|
As people voiced worries about the current design of the Warp Gate I just wanted to share an idea of mine for the redesign.
What I like the WG to be is a tool to send units as reinforcements far away. What I don't like it is being a macro accelerator tool.
Therefore, here's my idea:
- Warp Gate is no longer an upgrade. It is now a different building all together - requirements Cybernetic Core. Cost (100m+100g).
- What this building does is that it can use another of your existing production facilities (Nexus, Gateway, Robo, Stargate) to warp-in any unit that the particular facility can currently build to a location which is powered by a pylon or warp prism.
- Doing so puts the production building in cooldown for a duration equal to x2 times the build duration of the warped unit.
- a production facility which is in cooldown cannot train any units nor can it be used with Warp Gate.
What does this achieve? - protoss now has access to standard macro style from Gateway (which can be further used to balance tweak the gateway units) - can still reinforce to defend against drops or maintain an attack but this costs production in the long term. - extra cool factor of being able to warp-in Carriers and Probes.
Other Notes: - Building extra Warp Gates has no benefit for the player (you only need 1 for the functionality) - In the lategame if you can invest into a lot of production facilities you can use this to create huge armies at one spot
Please discuss and criticize.
|
|
*Warpgate upgrade goes to twilight council.
*Charge upgrade goes to cybernetics core.
*Balance the Gateway units production time (when build from gateway) so Protoss can keep up with other races production in the early game without warpgate research.
|
On April 18 2015 03:42 rpgalon wrote: *Warpgate upgrade goes to twilight council.
*Charge upgrade goes to cybernetics core.
*Balance the Gateway units production time (when build from gateway) so Protoss can keep up with other races production in the early game without warpgate research.
They actually are in line with the Terran production speed. Warpgate is what makes it much stronger in production for less of an investment (150/0 for a gateway instead of 200/50 or 200/25 for a barracks with addon).
|
There are so many cool things that could be done with the Warp Gate. To be honest, I quite like it in its current form (without the LotV nerfs ), but this idea is also nice. Other cool (in my opinion) ideas would be if you could warp out units for a partial refund, or if you could warp units between Pylons (both may be imba as hell, though.).
|
The idea is nice, and there are many possible other alternatives Blizz could go with, but if Blizz is to make a quick patch fix, which would most likely involve not creating new structures or adding in a entire new mechanic to Warpgate, they could just increase the cost of Warpgate to push it back on the timing (but will always remains available through any tech path a player chooses during the mid-game).
In exchange, move Charge in to Cybernetic Core. Oh my gods, Zealots are actually really good in the early game if they could ever reach any enemy. This change along with Adepts would make a rather well-rounded army early on (and then we could start nerfing the higher tech so Toss will be less Deathball dependent).
|
Not too big of a fan of this change: it would make protoss all-ins that much stronger. For example: in TvP, you proxy a stargate. Build a warp gate while the first oracle is building, then the second the first one finishes, you warp in another oracle. There's no way anybody would have marines out in time for that; they would have to have an ebay.
Longer cooldown doesn't matter because after a proxy SG makes its oracles, it doesn't produce anything else. I like the idea of warp gates having a tradeoff as has been suggested in the past (for example, regular gateways will produce faster), but I don't allowing warp gates to warp in higher tech units from the robo or stargate is the solution
|
I like the idea of it being a building (bw campaing throwback)... I don't think being able to warp a disruptor into a mineral line is such a great idea though.
That being said, even if it applied to gateways only it has the effect of adding the strategic choice of warping in vs standard production (which is good), opens up buffs for gateway units (which is good, assuming things get appropriately tweaked), and solves the issue of macroing your gateways back and forth which, as someone (on Remax I think it was? Maybe TLG? Was it Morrow? haha I can't remember at all) pointed out would be very annoying.
It would make warpgate like a toned down version of the nydus network, which would be basically perfect imo.
|
On April 18 2015 04:57 SirNomNom wrote: Not too big of a fan of this change: it would make protoss all-ins that much stronger. For example: in TvP, you proxy a stargate. Build a warp gate while the first oracle is building, then the second the first one finishes, you warp in another oracle. There's no way anybody would have marines out in time for that; they would have to have an ebay.
Longer cooldown doesn't matter because after a proxy SG makes its oracles, it doesn't produce anything else. I like the idea of warp gates having a tradeoff as has been suggested in the past (for example, regular gateways will produce faster), but I don't allowing warp gates to warp in higher tech units from the robo or stargate is the solution
Avoiding these kinds of things is solved with build times and costs, all numeric values.
|
|
I think what you're suggesting is a double edged sword with blades for a handle. The warp in mechanic can greatly increase the army value of protoss players when you first warp in, but then the protoss player can be pretty screwed afterwards if they were not able to do significant damage or delay the opponent from counterattacking. The next time a unit pops out of that production facility will be 3x the build time.
Opening up warp in for robo/stargate units can have rather bad consequences. Being able to rush 2x whatever high tech unit (like oracles, carriers, or colossi) can be devastating. There's a reason why there's a significant transformation time on changing gateways to warp gates.
An idea I had for keeping warp gates while still nerfing it a little was to require gateways to transform into warp gates each time you want to do a warp in. A gateway "charges up" and transform into a warp gate after a short time similar to how it is now. The warp gate can then warp in one unit. During the cooldown time, the warp gate reverts back into a gateway and can be transformed again once unit production time has passed. This has the effect of making warping in units slower than producing units straight out of a normal gateway.
|
Instead of putting the cooldown on the production building, why not put the cooldown on the warpgate? That way the warpgate effectively counts as an extra production building (multipurpose: can build anything you can build already). Frontloaded, but with double the timer of a normal production building. For pure macro purposes it is thus pretty bad (make it fairly expensive too. Similar to a stargate, like 150/150 or so), but it works for instant replenish (like a really expensive version of zerg lava hoarding) and for harrassment or timing attack warpins.
|
I always thought that warp gate warp-ins should take longer to refresh than building a unit directly from a gateway. I think it'd be interesting if the further away you warped in, the longer the cooldown. Though, Blizzard would not do this because they like everything to have constant values. Still, your idea would be neat too. I'd love to see someone fiddle around and make a map with this kind of stuff.
|
'a simple idea' = removing the warp in mechanic and adding a whole new building to the game??..... ok..
|
Yeah, doesn't seem that simple to me :D.
I actually believe that warpgate hasn't been a fundamental problem of the game for a long time now, nor will it be in LotV, so I wouldn't focus on that first.
|
Here's an even simpler idea: As with Legacy except swap warp gate and gateway cooldown timings, but don't require gateways to transform into warp gates to warp in units.
|
Or, here's another route to take. Make it cost 50min/50gas to transform a Gateway to a Warpgate and increase the transformation duration to around 60 seconds. Also, it would require that they have a Cybernetic Core. Now, it would be like a tech-labs or reactor with some early game disadvantages with a bunch of late game advantages. And now, it would not a choice, it would just be an upgrade that you can choose to do (you cannot transform back to a Gateway).
In exchange, maybe Warpgate research removed (and for a completely different topic, maybe throw in Zealot Charge research into Cybernetic Core).
|
On April 18 2015 20:35 ZenithM wrote: Yeah, doesn't seem that simple to me :D.
I actually believe that warpgate hasn't been a fundamental problem of the game for a long time now, nor will it be in LotV, so I wouldn't focus on that first.
Just because something isn't a fundamental problem it doesn't mean it can't be a mechanic that makes for bad game play.
FF aren't really a fundamental issue nowadays as zerg players have learnt to deal with them, but they still make for a really bad player experience
|
On April 19 2015 15:18 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 20:35 ZenithM wrote: Yeah, doesn't seem that simple to me :D.
I actually believe that warpgate hasn't been a fundamental problem of the game for a long time now, nor will it be in LotV, so I wouldn't focus on that first. Just because something isn't a fundamental problem it doesn't mean it can't be a mechanic that makes for bad game play. FF aren't really a fundamental issue nowadays as zerg players have learnt to deal with them, but they still make for a really bad player experience Well... That depends on whom you're talking to... >:D
|
On April 18 2015 05:51 Acrofales wrote: Instead of putting the cooldown on the production building, why not put the cooldown on the warpgate? That way the warpgate effectively counts as an extra production building (multipurpose: can build anything you can build already). Frontloaded, but with double the timer of a normal production building. For pure macro purposes it is thus pretty bad (make it fairly expensive too. Similar to a stargate, like 150/150 or so), but it works for instant replenish (like a really expensive version of zerg lava hoarding) and for harrassment or timing attack warpins.
This is very interesting. I like that you can use them as production facilities but at the same time being so expensive will only encourage their use in the late game.
The version I suggested has more uses in the early game as the initial investment is pretty cheap. You can then use them when you really need the burst of new units either to reinforce an attack or to defend a location.
Yours has a pretty hefty investment attached to it which will probably deter the player from building too many in the early-mid game as he will be behind in economy. It will end up being a late game addition for extra mobility when your economy is booming.
|
|
|
|