- Immortal: this may be caused by the Immortal having 2 guns, where one is a dummy allowing the unit to keep the turret aim at the opponent while moving. This is a walkaround to an engine deficiency.
- Colossus is intended to be bad against single targets. A good micro is not necessairly something you do during the attack animation, but before the attack. Colossus excels (or at least: should excel) when hitting at flank towards already established front. It also promotes moving Colossus closer to the battle, rather than shooting at its maximum range. This exposes the colossus more to ground forces (higher risk), but allows the unit to fry more targets in one shot (higher reward).
It will require some practice from the Colossus user though in order to use it efficiently!
We could speed up the attack animation, but that will decrease a chance for the opponent to dodge the shot. We could also simply buff the damage output if that is necessary. - If a single unit is hit by two beams, it should do double damage. This however happens only towards the units which are in between the beams. If, in that scenario, thor is hit only once - that will require fixing!
Project: Starcraft Improved - Page 12
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BlackLilium
Poland426 Posts
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BlackLilium
Poland426 Posts
I also rewrote all the changes, without splitting between Economy/Micro/Balance because those interact and sometimes it is unclear in which section it should fall. Let us now take an item from the TODO list... I will skip the Hellion vs Melee for a bit later, as it is a minor thing (I think). So: Tank as a space-controlling unit It's intended role is a slow, area-denial unit. Unfortunately, it can't really hold on its own. On the other hand, the unit is slow and would be good to be able to leave it in a key position to - at least - slow the enemy a bit. In LotV they add aditional mobility by allowing a tank to be loaded into a medivac while it is sieged. In my opinion this just leads to a gimmicky play. Fun, but gimmicky. It does not help the tank to be an area-of-denial unit in any way. It just helps an annoying harassment a bit. So what could we do? During the course of this thread I have seen some suggestions already: On July 08 2015 16:20 RoomOfMush wrote: I would also recommend giving each race some strong positional units that can hold the ground, like Siege Tanks, Lurkers, Reavers from BW. These units can be positioned at an expansion to defend it cost efficiently against much larger forces of enemies. At the same time these units are not imbalanced because they need to be set up to be used. On July 04 2015 16:35 RoomOfMush wrote: 1) Buff the damage 2) Buff the splash 3) Make the Weapon Cooldown longer 4) Make the Siege / Unsiege time longer On July 06 2015 02:22 xPrimuSx wrote: I also wanted to throw out a random suggestion when it comes to damage modifiers, all the ones in the game are X +Y, but what about X -Y? Having a unit that deals bonus damage to everything but a certain type of unit allows for a bit more flexibility in constructing matchups. I know we are tabling the discussion on Siege Tanks for right now, but I think that is a unit that would benefit from this as you can make it deal more damage to everything but light (for instance) to have its damage be high against everything, without having it absolutely murder light units. On July 14 2015 09:15 LastWish wrote: * Siege Tank Siege Mode - buff single target damage to +20(the splash remains the same) - also I like the reduced supply cost you mentioned Also, Clear Word mentions that: On October 13 2015 06:13 Clear World wrote: The armor tag removal [of Stalker]. This affects way more than just marauders. The Siege tank and immortal also now rather meh against the Stalker, or possibly pointless when considering blink play. Combining all those comments of yours leads me to the following suggestion
However, if you disagree or have a different idea for a Tank - share your thoughts! We will also need to change the Immortal a bit to be less hard-countery against Tanks. I would love to see Tanks viable in TvP... | ||
BrokenSegment
36 Posts
Many nerfs to mobility, and not much buff. That's a joke! If you nerf mobility why not just go flat 50? Or even 50+10? | ||
Hider
Denmark9240 Posts
He shouldn't be able to counter it by preventing it from happening in the first place. For instance Ravens/Vikings/mass turret-line, often prevents any type of army trading/aggression against a mech player. Instead it should be possible to attack into a location and the mech player should be able to reacquire that location by repositioning his siege tanks. In order for that dynamic to work, the mech player must be on multiple bases. When on 2-3 bases, defensive mech is always gonna be lame though and your best bet is to make harass play strong for both players in order to incentivze aggression. Increasing siege time, is not a good idea as it doesn't solve the "I can't break my opponent" turtle issue on 2-3 bases, but just makes any type of aggressive mech play worse + is a significant nerf to the repositioning part of meching. So these are a couple of changes you could do: - Buff the damage of the siege tank - Buff overlord drops - Get rid of Vikings as an anti-drop unit - Give protoss more tools as well to slowly break mech - Make a mech player takes bases a ton faster while minimizing the snowball effect. That can be accomplished by implementing a LOTV economy with a higher income rate. - DH economy is pointless with 400 supply cap (higher supply cap accomplishes the same advantage as DH). Relative to LOTV economy it only serves to delay the time until a meching terran needs to defend 4 bases at once. | ||
Clear World
125 Posts
I mean, I actually like the ability of Medivac being able to pick up Siege Tank while in Siege Mode (I don't understand why it wasn't like that to begin with), though dropping them back in Siege Mode is something I'm against. Though, calling it gimmicky seems wrong. What exactly about dropping Tanks already in Siege Mode gimmicky? What about the fact that they can harass, poke, & make lead froging quicker gimmicky? But to my actual feedback:
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BlackLilium
Poland426 Posts
The primary tool of handing a turtling player is map control. DH already penalizes turtling as we have seen in the showmatches. HMH is even a bit stronger at it. Tank player needs to keep expanding and defending its assets in order to say even. Tank players also have to think about their own harassment (yay, action!), to keep the expanding player in check. I hope to encourage terrans to spread their tanks more, putting them in the key positions before fights happen. If that is achieved, each single spot of the fortification should be a bit weaker and easier to push into. Even if the fight does not end up cost-efficient for the attacker, he probably has more bases to compensate for that. What I would like to avoid - on the other hand - is spamming tanks in one spot, moving them in bulk and then deploying them in bulk. That's why I am considering increasing their raw power and reduce their speed. If you end up being caught in transit, you should be in a really, really bad situation. If you think the proposed changes are too big of a nerf for offensive play - do you think that keeping original speed but keeping the siege time increased would be a good compromise, achieving both goals at the same time (offensive play vs more throught when and where you siege up)? Tanks are already predominantly used in TvT & TvZ, and they are affective in their general role in those match-ups. So what's with these changes. Why are you changing them? It is an important question. Reasons are two-fold:
Some tool to break boring TvT tank stalemate will be required - I agree with your concern in that aspect. Ultimately, I want to stress it: I don't want to make a tank outright better. I am looking for a buff/nerf combination that would make tanks better fit their role: as a relevant space controlling unit. Space controlling - it means: you deploy a few at a spot and you are done - the opponent no longer can push it with a small force. Clear World, I mention you in the context of Tank-Stalker interaction. It is not an argument for or against anything else. As such I am somewhat puzzled that you dislike that I mentioned it. ------ Let me iterate over this: - Buff the damage of the siege tank - Buff overlord drops - Get rid of Vikings as an anti-drop unit - Give protoss more tools as well to slowly break mech - Make a mech player takes bases a ton faster while minimizing the snowball effect. That can be accomplished by implementing a LOTV economy with a higher income rate.
---- Let me iterate over this as well: (added more bullets to better refer to each statement)
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Hider
Denmark9240 Posts
Hider, I have a feeling that you misunderstood the supply in SCI. We didn't increase the supply cap. Yes, the number is now 400 but all supply costs and contributions are doubled as well. This was to remove the 0.5 supply issue and not a way to change the effective number of units and workers on the battlefield. As such DH/HMH economy is relevant. What is the 0.5 supply issue? What I would like to avoid - on the other hand - is spamming tanks in one spot, moving them in bulk and then deploying them in bulk. That's why I am considering increasing their raw power and reduce their speed. You do this by making it neccasary to defend several locations at once by giving the opponents strong enough offensive tools. By just increasing siege-time you make them much more immobile and thus make it much harder to retake previously lost positions. If you look at BW, the effective siege/unsiege time is quite a bit faster than in Sc2 due to units being spread out so much when engaging. And BW late game mech was a lot about losing one location on the map --> retaking that position by repositioning the Siege Tanks --> Then the opponent attacks another location. That's the fun part about mech imo, where you are rewarded for repositioning the siege tanks actively and not just having them stand still in the same location throughout the entire game. Overlord drops: I think the LotV is a good change that we could implement. However, I am not sure if it would matter in a late-game when you might want to use overlords en-mass. More armor to dropable overlords? I think there are various types of solutions here. Armor is one. Speed is another. IMO the Thor and VIking should also swap roles so the Thor is more comparable to the Goliath in that its better vs armored air units. That change per definition make it harder for terran mech to defend vs dropplay. We shouldn't make people do stuff. They want to turtle on 3 bases? That should remain viable. But that comes at a price, coming from HMH economy already. Game-design is about incentiving players to do that makes the playing experience fun. If lame playstyles are roughly as strong as more interesting playstyle, you failed as a game-designer. Diversity for the sake of diversity should not be a goal. What should be a goal is diversity between interesting playstyles. | ||
BlackLilium
Poland426 Posts
On October 27 2015 19:59 Hider wrote: What is the 0.5 supply issue? The fact that there are units with 0.5 supply, but it is not shown in UI. Moreover, doubling the values overall allows us to effectively give 0.5 / 1.5 / 2.5 etc... supply values to other units that may benefit from it. We did that for a Hydralisk already. You do this by making it neccasary to defend several locations at once by giving the opponents strong enough offensive tools. By just increasing siege-time you make them much more immobile and thus make it much harder to retake previously lost positions. If you look at BW, the effective siege/unsiege time is quite a bit faster than in Sc2 due to units being spread out so much when engaging. And BW late game mech was a lot about losing one location on the map --> retaking that position by repositioning the Siege Tanks --> Then the opponent attacks another location. That's the fun part about mech imo, where you are rewarded for repositioning the siege tanks actively and not just having them stand still in the same location throughout the entire game. OK, I see your point there. However, if we just keep current tank mobility and give damage buff, are you not worried that tanks may simply become too strong? As you suggest, we may want to look on other units to allow breaking the siege lines instead... I don't think Protoss has too mcuh problem with that due to Immortals, but Zerg and Terran may require some help. On October 27 2015 19:59 Hider wrote: I think there are various types of solutions here. Armor is one. Speed is another. IMO the Thor and VIking should also swap roles so the Thor is more comparable to the Goliath in that its better vs armored air units. That change per definition make it harder for terran mech to defend vs dropplay. Due to immobility of mech, isn't it already a bit difficult to fight against drop play? I mean - harassment-focused drop play? So, you suggest Vikings should work more like BW Valkyries? Hm... that is an interesting idea. We already changed Thor AA, but we could tweak it a bit more to focus more on slower, armored units. On October 27 2015 19:59 Hider wrote: Game-design is about incentiving players to do that makes the playing experience fun. If lame playstyles are roughly as strong as more interesting playstyle, you failed as a game-designer. Diversity for the sake of diversity should not be a goal. What should be a goal is diversity between interesting playstyles. I agree with you. The question is - how much incentive there is. If it is too low, lame playstyles will make the game boring. If there is too much, it effectively forces players on certain routes and crosses others. In my opinion LotV economy falls into that second category a bit too much. I can understand however others may have a different opinion on it. It is hard to measure it. | ||
Hider
Denmark9240 Posts
OK, I see your point there. However, if we just keep current tank mobility and give damage buff, are you not worried that tanks may simply become too strong? As you suggest, we may want to look on other units to allow breaking the siege lines instead... I don't think Protoss has too mcuh problem with that due to Immortals, but Zerg and Terran may require some help. Well I think we have to take into account how well Vikings synegize with Siege Tanks. With Thors + Tanks instead, the overall mobility of the mech army is lower. But even then, I still think - as i said - that mech on 2-3 bases won't be that exciting. Brood War mech was awesome in late game, but pretty meh'ish until then. Another thing you can do is to only add a marginal default buff to siege tanks, and give it a late-game upgrade that's first relevant once terran is on 4 +bases (e.g. it could require fusion core). In my opinion LotV economy falls into that second category a bit too much. I I don't think it makes sense to add DH becasue LOTV makes immobile playstyles unviable. For balance purposes, you simply compensate the immobile units by buffing them. The only valid argument for DH is the snowball-effect where losing a base in LOTV hurts a ton more. When I look at LOTV atm. the game bores me because its so often one battle into GG since there is no comeback potential. Hence my suggestion is to actually increase the mining rate of workers + make it easer to rebuild expansions. Imagien if a player lost 30 supply + 1 base and wasn't completely dead but actually had a chance of making a comeback! I think that would make for a much better playing experience. Due to immobility of mech, isn't it already a bit difficult to fight against drop play? I mean - harassment-focused drop play? The issue - in Sc2 - is that its hard to counter it after it has happened. but - as mech - you have the the tools to prevent it from occuring in the first place. And that type of way to balance immobile vs mobile creates very passive and black/white gameplay. In BW late game, the mobile race could always force something on the map (or at least almost always -a few Flash games where that wasn't so easy). Instead, a terran would have 30-35 Siege Tanks spread out all over the map. So if we assume that he lost 7-8 Siege tanks in one location, he could reposition his army and retake the lost location. But that type of dynamic is only possible if (a) the income rate is high, (b) Siege Tanks are stronger and (c) Siege Tanks are 2 supply. On the other hand, if you lose 7-8 Siege Tanks in LOTV, that's typically 50% of your army. Afterwards you are typically gonna lose a base as well. That means you have no army strenght to retake the lost location and you have no income to rebuild your army --> Snowball into GG. | ||
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