Needs a redesign?

Protoss that is.

Lately, I have been watching the forums and the complaints of different progamers and even users of TeamLiquid. Even reading the Interviews of Korean players.

The line that caught my attention the most was none other then our very own Bisu
" I like aggressive styles, but SC2 protoss needs to play defensively"

Also the recent interview at MLG from qxc, he talked about PvT being a broken matchup because of the warp-in mechanic, and that there really isn't anything to stop it extreme late game unless you max mules and have a 200/200 army, a feat that surely should not be required to do.

Then comes the unit design. Starcraft II is known for some of its units for having poor unit design.
The unit I absolutely hate the most (besides stalkers cos they look ugly and zealots because in my own opinion their stupid charge design) is Colossus. It is the most boring piece of crap unit that reminds me of a crap movie and when watching PvP as we witnessed at the last finals, IT IS BORING TO WATCH! Like sure you can watch it once or twice, but every single bloody PvP is like that, its linear and its boring! I would just seriously just cut the colossus and bring back the reaver, deadset.

In BW, PvT and PvZ were very entertaining matchups, and PvP showcased a good respectable matchup of micro and REAVERSS~~~ which made it so exciting. SC2 Protoss is way too 1 dimensional for me, or for anyone to enjoy, surely even the progamers, I truly believe that Protoss needs a change so #1 The race is fun to play and #2 The race is fun to watch!

So the point im trying to make is, insert poll~

Poll: Does Protoss need to be redesigned?

Yes (38)

88%

No (5)

12%

43 total votes

Your vote: Does Protoss need to be redesigned?

(Vote): Yes
(Vote): No

FLAMESHIELD/ ACTIVATED!

Last edit: 2012-07-29 00:16:38

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thrawn2112 United States. July 28 2012 22:54. Posts 3599

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i dont think blizz knows/cares, if they do then they obv have no clue how to fix it

a developer needs to grow the balls and make a rts game worth sinking millions of esports dollars into

Last edit: 2012-07-28 22:55:27

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SnipedSoul Canada. July 28 2012 22:55. Posts 1689

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Toss just needs to be less deathball focused. I have seen a number of TvP where toss goes templar instead of collosus and they were amazing games. Constant small skirmishes and posturing as each player tried to gain the upper hand. There was one game where the terran rallied units across the map for like 5 minutes straight before he finally broke the toss. Collosus based games usually end in one enormous battle that lasts 10 seconds.

Aelonius Netherlands. July 28 2012 23:02. Posts 421

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I think we could do two things. First we'd look into the warpgate tech to see if this can be more exciting.
But a main thing I'd like to see is that Protoss gets a bit more room with carrier-based play.

How can we from my perspective as Zerg change the Carrier :

1. Lower the buildtime of a carrier, but raise the supply cost to compensate
Many of the Protoss players I've met, generally say that the Carrier takes too long to build. I am in agreement with them, but my worries lie in the damage potential of five carriers. One way to limit this is to raise the supplycost of a Carrier which will mean that the damage potential is the same but it's a bigger investment in terms of supply for the Protoss.

2. Instead of prioritizing the interceptors, change the AI so that the carrier itself is a priority target.
It happens often that a well composed army of carriers is hard to beat (from my perspective at least) due to the AI messing up on interceptors. This is something that makes 3/3 carriers insanely good, as the interceptors basicly are a secondary shield, or a PDD if you will. Coupled with point 1, it would make more interesting play like that happen.

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Frostfire United States. July 28 2012 23:24. Posts 400

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I still hate the forcefield mechanic. It's so gimmicky. 1 bad Forcefield = lose game, 1 good forcefield = other guy cant do anything at all to break through and has to sit there while his base gets destroyed.

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PlaGuE_R France. July 28 2012 23:32. Posts 1145

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On July 28 2012 23:02 Aelonius wrote:
I think we could do two things. First we'd look into the warpgate tech to see if this can be more exciting.
But a main thing I'd like to see is that Protoss gets a bit more room with carrier-based play.

How can we from my perspective as Zerg change the Carrier :

1. Lower the buildtime of a carrier, but raise the supply cost to compensate
Many of the Protoss players I've met, generally say that the Carrier takes too long to build. I am in agreement with them, but my worries lie in the damage potential of five carriers. One way to limit this is to raise the supplycost of a Carrier which will mean that the damage potential is the same but it's a bigger investment in terms of supply for the Protoss.

2. Instead of prioritizing the interceptors, change the AI so that the carrier itself is a priority target.
It happens often that a well composed army of carriers is hard to beat (from my perspective at least) due to the AI messing up on interceptors. This is something that makes 3/3 carriers insanely good, as the interceptors basicly are a secondary shield, or a PDD if you will. Coupled with point 1, it would make more interesting play like that happen.

the problem with using carriers is that vikings and corruptors have bonus dmg vs armored and they're incredibly easy to mass, so a good sized carrier army will get shredded in seconds by corruptor/viking or even void rays with their bonus vs massive

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PiPoGevy Australia. July 28 2012 23:48. Posts 1557

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On July 28 2012 23:32 PlaGuE_R wrote:

Show nested quote +

Guys I'm not talking about the carrier, I am talking about the core of the protoss army system

Ryalnos United States. July 28 2012 23:57. Posts 1585

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Hey bud - if you are trying to start a serious discussion I suggest you use a better title as this one is awful.

At least mention that you're talking about SC2 or the Protoss race...

Last edit: 2012-07-28 23:58:31

Aelonius Netherlands. July 29 2012 00:08. Posts 421

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On July 28 2012 23:32 PlaGuE_R wrote:

Show nested quote +

I agree.
The thing that does bother me though is that people don't neccesarily think into the supply that corruptors/vikings take. Sure, you're going to get carriers and it hurts, but every corruptor is less ground force, and unless they get broodlords is wasted supply.

The thing is that if Carriers build quicker, the damage output of them will be pretty damn solid for lategame fights, and while it isn't AoE damage, if you're not responding properly you pretty much die. I'd like to see these engagements where it'll be possible for P lategame to follow up a ground force push with Carrier pressure. Jangbi style.

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Disposition1989 Canada. July 29 2012 00:14. Posts 262

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Don't quote pro players on stuff like broken matchups, there are some who lololol all over pvt and then there are others who QQ all day. Some just don't do it right while others figured it out. Same goes for the tvp part. I've seen pvts where the terran comes out losing like 10 supply and the protoss loses his whole army. Why? Terran owned the engagement positioning, hit the emps, etc. People just gotta get better instead of claiming it's broken.

Anyways on point, Colossus are definitely the worst. Reaver would be fine maybe if they made it a smaller splash. Otherwise the big old clump balls are gonna get annihilated. Maybe damage similar to seige tank? 50ish instead of 100.

I liked the high damage of the bw units but unless you change all of sc2, you can't have units doing 90-120 with splash damage because of the stupid deathball. There's also something off about protoss armies out on the field. It's too easy to get blasted apart by speedling/roaches or a stim bio ball. Hopefully the recall thing can fix this because as Bisu said, protoss has to be defensive. That's how I see it anyways, toss can't really move out til they know the army is gonna scare the other army off the field or kill it outright.

So yes a redesign, but it would be tough : (

Grumbels Netherlands. July 29 2012 00:15. Posts 3410

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Since the colossus is able to stand on top of other units it allows for more concentrated firepower and therefore it's apt to form the core of the protoss death army. It's silly, but if you mix colossi, sentries and void rays you can have maybe the strongest army in the game take up virtually no space. A lot of people already disagree with the SC2 pathfinding and army movement implementation and the colossus adds to that. I don't know if replacing the colossus would fix the issue though, since most armies take up very little space regardless of this unit.

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bigtime01 United States. July 29 2012 00:27. Posts 5

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What troubles me about the colossus is that it is one of the units with "magic" splash damage that only damages enemy units. It seems odd to me that players should have to take so much trouble with siege tanks and psionic storm but not with banelings or archons or the like.

I've no notion of whether friendly-harming splash damage would make these units unusable.

Rkie United States. July 29 2012 01:44. Posts 1278

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Whoops, I voted no.

I think that more than just protoss needs a redesign. All of Protoss needs to be looked at but I also think something should be done with Zerg so they don't get to/have to make 3 fast bases, 5 or so queens, then 60 drones before any units.

Last edit: 2012-07-29 01:44:19

red4ce United States. July 29 2012 02:40. Posts 7301

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Remove colossus, buff the other protoss units to compensate, problem solved. Blizz won't do it though since the colossus is the signature new SC2 unit for protoss, maybe even in the entire game.

Last edit: 2012-07-29 02:41:14

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sorrowptoss Canada. July 29 2012 02:47. Posts 999

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Definitely agree with qxc's view on the warp-in mechanism. The thing is, at a 200/200 army engagement, there is a build time required after the engagement to rebuild your army. But if you warp-in, the replenishment is instant where as Zerg's or Terran's replenishment time is based on whatever you're building. Not to mention that you can warp-in (i.e. replenish) anywhere you want as long as there is a warp prism and/or pylons, where as Zerg and Terran rely on rally points; once the rally point is seiged, Zerg and Terran's bases are irreversibly separated and cut-off, and reinforcements are useless since, in SC2, strength is in a huge ball-form army and not single units.

But more in general, SC2 and more specifically HOTS (or whatever it seems to be) is a game that is becoming more and more noob-friendly, as in "little micro (i.e. little skill) for more damage", for example collosi, ball-form armies, banshee, dt, ect... comparing that with BW where micro (i.e. skill) was absolutely necesary for damage, for example shuttle-reaver micro, hold position lurkers, muta micro. The fact that Protoss seems to need a redesign is just the tip of the iceberg; what I feel Blizzard wants is to make an easily accessible game so that their fanbase (and so their $$$) increases. The obvious problem with that is that the higher level players (progamers) suffer the consequences of such a simple (and even poorly designed) game, so on the long term, since there is nothing to exploit and explore since everthing is so easy, Esports will be weakened and even fall.

My humble conclusion: SC2 pro scene will be MUCH shorter than BW pro scene.

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PiPoGevy Australia. July 29 2012 08:27. Posts 1557

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Hmm some good ideas we have come up with so far is:

-To only allow warp-in's either next to your nexus, or gateway buildings, and warp prism which is still kind of controversial.
-To cut the colossus from the game and buff the other units to compensate, or even replace colossus with another unit such as the reaper.
-To cut the warp-in mechanic all together

I also really agree that the game's mechanics are far too easy

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