee harass. Since they are behind they are actually forced to this.
In order for this to be strong enough you will need to significantly nerf all stargate units (corsairs, scouts) a lot more, becasue if terrans only threat is air based and if terran can't threaten a timing attack, then protoss can afford to overmake air units to prevent dropship play + banshee play.
- Buff vultures (this will be my new motto for every post I believe).
But you will need to do this for all matchups, which IMO is a giant mess. I basically believe chrono boost kinda messes up everything at the moment, so make both it and OC a 75 mineral upgrade, and I think we will have a much simpler time balancing the game (which also will involve nerfing terrans midgame harass a bit --> slightly compensated by stronger vultures though).
|
The patch is now uploaded.
The final change to the economy is now fixed.
- Same mining time as in BW
- Same base income as in BW
- Same gas & mineral ratio as in BW
- Same amount of minerals in each mineral patch as in BW
- Same number of mineral patches in each base as in BW
- Same Larva spawn as in BW
- ALMOST same worker build time as in BW. (Slighlty slower, but can be boosted with macro mechanics)
If this feels good as a base, we can continue. Next thing is to make sure Inject, Chrono boost and Calldown SCV feels somewhat equal. (Cost, efficiency, time etc)
I know some of you want me to remove Queen, Orbital and Chrono boost. But I actually like those mechanics. I think they add an extra layer in macro/base management. So I would prefer to have them in the game. Just need to balance it properly.
Then we can move on with the units & imbalances!
|
Xiphias is testing macro mechanics right now so worry about what is imba later and by how much 
|
Oh, I was testing some eco stuff.
Anyhow this is what I did:
I made a map with a nexus with 9 mineral patches and a CC with 9 mineral patches. I started with 100 minerals (50x2) and 6 workers per base. I used chrono as much as possible on the nexus and made a 10 supply 11 rax and went strait for orbital and used all my energy on calldown SCV. I wrote down number of workers for each minute until 15 minutes I never expanded and I constantly made workers. Here are the results:
Workers MINING! (terran uses some to make supply depots)
Minutes Toss workers Terran workers
1-------------------- 8----------------------8
2--------------------12--------------------10
3--------------------15--------------------13
4--------------------18--------------------15
5--------------------21--------------------19
6--------------------24--------------------24
7--------------------27--------------------27
8--------------------31--------------------33
9--------------------34--------------------36
10------------------37--------------------40
11------------------40--------------------45
12------------------43--------------------49
13------------------47--------------------52
14------------------50--------------------57
15------------------53--------------------61
We see a clearly asymmetrical pattern (as expected) but also that terran pulls quite ahead if he is diligent in call-down scv, even if toss only uses chrono on nexus.
This test (above) was done just before patch.
Same test with the latest patch:
Workers MINING! (terran uses some to make supply depots)
Minutes Toss workers Terran workers
1-------------------- 9----------------------8
2--------------------13--------------------11
3--------------------16--------------------14
4--------------------20--------------------15 (orbital building)
5--------------------24--------------------22
6--------------------27--------------------27
7--------------------31--------------------31
8--------------------35--------------------34 (making supply)
9--------------------38--------------------40
10------------------42--------------------45
11------------------46--------------------49
12------------------49--------------------54
13------------------53--------------------58
14------------------57--------------------62
15------------------61--------------------68
Seems fairly similar except they both get more workers in general, but terran still pulls ahead at about the same time with about the same number of workers. Which is percentage wise worse since they both have more workers now and change in worker build time will not affect call-down time, nor energy regeneration.
|
On September 02 2013 01:51 Foxxan wrote:
#zaphod
iam sorry man, that i havent participated in earlier discussions so its not my fault i cant keep up right?
iam sorry again but u are a dumbass, kabel has said directly he wanna put in alot more bw balance. And from there tweak or redesign or whatnot.
and just because i wanna do this, start with bw balance. Makes me wanna have this game purely bw? What kind of logic is that?
#kabel
final thoughts, well yes.
Hard to do excaclty now maybe,
but i feel the economy boosters favors protoss to big in the opening right now and it
disfavors balance, and gameplay
I'm sorry that it offended you so much. I tried to make that post as polite as possible, but I guess that failed on my part.
I know that its impossible to keep up with all the discussions we had before you joined in, but at least try to realise that some of these things have already been in the mod, and removed because they were bad (Dark Archons.. nuff said).
The problem with your posting these things is really that you give no reason why we should change these things other than "BW had it"
In that post alone you gave 4 different suggestions for how to do things the BW way without further reasons.
I'm all for mimicking the way BW balanced stuff. I'm even a bit of a BW purist myself, but I'd hate to let that get in the way of a good discussion or a good idea. I always try to see why things were good in BW (or indeed in this mod) before blindly suggesting them or arguing against them.
Also...
Everyone is biased to their own ideas and thoughts. Sometimes things are communicated wrongly over the internet (I probably could have written that post better). Try not to fuel internet rage by assuming others have bad intentions for their posts and calling them names.
I really only wanted to tell you that your posts were bringing unnessesary stuff into the picture, and that was starting to annoy people (again - not your fault, but now you know)
|
|
|
Whats going on with Starbow?
I just want to clarify whats happening with Starbow. To finally get somewhere with this project, we now try to look a LOT more at the BW balance. We aim to recreate that balance, and simply make adjustements so the SC2 and new Starbow stuff fits. December is working a lot on the file now. We work from the bottom up to the top. Like this :p
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7Kvttzt.jpg)
Economy is just finished. December will fine tune the pathing some more. And we are currently discussing the macro mechanics. Then we will move on to take care of imbalances between the core units and so on. (I am aware of a lot of the balance problems you all report. We will get there as we make progress with the work in the file.)
Lets look at macro mechanics:
Z has to pay for the Queen.
T has to pay for the Orbital.
P gets Chrono boost for free.
This causes imbalances in the macro of the races, especially now when we go for so much BW balance. Chrono seems to affect the early game a lot. The following idea is probably the most easiest one to even it out:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ORmsKvg.jpg)
December is now working on the file, and he has some stuff to fix. I will try to implement this tomorrow, unless anyone has a better idea!
|
@Pathing
I've got a concept for a new version of movement.
The current version makes units going around maps with corners and turns everywhere a nightmare.
If we had bigger open maps I wouldn't worry so much but alas we don't.
First priority for me is to fix tier one unit relationships and try to build the pathing later because making that a reality could take me 6 hours or more.
@New Toss macro mechanic
Looks good
In regards to that. Can we revert to BW cannons for now and remove ability to chrono cannons. Against something like 5 hatch hydra bust (or in SBOW terms, 3-4 hatch with two queens) you really need to slap down like 6 cannons. You simply do not have enough chrono bost in the world off of two nexus to make that defense work if cannons are nerfed.
Before, chrono'ed cannons were just too good. Now un-chrono'ed cannons are just too bad.
|
But I think Chrono on cannon is fun to both play with, play against and observe players playing with it. I don´t mind that Cannons become more of BW Cannons (Fragile but higher DPS) Is there no middle way? Cannons must not have as bad DPS as they have now. But not as strong DPS as in BW either?
|
|
|
Z has to pay for the Queen.
T has to pay for the Orbital.
P gets Chrono boost for free.
it's not just that, it's that protoss has chono from the very start of the game, whereas the other two have to wait a few minutes to get access to theirs. That's part of the reason why Zerg has such a hard time holding off 2gate pressure. Instead of making P's macro mechanic cost money, can't we just delay it? Say, make chrono boost require Cybernetics Core (just to use it. no upgrade needed). That way all of the race's macro mechanics kick in at about the same time.
|
@ Canons.
We nerfed them because they shut down harassment too bad. Are hydra timings too hard on toss atm? I have not seen that (but I have not played as much as some of you lately).
I actually still feel that they should have more dmg and less hp (like BW) but perhaps slightly less dmg than BW and slightly more when chronoed. (This way vultures can actually fight them if you have many vultures and not too many canons, E.g. like 8-10 vultures vs 2 canons.)
This is how I want to canon:
1. Good defense vs things like hydra bust, especially when chronoboosted.
2. Good defense vs light harass if you have few canons (2-3)
3. Good defense vs heavy harass if you cover your base in them (but then you have invested a LOT into defense, so ofc you should be safe!)
Not sure if my own solution will do this, but no matter the solution, as long as the following three above can be met.
|
It should be fine being a little less useless when not chrono'ed, and a little not imba when chrono'ed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
