|
Each race has one premium fighter, the valk, scout and devourer. The valk and devourer compliment their races standard fighters, wraith and mutas respectively, while the scout is a general purpose fighter.
Premium fighters are some of the least seen units in competitive bw due to their limited versatility and low cost effectiveness, even some are made redundant by their standard figther counterpart. Is there a way to make them more viable?
Valk: 250 125 3 is quite a hefty cost for one role only, air control against groups of enemy fighters. They have quite a few downsides, near useless against captial ships, buggy units and unable to micro when firing.
Scout: 275 125 3 What can the scout do better than a corsair besides kill capital ships? The time it takes to build 1 scout, you'll already have 2 corsairs. Its role as an atg is terrible, the wraith does it better with better range, being cheaper, faster and has cloak and the wraith is already a bad atg.
Devourer: 250 150 3 essentially an overpriced air debuffer. It has so many downsides, first off its slower than the zerg air army, even queens can keep up with mutas. It has one of the worst dps in the game if not the worst. Its piratically useless if there are no air targets (same with valks). You need mutas or hydras to take full advantage of its debuff.
So how would you change them if at all?
Some food for thought: at what cost would you build a scout over a corsair? would you always build a scout over a corsair if they were the same price?
Poll: How would you balance premium fighters?Leave it as they are now. Dont you dare touch bw balance. (51) 91% Reduce the cost to standard fighter levels. (2) 4% Other (2) 4% Buff the stats of premium fighters. (1) 2% 56 total votes Your vote: How would you balance premium fighters? (Vote): Reduce the cost to standard fighter levels. (Vote): Buff the stats of premium fighters. (Vote): Leave it as they are now. Dont you dare touch bw balance. (Vote): Other
|
I'd keep the balance as it is for now. Brood War is starting to get back on it's feet. I'm not sure a balance change right now is a good idea.
|
i had made and used to host maps (like fs, python, etc) with slightly reduced costs of scouts, ghosts and nukes. unfortunely many people reacted like changing 275 minerals into 274 (or so) would break bw balance.
|
I don't get the obsession of having to have every unit in the game being useful. They are all useful since they fill out a purpose given a circumstance. Devourers are late game zvz units and are used when p goes carriers. Scouts are for BM and the stove. Valks are fairly often used in TvZ and TvT.
|
Jeez, just one of these threads after another. The BW balance discussions should stop, this is really annoying.
|
Valkyries are pretty good as they are. They are used every now and then against Z or even T. Devourers are more scarce but I see them occasionally against P. They would be great against Z if the game ever got that far and they would work well against T if T build big wraith armies but that doesnt happen. I think if Devourer was on Spire tech instead of Greater Spire we would see plenty of Devourers in ZvZ muta wars.
Scouts are just bad though. I'd say they are the only unit that deserves to be changed somewhat by making it cheaper and faster to build.
|
On August 23 2016 19:28 letian wrote: Jeez, just one of these threads after another. The BW balance discussions should stop, this is really annoying.
I blame the BWHD announcement. Suddenly they want to change everything which is completely fine for more than a decade.....
|
On August 23 2016 19:02 duke91 wrote: I don't get the obsession of having to have every unit in the game being useful. They are all useful since they fill out a purpose given a circumstance. Devourers are late game zvz units and are used when p goes carriers. Scouts are for BM and the stove. Valks are fairly often used in TvZ and TvT.
It comes from the idea that having something useless means the design isn't perfect. Assuming the devs decided to include everything to be equally as useful, it means they failed. That's a big assumption though.
It's actually a mistake that happens a lot in games still being patched, where balance becomes a shitshow because there is this desired to make everything fit.
|
Valkyrie cost is 275 mineral and 125 gas. 3 supply count.
|
On August 23 2016 19:51 duke91 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2016 19:28 letian wrote: Jeez, just one of these threads after another. The BW balance discussions should stop, this is really annoying. I blame the BWHD announcement. Suddenly they want to change everything which is completely fine for more than a decade..... and this is only the announcement.
|
I think game can definitely be improved, it's hard or maybe impossible to agree how, but the fighters is a good entry point, the scout especially. I don't like how discussion was cut off in the past, everybody free to discuss... This game is the best RTS no question, still doesn't mean it can't be improved, it's not perfect, years of figuring things out have brought up some limitations. If improved right it could bring more potential for early strats, more different mid and late games, more unique situations and more complex games that everybody would enjoy imo. I think no long ago I read good players say that there is no strategy in BW, that's crazy but it shows some limitation maybe^^
But I agree it's not a good moment at all to change anything when SCBW "HD" comes out, it's the best way to just split the community which is maybe the worst thing to do.
|
to answer OP question, for Scout I think I would : • give them +4 per upgrade for air attack • atg probably slightly improved (cause otherwise it's pretty useless) to like 10(+1)? 12(+1)? or 10(+2)? 12(+2)? • cost decreased to 200/125 ? • free sight upgrade
for Valkyrie don't know, don't have experience or knowledge
for devourers I think definitely some more damage, maybe cost decrease, also don't have experience/knowledge ;;
also I build a scout over a corsair sometimes early pvz, because I don't play FE (1 gate cyber stargate), I do this when Z has no early gas and there is some opening for it, it happens. But it's hard to make it worth it. Even if the scout was cheaper it would not be no brainer (which would be ideal) because the scout is slower than corsair so the corsair is a better... scout... lol.. so yeah sight upgrade nice^^ you could stay out of Z sight range and view some things^^ how to not make this a no brainer?
scouts kinda need BCs and Carriers to exist against P to be most useful as their primary role, but the BCs have too little base damage, and storm is too strong so it kills both BCs and Carriers which are slow. I do think storm is too strong but then we have a problem to solve against Z hydralisks. Boxer suggested bit stronger dragoons and bit weaker zealots, might solve it? but is this good for pvp? and who doesn't love their zealots are they are now, plus they feel so weak against ultralisks? There are other things I think are too strong in the game such as dark swarm, I think tanks should be 3 supply and mutas medium..
|
On August 23 2016 21:52 ProMeTheus112 wrote: scouts kinda need BCs and Carriers to exist against P to be most useful as their primary role, but the BCs have too little base damage, and storm is too strong so it kills both BCs and Carriers which are slow. I do think storm is too strong but then we have a problem to solve against Z hydralisks. Boxer suggested bit stronger dragoons and bit weaker zealots, might solve it? but is this good for pvp? and who doesn't love their zealots are they are now, plus they feel so weak against ultralisks? There are other things I think are too strong in the game such as dark swarm.
This is the problem with balance, it's like opening a pandoras box. You start by trying to make scouts good and three patches later you're nerfing dark swarm...
|
On August 23 2016 22:08 Scarbo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2016 21:52 ProMeTheus112 wrote: scouts kinda need BCs and Carriers to exist against P to be most useful as their primary role, but the BCs have too little base damage, and storm is too strong so it kills both BCs and Carriers which are slow. I do think storm is too strong but then we have a problem to solve against Z hydralisks. Boxer suggested bit stronger dragoons and bit weaker zealots, might solve it? but is this good for pvp? and who doesn't love their zealots are they are now, plus they feel so weak against ultralisks? There are other things I think are too strong in the game such as dark swarm. This is the problem with balance, it's like opening a pandoras box. You start by trying to make scouts good and three patches later you're nerfing dark swarm... It's true, it has to be super thoroughly thought out, even with global aims in mind. That's why discussion is important. Modability would help making tests.
But I want to say I really agree it's no time for it at all with a re-release. If anything I'd just wish for more modability through editor, supply costs, spell damages and properties, size categories, etc. (that would make nice new UMS btw, community always loved that^^)
|
Best thing to improve should be automine imo and maybe slight cost reduce and/or build time decrease of the scout.
|
Valkyrie is already in use for TvT and sometimes in TvZ as alternative strat. No big changes needed. Eliminate sprite bug and we're in home.
|
Even scouts have their niche uses. Vs Terran you can delay a fast 2 base attack (1 scout is better than carriers w/o interceptors and builds faster than both carriers and arbiters). Vs Zerg there are some builds viable at even A level on iccup that use scouts in place of Sairs. You can also use them to kill the rare sunken rush or when they go devourers to counter sair/reaver. Even PvP scouts have been used in the rare cases someone techs to carriers.
|
Besides, the meta is shifting. For years people were theorycrafting about usefullness of Zerg Queen and debates if they are capable unit were neverending. Then suddenly Terrans started infamous Mech Switch and Queens found the niche to counter terran overdependance on tanks.
In contrary I had impession that Battlecruisers usefullness was in constant decline over the years in favour of wrights in TvT.
|
I'm slightly disappointed at the poll responses.
Look, I love Melee, and I'd rather they not nerf Fox's shine or Falco's lasers. The play we've seen out of this stuff is beautiful. But, seriously, Melee HD better have some goddamn buffs for Kirby, Roy, etc. It's a miserable disgrace that they're so trash. Tournament results be damned, perhaps? The margin of change buffing unviable units would do, when done properly, in Brood War is so small that it could easily be worked around through map selection, if you're so concerned about racial imbalance. Besides, perhaps it would make them even more balanced (edit: or even more exciting from a spectator perspective, or more fun, or anything else, really?), hah? Who are you to say what would happen absolutely?
|
You must understand that this forum is full of long time fans of BW who more or less are content with balance since ages. They like the things work now. Even slight changes in balance can shift gameplay in unpredictable direction. In can result for example with better unit balance, but less spectacular matchup from the spectator perspective. BW fans understand that and are conservative becouse of that. Thats why some SC2 fellas who come here and are teaching us to drop the nostalgia and move forward with changes like improvement of XXX annoy me. Becouse 1. its not nostalgia - but true love and 2. the changes they propose would make this completelly different game (f.e. really bad idea of "fixing" pathfinding for BW or doing autocast), and majority of BW fans here do not want that. We believe that BW HD should be just better resolution and minor bug fix. And finding that SC2 guys are demanding more and more changes in their own game all the time - we understand that constant balancing is not good for a game. There should be a point when things must stop. Whatever you do, you will not make all units usefull. Ghosts are probably forever cast to obscurity and balancing scout to make it even slightly more usefull is a tricky thing.
|
|
|
|