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Hello there. Forewarning that this is about as much as theorycrafting as it gets, since I'm not exactly qualified in any sense of the term, and Blizzard has clearly stated no intent on making any more crazy changes, but I thought I'd spitball anyway to get some steam out and maybe hear some feedback.
Introductory Technobabble
There has been a lot of discussion regarding warpgate, especially with radical changes like the economy and the 12 worker start that have overturned many old build orders. Much of this discussion has existed since before LotV, citing various elements that seem to decrease strategic diversity or create poor unit design.
In my opinion, warpgate is a good idea that was poorly implemented. And the reason for that notion is simple: if warpgate was really so good, so "unique" to the Protoss race, why is it only confined to gateway and templar units?
Protoss is currently the only race that runs on a dual production system: the warpgate system and the standard queuing system. In the other races, these elements are seen as an exception to a rule: in Zerg, only queens are produced via queue; Terran's production is solely queuing (unless you count mules, which calldown function is a little like infinite-range warpgate). If warpgate was truly the cornerstone of Protoss technology, why can't we do that with stargate and robotics units? And this isn't about whether or not the game can handle it; from the campaign, we know that the game has at least the aesthetic means of warping in those units.
Warpgate, as a front-loading, place-where-you-want-it production system is a novel idea, deviant from Terran's traditionalist queuing system and Zerg's mass-production larva system. The biggest issue in my eyes is one very simple building: the pylon.
Perhaps due to avoiding overcluttering the Protoss screen, the pylon is being pulled to do the extra duty of providing a landing platform for any unit being warped in. That alone presents a very quick problem: an inexpensive building that can be placed regardless of pylon power (since... well, it is the pylon power) with a quick build time will provide the Protoss with any place to summon units at a bit longer than a moment's notice. It doesn't take much to realize how bad it would be for the opposing player if one reinforced their five colossi army with another two immediately on the front lines.
As such, this has divided the Protoss race into two categories: the units under warpgate, which are either niche (like the dark templar or sentry) or aren't too effective in combat (zealots and stalkers become laughable as core units later in the game, although zealots remain surprisingly useful, if not costly, harassment units with charge), and the units outside of warpgate that should be very powerful (should, since void rays, immortals and colossi are under the right conditions). This dichotomy is further broken by units that try to cross in terms of utility; for instance, high templars warp in, and as such they had their energy boost upgrade stripped from them to avoid instant warp-in AoE, while an investment into an oracle can be nigh on useless if even a single static defense building is established. In sum, the differences turn the Protoss production into soup.
Actual Suggestion
Ergo, here is my suggestion that is a bit... radical.
-Allow all production buildings to have warpgate capacity.
-Move the warpgate platform from the pylon to all powered production buildings. Adjust radius as necessary to compensate for production building size.
-Allow any unit (barring the probe, mothership core and mothership, naturally) to warp in at any of these production buildings. Types of units warped in naturally correspond to the number of said production building (i.e. three stargates can provide warp-ins of three phoenixes at a time, but can use a robotics facility radius as a platform).
-Adjust warp-in time according to unit, especially to massive units.
-In lieu of the pylon, bring in the obelisk as a non-pylon-powered building that can be built after a certain level of tech is advanced (am currently unsure which structure to associate it with, but something along the lines of robotics bay or dark shrine or templar archives or fleet beacon is the level I'm implying, although sooner can be fine depending on how things are fine-tuned). Costs something along the lines of a sensor tower, takes marginally longer than a pylon to warp in. Radius is insufficient to bring in massive units.
-Warp prism's radius either shrunk to avoid the warp-in of massive units, or else conditional constraints are placed to avoid massive unit warp-ins.
-From this foundation, adjust units and build times of units and buildings as necessary. Maybe even consider warpgate being default, but only after careful deliberation.
The intent of these suggestions (however poorly vague it is) is to fully flesh out Protoss as a unique race rather than a half-assed one, allow them to keep warpgate in its current form with few modifications, allow Protoss players similar lategame utility as they do now (i.e. a Protoss establishing a position would simply place down an obelisk or two instead of a pylon), and provide Protoss with a solid defensible position (i.e. established bases with a warpgate or two can provide enough space to front-load an instant anything where needed).
For the other races, this pushes back warp-in timings down the road unless the Protoss wishes to walk their army. For the Protoss, this lack of early-game pseudo-omniscience in pylon positioning can afford them the capacity to tone up their core units. Which then offers the other races the opportunity to tone down the Protoss heavy hitters. It should all end up smoothing the Protoss army so that it's less min-max dependent on AoE.
There are still some considerations that will need to be accounted for. For instance, proxy gateways or stargates can provide really strong footholds later in the game if not accounted for. Again, build times can partially mitigate this issue. Players can also adapt to remove these threats, since waiting around for a pylon and a production building, even a gateway, leaves a pretty large chunk of time for scouting, reactions and openings.
Conclusion (?)
In sum, the suggestions aspire to rebuild the Protoss from the ground up using resources readily available and familiar to the race. Of course, it could all be a horrible, terrible idea, but that's why I'm posting it, right?
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I was thinking, a lot of discussion has been going on about needing to heavily nerf warpgate in order to buff gateway units and I really don't like the sound of it. So I got to thinking of a way to change warp tactics only slightly while also allowing for gate unit buffs:
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm no expert, I enjoyed playing HoTS and especially watching casted pro games, but I've never gotten masters or anything like that.
I feel like you can buff gate units without having to sacrifice the current warpgate strategy if you take a look at why warpgate is difficult to balance.
What makes 7gate/4gate/any-number-of-gate all-ins so effective is the ability to drop a 100min Pylon right at the front door of your opponent's base so you can constantly funnel solid units into combat immediately. This is why you can't buff gate units, they're already uber effective in early/mid all ins with the current warpgate set up.
I think changing the nature of Pylons is the answer here. Why not make it so that you can only build Pylons within the radius of other Pylons, at least for the early game? This would effectively remove most concerns about early warp all-ins with buffed up gate units while still allowing for warpgate remaining similar in the late game. Stay with me.
Blizz could do the following: - Make the Pylons initially like any other Toss building. It needs power to be initially created. - turn the nexus into a big Pylon, essentially. Give it a power radius so the protoss player has the ability to create that first pylon near said nexus. - Give Warp Prisms an exception to this rule, of course, prism play is one of the best parts about protoss. - provide an upgrade, be it in the Nexus or what-have-you once you build the twilight council or Templar archives, that turns the pylon into it's current form.
Also, I think this would be kind of cool, provide a buff to toss units when they're in range of Pylons where they either regen shields in combat or attack faster.
What do you guys think?
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On June 26 2015 07:57 Reinhardt03 wrote: I was thinking, a lot of discussion has been going on about needing to heavily nerf warpgate in order to buff gateway units and I really don't like the sound of it. So I got to thinking of a way to change warp tactics only slightly while also allowing for gate unit buffs:
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm no expert, I enjoyed playing HoTS and especially watching casted pro games, but I've never gotten masters or anything like that.
I feel like you can buff gate units without having to sacrifice the current warpgate strategy if you take a look at why warpgate is difficult to balance.
What makes 7gate/4gate/any-number-of-gate all-ins so effective is the ability to drop a 100min Pylon right at the front door of your opponent's base so you can constantly funnel solid units into combat immediately. This is why you can't buff gate units, they're already uber effective in early/mid all ins with the current warpgate set up.
I think changing the nature of Pylons is the answer here. Why not make it so that you can only build Pylons within the radius of other Pylons, at least for the early game? This would effectively remove most concerns about early warp all-ins with buffed up gate units while still allowing for warpgate remaining similar in the late game. Stay with me.
Blizz could do the following: - Make the Pylons initially like any other Toss building. It needs power to be initially created. - turn the nexus into a big Pylon, essentially. Give it a power radius so the protoss player has the ability to create that first pylon near said nexus. - Give Warp Prisms an exception to this rule, of course, prism play is one of the best parts about protoss. - provide an upgrade, be it in the Nexus or what-have-you once you build the twilight council or Templar archives, that turns the pylon into it's current form.
Also, I think this would be kind of cool, provide a buff to toss units when they're in range of Pylons where they either regen shields in combat or attack faster.
What do you guys think?
It could be restrictive if the Nexus pylon range isn't far enough to establish a wall, which is nearly mandatory against Zerg. Too large, and it makes pylon power a frivolous luxury, making pylons little more than supply buildings, making their secondary function redundant for much of the game.
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Of course, that would be the balancing act of it(well, one of them, at least). But I don't think it would be difficult to achieve if decent thought was given.
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On June 26 2015 07:57 Reinhardt03 wrote: I was thinking, a lot of discussion has been going on about needing to heavily nerf warpgate in order to buff gateway units and I really don't like the sound of it. So I got to thinking of a way to change warp tactics only slightly while also allowing for gate unit buffs:
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm no expert, I enjoyed playing HoTS and especially watching casted pro games, but I've never gotten masters or anything like that.
I feel like you can buff gate units without having to sacrifice the current warpgate strategy if you take a look at why warpgate is difficult to balance.
What makes 7gate/4gate/any-number-of-gate all-ins so effective is the ability to drop a 100min Pylon right at the front door of your opponent's base so you can constantly funnel solid units into combat immediately. This is why you can't buff gate units, they're already uber effective in early/mid all ins with the current warpgate set up.
I think changing the nature of Pylons is the answer here. Why not make it so that you can only build Pylons within the radius of other Pylons, at least for the early game? This would effectively remove most concerns about early warp all-ins with buffed up gate units while still allowing for warpgate remaining similar in the late game. Stay with me.
Blizz could do the following: - Make the Pylons initially like any other Toss building. It needs power to be initially created. - turn the nexus into a big Pylon, essentially. Give it a power radius so the protoss player has the ability to create that first pylon near said nexus. - Give Warp Prisms an exception to this rule, of course, prism play is one of the best parts about protoss. - provide an upgrade, be it in the Nexus or what-have-you once you build the twilight council or Templar archives, that turns the pylon into it's current form.
Also, I think this would be kind of cool, provide a buff to toss units when they're in range of Pylons where they either regen shields in combat or attack faster.
What do you guys think?
What about you can only warp in if the pylon is close to a gateway or nexus? You would need to get a pylon AND a gateway if you really wanted to all-in.
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dropping an extra 250min wouldn't do much, I don't think. If yan attacker wants to put his chips forward, sacrificing a couple extra stalkers to do it won't be a tough sell.
What my suggestion would do is essentially force early toss aggression to walk the map, thus limiting the constant flow of units into an opponents base. This implementation would essentially force Blizzard to buff gateway units in order to provide any chance for protoss to have an aggressive opening, as a slower access to the front lines dictates that what units ARE there need to be strong enough to apply worthwhile pressure.
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Your implementation would also get rid of proxies and cannon rushing, which honestly I think are important to the game.
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cool idea...but weird to see air units warped
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Bisutopia19032 Posts
1. First option, just have pylon upgrades that cost more and increase the health of the pylon. Once upgraded you can now warp in. At 50/50 that's pretty reasonable. And now it opens up strategy for opponents to target the visually upgraded pylons. 2. Warp in fields now are at each nexus. Then the warp prism becomes the only Mobil warp in possibility.
Those are the two reasonable changes I see for people who dislike the warpgate situation.
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On June 26 2015 16:41 shin_toss wrote: cool idea...but weird to see air units warped
They're already warped in... see them in the stargate warping in.
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On June 26 2015 17:13 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 16:41 shin_toss wrote: cool idea...but weird to see air units warped They're already warped in... see them in the stargate warping in.
It's also in that level in the campaign with the temples and the pylons as bonus targets. Some of them "warp in" robo and stargate units defensively. Ergo, there is at least some precedence to the idea.
On June 26 2015 17:08 BisuDagger wrote: 1. First option, just have pylon upgrades that cost more and increase the health of the pylon. Once upgraded you can now warp in. At 50/50 that's pretty reasonable. And now it opens up strategy for opponents to target the visually upgraded pylons. 2. Warp in fields now are at each nexus. Then the warp prism becomes the only Mobil warp in possibility.
Those are the two reasonable changes I see for people who dislike the warpgate situation.
1. That could work, although I don't know if a health increase is warranted. It would also severely limit the Protoss' defenses since they'd have to invest a fair bit more on warp pylons at home just to have the current default (especially with outlying expansions that tend to be razed to the ground).
2. That might actually be a cleaner alternative to my idea of using production buildings.
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On June 26 2015 17:08 BisuDagger wrote: 1. First option, just have pylon upgrades that cost more and increase the health of the pylon. Once upgraded you can now warp in. At 50/50 that's pretty reasonable. And now it opens up strategy for opponents to target the visually upgraded pylons. 2. Warp in fields now are at each nexus. Then the warp prism becomes the only Mobil warp in possibility.
Those are the two reasonable changes I see for people who dislike the warpgate situation.
The later option is pretty reasonable, Warp Prisms are designed very nicely in LotV I think, and getting them takes long enough(outside of some goofy builds) where gateway units can still see some useful buffs in key aspects without steamrolling in the early game.
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If you enable nexus' to be a warp-in field then you don't have to invest extra into a remote base.
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Make it a late game upgrade so that it can't be abused for early game cheese. I think this solves this thread.
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On June 27 2015 00:45 parkufarku wrote: Make it a late game upgrade so that it can't be abused for early game cheese. I think this solves this thread.
Yeah... I don't think that'd solve either the problem that warpgate doesn't exist for stargates and robos, or that the player would have the capacity to warp in colossi and carriers on-demand if it did.
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Bisutopia19032 Posts
On June 27 2015 00:34 Reinhardt03 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 17:08 BisuDagger wrote: 1. First option, just have pylon upgrades that cost more and increase the health of the pylon. Once upgraded you can now warp in. At 50/50 that's pretty reasonable. And now it opens up strategy for opponents to target the visually upgraded pylons. 2. Warp in fields now are at each nexus. Then the warp prism becomes the only Mobil warp in possibility.
Those are the two reasonable changes I see for people who dislike the warpgate situation. The later option is pretty reasonable, Warp Prisms are designed very nicely in LotV I think, and getting them takes long enough(outside of some goofy builds) where gateway units can still see some useful buffs in key aspects without steamrolling in the early game. Proxy nexus warpins with Photon Overcharge to protect nexus!
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If it requires a proxy nexus to make this cheese work I'm all for it. That's a huge investment that's pretty easy to scout and see coming because it takes soo long.
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Meh why not simply make warpgates have a longer build time than standard gate, forcing you to invest more in gates to get same prod, or make warp-in units warp with no shield? Or the obvious make it a latter game tech instead of a cyber 50 gas upgrade...
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On June 28 2015 12:45 varsovie wrote: Meh why not simply make warpgates have a longer build time than standard gate, forcing you to invest more in gates to get same prod, or make warp-in units warp with no shield? Or the obvious make it a latter game tech instead of a cyber 50 gas upgrade...
The intent of my suggestion is to have Protoss have access to warpgate ASAP, rather than have them straddle between warping and queuing via opportunity costs.
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On June 28 2015 19:21 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2015 12:45 varsovie wrote: Meh why not simply make warpgates have a longer build time than standard gate, forcing you to invest more in gates to get same prod, or make warp-in units warp with no shield? Or the obvious make it a latter game tech instead of a cyber 50 gas upgrade... The intent of my suggestion is to have Protoss have access to warpgate ASAP, rather than have them straddle between warping and queuing via opportunity costs.
It would be interesting if you separated the frontloading and the location independence of warpgate.
Essentially when a Gateway/Stargate builds a unit you get that unit instantly (and then enters a cooldown), but at the location of the Stargate/Gateway. (I might keep the Robotics Factory and the Nexus separate..both for lore and gameplay)
This would introduce definite balance issues Some could be solved by making the Gateway/Stargate take longer to build (so Zealot #1 comes out at the same time) For something like the Carrier, you could revert to BW and have it appear with 0 Interceptors, so it still takes some time for you to get something useful. (similar to HT only appearing with 50 energy)
The "Warpgate" upgrade to gateways would work the same (work in anywhere under Pylon Power) but it could be moved up the tech tree, and made more expensive (probably in the citadel)... possibly make it a Cost upgrade to the gateway (Gateway->Warp gate=+150 gas?)... or possibly cooldown on the Warpgate could be More than cooldown on the Gateway (as opposed to the opposite now.)..allowing some buffing of Protoss units.
For Stargates. Give the Mothership a "Warp Field" ability, so that any Stargate rallied to the mothership will cause its units to warp in there (under the same rules as the warpgate) Nerf mothership as appropriate..... perhaps Warp Field and Cloaking Field can be two modes...ie you can't warp in cloaked units..make Mothership slower, etc.
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