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On October 13 2012 14:05 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2012 06:20 kcdc wrote:On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap Can we trade stalkers for roaches then? I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches.
I'll make you a deal--you can build roaches with blink if each roach costs about twice as much. Let's say 125/50. Hell, I'll even throw in an extra 2 range.
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Great post. You have just said , what I had in mind for a long time that I could not explain to my friends very well . Cheers.
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Excellently put. Nice write up.
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Protoss is forced into building Colossi and Chargelot deathballs because their army is heavily based on unit composition and AOE. And it doesn't help that Protoss Stargate tech is a complete dead end. Case in point PvP where victory is decided by how many Colossi you have. Unfortunately the deathball configuration need very little variability in micro thus the general conception that Protoss just A moves to victory.
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It seems like a lot of people are overlooking upgrades when examining these test in a vacuum along with tech tier units. In the first example you're fighting 2 tier 3 tech units and upgraded tier 1 units with just tier 1 tech units. The investment/benefit of tier 3 units are much higher than that of tier 1 units in terms of army support.I would be more inclined to agree if this was done with chargelots and 1/2 archons before claiming that gateway units are weak.
Also let's not forget it's all scalar, we don't need forcefields until terran has stim and similarly we don't need templar/colossus until terran has medivacs.
I agree that protoss could use a redesign, but there isn't anything that is THAT flawed with how gateway units work in terms of cost.
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Nice writeup, although the two examples are kinda bad. I think if you nerf Warpgate and buff Gateway units, this would work wonders for all Protoss matchups. Also, there's still enough time to implement and balance this in the Beta.
Given the comments of DB and DK, we will likely never see it implemented though. It just hurts my brain to read their posts
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On October 12 2012 07:07 Vegro wrote: I'd like to adress two things:
Maps/3 base: Am I really the only one who thinks that the "old" way was kinda nice? Every race (exept maybe zerg) played one base builts and slowly got more and more econ. Today everythings starts with two bases - hell terran has 3cc builts!? I understand that terran was sick as f*** with 2 rax pressure but making the maps bigger and now as you mentioned 3 bases closer together... at the end we just wait until we have 200/200 armies and kill each other, because it needs 2 hours to get to your opponent.
Leading to my other point: Everyone is currently talking about making T1 protoss more viable. IF and only IF(!) Z-lots and stalkers get better and are on even, or slightly better ground then other t1 units, why would i make t3? I am able to warp in 20 zlots at the enemies base who trade nicely - or better then terran t1. T3 would be overkill. If we now consider stim, upgrades etc. Then T3 gets WAY to strong.
So buffing T1 = nerf T3. The same concept as terran. mmm > T3 units.
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I like the idea with forcefields. I hate it to rely on them so much as Protoss. But thats how protoss is played currently. You need perfect FF, storm, perfect Mothership control, perfect splits, perfect blinkmicro to make anything happen. Otherwise you will get stomped (master and above) because of macro alone.
The risk = gain factor is only there with storm. One nice storm deals nice dmg. But everything else is a neccessity not to die. Remember the 200 roach timing days, where every protoss had to play perfectly with FF and blink to hold (not win) this.
I don't know if you consider this "discussion" but in BW you cannoned up as toss to get to your higher tier units. A cannonbuff (+ light) would help with lings/marines/muta who are currently the biggest threads in these stages of the game.
Lingsrunbys kill bases if they are on hold, or focussed on the nexus ignoring the cannons, and with proper dmg, you could nexus first against terran without loosing to 2rax or anything similar. + mutas are easier to deal with. Guess in another thread someone mentioned this buff for stalker, which is also a good idea.
But yeah: If there is a way to hold without ff - pls give us the opportunity for 1 base AND macro based play + nerf t3 protoss units. (actually the whole anti-lossus argument could be mentioned here as well)
Yeah if blizzard really really really want to keep warpgate that would be the case in the current PvT mechanics.... However what if you removed warpgate, balanced the buildtime for protoss through normal production through pure "gateway" production just as terrans have to click their a button every time they want a marine. If we would balance the production through gateways(NOT warpgates) and buff zealots/stalkers/(dragoons!?) in such way that T3 is still viable but its not required in order for me to win just as it is for zerg, they dont NEED to build infestor/bl to win however its a very good transition and its so stronk. With this change maybe we should remove storm and replace with something that wouldnt force me to "get this or lose". Current meta game vs terran = When the MMM becomes a certain amount of units it is impossible for a good terran to lose vs T1.5 units which forces me to get "gimmicky" things such as storm or colossus. I do like my colossus thats for sure but that does not matter I want to be forced to build this one unit EVERY game because otherwise I'll lose. Blizzard wants us to move away from the "protoss deathball" and probably the best way to do this is to equalize so that colossus is good to get but its not TO GOOD. Repeating that I DONT want protoss deathball to get STRONGER with BETTER T1.5, I want it to be equalized with the terran MMM and not relying on spells for me to win. Same goes for PvZ, I dont want to rely on FFs and definately not have to rely on me landing a good vortex or missing it, NP'd etc. I want to have the stargate tree to be useful as a main army "skytoss" and not just have that as a harassment tree + Go-to in order to win lategame zerg(which is quite the challenge already at higher levels) Make skytoss viable PvZ so that I can pick to go either skytoss+ more or less ground units or going pure ground just as the zerg can go bling/ling/muta or roaches/infestors or go for a quick ultra build. As a protoss I have my robo play into macro, the zerg can simply know what im doing because the current techtree is the only viable one. Give me more than 1 way to play against zerg, just as i want terran to be able to play mech at a proper level against protoss aswell. (In my opinion mech is good vs protoss but it scales out favoring the protoss the longer it goes) The reason I want this is because if there is 2 ways for me as a protoss to play terran AND zerg just as much as they already have/ could get 2 ways to beat protoss and terran/zerg(depending on who your playing as) I believe that something like this would make the game more entertaining since you'd know almost before hand what the terran/protoss would do which I pretty much can as a toss vs terran since their macro is MMM oriented while zerg have atleast 2 choices vs T and P. It would be more entertaining to watch,play and it would raise the skillbar just slightly because you'd have to read the T/P better. HotS MIGHT give protoss a viable SG play vs zerg, I havent played in the beta yet but it looks a little promising.
Sorry if this is a bit messy but I wanted to play ^^
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and high templar can use psi storms. DB just forgot to mention
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Listen to this man, spot on imo. As a mapmaker I especially want to say the analysis about maps is very accurate.
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I just want to say that when buffing warpgate units, at the same time warpgate should be weakened itself. It's just ridiculous that warpgates are in EVERY way superior to normal gateways, so it's like a complete no brainer to upgrade them and then warp everything everywhere, completely negating rush/reinforcement distance, one of the biggest defender's advantages. Instead warpgates should be significantly worse in build time than gateways and maybe later tech, so you actually make a decision, how many gateways do you want to have for normal production and how many warpgates do you want to have for instant reinforcement/harrass/harrass defense.
Lastly let me emphasize again. The design and strength of gateway units and warpgates is probably the single most limiting factor for maps, even bigger than the lack of highground advantage...
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On October 12 2012 07:07 Vegro wrote: I'd like to adress two things:
Maps/3 base: Am I really the only one who thinks that the "old" way was kinda nice? Every race (exept maybe zerg) played one base builts and slowly got more and more econ. Today everythings starts with two bases - hell terran has 3cc builts!?
Builts?
and there was nothing good about the old way.
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On October 13 2012 20:14 Ragoo wrote: Listen to this man, spot on imo. As a mapmaker I especially want to say the analysis about maps is very accurate.
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I just want to say that when buffing warpgate units, at the same time warpgate should be weakened itself. It's just ridiculous that warpgates are in EVERY way superior to normal gateways, so it's like a complete no brainer to upgrade them and then warp everything everywhere, completely negating rush/reinforcement distance, one of the biggest defender's advantages. Instead warpgates should be significantly worse in build time than gateways and maybe later tech, so you actually make a decision, how many gateways do you want to have for normal production and how many warpgates do you want to have for instant reinforcement/harrass/harrass defense.
Lastly let me emphasize again. The design and strength of gateway units and warpgates is probably the single most limiting factor for maps, even bigger than the lack of highground advantage...
I agree completely and as I posted elsewhere there a few cool ways to do this:
1. Buff gate units and have warped in units warp with only 75% shields. (number is just an example, could be 50% or what ever will be balanced)
2. Buff gate units and have Warp in units warp with a Warp Sickness debuff that lowers their stats abit (maybe to how they currently are) for 60 seconds. (at the end of which their stats return to normal.)
3. Make warp gates have longer cool downs than gateways.
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Totally agree with OP.
I would argue the baneling also has this flaw in Z. For example, If T has enough units to clean up every baneling, then zerg does basically no damage. If Z has 2 banelings left over after running in, T will lose tons of stuff despite cleaning up everything except for 2 banelings. This would not occur if the 2 units left over were roaches or anything else similar in cost.
Also in some situations, if Z can land one fungal, he will come out way ahead, but if the opponent splits well or dodges fungals well, Z has helpless.
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On October 13 2012 14:17 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2012 14:05 oOOoOphidian wrote:On October 13 2012 06:20 kcdc wrote:On October 13 2012 06:02 StatikKhaos wrote: lol roaches are already awful, they're good because they're so cheap, but they're also super expensive in terms of supply.
200/200 roach is really really weak, its just super cheap Can we trade stalkers for roaches then? I would gladly play zerg with blink stalkers instead of roaches. I'll make you a deal--you can build roaches with blink if each roach costs about twice as much. Let's say 125/50. Hell, I'll even throw in an extra 2 range. Sure. They are far superior in small numbers and scale better past the midgame. Forcefields wouldn't effectively render half my army useless either because I could shoot over them or just blink out. It's funny that people think it's a strength of zerg to have shitty units that don't cost much, when in reality that's why their armies are so garbage without infestor broodlord.
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On October 12 2012 06:44 kcdc wrote:These binary battles are almost always game-deciding, and they feel profoundly unfair to both sides of the fight. Protoss players hate that they instantly lose if their HT are EMP’d or if their forcefields are a half-second too late, allowing roaches to get in range. Terran players hate that they instantly lose because they EMP’d a half-second too late or because they didn’t discover Protoss’s hidden colossus transition. And Zerg players hate that they literally can’t fight back if Protoss hits perfect forcefields during an immortal-sentry all-in. Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak.
Really great post man and I so agree. TvP (I'm Terran) is so extremely boring to play and to watch. I might feel like I'm playing a good game (macro wise etc) but then I mis-control my vikings for a split second or miss two key EMP's which turns into my army melting away and instantly lose. Then I might play a second game where I'm not doing as well in terms of macro and mechanics but I manage to get a few lucky snipes on one or two collossus or manage to EMP the HT's while the Protoss is not watching his army and INSATNTLY win. So frustrating really.
This is the least rewarding matchup there is, ever in any RTS I've ever played.
TvZ has similar synergies and problems, TvT is actually the only matchup I enjoy playing. Sad really.
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Thanks all. It's really a shame that Blizz seems unwilling to even consider changing the balance of strength between zealots/stalkers, forcefields and splash damage. More map variety would make all MU's more interesting for the first 15 minutes. And less lopsided fights would be great for the game.
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There really isn't a problem with gateway units early on.. In small numbers zealots/stalkers do absolutely fine against MM and by the time bigger numbers and additional upgrades kick in additional tech is available. In PvZ the balance is fine already as well, stalkers are really good already in that matchup and the reason so many strong 2 base all-ins exist in that matchup.
If stalker/zealot get's a buff relative to MM or roach/ling early on then simple mass gate attacks (4 gate of 1 base or 7 gate of 2 base) will simply get too strong in those matchups. They are already quite strong now.
The principal problem that protoss is too much defend with sentries till they move out with a deathball is already being dealt with by the mothership core a bit. Relying on purify for defense you won't need as many sentries (nor will they be good if the threat of mech or locust swarms etc is around), which in turn will allow for vastly more different maps. Also if protoss airplay actually becomes good and useful in all matchups the variety of openings will increase as maps will always differ in being air friendly or ground friendly etc. The only problem remaining for low level players perhaps is the hit/miss nature of forcefield and the frustation of playing against it. The new HOTS tactics should however prevent mass FF play from being used much as it's pretty bad against mech and not really of use against vipers.
Overall I think this gateway 'problem' is not really there and changing the balance of strength of the early units is a terrible thing to do after it took so much time to get it settled correctly. Early game balance is crucial and should be maintained, lategame balance is influenced by many more factors and can be tweaked later. The first 15 minutes are already improved by the oppurtunity to actually go stargate, and not having to rely on sentries as much plus the ability to actually attack without going all-in.
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The key in TvP i've notice is reading infomation correctly. On the ladder I see a lot of 1 base 3 gate robo immortal busts. Theres also quick collosus builds and quick HT builds. The point I am trying to make is that Terran players need to burn scans to see what is going on. If you see collassus coming out you gotta make vikings, and honestly its ok to have 4 vikings coming at a time. If you see HT ghosts should be made to deal with that. Actually ghosts are great vs Toss in general.
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I would add the suggestion, like a similar change to pylons, remove blink from low ground to high ground and thus limiting the various blink all-ins we have been seeing in WoL and the even more powerful all-ins in HotS. Thoughts?
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please don't use terrible inaccurate examplse to prove your point. and while i agree with the point it's well known; the hard part isn't fixing the problem, or identifying it, the hard part is getting blizzard to listen.
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What if they did something to the power matrix? If it worked similarly to how creep spreading does (nexus grants the initial power grid, pylons extend that). With a simple change like that you would get rid of all the common protoss cheese with one beautiful solution. No cannon rushing, no proxy gates, no proxy stargates, no proxy pylons to support WG rushing, etc.
That could be solid beginning point of balancing the gateway units. You could go anywhere with it. Since cannons couldn't be proxied, they could get unlocked from a Gateway, changing the timings quite a bit already. And since it's easier to protect nexi with perfect power coverage for cannons, one could redesign stalkers to be more reaper -like harassing units forcing toss to go air vs air for map control. Who knows.
It might be a shit idea, but I don't see why right this moment. The way I see it is that pushing WG to be a TC upgrade makes it impossible to do anything but gate forge expos. Protoss units can't really be linearly produced while expanding as their cost is so high. WG allows toss to backload the production cycle to kick in after the nexus investment is done, and to prolong unit production in favor for faster upgrades and tech.
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