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Hi guys,
I have read a few times now on the forums, that people would like battles in SC2 to "last longer". Plenty of opinions were voiced and went unnoticed, so I decided to open a simple poll and encourage discussion on this topic.
Here are a few suggestions I gathered over the last couple of weeks:
- Increase hitpoints / lower damage of all units
- Very simple and straight forward
- Might be hard to balance due to armor values and abilities
- Upgrades become significantly more important
- Decrease movement and attack speed
- Relatively simple but could change certain unit interactions drastically
- Could have other kinds of effects, harassment might become harder
- Increase collision sizes and / or decrease attack ranges
- If less units can attack at a time there will be less damage output
- Encourages stutter stepping / splitting / positional play to get a better concave
Poll: What would be the "best" way to make battles last longer?I dont want battles to last longer! (107) 46% Increase collision sizes / Lower attack ranges of all units (60) 26% Lower damage / Increase hitpoints of all units (41) 17% Something else (please explain in a comment) (16) 7% Make units attack and move slower (11) 5% 235 total votes Your vote: What would be the "best" way to make battles last longer? (Vote): I dont want battles to last longer! (Vote): Lower damage / Increase hitpoints of all units (Vote): Make units attack and move slower (Vote): Increase collision sizes / Lower attack ranges of all units (Vote): Something else (please explain in a comment)
If you have any other suggestions please tell in a comment. If you are against all of these please tell us why and argue your point.
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I voted for Lower Attack range. I think a slight decraese of -1 range on all units will be good for the game. If the damage output of a deathball isn't higher than a smaller force, it loses much of its purpose. Also encourage more in fight micro to increase dps and make bigger battles fit on one screen morte easily.
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Gunna side with the "I don't want battles to last longer" option. It's true that Starcraft 2 is different than Broodwar, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as the outcome of the game isn't defined in a short battle (like it was back in WoL) I'm okay. Otherwise, engagements shouldn't really last all too long. Shorter battles are also easier to share with people in the form of gifs or highlight videos. So overall I think it'd be better for the spectator and community standpoint.
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I want a combination of most of these. Range of a lot of units slightly decreased. Roaches back to 3, Marauders to 5, Marines to 4.5, Hydralisk range upgrade removed, Stalkers to 5, Adepts to 3.5, and Queens to 4.5. Immortals should probably remain at 6, assuming no other major changes to them as a unit. Movement speeds and build times universally nerfed ~15%, primarily for the sake of giving players more time to react to changing conditions. Parting's truly monumental display of microing prowess during that one game that was accidentally played on a lower speed setting after a certain mark shows that slower action can lead to more obvious expression of skill. Many units (but not all) with increased HP, or at least upgrades to increase their HP later in the game, and some units (especially intentionally tanky units like Roaches, Marauders, and Immortals) have their radius increased. I could also see a very slight increase to the collision radius of Marines specifically. Maybe something like 20% on the radius increases. Perhaps more in the case of Roaches.
However, you'd have to compensate this by buffing some forms of splash damage, because the threat of splash damage is why players are forced to split their units and expend APM on doing cool things with their armies. Baneling splash to maybe 2.5, psi storm back up to 2, along with EMP. Fungal could maybe go all the way up to 3, or it could instead be given its + armored bonus back. Siege Tanks would for sure want to be bumped up to .5, 1.0, 1.5 splash radius scaling. Even Widow Mines could use some adjustments. Maybe down to 120 primary damage, and then .6, 1.2, 1.8, 2.4 splash radius, dealing 60, 45, 30, and 15, respectively. Zerglings and Banelings don't really need anything additional to offset the greater splash damage, as the lower range and lower DPS density of bio balls will make it far easier to close in with ranged units.
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@Pontius Pirate: Do you not think your changes would buff melee units a little bit too much? Because all ranged units seem to become weaker while melee units only get bonuses.
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On June 02 2015 17:26 Brutaxilos wrote: Gunna side with the "I don't want battles to last longer" option. It's true that Starcraft 2 is different than Broodwar, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as the outcome of the game isn't defined in a short battle (like it was back in WoL) I'm okay. Otherwise, engagements shouldn't really last all too long. Shorter battles are also easier to share with people in the form of gifs or highlight videos. So overall I think it'd be better for the spectator and community standpoint.
Totally agree, battles haven't even been ending that fast lately and if they have it's extremely rare that one player is so ahead that when he takes a good engagement then game is just done.
Even in modern HOTS most if not all actual high level (Korean) games are filled with zergling backstabs, Prism drops, Terran drop play in general, and generally more multitasking, especially in ZvP with Swarm Hosts removed from the game. Hell a new standard of play vs. Protoss is 2 base Roach play and burrow move Roaches is picking up tons of steam.
I can't help but lump this in the same category of, "OH man change unit pathing because it will make the game more like BW and will fix everything." Which is utterly false, neither of these would do anything, battles lasted long in BW because the unit selection cap being so small meant that it was far smarter to use smaller groups of units that you could micro intensely to get their worth compared to massing an army and moving out. Has nothing to do with unit size, has nothing to do with pathing, has nothing to do with battles being over comparatively quick in regards to SC2.
Hell, storm was heavily nerfed going into SC2, the only unit I see this thread having relevance to is units that are a move and super splash like the Colossus which was rightfully smacked down with the nerf bat as it should have been 4 years ago, not because it's OP, because it's noob friendly and a prime "terrible terrible damage" unit.
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You should add general +armor increase of all units and some additional rebalance. With 2 extra armor, battles could be amazingly longer. But needs some dedication on balance numbers.
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On June 02 2015 18:14 JCoto wrote: You should add general +armor increase of all units and some additional rebalance. With 2 extra armor, battles could be amazingly longer. But needs some dedication on balance numbers. Well that would reduce the dps of high attack speed units such as Marines, Zerglings and some others by quite a lot while slow attack speed units with high damage like Immortals, Siege Tanks, Thors wouldn't really care at all.
Overall if you want to do it I think that slowing the game speed(or unit attack and movement speed) by 10-15% is probably the best idea, but to be honest I don't think that slower fights are necessary.
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The issue never really was that battles end too quickly, more that when you lose the battle, you lose the war. Lowering the dps of units might add 3 seconds more of excitement to that one battle, but the focus should really be on having more than one battle. LotV has added many micro orientated units that you can make sick plays with and they allow for comebacks which is absolutely great, but my issue is still, if you lose half your army to one of these plays, nothing is gonna stop him from Warpin in Blink Stalkers/Morphing a bunch of Banes/Load everything up in Medivacs and simply run into your production and end the game.
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Something else: slower economy with more expansions, pathing, slight collision radius increase and buff AOE so players are forced to spread their army out more.
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On June 02 2015 18:14 JCoto wrote: You should add general +armor increase of all units and some additional rebalance. With 2 extra armor, battles could be amazingly longer. But needs some dedication on balance numbers. That should be the same thing as reducing the flat damage of all units. After all, the armor is just a damage reduction.
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On June 02 2015 17:45 RoomOfMush wrote: @Pontius Pirate: Do you not think your changes would buff melee units a little bit too much? Because all ranged units seem to become weaker while melee units only get bonuses. I didn't want to make my post even more longwinded than it already was, but relating to HP buffs that I mentioned, one of the details would be bringing in a modified version of the kinetic foam armor upgrade from the WoL campaign, to bump up Marauders by +25hp and other Infantry units by +10hp. While Marines would still be 2-shot by Banelings, they'd weather the hits of Zerglings and Mutalisks better. Marauders would be even better at soaking Banelings than they are now, being able to take an additional Baneling hit at 3/3 bio vs 2/2 zerg, as well as block off space more effectively, thanks to the 20% increase in radius. Also, Mutalisks would have a marginal decrease in how much chip damage they output proportional to your bio ball health. Widow Mines, given the absolute perfect shots, could two-shot a few Mutalisks, and would have a much larger window of activation time in which to 3-shot them, thanks to the total output of 135 splash damage in 3 hits within a radius of 1.2. 4 mines firing to 4-shot mutas in a radius of 1.8 is pretty nice too. Siege Tanks would now have a significantly larger radius in which their shots overlain can 2-shot Banelings. I can get into TvP and PvZ in a future post if you're still skeptical, but basically, buffing Baneling splash radius by 13.5% is just a paltry attempt to prevent them from being too feeble against bio. These changes would hopefully lead to melee units having an easier time closing in against bio, but achieve slightly less once they do. More opportunities to break off the engagement to fight another day, and more encouragement to preserve their forces. On a similar note, you could probably afford to bump up Medivac health and Siege Tank health a bit.
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I don't know why this isn't an option but its the main reason why BW battles lasted longer: Design of abilities. We need more defensive abilities that rewards players for moving away from the area as in Dark Swarm. This means that either player rarely losses his or her whole army during one little skirmish but can fight again 5-10 seconds after which results in a feeling of longer battlels.
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On June 02 2015 18:54 RoomOfMush wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2015 18:14 JCoto wrote: You should add general +armor increase of all units and some additional rebalance. With 2 extra armor, battles could be amazingly longer. But needs some dedication on balance numbers. That should be the same thing as reducing the flat damage of all units. After all, the armor is just a damage reduction.
Consider that splash daamage per shot would be reduced, and amor is only really noticeable on units with burst damage (marine, marauder, Zealot, Stalker, Zergling, Hydra, Mutalisk, Phoenix, VoidRay, nerfed Colossus) units with high damage per shot (Tank, Immortal, Archon, DT, f.e) keep being more or less the same since they scale much more than burst damage units with upgrades. I think that "slower battles" commonly applies on the high DPS density of some "deathballs" that can burst a ton of damage in 3-5 seconds, commonly MMM (in TvP) and Colossi deathball.
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This thread is a good idea but I feel like you rushed it too much. Many options that have been avidly discussed are not present and as such I don't think the statistics of this poll will be too meaningful.
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On June 02 2015 19:02 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2015 17:45 RoomOfMush wrote: @Pontius Pirate: Do you not think your changes would buff melee units a little bit too much? Because all ranged units seem to become weaker while melee units only get bonuses. [...] one of the details would be bringing in a modified version of the kinetic foam armor upgrade from the WoL campaign, to bump up Marauders by +25hp and other Infantry units by +10hp. [...] In addition to combat shields? Dont you think marines would become incredibly tanky for their 50 mineral costs with 65 hitpoints? That would be the most cost effective unit in terms of HP in the entire game. Isnt that a little bit against the "basic idea" of bio as being fragile glass cannons?
On June 02 2015 19:05 Hider wrote: I don't know why this isn't an option but its the main reason why BW battles lasted longer: Design of abilities. We need more defensive abilities that rewards players for moving away from the area as in Dark Swarm. This means that either player rarely losses his or her whole army during one little skirmish but can fight again 5-10 seconds after which results in a feeling of longer battlels. What kind of ability ideas come to your mind? Other then Dark Swarm / Blinding Cloud?
On June 02 2015 19:33 B-royal wrote: This thread is a good idea but I feel like you rushed it too much. Many options that have been avidly discussed are not present and as such I don't think the statistics of this poll will be too meaningful. What kind of options? I wrote down the ones that I have personally seen (and remembered) on this forum, if there are any that I have overlooked you are free to post them here. Nobody is keeping us from starting a second poll with updated options.
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Well Dark Swarm was basically in every ZvT and ZvP game in BW, and was along with the Lurker almost the sole reason battles lasted longer and matchups were less deathballish. With regards to TvP, battles weren't that long either, but still lasted a decent amount due to the low damage of Dragoons vs Vulures and the low damage of Siege Tanks (w/ overkill) vs Zealots. And Stasis Field could in some situations also increase the duration of battles.
But basically every ability where you "zone" out a specific area --> Can make battles last longer. I actually have lots of ideas in mind for specific abilities that could encourage this type of dynamic, but I don't want to expand on them atm.
The issue with Sc2-protoss is that the isn't properly rewarded for moving the units around during an engagement. This means that the unit attacks all the time during the engagement --> Makes battles last longer.
In some situations abilities that damage other units may also increase the duration of engagements. E.g. with skillshot-based abilities such as the Ravagers Corrosive Bile, the opponent will spend time dodging the ability and not attack with his units in this proces --> Might increase lenght of engagements.
Decrease movement and attack speed Relatively simple but could change certain unit interactions drastically
As I briefly touched upon above, this might backfire. If you reduce movement speed, the units might not be properly rewarded for moving around during an engagement. Look at the Immortal and the Collosus as examples of that. Even though they have lots of HP/shield, they still contribute to fast engagements as they aren't properly rewarded for being microed. If you want longer engagements, most units should as a general rule have above 2.75 movement speed.
The only exceptions to this rule should be spellcasters or units that you consider to be strong defensively/positional units.
The issue never really was that battles end too quickly, more that when you lose the battle, you lose the war.
Yes this is a bit my point as well. Often in BW you would retreat from one small skirmish and a new skirmish could start again 5-10 seconds later makint it feel as if the engagement never ended. So I think that the whole concept about increasing armor/reduing damage is missing the point. Instead, ability design should make it possible to have a very high frequency of new skirmishes all the time.
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On June 02 2015 18:48 ejozl wrote: The issue never really was that battles end too quickly, more that when you lose the battle, you lose the war. Lowering the dps of units might add 3 seconds more of excitement to that one battle, but the focus should really be on having more than one battle. LotV has added many micro orientated units that you can make sick plays with and they allow for comebacks which is absolutely great, but my issue is still, if you lose half your army to one of these plays, nothing is gonna stop him from Warpin in Blink Stalkers/Morphing a bunch of Banes/Load everything up in Medivacs and simply run into your production and end the game.
Question for this, towards the mid to late game, was this not completely the case in BW? Most games I've watched where one player takes an excellent engagement over the other, the casters will all but call gg for the player on the losing end is at a big enough deficit that barring a mistake from the victor he simply cannot contest the game anymore.
Yes more small skirmish battles may have happened in BW but the whole lose the battle lose the war thing was absolutely present in BW.
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On June 02 2015 16:53 RoomOfMush wrote:Hi guys, I have read a few times now on the forums, that people would like battles in SC2 to "last longer". Plenty of opinions were voiced and went unnoticed, so I decided to open a simple poll and encourage discussion on this topic. Here are a few suggestions I gathered over the last couple of weeks: - Increase hitpoints / lower damage of all units
- Very simple and straight forward
- Might be hard to balance due to armor values and abilities
- Upgrades become significantly more important
- Decrease movement and attack speed
- Relatively simple but could change certain unit interactions drastically
- Could have other kinds of effects, harassment might become harder
- Increase collision sizes and / or decrease attack ranges
- If less units can attack at a time there will be less damage output
- Encourages stutter stepping / splitting / positional play to get a better concave
Poll: What would be the "best" way to make battles last longer?I dont want battles to last longer! (107) 46% Increase collision sizes / Lower attack ranges of all units (60) 26% Lower damage / Increase hitpoints of all units (41) 17% Something else (please explain in a comment) (16) 7% Make units attack and move slower (11) 5% 235 total votes Your vote: What would be the "best" way to make battles last longer? (Vote): I dont want battles to last longer! (Vote): Lower damage / Increase hitpoints of all units (Vote): Make units attack and move slower (Vote): Increase collision sizes / Lower attack ranges of all units (Vote): Something else (please explain in a comment)
If you have any other suggestions please tell in a comment. If you are against all of these please tell us why and argue your point.
Please add more options, these are not the only contributing factors to short battles. Also, could you separate some of your options.
Possible additions:
- Anti clumping/deathball mechanic - pathing to make unit clumping less automatic
- Anti clumping/deathball mechanic - Stronger AOE to discourage deathballs (which lead to high dps density)
- Anti clumping/deathball mechanic - make units have more variable movement speed to discourage deathballs
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On June 02 2015 19:44 Beelzebub1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2015 18:48 ejozl wrote: The issue never really was that battles end too quickly, more that when you lose the battle, you lose the war. Lowering the dps of units might add 3 seconds more of excitement to that one battle, but the focus should really be on having more than one battle. LotV has added many micro orientated units that you can make sick plays with and they allow for comebacks which is absolutely great, but my issue is still, if you lose half your army to one of these plays, nothing is gonna stop him from Warpin in Blink Stalkers/Morphing a bunch of Banes/Load everything up in Medivacs and simply run into your production and end the game. Question for this, towards the mid to late game, was this not completely the case in BW? Most games I've watched where one player takes an excellent engagement over the other, the casters will all but call gg for the player on the losing end is at a big enough deficit that barring a mistake from the victor he simply cannot contest the game anymore. Yes more small skirmish battles may have happened in BW but the whole lose the battle lose the war thing was absolutely present in BW. I didn't mention BW.
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