Disclaimer: Discussion is from a multiplayer/esport perspective.
In the recent Heart of the Swarm Preview at Blizzard HQ a few interesting questions and points were brought forth.
In one of the questions blizzard reflects on how certain units didn't meat expectectations and how they are, considering, changing them in the upcoming HotS expantion. Among them Immortal and Overseer were given as example of units with "problems".
David Kim:
As far as learning through the multiplayer, we learned that not everything works exactly as planned - the different roles for the units didn't work as well as we had planned. We planned to have the immortal be more of a meat shield, and have the hardened shield be one of the core mechanics; however, the burst damage ended up being the more important part of the unit.
Q: You guys said that you wanted to keep the unit pool small in a lot of interviews, how many units would you expect to add in the multiplayer, and how many would you expect to remove in order to keep the player experience good?
A: We have no idea how many we can add before it starts to feel watered down, we're starting to push Brood War unit numbers, every time we try to make a move we find that it's tough to keep the units and race abilities separate. We can easily add on, and tune and tweak, or in combination until we find the right mix for multiplayer.
For example, the Overseer is not a cool unit, it's basically a glorfied scout at this point. We're looking at either taking out or replacing these units that aren't as cool. The other thing that we need to watch out is how these units interact in combination.
We're starting to reach the number of units where the right answer isn't necessarily more; it doesn't mean that we can't get more, but how will we even know?
Obviously blizzard is just going to do their own thing, but it's interesting to find out what the community thinks, so...
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thread summary, (this is only informative, not a complete or accurate list)
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
Top picks - Colosus -- some suggest axing it, some want it changed to a reaver, others want it reverted to the alpha version (forward/point lance; no sweep), some think just making it super slow will fix it - Corruptor -- everyone seems to hate its "corruption" ability - Roach/Hydra -- most want them switched in roles and tech, a lot recognize one or the other has a problem - Marauder -- mostly because of concusive shell - Immortal -- some thinks it needs a buff, some think it along with roach/marauder ruin the game; some think the immortal is just ruined by the colosus - Thors - Mothership -- people want to see a new unit replace it - Reaper -- people want to see more mid-game, late-game use - Sentry -- some hate it; some just hate FF
Others mentioned a few times - Hellion -- in particular the blue-flame version - Infestor \w fungal - Overseer - Raven -- some point at HSM along with it - Ultralisk
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
In no particular order, - warpin -- a lot suggest moving it to twilight council; others have suggested just removing it and warpgates from the game entirely - concusive/fungal/ff -- ie. the anti-micro abilities - HSM -- everyone hates it's range, price and how hard it is to use - injection -- some hate it because it's "unforgiving" compared to the other mechanics; some also just hate it as a mechanic - mules -- some say they are bad because the mineral pump just pushes for masses of marines - moving shot -- see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769 - macro-mechanics -- a lot of people just think they should not be in the game; one reason (among many) brought up is that they kill the advantage of having multiple base play and also cap games at a max of 4 bases (ie. it makes no sense to have more bases); chrono boost is the only macro mechanic that doesn't get any complaining out of the three - clumping - people typically want less clumping, see: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889 An argument against this has been that there micro in "un-clumping" (typically patrol micro) ie. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132591 and Happy's marine micro - abilities that negate self-micro -- ie. pheonix auto-fire, charge
- most are fine with the current state of things - more (map) textures - more imposing protoss voices - more zergy zerg voices -- typically this has to do with variety, people think everything just sounds too similar - people think the sound effects in starcraft two are very dumbed down compared to effects in Sc1
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
- Lurker - some broodwar-esky units - protoss harassment unit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My own 2 cents,
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? + Show Spoiler +
1. Marauders - I believe it should be designed to work well with mech not bio. When you make marauders the techpath and choices you make should encourage you to mech. 2. Mothership is too much of a "hero unit", all it's spells should just be split over multiple caster each handling only one, and each probably requiring their own tech. 3. Thor - like the mothership I think it should be exed and replaced with other units. Or changed to something like structure status and degraded to slow awkward unit that can defend your base (with the help of your SCVs) and can be built by SCVs with minimal tech, but is otherwise total junk piece in the open field or in a attack with out SCVs around.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
1. Spellcasters
I find the design direction for spell casters very simplistic.
For the most part, (a lot of, but not all,) the casters in this game are no more then glass-cannons. There's less relying on abilities to give you an advantage and more relying on them just nucking the hell out of the enemy.
I believe this to be a large part of the reason why some heavy hitting units have become pretty much a no brainer. Why build a (specialized) unit when you can mass this spellcaster which will kill everything for free? Similarly unit compositions fair no better, since there's no reason to build a few units for say anti-air when your spell casters counter just about everything.
So basically my opinion is, - spell casters should have just ONE specialized spell that is good against a certain composition - other spells should just be "utility spells" nothing to merit the investment in the spellcaster by itself - there should be more spellcasters rather then more spells on one spellcaster, to allow for casters to be scouted and countered, and also so that... (see next) - spellcasters should (for the most part) be an aggressive choice. You should have plenty of viable options to survive with out them, and... - mass spellcasters should always result into you auto-losing the game. - spellcasters should be very very situational (ie. I need this caster to counter tanks, I need this caster to counter marine balls, I need this caster to counter heavy air, etc)
As far as their spells go, each race should have their own very distinct "flavor" of spells. Just as a example of what I mean, (aside from any "utility spells") Terran could have powerful single-target spells (some that buff and some that de-buff, like how lockdown, irradiate, defense matrix, etc worked), Protoss could have the aoe-damage spells (ie. storm, stasis fields, etc), and Zerg could have the aoe buff spells, ie. spells that are more effective the more units you have (things like range damage immunity, or armor type changing). Right now most are just terrible terrible damage spells: storm, hunter seeker, fungal.
Currently what I think (for the most part) are well designed spellcasters: Sentry (minus Hallucination), Ghosts, Queen (minus transfusion), Templar (minus feedback, should have hallucination).
On the other hand what are kind of crappy spellcasters: Raven (should have all spells for zoning like PDD), Mothership (should be split into multiple casters), Infestor (should be split into multiple casters; fungal should be the combination of two spells, or even completely axed for more army oriented abilities).
2. Unit Movement
Units in starcraft are extremely clever when it comes to movement. This looks great in some situations (mass of zerglings) but kind of lame in others (marine balls). It's been suggested on these forums that maybe units should return to broodwar mechanics, the advantage being armies would look grander, battles last longer, and a few other balance problems be solved (such as the efficiency of bio-balls, or protoss balls).
I believe instead of one or the other units should just have behaviour, so in that idea: zergling will try to form groups of 6 and each group has the current flow mechanic, but groups themselves would try to avoid each other, marines try to avoid each other, marauders push marines, tanks and thors push marauders and marines, etc, protoss units flow with units of the same type, but avoid units that are different, etc. Basically, each race could have very different ai for unit movement, adding to the racial traits.
On the topic of units and movement, massive ground (such as thors and ultralisk) units should have two collision boxes, one of the size of the current one that only interacts with other massive units and one the size of a roach that interacts with smaller (friendly) units. They should also be able to push any small units to the side (friendly or otherwise).
3. (Mobile) Detector
I believe the terran Raven is fine as long as it would have more spells like PDD that can help zone an area (possibly requiring a setup time, rather then be instant). In other words the terran detector would be a flying utility unit as was initially invisioned in the Alpha. Protoss having cloaked observer is well and good. Zerg I think should have spellcasters as detectors, every spellcaster aside from Queens should be a detector; of course this would mean they would have to have more spellcasters then just infestors.
4. Drops
I think the terran need more drop options. In particular options that are more threatening then just harassment. Protoss have warpins, zerg have mass overlord drops and nydus, both of which are "defend with your army" and can pop anywhere, while terran have mostly mineral line thread. Maybe the drop pods can be brouth back or the dropship given some obnoxious late game upgrade, such as say clock at fusion core.
I believe the idea was that the terran options would consist of dropping heavy harass units such as hellions and reapers covering everything else, but reapers seem to have failed that role.
Still on the topic of drops, I think warp-prisms should have a "auto-fairy" ability. Currently you can deploy it on the edge of a cliff and do a very neat ferry micro with it but it's not the most interesting thing to watch.
5. Balance of Doom-Units
There should be some simple spells that counter doom-units like Colosus. It's a little ridiculous how viable and efficient they are by comparison to say Carriers. I think part of the problem lies in how mobile they are. Tanks or Revers and Lurkers from BW were very destructive as well, but their immobility was their weakness. I think it's important for such units to as immobile as possible to avoid the death-ball problem. Of course dropships could mitigate the mobility but that would require micro, and the more you have the more micro intensive it would be, not to mention dropships aren't exactly the most durable units.
6. Defenders Advantage
I think the concept that "you have an advantage, and you lose the advantage" is sound. However the fact that you can so easily "lose the advantage" early on in the game is not. Abilities like the warpgate which nulifies distance should possibly be moved all the way to fleet beacon. Simple reasoning: does protoss need warpgates to survive early game? probably not. If anything it makes what would be a all-in proxy, not that all-in.
Similarly losing the advantage should not just equal "no advanatage". It might be better if units shooting up cliffs have get a -1 damage penalty to their damage (ie. +1 armor to advantage to the "defender"). Or, there should be some base mechanics that just favor the defender; in particular in mirror matchups.
Concerning problems related to "space" maps: - I think banshee should have their propelas replaced with some sort of gravity system, or some jets. At the most basic level, the propelas and struts could just be removed from the model and a little flame added bellow them. - Flame effects should also be improved to be a little more along the lines of light effects, particularly on space maps. Currently the flames look like some kind of torch (like the back of the ship is on fire), and worse still it looks like that "torch" is just flickering in the wind (particularly silly in space). - Mutalisk wings and zergling wings should have a little glowing effect when in space so that we can at least pretend they are not wind based.
It would be nice if buildings had more intriguing death animations, similar to how zerg buildings do. For example: - terran buildings could leave rubble - protoss buildings could have very long reverse warpin animation (eg. 1/3 of the time of warpin) ...and so on.
As far as sound goes. It would be nice if there was more variety, particularly when it comes to the map type and structure. Effects like echoes or just small alterations to the sound would make for a much more interesting viewing experience. More lighting effects such as those in the Xelnaga Caverns vegetation would also make for a more enjoyable viewing.
Zerg research animations should be more distinct and it would be nice if depending on what research is done the animation might be slightly different, both from a aesthetics perspective as well as a ingame mechanic.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
A "something" to help zerg hold space. For example: Lurker building. Hydralisks morph into it. It can only root itself on creep. It's always submerged, hence cloaked. It dies off creep. It has fixed damage (like all defensive structures) and a small vision radius (something like 3) -- has good armor burrowed but low armor unborrowed and benefits from carapace. In essence you rely on tumors for vision and marines have a really hard time against them. With good detection you should be able beat them but it's hard just walking into them.
Terran base mechanics that in combination with marines/reapers/ghosts (and maybe ravens) make for hard to kill bases. Something like have all buildings be some type of bunker (albeit only 1-2 units can fit inside). Marauders should not fit into anything. This can be linked to the building upgrades. The idea being bio = defensive, techy, while mech = aggresive.
Some of that is pretty interesting and I may not agree with all of it, namely that balancing any one unit or mechanic requires a rejigging/reconsidering of EVERYTHING else.
Terrans already have the dropping capability which beats that of the other races in my view. It doesn't require building units that don't mesh with your regular army (for me as a Protoss making a warp prism means 1 less collosus in production for example). In addition to this Terran drops are staggeringly mineral efficient, and also with stim they can do an insane amount of damage in no time. Terran may not have any kind of mass-transit into the back of your opponent's base option, but really, do they have any need for it?
The defender's advantage bit is something I'd disagree with quite a lot. Protoss have bugger all mobility in the early game as it is without elimating the proxy/warpgate combo. Yes I do realise that stalkers have a fast move speed but that's not what I'm referring to, basically you have an army that is a lot higher in mineral value per unit than those of the other races, and if you get caught reinforcing in the middle of the map it's game over. You need to gain that critical mass and stick together if you want to be really aggressive early.
Plus there usually is a defender's advantage anyway, at least early game, it's called high ground. Now obviously you can break that, or bring air to give vision etc, but it's still an advantage. Nerfing damage up high ground will lead to even more annoying tank turtling, and make aggressive plays a bit harder to pull off (some people may like that, I don't personally)
Anyway a high ground = lower damage taken to take your example really wouldn't change much in terms of mirror matches, or indeed favour defenders that much. A lot of all-ins aren't really that concerned about the small amount of time they'll be at your ramp, Protoss can warp up the ramp anyway to get by it.
It'd be interesting to see though, for example pulling your collosus and sticking them on high ground will be even more useful now, likewise most other high value units.
I can't believe you want Terran to have a better drop system. Have you never come across a Terran who dropped into your base and took out key tech structures or sniped your nexus/hatchery? The fact that medivacs are essential for the bioball and they're a drop ship makes terran drops so much easier and mobile. You'll never see a Protoss make 8 warp prisms just to drop his opponent.
Also, did we need a new thread for this? This is probably already being heavily discussed in the TL preview thread
Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
having never really played or seen much broodwar what i could be saying is gibberish but i watched sheth play morrow on that sc2bw map it seemed to me like there was alot more back and forth engagements people weren't just sitting in the middle on the watch towers massing to 200 then having 1 fight and then its gg. I feel too much hangs on one engagement that defines the outcome.
i'm not too sure of the reason of this my knowledge of the games is too limited but this is just the impression i get.
In my opinion, it feels like this game needs more casters. Not nukers but support casters. Stasis was a great spell and it helped tremendously against siege tank lines.
Also, blaming Terran for going marines is foolish because that is the only good anti-air they have. Thors are too slow and vikings are not a choice against mutalisks.
Zergs lack a siege unit and scouting ability. Sure, Overseer is an ok unit but not great at all..
Protoss, on other hand, cannot simply harass-then-escape type of unit, except for HT with warp prism which is fairly late game.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus Reaper Warp prism(not sure though)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Forcefield - Remove this ability for the love of god. I mean I get impressed with good ffs like any other guy and I'm not going the route that they are to easy to do or anything, but they are still just dull and limit the game. Obviously toss needs a huge buff to compensate. Hunter seeker missile - HSM is awesome, there's no doubt about it. They are however only awesome if they can connect, if the raven gets in range, if you can survive while getting ravens+HSM aswell as waiting for the energy. It just doesn't really work, so change it to make it usable. Strike cannon - Ugh don't know what to say, the nerf was way to big. In general though, I just find the ability rather boring, so removing it or changing it would be nice too.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Don't know really...
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Zerg gets more units, such as roach to 1 supply but worse in return. Obviously larvae and stuff need looking at. With the ghost buff tank play TvP isn't explored that much, but in general TvP in BW is pretty epic, wish the same thing could be said about TvP in WoL...
It seems as if the community is really divided on this issue. I'm very interested to see what Blizzard implements, and how the fans will react (though knowing the internet, I expect nothing less than a shitstorm).
I personally also vote for the Colossi, though I'm honestly fine with the game as it is. I like the Hellion, I like the Mothership (you need to have the Scout of SC2 don't you?), I like the Overseer (despite that unit being explicitly called out as an uninteresting unit), and I like the Marauder. While I absolutely love the reaper, I would say that unit needs to go, as it is useless in 1v1, but needs to stay useless or else 2v2 would become imbalanced. Maybe units like the Void Ray and Banshee that are ridiculously useful AtG and can even win games just by appearing.
uninteresting/redo list: mothership - too much of a hero unit, not really able to be used enough marauder - it shouldnt have stim and slow, allows for infinite kiting, but i guess that isnt that bad colossus - just a boring unit, a move it...use the rest of your army as a meat shield for it...just poor design.
other than that, one thing that i would like to mention particularly in the difference between bw and sc2, there are two things that i feel need to be fixed... the first is that the units stick too close together in sc2, making splash damage super strong and battles way too short the second is the food system...generally everything costs too much food so armies are small compared to their bw counterparts...especially the protoss ball due to the colossus being 6food
On June 01 2011 02:06 h0neyBadger wrote: having never really played or seen much broodwar what i could be saying is gibberish but i watched sheth play morrow on that sc2bw map it seemed to me like there was alot more back and forth engagements people weren't just sitting in the middle on the watch towers massing to 200 then having 1 fight and then its gg. I feel too much hangs on one engagement that defines the outcome.
i'm not too sure of the reason of this my knowledge of the games is too limited but this is just the impression i get.
This is actually very accurate. BW AI doesnt try to clump the units, and the AOE in BW is about 2-3x stronger than SC2, so essentially you have to spread your units correctly and place them in the right place at the right time. Also the spread also naturally give rise to longer battles which allows stream of reinforcements to arrive and barellllly edge out your opponent.
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? + Show Spoiler +
Reaper, Marauder, immortal. Reasoning, the reaper has no place anymore in sc2. The overseer is a glorified overlord that gives no supply and should be on this list but is the only form of mobile detection for z, the changeling is stupid and contaminate is a gimmick. The immortal seems to replace the bw archon, but is no where near as good as colossus. Toss cannot stand up only on immortals like they could archons and templar in BW, every composition toss has relies on templar or colossus to even kill an army. Immortals are good early game defense and against some comps, but they are just boring along with marauders. Marauders have some stupid efficiency in small numbers with medivacs, dulling down the game significantly. honestly its not hard to stim a few marauders and kill infinity gateway units.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
I feel mules are still kind of stupid, i'm tired of watching professional games where the terran sits at 30 or 40 workers, is a base down well past the time where a timing push should work, and just wins with unit efficiency ie marauders with high production before colossus become a problem. With this, colossus are too good in number and templar/archons should be made more viable. Gateway units are also very weak, blink making the only viability.
Tired of getting massive fps, would like to see the game actually tax my hardware, specifically maybe some good HDR or other lighting implementation.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
Some sort of midgame harass for protoss that could be used with a warp prism. Warp prisms are a gimmick currently. Perhaps reavers. I feel zerg needs a more mobile army, its currently so creep dependent.
from a protoss point of view, these 3 units destroy most of the dynamics within the game.
uninteresting:
marauder roach colossus
Everyone has so much dps potential for their cost by simply a-moving, That's bad and makes for uninteresting games.
Also i'm a bit scared, because they say "some units aren't cool". Imo it's not about beeing cool / not cool, it's more about the usability and not how gimmicky a unit is. maybe i missinterpreted it a bit D:.
i would like to see a redesign as well for: hydras (too expensive and slow. isn't zergish at all) reaper (nerfed into oblivion, has good harass potential) immortal (a-move unit in bigger battles, hilariously expensive, slow, low range)
Uninteresting to me would be, Infestor fungal. Each race having a small circle aoe caster spell that each do damage (emp isn't technically damage I understand, the energy removing ability is what makes special) is a bit watered down.
Carrier isn't interesting. Even if it was interesting it's still bad.
Reaper and Hellion I'm not a fan of. (keeping it short im leaving for work xD)
On June 01 2011 02:10 TheDougler wrote: Useless units: Overseer Reaper Carrier
Uninteresting units: Colossus Ultralisk ...There is no terran unit I find uninteresting
Carriers have the highest DPS in the game, and reapers are the best scout unit in the game aside from the observer. I can agree that colossus are boring.
On June 01 2011 02:17 GreatOldOne wrote: Blizzard made a stupid announcement. Marines are the most standard and boring unit in the game, should we remove them?
Seriously, they should start basing their decisions upon good competitive play and not interest.
Blizzard doesn't want SCII to go down much like all the other "competitive" games: with a hidden, small community that the general public really doesn't know/care about. Blizzard is interested in E-Sports, not simple balance between races. Sure, balance is good, but one has to achieve balance without making the game boring to watch/play.
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list
1. Reaper - I would guess this unit is removed in HotS. After the factory before speed nerf it just isnt used enough. It could be reworked into some kind of scouting unit - a use that it sometimes has right now. 2. Hydralisk - When someone says zerg - I think of hydras and zerglings, it's a shame that it isn't that useful :< 3. Corruptor - Has to be the most boring unit in the game.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
1. Macromechanics - Macro should be able to set two players apart in my opinion. Hidden tech etc should give you an advantage but not outright win you the game. Better macro should give you the chance to make up for that disadvantage - which I don't think current mechanics do. How do you change this? Maybe put a cap in how many structures you can have in a control group? Idk 2. Spells and spellcasters - Many of the spells in SC2 are impossible to avoid, which sucks since it lowers a players ability to change the outcome of a battle. FF just stops you, creates a wall that you cannot change. Fungal Growth does a similar thing allowing chain use, that can't be prevented. And powerful spells like Storm/EMP are too easy to use making them even more powerful.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I liked what blizz said about using ragdoll effects for single units, could make small skirmishes cooler to watch ^^
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see 1. Spidermines and Lurkers - They can be used in a siege like fashion and can create tense moments like baneling bombs, also more micro. 2. I just want more units and stuff that can make me go "awwwwmaiiiigaaaaaawd" and bask in the skill of the worlds best players
Lack of LAN support is uninteresting and should be removed.
Now in all honesty, the only units I currently consider under-utilized and thus uninteresting are Carriers, Motherships, Ravens and Reapers - all for different reasons. Carriers are just not worth it in most cases (tech to colossus? Invite enemy to get Air control!), Motherships are too gimmicky of a mechanic to be used on a constant base and way too much of a gamble, Ravens are just under-utilized right now due to the game not being fully discovered in it's aspects yet (and I see a lot of growth potential for Ravens in every matchup) and Reapers are under-utilized due to how hard Blizz struck them with the nerf hammer.
How to fix this? Balance stuff and wait 'till players find solutions with the tools already provided before tinkering with the tools. And patching in LAN support.
Nothing in SC2 is generally uninteresting/broken to the point where it couldn't be mended. There's a lot of potential sleeping in it, it's just that whenever a bit of the potential is tapped (early reaper harass, Thorzain's usage of Thors) Blizz immediately pulls the Nerfhammer to keep the customers playing instead of QQ'ing. Which is wrong by itself. So the balance Blizz needs is in where to listen to it's customers and where not. LAN support? Listen! Constantly tinkering with the units? Don't listen! Easy as that. :/
HSM is a spell I'd like to see be more focal. It's the most expensive spell in the game, really, and it is given an obvious draw back (a unit can just run away from it). It's strong as it is, but I don't think it's strong enough for its cost and drawbacks. It'd be cool if it was something that could be part of a standard Terran lategame, since it gives an interesting dynamic.
-Colossus: Besides being uninteresting it's also boring and requires no micro whatsoever. Range 9, heavy slash damage = The 1a king of SC2. Sad part is that it's a must-have unit for P.
-Marauder: Uninteresting, too much dps with stim vs armor, forces Terran to mass it in TvP and thus killing versatility. This unit combined with the colossus can lead to extremely uninteresting games that end in one short battle, the trademark of SC2.
-Reaper: The pinnacle of failed "COOL" Dustin Browder units. Cool cliff jumping, cool damage vs buildings and cool movement speed led the unit into uselessness after a couple of game fixes.
There is so much more I'd like to type because in my humble opinion the design flaws in SC2 are not only many, but it's also clear there is faulty reasoning behind them.
I really hope we see less "Cool" and more solid, balanced units in HotS; although at this point I really doubt it.
[B] - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
- Thor, Reaper, Hellion - Larva Inject, Formling - game time to real time, remove slower speed, just have faster and the other one for practice league - a merc ahven for terran, citadel of adun for protoss, defiler for zerg^^
If I had to pick one unit it'd have to be the colossus. It seems that protoss is the main ball race and that if the colossus was gone perhaps we'd see more BW-esque back and forth.
Like the earlier poster, I saw the TLO-Haypro SC2BW match (among others) and got nerd chills for the first time since Nestea-sCfOu..
So instead of asking for specific units to be removed I will trust Blizzard to fix the units enough to reach that BW feel, where harass was constant and much less ball-based.
Colossi, Roaches, Thors need to be removed or replaced. Basically their feature unit they kept trying to change over alpha and beta to keep it in the game rather than scrap them entirely and end up with these units hurting the game more then adding to it.
In general, sc2 needs more terrain control emphasis like in BW and less A-move. Games are much more interesting to watch when it isn't just one battle then GG when one ball beats the other.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Corrupter: Only use is to kill massive or go into broodlord; arguably the killing massive thing is extremely situational and they suck at killing colossi anyways. Also, no one uses corruption.
Roach: It's literally just a unit that you mass and a-move. The burrow and burrow movement gimmick is useless past a certain point in the game, and the regen seems negligible. The regeneration aspect is actually interesting, and I think they could play around with that more. Otherwise, the unit is just way too plain, even the hydralisk is more interesting because it is so slow but has good dps.
Reaper: It really has fallen out of use. I suppose it's kinda cool to scout with it.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Blue flame makes hellions way too cost effective. You can literally just run a handful into a base and you will get your investment back plus more. Plus, the unit looks kind of ridiculous.
Corruption is actually the most useless ability in the game. Viking and corrupters are too good versus massive, and explain why cool units like bc's or carriers are never used in games.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Each race has two spellcasters i think, but zerg really only has one since the queen is purely for macro. I'd love for zerg to have a spellcaster that is defensive, and strenghthens zerg units, as opposed to the purely offensive infestor.
Redesign: 1. Colossus 2. Roach 3. Either the Stalker or Hydra
All extremely boring units overall
Mechanics: Buildings need even more hp, or units need to kill them more slowly Conc shells, just do something, a well executed marine split, (or even stutter step) is interesting, well executed rauder kiting is not at all Something with fungal, it doesn't feel very zergy Switch the sentry from critical "get this or you die" caster to actual support (eliminate the chicken and egg of gateway units need to be shitty casue the sentry is godly, and the sentry needs to be godly casue gateway units are shitty) Overall weakening of timings (by all races against all races), this might need corresponding shifts in balance due to focus on late game play (ie, may make it too easy for a zerg's droning to get out of control, but might also allow a toss 'deathball' to be built too easily)
Overall, a stronger distinction between races, roaches and infestors do not feel like zerg units, while I think the baneling is a very flavorful unit, the raven, viking, and (obviously) tank feel like very terran units, while the marauder and thor do not P feels like it should be about templar tech, with the robo being called out for specific situations, and stargate as a possible alternative style, rather than the robo-centric style
Definitly not a boring unit to see in a VOD, but as a player I find very uninteresting to use. Too expensive and long to build in early game where you need not only all the ressources but also all the barrack uptime you have, and after that, in whatever matchup you have medivacs to do drops and raids. And whenever you can find a timing for them, they always need a lot of micro since they rely only on their mobility to be efficient. Not sure what could be done to make them better.
This mechanic is much more specific then the OP's, but I still wanted to talk about it. This ability is useless. It has never been good in any build/patch. The range is short and the animation required for the ability to actually start is painfully long.
I know it's asking a lot, but I would like it that every unit-changing ability had a visual reprensentation. What I mean by that are the shields on the marines or the wings on the speedlings. I don't always get detection vs Zerg, but when I see the glowings spikes on the roaches, I surely do.
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Reaper - you only build it once in game for scouting purpose, they are weak and fragile nothing to have in your 200/200 army cause they get killed as fast as marines, and they cost 50gas. Thor - Ye..the nerf was too harsh. Slow unit, bad dps. only good thing with it is tanking siege tank fire and defend base against mutas. Carrier - i almost never see this unit. There are more uninteresting units but not gonna mention all
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Forcefield - the ability to make choke and cut army to half is just too good, i dunno how to balance it, but i would like blizzard to remove it and find another solution for protoss.
Warpgates - i really dont like this warp-in, during late game is just ridiculous when opponent can reinforce their army asap after trading army in a 200/200 vs 200/200 battle. Warpgates also make protoss too good in huge macro maps, like tal darim altar. It makes protoss macro too forgiving.
Seeker missile - cost too much energy and the upgrade also cost too much. the only time i see ppl use it is in for fun games.
Fungal - stops your units and deal huge dmg at same time, maybe increase energy cost or make it deal less dmg. The main purpose for this spell should be immobilize units, not deal huge dmg.
strike cannon - cost too much energy and it requires research. remove it or nerf dmg a little and make it splash.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Do you remember this post teamliquid? I remember when certain posters were claiming that this game would evolve over time to be less of an amove fest. That was a year ago. Needless to say, it really hasn't evolved any micro.
This game won't have micro as long as infestors have their stupid root spell, and thors-their ridiculous strike cannons. (if thors had a single target gta attack, and a gta area denial splash ability on cooldown, they would become metal, in all meanings of the word) This game won't have micro until moving shot is back. This game won't have interesting micro until the three moving shot mechanics are back (patrol, attack and hold position moving shots) And this game certainly won't have any micro as long as roaches, marauders, corrupters and colossi are in this game. It would help if immortals were made more interesting also.
i wouldnt say what unites dont work we all know !!! but problematic unites that kill skill and bring uninteresting gamplay are ... :
maradres ; stimed, colloss , banglings, force fealds= kill micro and macro...A MOVE GAMEPLAY SUCKS (that is conclusion)
remuve banglings get beck lurkers or something
thors also galioths where much bether simply great unites...
colloss also reivers (worm toss ) where 10 times bether simply less suplay and great skillful unite..
one more thing unites that have 6 sup making game smaler simply sc1 bw is much biger game !!
sc2 is small game with easy replace army gameplay but i think the best staf is sc1 bw large army with easy replace army gameplay.. combine sc1 and sc2 to one uniqe gameplay that is my opinion thx
I would have to say force fields are my #1 ability to fix or remove. It's the reason I hate all protoss matchups, from a spectator perspective and a player perspective (on both sides of the matchup, I play random.)
Mechanically, I'd love if units spread out more.
There are tons of other units and abilities that should be looked at. I hope they're not afraid to be pretty drastic with the changes.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - collossus (uninteresting- to much of a go to unit) - reaper (just ridiculous and pointless was powerful got nerfed, now stupid) - corruptor (AtA only and slow, just a terrible design decision especially for cost)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - don't know I still have issues with mechanics so I dont want to say anything other than the balling needs to stop. The pathing is a little too good and the units just clump too well reducing the effectiveness of melee units in general - actually on second thought: moving shot was such a cool part of BW i wanna see a micro trick like that available in SC2
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - none in particular i play on low so I dont care about the graphics
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? -shield battery, a good carrier and lurkers. Lurkers just added something special to BW and I think that kind of unit in SC2 would be cool too. I mean even if they were scanned they had enough HP to die while trying to do damage.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
My three units would have to be Mothership, Corrupter and the Archon. As nice as the recent Archon changes were, I don't feel they did enough to justify the use of Archons in standard play. Either that, or we still haven't found a good use for them. The Corrupter is a boring unit that is completely useless without air units on the field (contrasted with the Viking and the Phoenix, both with harass potential). And the Mothership... why build one except when there's Halo going on in the background? It's not a force multiplier, it's an expensive, overbearing harass/support unit that allows your deathball point A to point B mobility. While it has neat uses at some points (like the Archon), investing in a Mommaship far outweighs the gain most of the time.
I think the MULE mechanic could use a bit of look. I also think there could be some focus on the Warp Prisim. It's a neat idea, but it costs a bit too much for what it can do. There is a reason we don't see doom drops out of the Protoss, and it's the cost of the unit that's prohibiting that strategy.
No graphics tweaks, I play on Medium/Low to get the best framerate/so I'm not distracted by all the pretty lights.
I'd love to see more upgrades that allow my already existing units to do different things. In the HOTS preview, we saw different types of banelings that act in different ways. Additional upgrades would allow customization within the game, and change the value of certain terrain. I agree that terrain must become more valuable in HOTS otherwise games will continue to be unimpressive. Day9 refers to specific units like Lurkers as "space controlling units", and with more space controlling units, games will become more about positioning and terrain usage than they are about '1a2a3a4a gg wp'
I like the Thor as a unit, but it needs to have its energy bar removed and given a new special ability rather than the cannon, having no special abilities on the unit seems rather bland. HTs should not act as a counter to Thors. Thors should not act as a counter to Immortals.
The Overseer, like they mentioned is just a bad unit.
The Corruptor is boring.
Marines are too good and need a slight nerf to DPS.
Marauders are boring as they're just bigger beefier Marines that can't shoot up.
The Colossus breaks the game altogether.
If the Colossus and Marine were to get nerfed, I think the Baneling should get nerfed too. (I call them the big 3 offenders)
The Reaper needs something to make it useful.
Ravens are good, but never worth getting. HSM is crap.
The Immortal is good, but needs something extra IMO.
The Hydra is too expensive and ineffective, yet still somehow too strong to buff directly.
The Ultralisk sucks.
I'm not sure I like Fungal Growth as a spell and I'd like to see the Infestor casting all his spells while burrowed.
Archons are better than before, but still ineffective.
I hate the Void Ray as a unit.
The Carrier is nothing more than a more expensive/slower/less effective Void Ray at this point.
The Mothership needs to go away, bring the Arbiter back.
Cloaked Banshees are available too quickly IMO, Cloak should take at least another minute compared to the current game.
I think Siege Tanks could do a bit better vs Armored units.
There should be some way to stop forcefields in the early game.
I think thats it for the current units in the game IMO.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Queen Warp Prism, less speed and non warpable and more hp
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Creep spread on hatch should be a larger radius Creep bonus should be reworked. Hatch should have a better creep spawn when its finished, you cant land a spine crawler before its done, but bunker/pylon/cannons can be. IMO stuff like chronoboost/OC/queen are unneeded
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Units to do more damage; to make units actually meaningful not just, MACRO np. Zerg buildings to have a upg that would increase its armour/hp since if it gets sniped by a drop in the late game its almost autolose, whereas other races its just 1 less unit producing structure. Less units with 'active' spells on them, blink, charge,ff,c shells etc and have more deadly casters or something
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Tier 1/1.5 that zerg can use to hit air, fending off a drop ship is impossible with a queen, all races can hit air.
IMO games need to be more on strategy and postioning.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I'll just add a quick 2 cents here, I wish they had some options for the health bars, such as transparency settings or size or something that the user can adjust to make them a little less clumpy looking and chaotic at times.
This. I agree completely. Yes I am Zerg but i DO NOT think that Protoss is OP. I just think it would make the game a bit harder for Protoss if there wasnt a Colossus. Ofc there should be an other filler, but IMO the colossus is the reason why Protoss is: just relax n' max.
Most of this thread is really out-of-touch. Fungal growth is by far the most boring and poorly designed ability in the game and all people are doing is bitching about colossus.
On June 01 2011 02:26 KimJongChill wrote: - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Each race has two spellcasters i think, but zerg really only has one since the queen is purely for macro. I'd love for zerg to have a spellcaster that is defensive, and strenghthens zerg units, as opposed to the purely offensive infestor.
I agreed with most of your entire post so I left it out except for the end.
Defensive spellcaster? I'm fairly certain that transfuse is an excellent spell when used defensively: on spine crawlers who are stopping early aggresion, on Brood Lords who are breaking a slowpushing Terran siege, really anything that needs to be healed.
Perhaps a way to enhance the usefulness of a queen, is with Lair tech give an option to increase Queens' energy regeneration rate by 2x-3x, but once you get the upgrade they can only have one injection at a hatchery at a time as well as limit the creep tumors that can be spawned by a queen by adding a CD, so zerg has the ability to have transfuses in the mid-game without having to go mass queen. It'd make the ability to defend much easier (not like queens will be pushing off creep anytime soon) and reward those with great reaction time.
Basically, I, like many people on this forum, want SC2 to be an updated version of BW with nicer and shiner graphics, fuck all of these new units, we need to go back to BW and never try nothing new.
top 3 worst units in my opinion: 1. with a huge lead : Colossus 2. Corruptor. The units kind of fills his role but its not an interesting design and its ability isnt that good either. 3. Probably Overseer, none of its spells are really useful. Maybe in some rare situation contaminate, but only to delay for example an upgrade timing... Basically it just feels like a scout and sometimes detector, but with a cool speel it could be pretty cool imo.
I really thing terran is pretty good designed (maybe except for marauders, but i cant judge that good cause im not terran), but im sure Zerg will get some new stuff for the expansion .
This. I agree completely. Yes I am Zerg but i DO NOT think that Protoss is OP. I just think it would make the game a bit harder for Protoss if there wasnt a Colossus. Ofc there should be an other filler, but IMO the colossus is the reason why Protoss is: just relax n' max.
abit harder? you do realize that the toss is almost always dead when no collosus? ...
On June 01 2011 02:39 Penecks wrote: - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I'll just add a quick 2 cents here, I wish they had some options for the health bars, such as transparency settings or size or something that the user can adjust to make them a little less clumpy looking and chaotic at times.
one thing here: checkbox: enable/disable for zerglings only
to me it would be better to do it the other way round, name some "not bad" mechanics rather than naming a whole long list of fail mechanics/tweaks/buildings/units. and sometimes its just so hard to name something good..
just because i play starcraft doesnt mean that it is really good, there is just no better and more popular games out there.
Immortal for being too niche and just infuriatingly fat. I like the shield mechanic but otherwise hate the unit. Corruptor for being booooring and so specific. Raven for having pretty terrible abilities, and being really ugly. eta: oh how could I forget the marauder! boring buff marine that can't shoot up.
I like pretty much everything else. Including the much maligned collosus. There are at least 5 units that are more boring than the poor collossus but he gets all the stick
Suddenly there is room to change tons of other Units because P compositions with Colossus in them are just forcing certain counter units while making other units nearly useless.
Corruptor and Overseer are the most boring units in the game.
Vikings seem only to exist to kill Colossus and Broodlords (thats a little boring, isn't it)...
Please take these out blizzard. Hydras are so much more interesting than roaches, goliaths would be great for terran and collosus just make the game boring.
Units that need major tweaking Reaper: Needs some sort of function in the midgame Ultralisk: Maybe needs some help with the ai so it doesn't retardly hit 1 unit Carrier: Have you ever seen a carrier in the GSL? I don't remember it. I've used it in team games where people go NR 15. I think the carrier would see a lot more use if terran's didn't blindly make vikings against protoss (for collosus). Mothership: This seems like a unit which could be interesting, but it's build time and investment means that even in games that last 45 mins it won't see much use.
To people who want the colloxen gone: what AOE should Protoss get to make up for it? They HAVE to have AOE or marines/roaches/hydra etc will own them, so..
I think an interesting concept that should make it into the multiplayer is an "excluding" research / upgrade.
What I mean is that one research locking out another option. For example: 1. Getting Roach speed locks out burrowed movement 2. templar archives unlocks DT + HT, but building one locks out the other
It sounds like the single player zerg campaign is doing something along these lines so I think it would be a way to do something new to the multiplayer.
I will try to name units that aren't "popular" in the "bad unit list" - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? > Stalkers: In state of the game tyler stated that protoss would need a "better" harassment unit. Stalkers can be redesigned to fulfill that role (the name and the blink+mobility mechanic is very good at that) instead of being the "core" of a protoss army. Their lack of scaling/raw power I believe is what causes the "colossus problem".
> Queen: Lay tumors, spawn larva, kill some harassment and block ramps - can even heal! They may be the super defender of zerg early game (esp vs air atks), but is mostly very /shrug mid-late game. I would like to see the queen being able to move away from her rather passive role to a more active one: allow her to be integrated into your main army!
> Sensor towers: I don't know why anyone haven't mentioned this and that I haven't seen it used to its fullest in competitive play. Good sensor tower placements completely shut down any drops/harass/element of surprised at a ridiculous range.
1) Corruptor: pure Air to Air with a terrible spell. Zergs only make them against Colossus or obviously for Brood Lords.
2) Ultralisk: Terrible unit that is not worth it's cost. Shadow of it's past form.
3) Archon: Same as the Ultra. Overall bad unit that's not worth it and the intended design of scavenging HTs in the middle of the battle didn't work out.
Units that I like, but need some tweaking:
1) Reaper: The concept is awesome. However, the nerfs made it utterly useless in any serious match.
2) Viking: I like the air to ground dynamic a lot, but I'd like to see it developed into something meaningful, rather than a gimmick.
3) Overseer: I wouldn't agree with all the overlords being detectors again. Protoss and Terran have do invest some resources on detection, so I would hope Zerg to do the same. I'd just like to give corruption better range and make it work on defenses. Also, maybe giving it some of the defensive abilities that the queen had during alpha would be bad.
Regarding mechanics, I'd love to have units spread out, just like there was a thread somewhere in this forums mentioning. This could also mean that splash units can be made more powerful too. Also, I wish they pretty much changed the economy as Lalush mentioned in his article. There's little point going past 3-4 bases and there's too much supply attached to workers.
On June 01 2011 02:52 Yaotzin wrote: To people who want the colloxen gone: what AOE should Protoss get to make up for it? They HAVE to have AOE or marines/roaches/hydra etc will own them, so..
What about a unit that needs at least a little micro to be effective and isn't just some kind of Supersiegetank (nearly all his strenghts, nearly no of it's weaknesses except no aa).
On June 01 2011 02:52 Yaotzin wrote: To people who want the colloxen gone: what AOE should Protoss get to make up for it? They HAVE to have AOE or marines/roaches/hydra etc will own them, so..
ehm you have storm and forcefield atm, but lets not make this thread a balance whine thread.
Makes Terran un-interesting as it is too multi-purpose. Terran had more character in BW because it was a "positional" race which was extremely powerful when "set-up" but lacked mobility.
Terran needs Mech buffs and the Maurader needs to be altered/replaced.
- Collosi
Such a boring 1a unit.
If we need to keep it, make it slower and have a "setup" time like a siege tank.
I'd rather change it than remove it since it is a cool looking unit and the cliff walking thing is neat.
- Zergling
This unit needs to have an upgrade that allows it to run down cliffs from high ground. It would strengthen Zergs "mobility/surround" characteristics.
I believe the Colossi were originally intended to be a high-risk, high-reward type of unit that excels at killing units with low hitpoints but takes lots of damage itself from both ground and air; however what we have now is a walking building that burns everything that's not flying. At least Colossi offers positional play, by trying to flank it, or getting them separated from the main army. I think that people try to point them out as fail design, and be worst than it actually is, because they're so popular, and that templar tech sucks rather.
As for my fail designs choice: #1: The Corruptor, Blizzard themselves admitted it was a fail by removing its initial concept altogether! Once the concept was dumped, the same should be done with this unit. Giving it a spell that increases damage it just not enough. It's also too slow to feel 'zergy'.
#2: The Mothership, I agree with other people on this one, should've stayed in the single-player and lore. It's a very cool idea, but impractical
#3: the MULE, I never liked the weird looking super-SCV, with the sole purpose of its existence...to give you moar minerals? Yes, I know it can be a mobile technician you called to repair your car on the tollway, but still, it didn't seem that interesting to me. Although, most people accepted its place in the game. I would be interesting if Terran had a different macro-mechanics, but I guess this is too late now.
As far as Zerg goes, I find the corruptor completely dull. I hope they rework it. Also the hydra is kinda boring compared to its BW counterpart (not sure why).
A lot of people are talking about the marauder and the reaper as being units that needs to be changed, and I completely agree. The problem right now seems to be that the marauder is way too useful... It does a huge amount of damage to armored armies as well as structures. The real problem is the damage to structures, especially combined with stim. It should be the function of the reaper to be the building sniper.
On June 01 2011 02:52 Yaotzin wrote: To people who want the colloxen gone: what AOE should Protoss get to make up for it? They HAVE to have AOE or marines/roaches/hydra etc will own them, so..
ehm you have storm and forcefield atm, but lets not make this thread a balance whine thread.
Storm yes, but I don't think it would be interesting if Protoss is forced to go templar every single game. It would be like going collo every game, except there literally would be zero other options. At least now one can transition out of collo..
FF helps, but it has its limits. The *only* reason stuff like pure marine/hydra doesn't work is because of aoe.
This isn't about balance, it's about design. Units like marines scale incredibly well with numbers. Either the opposition needs a unit that scales just as well, or they need aoe. You can't buff gateway units or gateway pushes are imba because of warpgates. So aoe it is.
What about a unit that needs at least a little micro to be effective and isn't just some kind of Supersiegetank (nearly all his strenghts, nearly no of it's weaknesses except no aa).
I disagree that collo don't require micro, but regardless. What then? A siege tank that isn't a Protoss siege tank?
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
On June 01 2011 02:52 Yaotzin wrote: To people who want the colloxen gone: what AOE should Protoss get to make up for it? They HAVE to have AOE or marines/roaches/hydra etc will own them, so..
ehm you have storm and forcefield atm, but lets not make this thread a balance whine thread.
(it's essentially four, going on five, pages of balance whine as it is)
1. Overseer / Changeling 2. Voidray (I preferred old voidray mechanics even if the unit was broken, keeping charge just doesn't feel as important anymore) 3. SC2 Archon, the unit is just way less cool than in BW. 4. warp-ins: Unit should receive some penalty for this (i.e. bonus damage during warp), or even better give some real reason to have regular gateways. 5. Chrono boost: It's just some timid. Obviously using it well makes a big difference, but it's just really not important enough. You could almost never chrono boost in a whole game and barely notice, it also doesn't have great tension, it's mostly between probes and units and once you get the hang of it it's pretty simple. There's also on a huge timing aspect of it, for the most part if you have it, you want to use it, but that's hard so people don't. 6. Plantary fortress: Terran already have a great static unit, and I would like it if the PF-type mechanic had good synergy with it, but I don't like the idea of it needing no units to defend well, I get that mobility is lower and that needs to be dealt with, but somehow it should involve units to be more dynamic and make unit movement matter more.
LOOk ppl we all love and know that sc1 bw was and is one of best RTS and best strategy game by now.....
what would i do if i am disigner of sc2 ....
i would take sc1 bw and in my expiriance by whatching playing hearing riding on sc2 i would add some unites and abilitys...
this meens i take all sc1 bw have first part !! EVERYTHING FROM SC1 BW
what i would add from sc2 is what unites abylitys and staf is :
TERRAN
i would add medivac (medic + shutle)
i would add for maby maraders but to not be this much strong to be like firebrtahs but vs armored...
i would add ravens=his abilitys are cool but without spider mines thay are usluse...
PROTOS
i would add sentuery to toss but without Force Fealds but with guarding shild and halucination...
i would add void rays to toss
add blink to dragons
add warp prism
ZERG
add quin
to zerg i would add rouchs
also to zerg i would add banglings but not like unites (but more like ability to zergling morph in to and stay like spider mines from terran (difrent wersion of spider mines) SPIDER MINES=banglings abylity =no cost to morph in to yust resuce for zerglings
economic staf from sc2 : mules cronobust larvas all that also should be add in this...
This if you noticed is all good staf from sc2 to murge in sc1 bw that is my opinion how could made this game to be the best as it can... but that will be yust beginig
i would make game like that what you ppl think ? thx for reading
What this thread just triggered in me was that spellcasters don't do anything "unique" anymore. Dark swarm being an AOE shield against ranged attacks, anything like that I don't see anymore. It's just "lower hp in a different fashion" all over the place which is why I understand the corruptor hate.
Also make the Mothership slightly more worth getting. Only good use is KiWi's blink-recall.
There's a lot of stuff in this thread that amazes me tbh.. If you get another detector, you'll have to lose scans, simple as that.
Terran get better drop capabilities? What? They're a ton better than toss at it, simply because medivacs have a secondary useage, which is a strong usage at that
Post longer down saying to remove FF. Really? Are there still people who do not get this? FF is the core mechanic of gateway armies, without FF they're not nearly as cost efficent than terran and zerg's t1. If FF was removed toss gateway units would have to be buffed severely, creating huge problems with stronger 4gates, extremly potent full gateway midgame play (Which already works fine with good upgrades) and just all around making the game more bland, as the toss race's core mechanics would just start to be more simmilar with terran and zerg
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? >Collosus Warp Prism, would be cool if it could function more as a support unit somehow >Roach, its just boring and its existence makes me sad - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. >Force Field, thought it was cool at first, turns out it just denies micro, unit positon, fun. toss also relies on it too much, and in the current bnet lag environment, is not a good thing >Sensor towers: give them to zerg lol :D - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? >color changes, more contrast between units and background >more multitasking, as in, i want the game to force me to allocate attention to specific tasks, increasing the efficiency of that task. i just feel multitasking as a resource isn't represented enough atm - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? things that require attention, positioning, etc
On June 01 2011 03:01 XenoX101 wrote: Please for the love of christ don't remove forcefield, it's quite possibly the most interesting balance mechanic implemented in an RTS yet.
corruptors+overseers are definetly uninteresting/bad. i also think infested terran needs a rework, something witha possession kind of mechanic like banshee in wc3
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
1. Colossus: Cool looking model, but other than that it's probably the most boring unit in the game. Encourages boring deathball gameplay, has no "hype" factor (people will cheer over a reaver, never over a colossus), has very little micro potential (a newbie using a colossus is pretty much 99% identical to a pro using a colossus), and requires the protoss units to be balanced around them due to how powerful they are. 2. Roach: Generic A-move unit outside of the occasional burrow. Blizzard had a lot of ideas for this unit with their burrow mechanics and regeneration, but over the beta they continuously stripped all of that down. The roach is pretty much a failed concept that Blizzard kept trying to make work but ultimately never did. It also doesn't help that the roach pretty much forces the hydralisk to be useless outside of its specific AA role because Blizzard doesn't want them to overlap. 3. Reaper: Got nerfed to uselessness after their overpowered period during beta. Also a perfect example of role overlapping as terran already has more than enough harass units as it is, so the reaper is just a rather expensive alternative to an oversaturated role. Either needs to be removed or reworked to have a different role.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
The unit pathing is one. We had a major thread over this a while back, but it really showed how much better the game looks when units aren't so clustered up. Makes battles look larger, makes army positioning and control much more important, and makes the game much easier to spectate. Also helps it so melee units don't insta-melt to ranged. Maybe now we can have speedlots be scary again, instead of just meatshields.
Another mechanic that could use changing is warp-in. It's way too powerful for what it is, and basically forces gateway units to be weak in order to compensate. I feel that they should make it so that players actually have to choose between Gateways and Warpgates. Adds more strategy and balances out the ridiculousness of warp-in.
And finally, I feel that there should be either a removal or reworking over "anti-micro" abilities like fungal growth, concussive shell, and force field. Micro is more entertaining when both sides are involved rather than just one player making the decisions and the receiving player being utterly helpless before it. Storm dodging in BW was exciting because it took skill not just from the protoss casting it, but also skill from the other person to dodge them. SC2 needs more dynamics like this, and having such cheap, readily available anti-micro abilities hurts that.
Blizzard might have their own ideas on this, but I do feel that concussive shells absolutely needs to go. Terran can already kite just fine with stim, conc shells just makes it excessive, and actually makes it so that it's harder for the opposing player to choose their battles because conc shells force engagements.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
I'm mostly satisfied with the graphics, but I'm really hoping that Blizzard will rework the sounds and voices. Even after a year, I'm still not happy with the sounds in SC2. I find this surprising because even though it's the same company, the Diablo 3 sound effects are down right amazing while the SC2 sounds are weak and pitiful. Just look at the D3 rune videos and just listen to how awesome it sounds (http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/runestones.xml). Blizzard needs to get the SC2 sound team to learn from the D3 guys, because the difference in quality is staggering.
Voice-wise, I'm hoping that the zerg and protoss get better voices. The terrans are mostly good, but I'm rather bothered by how they did the alien races. The zerg voices in general don't sound very distinct. The hydralisk, corrupter, and brood lord in particular all sound almost the same, and the voices in general sound much more subdued then they were in SC1. The protoss also have problems in the fact they don't sound nearly as powerful and wise as they are supposed to be. Blizzard has always been a big supporter of the fact that it's not enough for a unit to look powerful. They have to sound, move, and attack in a way that it all looks powerful.
This philosophy seems to be more or less ignored for SC2 (although D3 follows it pretty well). Take the High Templar for example. Lore-wise they are supposed to be ridiculously intelligent, wise, and powerful. Almost like they exist on a higher level than anything else. This was reflected in the SC1 voice where it really sounded other-worldly, but the SC2 voice sounds just like some regular old man. Same goes to the SC2 dark templar, who sound like they need sore throat medicine. Then you have the carrier, which lacks the loud, booming voice it had in SC1. I don't know, I just don't like how the protoss are being handled in SC2. It also doesn't help that they basically get their shit slapped around by terrans on a regular basis in the campaign. Really hoping Blizzard takes another look at this.
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Any kind of positional/siege unit for all three races. In BW, the races had the tank, lurker, and reaver fulfilling this role. All of them very interesting and fun units to both watch and use. The removal of the lurker and reaver really hurt their respective races in my opinion. Positional/siege units are fun to watch, have a lot of micro potential, make comebacks possible, prolong battles, prevent "game only has one big battle and ends" syndrome, and are a big part of the S in RTS. I'm not saying that Blizzard should just put bring back the lurker and reaver. They can be completely new units if Blizzards wants, just as long as they fill the positional/siege role.
Other than that, I'm hoping that any new units or revamped old units are made so that they have a skill-cap in how they are used. SC2, especially protoss, has way too many A-move units that encourage boring games. So far, terrans are the only race that is really micro-intensive, and I definitely don't think it's a coincidence that T matchups are generally regarded as the most entertaining. As long as Blizzard adheres to that philosophy, SC2 should be a much better game.
It's because of spawn larva that zerg units have to suck so much...
Because zerg can switch between mass drones/mass units so easily, our units have to be terrible at attacking (ex. hydra) so that we cant just go kill the opponent. If they nerfed spawn larva to 2-3 extra larva, then they could buff all zerg units.
Colossus - just boring, you can't even stutter step with them. Corruptor and it's ability - puts me to sleep, there is no micro or excitement in using them Roach/hydra - Roach is kinda cool, especially with burrow movement. Hydras are usually forced by air, same for corruptors.
They need to disrupt the caster circlejerk as I call it, to counter casters, you need casters of your own ideally, because every single one of them has abilities that disrupt other spellcasters. Those abilities are instant, so there's no room for reaction.
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
Units that I think need a redesign; Marauder just feels like a beefier marine. Nothing special about it and giving it stim and slow, makes it way too cost efficient against toss, early on. Mothership No one managed to find a use for this unit so far. Better suited for the campaign, but not in multiplayer. Carrier Solid unit, but maybe because of the new unit movement/clumping mechanic it seems like a relic from the past. I don't see it as a good unit in SC2. Colossus One base colossus is still better than any expand build in PvP. That indicates something is wrong with it. Corruptor Feels boring and plain. If you ask me to list the zerg units I will most probably forget about this one. Hellion Surely they can use a bit more imagination when designing this thing, A crappy car with a flamethrower on top? Boring, its gameplay use is still good though, but its looks are very annoying.
Zerg 1. Roach - Can be massed in huge numbers very very fast. It's also a bit too hard to kill early on. 2. Corruptor - It kills Collosi and that's the only thing it does. Scourges could fulfill that role just as well. 3. Overseer - Too expensive way of mobile detection, which does almost nothing useful. Contamination is great, but we rarely get to see it.
Terran 1. Marauder - Slow is fine. Stim is fine. But Slow + Stim makes it a bit of an unfair unit. 2. Thor - Great vs. clumped up Mutas and that's about it. Still unsure if the Strike Cannon has any usefulness to be honest. 3. Raven - Has abilities we never get to see. Apart from mobile detector and PDD vs. Vikings/Stalkers, it serves no other purpose.
Protoss 1. Void Ray - They were fine with the Flux Vains. Now they're getting more and more utterly useless. 2. Immortal - A unit that's designed to be the "tank" in your army and take damage, but it actually serves as damage dealer. Maybe if Hardened Shield was a spell which could be casted to make it immortal for like 5 seconds, it would've been more useful. 3. Mothership - Just stupid. End of the tech tree and it's rather just a "showing off" unit, then something which can be useful. Archon Toilets were fine, not sure why they removed them.
On June 01 2011 02:20 Elefanto wrote: from a protoss point of view, these 3 units destroy most of the dynamics within the game.
uninteresting:
marauder roach colossus
Everyone has so much dps potential for their cost by simply a-moving, That's bad and makes for uninteresting games.
Also i'm a bit scared, because they say "some units aren't cool". Imo it's not about beeing cool / not cool, it's more about the usability and not how gimmicky a unit is. maybe i missinterpreted it a bit D:.
i would like to see a redesign as well for: hydras (too expensive and slow. isn't zergish at all) reaper (nerfed into oblivion, has good harass potential) immortal (a-move unit in bigger battles, hilariously expensive, slow, low range)
I agree, especially with the uninteresting units. Those 3 really destroy the game based on how powerful and easy to use they are.
Colossus: Instead of the instant AoE laser attack that it does now, change its attack into something "similar" to the Reaver attack from BW, where it shoots a missile which deals high splash damage. This orb (think something similar to a photon cannon missile) would be fired at the *position* of units, instead of the units itself (ie. not like a photon cannon, where the missile follows the target and hits no matter what) and move somewhat slower than a photon cannon orb.
This opens up the possibility for enemy players to micro away from the attacks of the Colossus, although it should be hard.
Additionally, it should open up for Colossus harass/drop-micro being viable.
All the mechanics that allows people to get their units out faster, like chrono and inject larva. It's stupid how fast you can max out in sc2. Where's the early and midgame? Around the 15 minute mark (in game time) it's very common to be 200/200 with several thousand resources banked.
The maxed out battles are usually just an a-move anyways, so thats very uninteresting. I always hear people talking about "macro games" and how it supposedly takes more skill. Well, sitting around making workers for the first 10 minutes (yep, you kinda get all the workers you need for the whole game the first 10 minutes) and then just a-moving into eachother isn't very fun to me.
It may sound like I'm hating alot on the game, but I looove the game. I just honestly feel like there needs to be some major changes to make the game more interesting.
When it comes to units, colossus quickly comes to mind. Sadly there aren't alot of options either. High Templars are very risky to get for the first clashes, as just one or two bad storms could lose you the battle. Immortals are pretty uninteresting too. For Terran I'd say marauder and hellion (and large bioballs in general). For Zerg it's definitely the corruptor.
1.The Hydralisk. Reason: No micro possibilities. All ground based micro and tier 1 goodness is inheritted by the speedy roach. The roach even needs micro because of its low range. I'd like to see a renovation like the dragoon to stalker. The new unit would be under the same role but a different model and a new mechanic.
2.The Ultralisk. Reason: No micro. Usually using the ultra is dependant on your opponent not microing very well, or having to do other things around the map. While the ultra can be useful at times, I think bliz could get a better tier 3 unit. Again, the ultra could easily switch models and gain an ability, just like the dragoon to stalker transition.
3.The Corruptor. Reason: Bland unit with a bland ability. This unit can be salvaged with a creative replacement for the +25% damage ability. For example: blind from SC1, a creep utility spell, or some type of harass.
I think all units need to have graphic design tweaks and better colouring. Banelings and zerglings looks great with team colour, and colour would help both players and spectators.
But seriously folks, the most "wtf why would they do this" units in WoL were the Marauder, Roach, Corruptor, Colossus, Overseer, and Hydralisk.
I really, really despised the addition of roaches and marauders, because it in essence destroyed the interesting tier 1 dynamic between the three races in Broodwar by essentially giving every race a dragoon. I feel like Roaches and Marauders are just too good as a generalist unit, and some of their counters are ineffective for a variety of reasons. It weakens the dynamic between races and makes the other tier 1 units (marines vs. protoss, Zerglings in all matchups, banelings vs protoss) feel useless.
The corruptor needs a complete and utter revamp. Not only is it by far one of the worst units in the game at fulfilling its role (it doesn't even counter colossus cost effectively), it's just plain boring as hell. The corruption spell will, at the very most, amount to roughly 10 to 20 extra damage taken for a single unit most of the time. It's expensive as hell gas wise yet can't even "dominate" the air despite having no other uses. Even though devourers were barely used in BW, they were infinitely more creative as a unit and more useful as an air to air solution. They were a support unit that synergized with your other anti air rather than just a unit made for pure damage.
And of course, like everyone else said, the Colossus, since it is a boring 1-a unit that destroys all matchups in the game by being so powerful that everything you and your opponent does has to revolve around it.
The hydralisk and Overseer being bad and cost ineffective isn't anything new. Either move hydras back to tier 1 and turn them back into an anti-armored and anti-air unit or do something extreme with them at tier 2. They can't stay the way they are; they're just dead-weight units that Zergs make only because their other anti-air options are even worse.
But really the core of all problems in Starcraft 2 are centered around the macro-mechanics (and warp-in) and the balance decisions that Blizzard was forced to do in order to shoe-horn those mechanics into the game. Zerg units and zerg armies are terrible late-game because of inject. Protoss gateway units are so awful and so reliant on forcefields because of warp-in. People complain about marines mainly because Mules give terran excess minerals and they can dump it on such an effective unit. I wouldn't mind seeing all the aforementioned mechanics either de-emphasized or moved to tier 2. Plus it'd force more macro games.
Chrono-boost is the only macro mechanic that actually is interesting and seems to add real depth to the game.
I really think that most of the air units need redesigning to make the game more interesting. Obviously phoenixes, mutalisks, medivacs are fine and MAYBE void rays and battlecruisers are fine too (now that BC's have found a use in TvT).
-Carriers are cool but maybe with a reduced build time they would become more popular? -Ravens PDD is actually too good in some situations, whereas HSM seems pretty lackluster, autoturrets last for 3 minutes... -Vikings are pretty much only used as a hardcounter unit and have no real synergy with a Terran army; snipe colossus in TvP, only unit that can effectively kill broodlords, fight for air control in TvT -Corruptors are like an even more useless version of the viking, only redeeming quality is that they transform into broodlords -Broodlords should just be made into Guardians. Broodlings make it way to difficult to approach broodlords with any reasonable Terran unit composition. Maybe terran's lack of late game ground to air options is the culprit
I dunno I have a lot more thoughts on this but I'm at work and too lazy to finish lol
>Warp prisms are very rarely used, because they cut into Observer/Colossi/Immortal build time. Maybe they should build from Stargate or Nexus instead, or even the Cyber Core itself?
>Carriers should have decreased build time and/or be buffed in some way. They're only viable in team games with mass carriers with the way they are at the moment.
>Motherships aren't useful enough for their cost.
>Corrupters should either be removed completely and Mutalisks given the two "specialized morphs", or Corrupters need to be fixed to actually do something in ZvT or to be useful after killing Colossi in ZvP. Right now, Corrupters as a unit are useless (except vs Colossi), and morphing to BLs are all they're used for.
>Ultralisks are too weak for their cost.
>Sensor Towers should be given to Zerg, and maybe even a PF-esque upgrade for Zerg Lairs/Hives?
terran: viking- this is a beastly anti air unit that can be amassed two at a time at the starport. late game terran can have 3 of these with reactors making it nearly impossible for other races to use air to any effect. in bw (prolly gonna get flamed for comparison) protoss could surprise terran by switching to carriers. currently if the terran plays his cards right just the threat alone of being able to switch production will prevent protoss from making any air. same goes for zerg. broodlords will get trounced by these range 10 fighters. obviously would require a placement, wraith?
zerg: roach- moreso because it is difficult to remove any of the units, but i feel these bad boys are too easily massed by themselves and do a ton of damage for the amount they cost. in a zerg 300 food push the ability to stream powerful roaches quickly in to an enemies base makes it difficult to recover.
protoss: removing a protoss unit makes is difficult in the sense that you will make one build less viable than the others. currently protoss can unlock the templar, robotics, or stargate but doing too many of these too quickly will kill you. if you remove high templar then protoss is more likely to go colossus and vice versa. still the colossus makes it difficult in that its a huge investment and more than likely forces air from the other races. air makes stargates less viable and therefore i would probably have the colossus tweaked even though it's a core unit of mine when playing protoss :/
On June 01 2011 03:16 Dystisis wrote: If I were to do one thing, it would be this:
Colossus: Instead of the instant AoE laser attack that it does now, change its attack into something "similar" to the Reaver attack from BW, where it shoots a missile which deals high splash damage. This orb (think something similar to a photon cannon missile) would be fired at the *position* of units, instead of the units itself (ie. not like a photon cannon, where the missile follows the target and hits no matter what) and move somewhat slower than a photon cannon orb.
This opens up the possibility for enemy players to micro away from the attacks of the Colossus, although it should be hard.
Additionally, it should open up for Colossus harass/drop-micro being viable.
that's a fantastic idea imo.
you could make an animation for the colossus in which it charges up to fire the beam / cannon / laser whatever. you have to manually order a colossus to attack in a certain area for instance. no smart-casting, you would have to do each one individually. maybe make it even so that it displays a mark like the nuke for the enemy so that he can dodge it with micro.
Collosus - never liked them as a P player, was just a more boring version of siege tank. Mothership - not much to say here, except as a gimmic it is largely useless. Corruptor - only really used vs collosus/stalker mixes, and if protoss goes carrier or terran goes BCs.
On June 01 2011 03:16 Dystisis wrote: If I were to do one thing, it would be this:
Colossus: Instead of the instant AoE laser attack that it does now, change its attack into something "similar" to the Reaver attack from BW, where it shoots a missile which deals high splash damage. This orb (think something similar to a photon cannon missile) would be fired at the *position* of units, instead of the units itself (ie. not like a photon cannon, where the missile follows the target and hits no matter what) and move somewhat slower than a photon cannon orb.
This opens up the possibility for enemy players to micro away from the attacks of the Colossus, although it should be hard.
Additionally, it should open up for Colossus harass/drop-micro being viable.
that's a fantastic idea imo.
you could make an animation for the colossus in which it charges up to fire the beam / cannon / laser whatever. you have to manually order a colossus to attack in a certain area for instance. no smart-casting, you would have to do each one individually. maybe make it even so that it displays a mark like the nuke for the enemy so that he can dodge it with micro.
would be hella fun to use / micro against.
So its basically a faster reaver that can walk up cliffs. I like it! Reaver was cooler anyway, just bring it back and call it the collosus. Fixed.
1) Uninteresting units: Thor, Marauder, Marauder, Marauder. They are so uninteresting. BW army composition was much cooler without a backbone unit such as Marauders.
I disagree that Marines were uninteresting. I think they are very interesting for a variety of reason. For example they make splash damage important (Colossi, Storm, Fungal, Baneling, Siegetank), are the maybe most extreme example of units that only work in certain numbers (they scale well due to their range and small size, but suffer from beeing too many and being taken out by aoe -> only good in middle sizes). And they have an interesting concept of mobility, because you can spread groups of them everywhere and they still are effective. This is especially seen in Boxer's play versus Zerg, sometimes showing absolutely brilliant moments.
2) Mechanics: The fact that there only are so few positional units such as siege tanks. The fact that map control not important enough for that reason. The fact that Protoss doesn't even like taking map control versus terra, because there is no use in doing so. Because of lack of Marauders aka. super fast running super strong backbone combat unit, Terran relied on both positioning (slow moving siege tank heavy armies) and Map control (vultures and mines) in brood war. Since this element of struggle for map control faded, it's boring now imo. Then, the clumping and moving of units, which makes single units not important enough. I think that a well positioned single siege tank in BW was able to do much more than in SC2, because it is easier to close in on it and kill it, because units move so well. Also AoE became very unspectacular, because it only affects so small areas because it would be imbalanced otherwise, because units clump so strongly.
Also: Worker saturation, because it's quite annoying that expanding past three bases doesn't benefit a player at all.
3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
Overall: Yes, what I basically am saying is that most significant changes that distinguish SC2 from Broodwar were poorly made. But I'm not just saying so just because I don't want changes, but because I don't see anything good coming from them. I just want to be the game to be good.
On June 01 2011 03:16 Dystisis wrote: If I were to do one thing, it would be this:
Colossus: Instead of the instant AoE laser attack that it does now, change its attack into something "similar" to the Reaver attack from BW, where it shoots a missile which deals high splash damage. This orb (think something similar to a photon cannon missile) would be fired at the *position* of units, instead of the units itself (ie. not like a photon cannon, where the missile follows the target and hits no matter what) and move somewhat slower than a photon cannon orb.
This opens up the possibility for enemy players to micro away from the attacks of the Colossus, although it should be hard.
Additionally, it should open up for Colossus harass/drop-micro being viable.
Yeah this sounds pretty cool. As long as it isn't completely fucking retarded and mostly luck like the reaver's shot was ^_^
I think the game needs more cool map features, like the xelnaga towers.
There needs to be incentive to leave your base and go out and fight over points of contention. For example, in wc3, if you stood in your base you would get owned because your opponent is killing all the creeps getting xp, items, gold, access to shops/mercenaries and clearing expo locations.
Maybe like some destructible boxes that randomly spawn around the map and drop minerals/gas? Would force players to split up their forces a lot more and be more active on the map.
Sc2 needs more depth, one more innovative map element added I think would make the game a lot more action packed.
Also, in general, more ways to let you get an edge over your opponent through sheer skill. More micro incentives, macro mechanics that take speed and timing to master, etc.
-Remove reaper. Overlaps the role of hellion and seems more suitable as a C&C unit.
-Remove blue-flame upgrade. BF hellion is just retarded. Give it extra dmg to light when it's already doing extra dmg to light? Give it a cheaper cost and maybe make them require a speed upgrade. I don't mind land mines upgrade XD.
-Fast banshee, but lower cost (supply/resource/build time) and damage (4 hits for worker maybe) for the sake of giving terran a fast air unit for once.
-Thor -- boring unit
Protoss
-Remove FF. I don't really think it's a good idea to allow protoss to alter the terrain to their advantage. Yea, good FF takes skill. But I feel that it makes the gameplay boring.
-Remove immortal. And put in something else or alter the role of immortals. Zerg
-Corruptors. Pretty obvious badly-made unit.
-Infestors and ultra should switch tiers if they wanna keep infestors/ultras as it is.
-Roach is a rather boring unit. Allow it to morph to other units. I.e Hydralisk or lurkers
Miscellaneous
Dynamic unit movement for better spectator experience!!!!
On June 01 2011 03:25 Mios wrote: I think the game needs more cool map features, like the xelnaga towers.
There needs to be incentive to leave your base and go out and fight over points of contention. For example, in wc3, if you stood in your base you would get owned because your opponent is killing all the creeps getting xp, items, gold, access to shops/mercenaries and clearing expo locations.
Maybe like some destructible boxes that randomly spawn around the map and drop minerals/gas? Would force players to split up their forces a lot more and be more active on the map.
Sc2 needs more depth, one more innovative map element added I think would make the game a lot more action packed.
Or lava that comes up and kills all your units on the low ground! That'd be so sick!
I don't trust blizzard to add "creative" map features. They should just have a better "high ground advantage" mechanic so that places on the map are naturally more important to hold
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus, Roach/Hydra, Corruptor. I don't even consider the Overseer a real unit. It's just a prop.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Creep, zerg early scouting vT.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Kerrigan looking infested again instead of black. Faster/more initial creep spread from hatches. Less auto clumping. Get rid of or tone down smart firing.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Lair tech siege/defensive unit, aka lurker.
1. Collossus. 1A with no micro or army positioning required. Collosi have a lot of HP and are too difficult to catch out of position because they can just walk up a cliff or walk over to the back of the army. The reaver worked much better because it was slow, extremely positional, and required a shuttle. Reavers had epic moments where they killed tons of stuff. Good times. I wouldn't mind a buff to storm to compensate for shittier (or no more) Collosi; casting storm requires micro at least...
2. Overseer. It's a stupid boring unit that removes native detection from overlords. DTs and cloaked wraiths were still extremely useful in BW. Not having detection on Overlords is just another stupid way for zerg to lose in the early game (as if they didn't have enough).
3. Hydra. One of my favorite BW units is now something I dread building. I want my one food hydras with speed upgrade and lurker upgrade. Though a Hydra change could possibly be imbalanced because of the larva mechanic. Hard to say without testing though.
On June 01 2011 03:25 teekesselchen wrote: 3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
.
Every single one of these choices, and i mean EVERY SINGLE ONE are make this exactly like brood war. While I do agree that many of these need adjustments, just saying let's go back to brood war isn't much of a solution.
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
These units are made to disable enemy micro and i guess they are pretty balanced.
That's why I want all these 3 abilities to be removed. Adding a low tech slow/immobilize spell to each race was clearly a mistake when they already made mechanics so much easier. I don't understand why did they remove ability to micro.
BW zerg queens had only a slow for such high tier unit and arbiters pretty much had 2-3 target vortex that mothership has and also the ghost lockdown was pretty high tech and still worse that sc2 stuns/slows.
You probably misunderstood what this thread is about. My idea wasn't just removing these 3 spells and calling it a day. They obviously have to balance other parts of the game after making these changes.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
a) Mothership (needs to be a lot more durable considering its use/cost/time investment) b) Warp prism (perhaps not the unit itself, but moving the speed upgrade to somewhere else, maybe the cyber core with a robo facility requirement) c) Reaper (has absolutely no use besides maybe getting one for early game scouting. A marauder drop is better for sniping tech, and BFHs are better for dealing with zealots)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
a) The fact that units clump when moved b) Perhaps forcefields once made could be target-able structures, where if you force your units to attack the forcefield it will shatter sooner than the fifteen seconds (100 hp?). Massive units would still break them automatically
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
a) Some kind of building that helps the creep mechanic, perhaps one where you can spawn a new tumour (as if dropped by a queen) anywhere that there is already creep, perhaps for a small mineral/gas cost (25/25?) or an energy cost. Like a nydus worm for tumours
b) A building that has a slow permanent shield restore boost (I think its called shield battery? Can't remember). Requires pylon power to build and operate. All units within its area of affect regains shields 50% faster (or similar)
I disagree with people asking for the removal of FF and fungal. They don't remove micro because the force an opponent to micro against them. Flanks from 3 sides > forcefield, and so does burrow. Spreading units can prevent cost effective fungals.
What three units need redesign? Collosus by far Hydralisk close second Reaper at a third spot
What mechanics do you think need tweaking? Warp in, warp gate.
Misc Tweaks? Something in the early game to be able to break forcefields on ramps for zerg.
What new unit types? Stronger armoured GtA unit for terran A true harrassment unit for protoss If collosus will be removed, tier 3 caster for zerg, ifnot, hivetech AtA unit for Z
On June 01 2011 03:25 teekesselchen wrote: 3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
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Every single one of these choices, and i mean EVERY SINGLE ONE are make this exactly like brood war. While I do agree that many of these need adjustments, just saying let's go back to brood war isn't much of a solution.
I disagree, SC2 would actually be fun to watch if they modeled it after BW, and then made tweaks/added stuff based on that solid foundation.
I know it becomes repetitive to say colossus are root of all problems when it comes to Protoss, but it's true. The main issue is the Protoss reliance on the death ball and the Colossus solidifies that. It seems T and Z have more mobility options as far as drops and harass and Protoss only seem to have one goal through most of the game which is to keep their ball together with Colossus otherwise they're screwed. The unit needs a complete redesign or removal.
Some units that need serious help: -Colossus - Cool unit design, but uninteresting use, redesign mechanically or just take it out! -Mothership - needs to be an awesome support unit, not just a gimmick -Carriers - They may be strong but are hurt by hard counters too easily for such a higher tiered unit
Corrupters, Hydras, Marauders, and Thors I think need some fixing too. I won't speak too much to this because I mostly play Toss.
A Couple more notes: -I'd like Battlecruisers and Carriers to be more feared units, almost like the Broodlords are now. -Bring back dynamic unit movement or at least a variation of it to break up these unit balls, armies don't look right in giant balls -More emphasis on micro skill, would make pro level play much more fun to watch
-Slowdown macro mechanic/income per base because like othey people say, you can max too fast and you don't need more than 3 basis to afford everything.
-Introduce a system of aim/dodging for the casters to make them fun/balance with smart casting because atm they are too powerfull and too easy to use, you can't micro against casters (fungal/ff for example).
-No more a-move boring unit like colossi, fail unit is fail. Colossus=siege tank without siege mode+cliffwalk+insane speed, it require nothing special to be use efficiently, no positionning, no cute micro, no caution.
-Interesting dynamic battles between races (and even in mirror matches), battles has to be like a symphony with a lot of different units/micro/positionning like bw.
I hope Blizzard will listen to the feedback from the community.
Imo, colossus could be instantly fixed by making them about half as fast, maybe slower, giving them another 30% damage vs light(1 shot marines/zerglings, 2 or 3 shot lots depending on upgrades), and making them cost another 50-100 gas. Make them a serious damage dealer that must be babied and protected, not a doom dealer than just laughs at anything ground based. As of right now, there is no down side to colossus...they are fast, they cliff walk, they are decently tanky, they do stacked AoE damage, and they are viable vs anything not mass air. Going colossus should be a conscious decision you make based on your opponent's build or a timing you are trying to hit, not something you must be forced out of by your opponent every game.
Perfect example of why Sc2 is getting boring is team games(for me). I play random. I have 3 builds.
T: 2 rax into hellion/thor, continue to pump marines. Safe vs any average early pressure, end game is simple 1a time, and scales incredibly well. Works fairly well vs pretty much anything.
P: Blink Stalkers + colossi. Add phoenix towards late game in case of fighting vs carriers or BL. Safe vs ground and air, all game. Nothing else you need to do. No gameplanning or scouting needed. Just mass and 1a. Sure, you can maximize effectiveness with some blink usage, and by including chargelots, but it's not necessary.
Z: Only slightly more complicated. Zergling/baneling into mass air. Again, scales just fine most of the time, and will do decently well vs almost anything. Some scouting is needed though, as some ludicrous compositions like mass marines will necessitate some infestors. But zerg is definitely the most volatile matchup, and, imo, the most fun to play and watch.
These 3 builds pretty much keep me at the top of the scoreboard most games. And I'm not even good.
This shouldn't be possible. There shouldn't be 1 simple build you can pretty much do every game, regardless of your opponent's tech path, and be perfectly fine. I challenge any of you to create an army that will wreck any of the compositions I mentioned with ease. Aka, you know what I'm doing in advance....exactly. If the game is a dynamic and interesting as it should be, then you should be able to customize a build that will wreck my composition assuming equal skill.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
corruptor colossus hydralisk
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
all mechanics that prevent micro like force fields, fungal growth and concussive shells, i don't suggest they get removed but at least changed to have micro on both sides of the battle.
balance inject vs mule / cronobost to require same amount of attention or lack of. Less clumping up of units.
Make early cheese / rush more risky for the player attacking, aka defenders should gave advantages.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
more tile-sets on official bnet ladder maps used.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
some early harass zerg unit and position-defensive unit like lurker more useful and interesting warp prism combos LESS A-MOVE BALLS! let micro have a meaning in battle, not just preemptive spreading and positioning, etc.
I think instead of removing every unit that's powerful, Blizzard should tweak or remove the weak ones. Most units in BW were extremely powerful in certain situations.
Zerglings were the cheapest units in the game and once they were fully upgraded had some of the highest dps. Vultures were dirt cheap and came with 3 spider mines. A reaver could annihilate a worker line with a single shot. Dark swarm was, in theory, disgustingly imbalanced in ZvT, but somehow BW was balanced.
Sentry force fields are amazing. Hellions are cheap and can end the game in a few seconds. Colossus is an extremely powerful unit. Instead of nerfing them, why not bring other units up to their level?
I'm trying to think of another race that has units like the Corruptor where it's almost entirely useless and a total supply-sink after it has performed it's task. The Corruption spell is nearly useless, the increase in dps it provides is paltry and doesn't really make up for the fact that the unit itself floats around doing nothing after it is used.
For 150/100 it's a real kick in the arse to see a whack of those floating around watching the enemy rip apart your dwindling army that you simply can't reinforce because your OLs are stuck supplying happy Zerg vibes to floating octopi.
As for mechanics, I notice that Zerglings are pretty bad at running around in circles trying to get to targets they're blocked from (blocked by their own kind) rather than acquiring a nearby target or structure like they did in BW.
It's not a big deal, I guess, and it's rectified by giving multiple commands but it just seemed that BW Zerglings were "smarter."
And totally on a personal note, I'd put Siege Tank damage to the levels it was in the beta and reduce the rate of fire for Marines. I'd also be inclined to tweak Forcefiled because that is a seriously crippling spell; but I fear the way Protoss was designed makes that nigh impossible. That's a tricky one for sure.
On June 01 2011 02:13 vindKtiv wrote: It seems as if the community is really divided on this issue. I'm very interested to see what Blizzard implements, and how the fans will react (though knowing the internet, I expect nothing less than a shitstorm).
I personally also vote for the Colossi, though I'm honestly fine with the game as it is. I like the Hellion, I like the Mothership (you need to have the Scout of SC2 don't you?), I like the Overseer (despite that unit being explicitly called out as an uninteresting unit), and I like the Marauder. While I absolutely love the reaper, I would say that unit needs to go, as it is useless in 1v1, but needs to stay useless or else 2v2 would become imbalanced. Maybe units like the Void Ray and Banshee that are ridiculously useful AtG and can even win games just by appearing.
I would like the reapers damage to be changed, I think the unit is fairly expensive and fragile but it auto loses to a stalker and can absolutely wreck a mineral line. If the unit was given a good option for fighting armored or at least non-light units, maybe be a spell that is fairly cheap on energy but obv is limited. So if you have really good micro you can possibly take out a stalker but 9/10 times the stalker will just shoot you 4x.......
I also think that the reapers design should be one given to all 3 races. Recently LiquidTyler said that protoss is missing a unit that you can micro while you are macroing and moving your main army and I agree. Along with those lines I would say that zerg doesn't have a unit that can jump cliffs and that would be sweet to have.
The colossi.... I doubt that more than 20% of the community actually enjoys the colossi, maybe even less. While some view it as a needed unit in the protoss army, in general it seems to be a unit that is so powerful that it makes up for the weakness of the rest of the protoss units. that's bad design in multiple ways.
The overlord/overseer.... in bw the overlord had detection and in WoL that ability (and some others) have been given to the overseer, the problem with the overseer is it costs way too much gas for what it does. 150min/100g for a unit that most likely going to die on it's 1 scouting trip, and will maybe contaminate 1 building (albeit for 30 secs, this ability has potential but not when Z is already gas starved)... is a tough sell, so tough that it doesn't sell -_-
Ultralisk- this unit is just too big, it's pathing is laughable and its supply count is extremely heavy. I would like to see this unit be 4 supply and smaller.
Stalker- the most expensive t1.5 bulk of army type unit (marauder, roach and stalker are all similar models) it has a slow attack speed and becomes weaker the longer the game goes. I would like to see this unit get a buff to it's upgrades. w/out testing I would say +1 (+1 to armored) so it would get +2 atk vs armored units.
Hydra- 1f, back to tier 1, 7 dmg, 75/25 cost, remove "light", 2.25 movement speed with an upgrade that gives it +.75 movement speed and ofc it's +1 range upgrade. This would do a lot for Z and it would make buffing other parts of T/P more reasonable. With having a tier 1 anti air (like it had in bw) a lot of cheese strats would become less powerful. They wouldn't necessarily make VR's and Banshee's obsolete, but it would reward scouting and players using build orders that weren't reliant on opponents lack of early game aa.
Roach- tier 2, 3f, 150/100 cost and can go either a true tank (something that does crap damage but has high priority and high health/armor) or more along with the lore of the unit, something that is great against light units but loses its luster vs bigger targets. as with all of my proposals, their would have to be a great deal of testing.
Lurker- tier 2, 50/100 morph, upgrade at hydra den, morphed from hydra. Balancing this units stats isn't really something I am prepared to do, I don't have enough data, nor do I have units to compare it to (like the hydra at 7 dmg is in between the marine and the stalker for damage).
baneling- I don't think this unit is conducive with the general welfare of this game, on one hand it is horrendously powerful and can wipe out an entire army in seconds, On the other it is extremely gas heavy and you WILL lose your army to take out theirs. It makes for unfair situation for the zerg and against the zerg. Based on the pics that have been released I doubt that this unit is going anywhere but I wish it would be left in the campaign.
Scourge- if you brought back scourge, the colossi would be nerfed heavily in the PvZ mu, It would make for some interesting builds and I'm not sure if colossi would be possible with it in play. After saying that, bring on the scourge! this was a great unit because it did a couple things very well, for one it limited strats that were too reliant on air, and it gave chance for comebacks through micro on both sides.
science vessels- why did they remove this unit? While this would make ravens almost obsolete, I would rather see sci vessels than ravens any day.
Reavers- I can understand that they didn't bring reavers back because of A. colossi took their spot and B. the unit formation in WoL would make 1 reaver kill like 30 marines... But I still disagree, with proper micro and scouting any person that loses a shitload of marines to the reaver deserve it.
I would like to see something happen with the defiler or at least dark swarm.... Maybe make dark swarm a high upgrade for infesters but don't give them the consume ability.... or test defilers! if they are truely horrendously op then something can be changed about them, but thinking back to bw play, defilers were how you beat tank marine play.
Of course everything that I have mentioned (and everything else for that matter) would have to be tested rigorously, but I think that adding units that require more micro and demand better decision making are important. I namely mentioned Zerg units because this is a zerg expansion, but of course every unit would have to be balanced accordingly.
1) Reaper. Obviously a completely botched design. Too powerful in the early game so it needs to be nerfed there, but it actually doesn't have any use after that. Why would you harass with reapers when hellions/marines in a medivac do a better job? Not to mention that those units actually have uses outside harassment.
The fact that it requires 50 gas and builds forever is the last nail in the coffin.
2) Raven It annoys me to no end how lackluster the raven is compared to science vessels. Slow, easily killed and the spells it has hardly make a difference after the early timing push. It simply is not effective enough to warrant a tech lab on your starport.
I'm guessing the raven was supposed to supplement a slow push playstyle. Offensive bunkers (I guess thats what the bunker upgrade was for) and turrents with siege tanks. Too bad they shot it in the foot by giving units so much DPS and by giving them the ball mechanic, rendering slow pushing much weaker.
Its a fun unit to mass in team games or FFAs, but mostly a huge waste in competitive games.
Hope someone from Blizzard read this thread and fixes some of the most relevant flaws. -For me, there are a lot more than 3 units that should be redesigned, such as:
·Corruptors, Roaches, Infestors (fungal growth is BORING AS HELL), Hydras.
·Void Rays, Colossi, Sentry (ff is pretty much a fungal, but imbalandec, imo), Phoenixes (where's the micro?)
·Banshee, Thor, Raven (PDD is awesome, but HSM...) Marauders in some degree.
On June 01 2011 03:25 teekesselchen wrote: 3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
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Every single one of these choices, and i mean EVERY SINGLE ONE are make this exactly like brood war. While I do agree that many of these need adjustments, just saying let's go back to brood war isn't much of a solution.
If the bw solutions are better than WoL then yes they are >.>
On June 01 2011 03:39 DeltruS wrote: I disagree with people asking for the removal of FF and fungal. They don't remove micro because the force an opponent to micro against them. Flanks from 3 sides > forcefield, and so does burrow. Spreading units can prevent cost effective fungals.
Flanks from 3 sides? You need a really great position on tournament custom maps to be able to do that. When protoss is in your base or in his own base then good luck with flanking. Fungal covers like 6-7 stalkers and 2 colossus max so am I supposed to split my 200/200 army to groups of 2-3 units and attack at the same time? Unless you have lonely units walking around it's impossible to be cost effective against fungal. You get hit by it and it's over. No ammount of micro or skill will help you come out of this situation. You can dodge storm but fungal causes damage on every unit (except ultralisk) and it immobilizes you.. It's pretty much a immobilizing storm that causes less damage.
You can run after getting hit by storm or EMP but you can never run after getting hit by fungal. Dark swarm didn't force you to fight either in bw.
uninteresting units that should be changed 1. Colossus 2. Marine (don't know wtf to do with this... can be ignored) 3. Overseer 4. Corruptor 5. Hydralisk
(6. thor 7.Ultralisk)
Other units need to be changed to be more appropriate role (roach, reaper, maybe some others)
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
These units are made to disable enemy micro and i guess they are pretty balanced.
That's why I want all these 3 abilities to be removed. Adding a low tech slow/immobilize spell to each race was clearly a mistake when they already made mechanics so much easier. I don't understand why did they remove ability to micro.
BW zerg queens had only a slow for such high tier unit and arbiters pretty much had 2-3 target vortex that mothership has and also the ghost lockdown was pretty high tech and still worse that sc2 stuns/slows.
You probably misunderstood what this thread is about. My idea wasn't just removing these 3 spells and calling it a day. They obviously have to balance other parts of the game after making these changes.
If you decided to replace fungal with plague then sure, but fungal is the only offensive spell that zerg has, and is one of the only spells that it has... tell you what, remove the infester and add the defiler
Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Collosus: amove unit is boring. reaver was awesome and required skill to utilize effectively. Carrier: they suck. can't even micro them. no surprise factor (even if there was, vr's still exist). Ultralisk: they suck. 2 marines can kill it.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
i think mechanics are fine. very easy but i don't think it's that big of a problem.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
none.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
not anything specific(other than bw stuff like arbiters, lurkers, reaver etc) but i want to see positional play from all the races. i want to see defender advantage greatly increased. i want stuff that punishes ppl HARD for deathballing. i want to see stuff that enables multiple engagements at multiple fronts instead of 3 second fights after 20 minutes of macroing.
The colossus should be priority #1 for changes. For reasons already described, protoss games are almost always more interesting without them.
Air balance in general could use a lot of tweaking for it to become 'interesting.' I think corruptors and vikings are simply too much of a hard-counter to carrier and battlecruiser play, mostly because of their range. Brood lords see far more use than the other capital ships because their ammo is expendable and long-range (and they actually benefit you as corruptors before their tech is complete, unlike carriers and BCs).
As for spells... I think a slight FF nerf which took a bit of the control out of the Protoss' hands would be for the best... though I still think they should be able to place the FF on top of units otherwise they would be useless.
HSM should get a speed buff.... or something.
I would like to see zealot legs researched at the cyber core for 100/100 and charge at the twilight council for 100/100.
There is always more I could add... but I'll leave it at that.
On June 01 2011 03:57 NIIINO wrote: Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
I think these are only going to be singleplayer abilities.
I would like to see the collosus removed, maybe give the archon more of a splash damage role. Between that and the High templar protoss should have enough splash damage. The Ultralisk is pretty fail in my opinion and should be replaced with a more accessible tank.
On June 01 2011 03:57 NIIINO wrote: Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
campaign only. Don't have to worry about lings spawning instantly 3 at a time plus can jump like a chargelot and spawn broodlings when they die....
On June 01 2011 03:57 NIIINO wrote: Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
On June 01 2011 03:16 Dystisis wrote: If I were to do one thing, it would be this:
Colossus: Instead of the instant AoE laser attack that it does now, change its attack into something "similar" to the Reaver attack from BW, where it shoots a missile which deals high splash damage. This orb (think something similar to a photon cannon missile) would be fired at the *position* of units, instead of the units itself (ie. not like a photon cannon, where the missile follows the target and hits no matter what) and move somewhat slower than a photon cannon orb.
This opens up the possibility for enemy players to micro away from the attacks of the Colossus, although it should be hard.
Additionally, it should open up for Colossus harass/drop-micro being viable.
great idea, give to the colossus the seeker missiles and make it more fast
On June 01 2011 03:57 NIIINO wrote: Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
obviously single player only....
I find Corrupters Colossus Overseers
Also Roaches, they feel like a Toss unit not Zerg and are incredibly boring to use.
Spells that need rework: Warp gate Force field Fungal Conc shell.
Force field is a tough one to cut. I think it is a very fun mechanic, and sentry itself is a pretty weak unit that costs a ton of gas (pay 50 more gas and you get a HT!).
On June 01 2011 04:08 Hikari wrote: Force field is a tough one to cut. I think it is a very fun mechanic, and sentry itself is a pretty weak unit that costs a ton of gas (pay 50 more gas and you get a HT!).
And unupgraded gateway units would be nigh worthless without it. If you remove FF you would have to significantly buff gateway units, which would in turn make early attacks from P too strong due to warp gates.
On June 01 2011 03:57 NIIINO wrote: Posthumous Mitosis – A 20% chance of after dying to spawn 2 broodlings. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE WoW from SC2, do you want to give us crit. chance ? Nah no percents DONT GIVE US PERCENTS. Cruncher: You lucky zerg to have broodlings in 6th time in the row IdRa: Rapid Genesis – Zerglings are trained instantly. And Im a little bit scared of this.
I didnt read further because this make my mad bro.
These features will NOT be added to the multi-player. Don't worry.
The single-player WoL has some very cool Terran upgrades, imho. For example, Vikings had a splash damage upgrade. Way too powerful for multi-player, but helped a lot a few of the single-player missions against mass mutas.
Blizzard is just adding cool upgrades for Zerg in HotS, and I am sure Protoss will have cool upgrades in LotV.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? 1. Corruptor 2. Marauder 3. Overseer 4. Reaper 5. Hydra
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Forcefield, fungal growth (spells that force a situation without the other player being able to do anything aggainst it. for instance, perhaps the fungal growth would be better as a slow, and forcefield become destructible some way (before tier 3 that is.) unit movement (clumping too much), scouting options.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Less gimmicky units that depend on not being scouted to be good, and more straightforward ones, that rely more on skill.
I think Starcraft 2 as a whole feels a little rough around the edges. Not in a "these quirks in Brood War make gameplay more interesting" kind of way, but in a "these units are a quick fix because we ran out of development time" kind of way. Colossi, roaches, marauders, and corruptors, as many others have stated, need some new tools to be interesting.
I kinda wish they increased the population count to 300 (to make up for the number of probes you now need in SC2), the great thing about BW was the size of the armies, it allowed so much variation in the units they had, and so many little attacks and chokes, and so on.
Then again, I don't even want to imagine a 300/300 protoss deathball.
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Ultralisk Mothership And hydra and roach should be swapped, imo
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. I think forcefield needs a tweak, or atleast give the race a unit that can deal with forcefields and is more accessible than tier 3 ultralisk.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? None, really.
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Maybe a creep colony, lurkers would also be awesome.
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Viking/Thor - Theres no good mech antiair, and vikings are pretty uninteresting to fill that gap. Thors are also pretty boring. Colossus - Creates the most boring unit dynamic in the game. Would honestly be okay without the range upgrade, but even then its still a boring A-Move unit. Roaches - They just don't fit with the zerg swarm concept. Another boring AMove unit.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Fungal Growth - Snares have no place in Starcraft. Maybe change it to a slow, but slows don't really have a place in Starcraft either. Colossus - As above, the viking/colossus dynamic is really lame, and poorly designed. Warp-In - Removes defenders advantage, reduces the effective size of maps. Would be okay if it was a building with entrances/exits like nydus, but that would homogenize the races somewhat. Forcefield - The thing that made spells great in BW was that both players could micro and the spells effectiveness depended on how well both players handled it. SC2 spells like fungal and FF make it extremely one sided and pretty boring.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? None really, the game looks fine. Maybe some changes to custom game browser, to make it more like Bnet1.0
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Reavers - Would encourage warp prism play, and are all around more fun than Colossus. Lurkers - Allow for Z to hold ground, maybe only allow burrow on creep (since creep can spread everywhere easily in SC2) Scourge - More fun than corrupters. Goliaths and Wraiths - To replace Thors/Vikings. Gols could require Armory but not Techlab, making them the meat of a mech army. Wraiths have great synergy with banshees. Vikings could replace goliaths in their alpha state, where they were built from the factory with a ground to air attack, but flight was an upgrade at starport.
On June 01 2011 04:17 SpaceToaster wrote: - What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Viking/Thor - Theres no good mech antiair, and vikings are pretty uninteresting to fill that gap. Thors are also pretty boring. Colossus - Creates the most boring unit dynamic in the game. Would honestly be okay without the range upgrade, but even then its still a boring A-Move unit. Roaches - They just don't fit with the zerg swarm concept. Another boring AMove unit.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Fungal Growth - Snares have no place in Starcraft. Maybe change it to a slow, but slows don't really have a place in Starcraft either. Colossus - As above, the viking/colossus dynamic is really lame, and poorly designed. Warp-In - Removes defenders advantage, reduces the effective size of maps. Would be okay if it was a building with entrances/exits like nydus, but that would homogenize the races somewhat. Forcefield - The thing that made spells great in BW was that both players could micro and the spells effectiveness depended on how well both players handled it. SC2 spells like fungal and FF make it extremely one sided and pretty boring.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? None really, the game looks fine. Maybe some changes to custom game browser, to make it more like Bnet1.0
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Reavers - Would encourage warp prism play, and are all around more fun than Colossus. Lurkers - Allow for Z to hold ground, maybe only allow burrow on creep (since creep can spread everywhere easily in SC2) Scourge - More fun than corrupters. Goliaths and Wraiths - To replace Thors/Vikings. Gols could require Armory but not Techlab, making them the meat of a mech army. Wraiths have great synergy with banshees. Vikings could replace goliaths in their alpha state, where they were built from the factory with a ground to air attack, but flight was an upgrade at starport.
Yeah man removed BW units > New SC2 units for the most part xd.
On June 01 2011 04:01 Chicane wrote: Collosus Immortals Corruptors Overseers Ultralisks
As for spells... I think a slight FF nerf which took a bit of the control out of the Protoss' hands would be for the best... though I still think they should be able to place the FF on top of units otherwise they would be useless.
HSM should get a speed buff.... or something.
I would like to see zealot legs researched at the cyber core for 100/100 and charge at the twilight council for 100/100.
There is always more I could add... but I'll leave it at that.
Just make FF a cooldown based ability, not a mana based. No more 4 sentries dropping 15 FF down.
Where to start? The multiplayer is so poorly designed that it's not even funny. One would think by playing this game that it was Blizzard's very first RTS. >_>
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Colossus, Stalker/Marauders, Reapers (okayish at the start of a game, I guess), vikings, Reven, Mothership and so on and so on.
It's actually easier to just name 3 good units because there is so few of them:
Siege tank (best unit in the game mechanically speaking), Mutas (bw style was better), dropship (dropping units).
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
I hate how unit movement works and how they clump up into thight balls.
Automatic mechanics
Warpgate tech (this is another 'cool' feature that yeah totally lame)
Forcefields
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Carrier: Too cool of a unit to have basically no abilities... It should have a direct damage attack that makes it useful against the likes of high armor high hp targets or an aoe that does good dmg vs light Marauder: Make concussive shells toggleable and do an archon aoe that slows that hits for about 4 (+4 to light) dmg... That way you're either good vs armored, or you can kite light, but not both. Colossus: Change this machine to have a vertical splash rather than horizontal and we're golden. It's a cool ass unit but currently performs way too well against the natural concave that every ranged unit wants to form
On June 01 2011 02:20 Elefanto wrote: from a protoss point of view, these 3 units destroy most of the dynamics within the game.
uninteresting:
marauder roach colossus
Everyone has so much dps potential for their cost by simply a-moving, That's bad and makes for uninteresting games.
Also i'm a bit scared, because they say "some units aren't cool". Imo it's not about beeing cool / not cool, it's more about the usability and not how gimmicky a unit is. maybe i missinterpreted it a bit D:.
i would like to see a redesign as well for: hydras (too expensive and slow. isn't zergish at all) reaper (nerfed into oblivion, has good harass potential) immortal (a-move unit in bigger battles, hilariously expensive, slow, low range)
I'll have to agree with this and add a few things:
Fix the spellcasters (ie Infestor/HT)
Infestors are getting abused since they basically can do so much damage and restrict movement, now they obviously cant simply get nerfed into oblivion, but there needs to be tweaks to it to make it still effective but not overwhelmingly useful compared to HTs and Ravens
Sentries probably need tweaking as well with the forcefields, though I'm not sure how that would work :/
- Colossus/Immortal should have their each own use. Actually I absolutely hate when a Toss techs blindly to Colossi even if the enemy composition is Roach/Marauder/Stalker heavy. It makes me sad, and that's all because the Colossus is too general-purpose while the Immortal has so little use. I like the concept of hardened shields, but atm Immortals are too slow and costly to act as meat shields while having too little range to be support units. While the Colossus could just be patched (bonus damage vs light and less damage vs armored), the Immortal needs a deeper rework. Maybe some minor tweaking and the return of shield battery (or a unit/ability with similar role) could make it REALLY immortal with proper use.
- the Void Ray is not bad per se, but it is a clear case of failed design (born with 3 stages charge, nerfed and changed in every possibile way). Even if it was either broken, due to the hydras being tier 2, or useless as anti-air, I miss the old charge-micro. The actual version sometimes discourages focus firing to grant the charge (voids vs corruptors), so the "1a" attack ironically is more efficient than focus firing. This is one of the units that I really want to be replaced.
- Mothership is just bad. I think that every Protoss out there would trade the 700hp, damage and cloaking field for a cheaper and faster Arbiter-like unit with just Vortex and Recall.
The problem is every unit that was interesting got nerfed in to oblivion . If blizzard stops with the nerfing and starts tweaking the unused units a little more like the archon they wouldn't need to be scraped .
On June 01 2011 04:33 Big G wrote: While the Colossus could just be patched (bonus damage vs light and less damage vs armored), the Immortal needs a deeper rework.
On June 01 2011 04:08 Hikari wrote: Force field is a tough one to cut. I think it is a very fun mechanic, and sentry itself is a pretty weak unit that costs a ton of gas (pay 50 more gas and you get a HT!).
And unupgraded gateway units would be nigh worthless without it. If you remove FF you would have to significantly buff gateway units, which would in turn make early attacks from P too strong due to warp gates.
On June 01 2011 03:44 Samhax wrote: -No more a-move boring unit like colossi, fail unit is fail. Colossus=siege tank without siege mode+cliffwalk+insane speed, it require nothing special to be use efficiently, no positionning, no cute micro, no caution.
I was playing around with the Colossus in the editor and made Extended Thermal Lance a Siege ability where it couldn't move. So basically normal range when moving, and increased range when in siege mode. Seems like something that could work but you never know, maybe they should just kill the unit for good....
I like that thread and I like that blizzard comment:
personally I think there are some things/units that should be changed + Show Spoiler +
- colossus: protoss armies can live without the colossus in its current form, yet those armies make the fights a gamble, just like jinro wrote: you can either win by crushing the colossi, or you instantly lose (and I don't like this principle) another thing I don't like: Protoss have the on of the best antiarmor units in the game (immortals) but noone gets them, as colossus do the job nearly as good if not even better vs "medium" armored units (marauder, roaches, tanks, stalker)
- overseer: just like blizzard said, it is a glorified scout. they either have to be changed or removed
- mothership: it is designed to be a lategame superunit, yet if it were a superunit, the whole protossrace would have to get balanced down, as a maxed protoss with mothership would just be unbeatable
- maybe give roach/hydra switching another chance (which they did a lot before the beta). T1 universal hydras, T2 mighty roaches opposed to T1 "you need them but they suck lategame" roaches, T2 "if they were strong zerg would be imba, because a strong universal unit + larvamechanic is broken" hydras. remove the queens AA-attack if you want...
Zerg: T2.5 unit that is good when massed, not necessarily the lurker. maybe a "HydraKing" that buffs units around him, or a "Roachdralisk", with the head of a roach and the tail of a hydra, morphed from those two, with both attacks...
Terran: a 4th factory unit, maybe steal the IBF from C&C so you can put biounits in it, and it varies with the unit that uses it (marine would be a gattlingtank or something like that, marauder a rocketbuggy, an SCV a repairvehicle etc... ) Mechstyles really need something to battle Protoss efficiently, and that is not hightech to battle mutas.
Protoss: maybe another harrassment unit, something thats not completly shut down by static AA-def. (phoenix, dt's) maybe a zealot warp upgrade, that warps zealots from a pylon to a pylon I think armywise Protoss has enough options right now, and P-armies are pretty universal and scary as they are. currently Protoss styles are too army based imo, there is little harass, a lot of turteling, and then 1-2big engagements
injections take too much focus in the lategame, maybe make queens autoinfuse lairs, or a queenupgrade or something, because beginning with ~4hatcheries nearly every pro starts to miss a lot of injections. I know this is controverse, but I think there can be an in-between solution, so you still have to focus, but you are really able to ignore injection for a minute inbattle, and not go like either: "yeah I won the battle, but I have no larva to use my advantage" or: "damn I didn't micro at all in this battle, and all the units Im building with those fresh larva will just run in and die..."
I think the biggest problem is the damage output of nearly all of the units is too much.. If all the units damage output was decreased in some way then micro would be a bigger input in the game due to the fact that you could see you're units dying and then pulling away instead of seeing your units dyi.. oh they're dead...
Units that need fixing: 1. Reaper : Reminds me of the vulture sometimes but is so gas expensive early game that it sets you back on tech, if it had some sort of spidermine capability to drop mines so you can turtle then maybe the reaper will once shine again
2.Mech : Really looks good on paper thor massive unit that outputs great damage, tanks bread and butter of mech, and helions cleaning up anything coming in but as we all see its terribly fragile, impossible to reproduce all of it once lost, gives no map presence, and its just horribad against protoss.
3. Phoenix: WTEF? who the heck makes a unit in sc2 and decides to let it attack on move command wtf is piece of crap. Corsair took skill, phoenix is just a gimmick for noob friendly users that want to imitate corsair use in bw days.
4. Terran & Protoss capital ships: dude the bc and carriers were glorified in all of bw history and its just this useless piece of crap in sc2. only function bc has is since tvt after air control is established since all terran aa is based on the marine the armor on the bc basically gives it that umph other than that all other races have sufficient aa to take out bc easy. Carriers are a joke because void rays pretty much took over their purpose in battles need to fix this unit somehow.
Units that need to be removed
1. Collosus: needs to go, dictates every battle, is way too overpowered as one unit to make up for all protoss gateways that it pretty much screws up pvp. way too easy to use. They need to somehow change this unit or scrap it its just in every matchup... with the same unit compositions
2. Roach needs the boot, stupid low range armored unit that is ridiculously cheap to produce i doubt blizzard will ever remove this unit but seriously hydra+lurker is way sexier than this piece of crap. Roach does not fit zerg at all.
3. Marauder basically was made because roaches were overpowered back in beta but basically is not a very terran like unit. Bring back the firebat scrap this monstrosity or remake it.
I don't know throwing the colossus out of the game will be bad. Redesign might be much better. It can be made like a reaver on legs, with a certain ability that allows the colossus to recharge and then fire again. Make it gain more shield, while recharging. Just a random though, but removing it from the game, like most you suggest, will be even more boring. I don't want blizz to redo brood war, I just want them to find a more interesting way to use these units.
Seriously, the Collosus is such a terrible unit IMO, and not just for balance. It's so boring, it's just a 1a unit. It also sucks in small numbers and owns in bigger numbers, but has a long tech and build time. On top of that, it's so strong Blizzard had to compensate and make gateway units weaker. This just seems to lead to boring gameplay where Protoss doesn't really have a good midgame vs Zerg and can't push out other than to do an all in because they'll get outmacroed, or risk losing their collosus and thus the game. As a result, the optimal Protoss strategy has become turtling on 3 bases and not moving out or really doing anything until that deathball is obtained. If you look at how dynamic and eventful a matchup like TvZ is, ZvP and PvT can often put you to sleep.
Also, I've always felt there's something wrong with a unit that's so good you need to make like 10 fairly costly units just to take it out
On June 01 2011 04:41 Abusion wrote: I think the biggest problem is the damage output of nearly all of the units is too much.. If all the units damage output was decreased in some way then micro would be a bigger input in the game due to the fact that you could see you're units dying and then pulling away instead of seeing your units dyi.. oh they're dead...
I kinda like this idea too. Brood war seemed to have way more micro during a battle, while starcraft 2 micro is mostly about setting up and positioning before a battle occurs. There's nothing wrong with that, but it might be an improvement to make that other element of micro more prominent.
Seriously, the Collosus is such a terrible unit IMO, and not just for balance. It's so boring, it's just a 1a unit. It also sucks in small numbers and owns in bigger numbers, but has a long tech and build time. On top of that, it's so strong Blizzard had to compensate and make gateway units weaker. This just seems to lead to boring gameplay where Protoss doesn't really have a good midgame vs Zerg and can't push out other than to do an all in because they'll get outmacroed, or risk losing their collosus and thus the game. As a result, the optimal Protoss strategy has become turtling on 3 bases and not moving out or really doing anything until that deathball is obtained.
Also, I've always felt there's something wrong with a unit that's so good you need to make like 10 fairly costly units just to take it out
I agree that the Collosus in terrible, but didn't blizzard say they made gateway units weaker because of the Warpgate research?
Seriously, the Collosus is such a terrible unit IMO, and not just for balance. It's so boring, it's just a 1a unit. It also sucks in small numbers and owns in bigger numbers, but has a long tech and build time. On top of that, it's so strong Blizzard had to compensate and make gateway units weaker. This just seems to lead to boring gameplay where Protoss doesn't really have a good midgame vs Zerg and can't push out other than to do an all in because they'll get outmacroed, or risk losing their collosus and thus the game. As a result, the optimal Protoss strategy has become turtling on 3 bases and not moving out or really doing anything until that deathball is obtained.
Also, I've always felt there's something wrong with a unit that's so good you need to make like 10 fairly costly units just to take it out
Colossus is art driven. You can't not have a giant, towering war of the worlds robot in the game once the artist have the concept. The idea of the colossus was fundamentally inappropriate for sc2 from the very beginning, and blizzard has forced it to work, when it shouldn't have.
That's why it's the root of all of sc2's problems. No unit above tier 1 should appear in every single matchup all the time and become standard. The game should have tech options, not have one be innately superior, and choosing the other tech options is simply obsolete and not cost efficient in high numbers.
Readjusting/removing the collosus should be at the top of the list. unit makes for boring games a lot of times as a spectator. Battles also seem to end very quickly, often times with one big blob engagement deciding the who will win. I'd like see more units that that function like baneling land mines. those are really fun to watch when they hit. So maybe add in spider mine function for helions.
On June 01 2011 04:33 Big G wrote: While the Colossus could just be patched (bonus damage vs light and less damage vs armored), the Immortal needs a deeper rework.
Sounds a bit like an Archon. ;0)
Yeah but I don't see bigger changes coming before HOTS. Maybe just nerfing the colossus and buffing the immortal could do the trick, but what I really want to see in the long term is the focus on Immortal's shields - which is IMO a nice but undeveloped feature: atm nobody cares, at best Immortals are microed away from battle like every other unit... and that's failed design.
I'd really like to see a unit/structure/ability similar to the Shield Battery. It was underused in BW since there wasn't a clear sinergy with any unit; now we have Hardened Shields and nothing to exploit them. (edit: it could also grant a REAL defender's advantage in PvP)
On June 01 2011 04:43 Raid wrote: Units that need fixing: 1. Reaper : Reminds me of the vulture sometimes but is so gas expensive early game that it sets you back on tech, if it had some sort of spidermine capability to drop mines so you can turtle then maybe the reaper will once shine again
2.Mech : Really looks good on paper thor massive unit that outputs great damage, tanks bread and butter of mech, and helions cleaning up anything coming in but as we all see its terribly fragile, impossible to reproduce all of it once lost, gives no map presence, and its just horribad against protoss.
3. Phoenix: WTEF? who the heck makes a unit in sc2 and decides to let it attack on move command wtf is piece of crap. Corsair took skill, phoenix is just a gimmick for noob friendly users that want to imitate corsair use in bw days.
4. Terran & Protoss capital ships: dude the bc and carriers were glorified in all of bw history and its just this useless piece of crap in sc2. only function bc has is since tvt after air control is established since all terran aa is based on the marine the armor on the bc basically gives it that umph other than that all other races have sufficient aa to take out bc easy. Carriers are a joke because void rays pretty much took over their purpose in battles need to fix this unit somehow.
Units that need to be removed
1. Collosus: needs to go, dictates every battle, is way too overpowered as one unit to make up for all protoss gateways that it pretty much screws up pvp. way too easy to use. They need to somehow change this unit or scrap it its just in every matchup... with the same unit compositions
2. Roach needs the boot, stupid low range armored unit that is ridiculously cheap to produce i doubt blizzard will ever remove this unit but seriously hydra+lurker is way sexier than this piece of crap. Roach does not fit zerg at all.
3. Marauder basically was made because roaches were overpowered back in beta but basically is not a very terran like unit. Bring back the firebat scrap this monstrosity or remake it.
I actually agree with a lot of this post. Colossus ruined protoss. I can't believe they choose the colossus over reavers during the alpha builds though it makes perfect sense in a World of Warcraft type of way: a-move unit vs unit that requires significant micro and skill. Personally I'm fucking tired of making vikings every TvP and going MMM but no other unit composition is as effective versus protoss. And thors now get feedbacked? Lol, thanks blizzard you could have just removed strike cannons..
They really should have kept the lurker in some form; it was an awesome defensive unit for zerg that required both significant micro and detection to over-come. Lurkers gave the zerg defensive options that just don't exist in any similar way in SC2. Sure baneling landmines are fun, but they're one shot use only and they're not ranged. Lurkers > baneling landmines for defensive purposes any day. A few lurkers positioned correctly on a ramp required nothing less than siege tanks (or defensive matrix + good micro) to bust.
Also, why did Blizzard make units handle so poorly in SC2? It would be nice if something had decent acceleration so you could do micro similar to muta and vulture micro from BW.
Thors - useless except for gimmick strats or 1 for the 10 range Reapers - useless except for 30s of scouting Corruptors - extremely boring, there were no units in SC1 that were part of core compositions that did only 1 thing. This was a result of lots of the hard counter tech units being inefficient in the matchup. You didn't get carriers or BC vs Z, so Z didn't need devourer and P didn't need scout. Valk was also generally underused. Overseers - This unit is an entire slot? Hydralisks - roach is the hydralisk from BW, hydra is basically the equivalent of a stim marine for DPS. Very much not exciting.
On June 01 2011 04:40 Big J wrote: I like that thread and I like that blizzard comment:
personally I think there are some things/units that should be changed + Show Spoiler +
- colossus: protoss armies can live without the colossus in its current form, yet those armies make the fights a gamble, just like jinro wrote: you can either win by crushing the colossi, or you instantly lose (and I don't like this principle) another thing I don't like: Protoss have the on of the best antiarmor units in the game (immortals) but noone gets them, as colossus do the job nearly as good if not even better vs "medium" armored units (marauder, roaches, tanks, stalker)
- overseer: just like blizzard said, it is a glorified scout. they either have to be changed or removed
- mothership: it is designed to be a lategame superunit, yet if it were a superunit, the whole protossrace would have to get balanced down, as a maxed protoss with mothership would just be unbeatable
- maybe give roach/hydra switching another chance (which they did a lot before the beta). T1 universal hydras, T2 mighty roaches opposed to T1 "you need them but they suck lategame" roaches, T2 "if they were strong zerg would be imba, because a strong universal unit + larvamechanic is broken" hydras. remove the queens AA-attack if you want...
Zerg: T2.5 unit that is good when massed, not necessarily the lurker. maybe a "HydraKing" that buffs units around him, or a "Roachdralisk", with the head of a roach and the tail of a hydra, morphed from those two, with both attacks...
Terran: a 4th factory unit, maybe steal the IBF from C&C so you can put biounits in it, and it varies with the unit that uses it (marine would be a gattlingtank or something like that, marauder a rocketbuggy, an SCV a repairvehicle etc... ) Mechstyles really need something to battle Protoss efficiently, and that is not hightech to battle mutas.
Protoss: maybe another harrassment unit, something thats not completly shut down by static AA-def. (phoenix, dt's) maybe a zealot warp upgrade, that warps zealots from a pylon to a pylon I think armywise Protoss has enough options right now, and P-armies are pretty universal and scary as they are. currently Protoss styles are too army based imo, there is little harass, a lot of turteling, and then 1-2big engagements
injections take too much focus in the lategame, maybe make queens autoinfuse lairs, or a queenupgrade or something, because beginning with ~4hatcheries nearly every pro starts to miss a lot of injections. I know this is controverse, but I think there can be an in-between solution, so you still have to focus, but you are really able to ignore injection for a minute inbattle, and not go like either: "yeah I won the battle, but I have no larva to use my advantage" or: "damn I didn't micro at all in this battle, and all the units Im building with those fresh larva will just run in and die..."
In reference to your mechanics suggestions. The answer has been present since day 1. Make more hatcheries. BW didn't have queens so people build tons of hatcheries. Zergs now should do the same. And don't complain about the cost. Protoss and Terran have to spam their production facilities, especially terran. And that can get expensive. Extra hatcheries don't even cost any gas.
The colossus dictates compositions now, but maybe not later. HotS multiplayer could introduce things that handle the colossus without it ever being touched, though I agree it needs to be nerfed/changed/made practical. It is how P deals with mass bio in the robo tech, you can't just dump it.
On June 01 2011 04:40 Big J wrote: I like that thread and I like that blizzard comment:
personally I think there are some things/units that should be changed + Show Spoiler +
- colossus: protoss armies can live without the colossus in its current form, yet those armies make the fights a gamble, just like jinro wrote: you can either win by crushing the colossi, or you instantly lose (and I don't like this principle) another thing I don't like: Protoss have the on of the best antiarmor units in the game (immortals) but noone gets them, as colossus do the job nearly as good if not even better vs "medium" armored units (marauder, roaches, tanks, stalker)
- overseer: just like blizzard said, it is a glorified scout. they either have to be changed or removed
- mothership: it is designed to be a lategame superunit, yet if it were a superunit, the whole protossrace would have to get balanced down, as a maxed protoss with mothership would just be unbeatable
- maybe give roach/hydra switching another chance (which they did a lot before the beta). T1 universal hydras, T2 mighty roaches opposed to T1 "you need them but they suck lategame" roaches, T2 "if they were strong zerg would be imba, because a strong universal unit + larvamechanic is broken" hydras. remove the queens AA-attack if you want...
Zerg: T2.5 unit that is good when massed, not necessarily the lurker. maybe a "HydraKing" that buffs units around him, or a "Roachdralisk", with the head of a roach and the tail of a hydra, morphed from those two, with both attacks...
Terran: a 4th factory unit, maybe steal the IBF from C&C so you can put biounits in it, and it varies with the unit that uses it (marine would be a gattlingtank or something like that, marauder a rocketbuggy, an SCV a repairvehicle etc... ) Mechstyles really need something to battle Protoss efficiently, and that is not hightech to battle mutas.
Protoss: maybe another harrassment unit, something thats not completly shut down by static AA-def. (phoenix, dt's) maybe a zealot warp upgrade, that warps zealots from a pylon to a pylon I think armywise Protoss has enough options right now, and P-armies are pretty universal and scary as they are. currently Protoss styles are too army based imo, there is little harass, a lot of turteling, and then 1-2big engagements
injections take too much focus in the lategame, maybe make queens autoinfuse lairs, or a queenupgrade or something, because beginning with ~4hatcheries nearly every pro starts to miss a lot of injections. I know this is controverse, but I think there can be an in-between solution, so you still have to focus, but you are really able to ignore injection for a minute inbattle, and not go like either: "yeah I won the battle, but I have no larva to use my advantage" or: "damn I didn't micro at all in this battle, and all the units Im building with those fresh larva will just run in and die..."
In reference to your mechanics suggestions. The answer has been present since day 1. Make more hatcheries. BW didn't have queens so people build tons of hatcheries. Zergs now should do the same. And don't complain about the cost. Protoss and Terran have to spam their production facilities, especially terran. And that can get expensive. Extra hatcheries don't even cost any gas.
well I would like to add, that I would prefer an injection nerf, over any other solution. Just make injections less powerful and make some slight balance changes, so zerg gets a little less reactive. mass hatcheries are not really a solution because queens are SO powerful early on(6larva/min vs 4larva/min) and usually you can't fit in a lot of hatcheries in the midgame, so you don't have them in the lategame just my opinion
Frankly, remove mothership altogether and add a unit similar to the arbiter. Maybe make it cheaper and maybe lower down the tech path (but not too low!), and give it a mass recall, except with a smaller area, so you need several at one time in order to move an army around the map, or just one if you want to drop.
This way, you could make protoss drops viable, by using two arbiters - one to call in, one to call out - and it also gives you grounds to eliminate the warp prism or at least change its core design.
I agree with removing colossus from the game. It is the unit to have. It would seem to me that each tech path - air, templar, robo - should be useful in every matchup. Instead, we have colossi every game, while templar and air only join the fray in the later part of the game and always when you are already supported by colossi.
I could see stalkers becoming a harass unit and being replaced by a more dragoon-ish unit, maybe change the immortal. That way the only robotech unit you keep is the observer and that leaves you room to add some new units. I also would like to see gateway units not relying on the sentry so much.
Just my thoughts on protoss, since that is the race I know best.
(And reapers and corruptors really do need to be reworked! And give zerg a new t1.5 unit and caster in t2, and a new flyer. And maybe move hydras further down the tech tree but making them weaker to compensate for it, to the point where a zerg player has strike up a balance between number of roaches and number of hydras.)
On June 01 2011 04:43 Raid wrote: Units that need fixing:
2.Mech : Really looks good on paper thor massive unit that outputs great damage, tanks bread and butter of mech, and helions cleaning up anything coming in but as we all see its terribly fragile, impossible to reproduce all of it once lost, gives no map presence, and its just horribad against protoss.
4. Terran & Protoss capital ships: dude the bc and carriers were glorified in all of bw history and its just this useless piece of crap in sc2. only function bc has is since tvt after air control is established since all terran aa is based on the marine the armor on the bc basically gives it that umph other than that all other races have sufficient aa to take out bc easy. Carriers are a joke because void rays pretty much took over their purpose in battles need to fix this unit somehow.
In BW the BC was only used in TvT. The New BC is crazy good compared to the old one and its faster. It can now be used to great effect in all match ups if used correctly.
In BW the Carrier was only used in PvT. The Carrier was used in response to the weakness mech had to air. Carriers would abuse the cliff that would give additional protection in BW(33 chance to miss. Something like that) against the ground walking Goliaths. Marines were great against Carriers but Terran never had any because they would always mech and wouldn't have any of the bio upgrades. Not to mention that the unit control and AI in BW was crap. That was the onlything that made them viable. Without this the actually sucked. In marines were viable in BW no one would have ever build carriers.
Carriers died when Blizzard decided to kill TvP Mech and made bio(marines) viable in TvP, and made Goliaths fly. Also when they took away the cliff mechanic.
Regarding mech. The real issue is supply, Protoss mobility and gas. You simply never have enough tanks vikings and hellions. Something has to give in this combinations. 4 collosi force 20 vikings. You need tanks to kill stalkers and advance forward, and you need enough hellions to kill zeals. But this supply issue can be fixed currently by pushing with PFs, Ghosts emp, and Ravens pdd.
PDD basically reduces the amount of Supply that is fighting by temporaly negating Stalkers, while PFs are short range tanks that cost no supply.
The problem becomes gas. Tank 125 gas, Raven 200 gas, Ghost 100 gas, Viking 75 gas, Double upgrades ALOT of gas, PFs 150 gas each.
Regarding mobility. Toss is so moblie with WG, collosi cliff, and Blink. Toss can simply pass your army with collosi, Stalkers and warps, Then use the collosi to spot and walk in your base. Blink in your base and deploy warp-pisms which are basically Free recalls.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Roach / Stalker / Marauder -- I've written many months ago about this unholy trio deciding most competitive games, and sadly things haven't changed since then, regardless of any patches. Boring! - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. I think 3D is underused as it is. Designers are still too much on BW brainwave. Create more significant action in the Z-axis - units jumping (say, banelings jumping above a ball to fall in the middle of it), units fighting entirely underground with each other, units using buildings to move faster or jump higher by bouncing off them. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? !!! Optional crash-graphics for people with really bad computers !!! - say, the option to disable textures Please!!! - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? More AOE effects of more complex types and shapes (for units & buildings). I think AOE is still not explored enough in Blizzard's games and has the potential to make very mind-challenging situations. Add 3D element to the AOEs - say, height range of effect.
Also, inter-dependency between AOEs, other AOEs, certain units' abilities - so that positional play becomes more puzzle-like - say, if I place this AOE here first, then I can place that AOE there next, but not the other way around. You can create some sense of the infinite possibilities of simple board game problems (Go, Chess) - within Starcraft, dynamically and over free plane, as part of the whole other gameplay features.
I just want defiler, its all i want, plague was so cool, dark swarm was so cool, consume was so cool, lurkers were amazing but seriously, give me back my hive tech caster, I love casters, they add micro and unit control to the game I want my defilers back.
Corrupters are boring as hell, reapers are stupid, I think ravens should have their cost reduced, or spell energy requirements reduced, or something because I think they are a cool unit that doesn't see enough use. Hydras are bleh bleh bleh, make them good again, or at least interesting I beg you.
As a zerg there is a couple things I want from a race design standpoint. Another early game option, something else to throw at our opponents early game other than what we have, make it so we don't have to get to Lair before we can harass, then maybe you can make lair research longer or something. As long as we don't have to have it to harass. I'm thinking along the roles that reapers or Helions fill. I'm not asking for a GG unit if you aren't prepared such as cloaked banshee, but something that can threaten and do serious damage if your opponent responds poorly.
The other thing is a way to control and command areas of the map, a way to set up an entrenched position, Terran does this with tanks mostly, as well as PF's on maps like Xel'naga where there is an expansion at a critical position. Toss does it, to a lesser extent with Colossus and FF, they set up a position that the opponent is afraid, and will try to refrain from, blatantly attacking into. Zerg has no way of controlling areas.
Also, add dynamic unit movement, make unit control harder.
Marauder It just doesn't seem like a interesting unit. Like said before, it is an marine who has more HP but can't shoot up. It also looks ridiculous if you ask me, but that doens't matter now.
Reaper The reaper does not have any uses in Starcraft 2 anymore. You can use it as an fast scout and then it is useless. I don't think a redesign could save this unit. I always thought that spider mines could fit on a Reaper. It already uses explosives on buildings and even in the singleplayer you get an additional grenade upgrade. But using a spider mine in someones mineral line by just jumping in seems to strong, so that won't happen.
Hellion I don't think this unit is very interesting either. You can burn a lot of workers with it if you are lucky and get passed the defenses. But after that I don't think it has many uses.
Thor A big hero unit sounds pretty interesting. But having an ability that is not very useful and having a "lucky" anti-air attack seems pretty stupid. The anti-air seems to be made to counter mutalisks. But it only works if the zerg makes an micro mistake. You should win because you are the better player, not because your opponent makes more mistakes than you.
Viking At first, in the beta, I thought that vikings were pretty interesting. An anti-air unit with a large range (you can kite other air units with it.) But the thing that was the most interesting to me was that you could land them and harass mineral lines. Sadly this just isn't viable and is only just as an counter to Colossus, Brood Lords and other Vikings.
Raven A spellcaster with 1 usefull spell in my opinion. auto turrets are not really the reason people are making Ravens. HSM is also a spell that isn't really usefull because of its energy cost, the need to research it and the slow movement on it. The only things that are interesting are the PDD and the ability to detect cloacked/burrowed units.
Also people have mostly reactors on their starports, because medivacs are more usefull.
Protoss:
Sentry This unit is to important for the Protoss army. It dictates to much. Force Field is IMO the best spell in the game. I like Force Fields as an defensive spell, but as an attacking spell it dictates to much of the fight. It negates micro and makes melee units useless.
Even without the forcefield (lets make it 75 gas and you don't have to upgrade hallucination) I still think it is an incredible unit. It would be more of an support unit, were you have 3-4 sentries in your army instead of 9 in your first push.
Immortal It is just as the description by Blizzard. It has a role it shouldn't have at the moment. Incredible burst damage on 1 single target doesn't really work in a game were you have 100+ zerglings or an MMM-ball.
I'd like to see the Immortal as a real tank. Maybe guardian shield would be an interesting spell on the Immortal. That way it makes sure all the attention would be focused on the Immortal (Like a tank) It also benefits the rest of the army.
Colossus Everyone hates it. It's counter is an air unit. You make to much of its counter (Viking, Corrupter) you lose because you kill the Colossus but don't have a ground army. You dont have its counter (Viking or Corrupter) you lose because it melts everything in 2 seconds.
Voidray I don't really think this unit is that interesting. It is mostly used to surprise your opponent and hopefully you can kill a few key buildings/units.
Also I like the idea of a lot of small battles and groups of units darting in and out to get the better concave or the better terrain to fight on. This is the opposite of what the Voidray does, be in a long battle and it gets stronger over time.
Mothership The only real Hero unit in the game. It has almost no uses and people are most of the time prepared for it. I just want the Arbiter back.
Zerg:
Baneling Actually it is my favorite unit. It is exciting to watch, and can control the battle immediately if you control them well. The thing I don't like is that is needed to counter the balls of units. (Actually I really hate the giant balls of units, but without them the Baneling has probably no uses anymore.)
Roach Easy to mass and not really interesting. I think it should be a unit that is used in small groups to backstab armies or mineral lines. I like the burrow mechanic from the roach, but it isn't used the way I like it to be used.
Hydralisk Low health, really, really slow and high damage. It is like an expensive marine. But marines get stim. Can easily be dropped, are not that slow (Stim helps) and get healed.
I like the idea to change them with the roach. This would also help my idea for the roach to be more viable as a small pack of units to harass with.
Ultralisk Big and stupid movement. I just can't think off anything else when I think about the SC2 Ultralisk. I want the SC:BW Ultralisk back.
Overseer See Blizzard explanation. This is a unit I like to see removed. Give detection back to the Overlord
Corrupter Counters Colossus and makes Brood Lords. Thats it. Nothing interesting. I like to see this unit removed and make Brood Lords from Mutalisks.
Mechanics
Creep I don't like the creep mechanic. Instead of punishing the people who don't spread creep. It should reward the people that do spread creep.
Warp Gates I see 2 problems with the Warp Gate mechanic. 1. You can warp in, into your/next to your proponents base which removes defenders advantage. 2. In the late game when you have a lot of Warp Gates and Money it is just ridiculous how much you can warp in at 1 time, (See Boxer vs HasuObs in TSL)
Larva Inject, Mules and Chronoboost It seems like an ability to let people do something. The game is so much simplified that it seems Blizzard implemented some mechanics to let the top players do something. In SC:BW we didn't need special mechanics to be productive...
balls of units. It stimulates 1a syndrome and is just not fun to watch.This post explains what I want.
Spellcasters I miss interesting spells. With Forcefields, Storm, Fungle Growth or w/e I am not getting excited. I don't know what is missing directly or how to change this. But spells are just not as cool and fun as in SC:BW
Graphics I don't really care about this...
What do I want? It is pretty hard to say what you really want. At least it is for me. Everyone knows some interesting features, but they need to be balanced for competitive play. I like the most that the giant balls of units disappear. But if that happens, the whole game needs to be rebalanced since it is made around balls fighting other balls...
Note Just take this all with a grain of salt since I am really bad at any game I play. I just like to watch and this are the points I dislike about viewing Starcraft 2.
Also English is not my 1st language, so it is hard for me to put exactly what I want to say on paper (or internet for this).
1) Roach - It does okay damage to ground units with no bonus damage and has a few burrow related things.. I honestly can't see why this unit is still even around. It doesn't do anything fancy or cool.
2) Marauders - Basically in same boat as Roaches but deal bonus to armored.
3) Colossi - Destroys pretty much every unit on the ground without much thought/input from the player using them.
MULEs are just glorified workers and don't really do anything cool or interesting (ie: chrono boost gives you a decision of what you want to focus on more heavily)
Larva inject is just required, it doesn't give you any decisions to be made with how to use it or when. You have to use it more or less as soon as it's up every time. (see chrono boost example)
Forcefield prevents movement in an area instead of making you want to enter/not enter an area, it just stops you. If Forcefield had an effect in the particular area (maybe slowed/slowed attack speed or something), I could see that being an interesting choice for the opponent; but as it stands right now you just put em down and that's it.
Fungal Growth is in a similar boat to Forcefield. It just stops them from moving and that's it. Needs a redesign.
I'd like to see a more burrow centric unit and one that controls space for Zerg and possibly some sort of siege unit (read: Lurkers). Zerg only has one spell caster right now (Infestors. Queens are more liken to Command Centers/Nexuses), and I feel like another would be a great addition.
I feel like Zerg and Protoss could use a few better air units as well as better anti air.
Pheonixes are useful sometimes, but aren't that common. Void Rays are in a similar boat. You hardly see Carriers because most races prepare for Colossi anyway (which require anti air), so they're one step ahead of you either way.
Mutalisks are great for harassment and Brood Lords are very good air to ground, but Corruptors are just plain awful; and you don't have anymore air options at all. Maybe a good all around air unit? (air to ground and air. Mutalisks aren't great at fighting other units)
I don't understand why people say Reapers aren't interesting and need to be removed. People seem to think they're only used as scouts or something along those lines. I'd say they're very similar to Mutalisks but better at taking out buildings. Make some when your opponent is spread out a lot and you can take out important buildings or tons of workers really fast while they're out on the map. Qxc seems to do this a lot and it works wonders in combinations with drops and nukes since they're likely to not catch everything going on.
I just hope they take this opportunity to remove forcefield from the game, give protoss something else for early defence that is not imbalanced when used offensively.
On June 01 2011 03:39 DeltruS wrote: I disagree with people asking for the removal of FF and fungal. They don't remove micro because the force an opponent to micro against them. Flanks from 3 sides > forcefield, and so does burrow. Spreading units can prevent cost effective fungals.
Flanks from 3 sides? You need a really great position on tournament custom maps to be able to do that. When protoss is in your base or in his own base then good luck with flanking. Fungal covers like 6-7 stalkers and 2 colossus max so am I supposed to split my 200/200 army to groups of 2-3 units and attack at the same time? Unless you have lonely units walking around it's impossible to be cost effective against fungal. You get hit by it and it's over. No ammount of micro or skill will help you come out of this situation. You can dodge storm but fungal causes damage on every unit (except ultralisk) and it immobilizes you.. It's pretty much a immobilizing storm that causes less damage.
You can run after getting hit by storm or EMP but you can never run after getting hit by fungal. Dark swarm didn't force you to fight either in bw.
Flanks require the zerg to get an army which can control where the battle can take place. It takes a really good, tactical player to be able to force a player into a flankable position. Maps are also a factor. Just like a bunch of marines behind the mineral line, preventitive positioning is the best solution.
An example of fungal spreading would be CatZ vs Destiny last night. It was a maxed out broodlord/infestor/corruptor battle. Catz was extremely intelligent and went for a huge amount of corruptors, spreading them out into a 24 corruptor arc before the battle. He came out victorious in the first part of the battle, and could have retreated, morphing the corruptors into broodlords and winning the game, but he accidently grouped them up and got them fungalled. Essentially, he almost completely nullified Destiny's army, and would have, sans a small mistake.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? 1. Mothership: It's basically a poor mans arbiter. Remove it and bring back the arbiter. 2. Collossus: Just remove it. Most boring unit in sc2 hands down. 3. Roach: Remove it, bring back T1 Hydras and Lurkers.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Remove Warp Gates: They are too hard to balance, and just screws too much with defenders advantage/basic strategic thinking. Change unit AI to dynamic movement: Read the Dynamic Movement thread.
On June 01 2011 02:10 TheDougler wrote: Useless units: Overseer Reaper Carrier
Uninteresting units: Colossus Ultralisk ...There is no terran unit I find uninteresting
Carriers have the highest DPS in the game, and reapers are the best scout unit in the game aside from the observer. I can agree that colossus are boring.
Thors beat carrier dps by a lot, as do a few other units.
Hydralisks: Make them a unit to be feared, rather than a unit to be easily hard-countered. You know how stimmed marines are a threat the whole game, in every matchup? It would be great if hydralisks filled a similar role.
Overseer: I actually like this unit and use it a lot. Yeah, it's basically just a scout, contaminate is awesome though - if you get a read on your opponent's timing, you can gum it up for hilarious results. If it were changed i'd like to see more harassment options like contaminate, or see contaminate buffed in some way.
Corruptor: A dumb unit that basically only exists to fight Colossus. Nobody uses BCs or carriers, ZvZ almost never makes it to brood lords. If you see a colossus and make too many corruptors, you die. If you make too few, you also die. the other races anti-massive and anti-air equivalents always have a backup use - vikings land, phoenix lifts, Corruption is terrible.
Queen: I think the Queen is my favorite unit, I wish it were more battle friendly. Upgrades for queen energy or movement in lair tech, I think, would add a good dimension to the game. I think there's a lot of queen/nydus/overlord play that would really make the game better, but nydus and queen just feel a bit handicapped.
I think the collosus is uninteresting and needs some dynamic aspect to make it a better unit. This could involve changing the collosus, or it could involve giving the other races more interesting ways of dealing with collosi.
For example, if you gave collosus thor movement speed, it would be still very strong, but obviously much less mobile unless its carried around in a warp prism. It would be cool to see it work like a reaver where it has to be carried everywhere to be useful.
The corruptor is boring-sauce. It kills massive air units really hard, and does basically nothing else even close to useful. Give it spider mines or something, make it awesome. Or just remove it and nerf collosi so zerg doesn't need it so badly.
#1. Collosus - So many arguments why it sucks. No micro, too easy to use, wrecks units that can't micro vs it, requires direct air counters. #2. Corruptor - Too expensive and boring imo. 20% from corruption is quite boring. #3. Roaches - I'd prefer if roaches had more health and greater damage but they were lair tech and costed more. Then they'd be real tanks which I think was the intention of blizzard.
edit:
In general, I'd like to see more risk/reward units that are actually viable.
Another idea for a Zerg Unit (inspired by the picture of the Gorgling):
It'd be cool to have a zerg unit that dove tailed with zerg strengths (creating surface area/surrounding the enemy).
I'd like there to be a baneling type unit that functions similar to the Mountain King attack in WC3... it stuns momentarily and pushes units apart on impact.
That way these "Gorglings" could hit a Toss ball and push them all apart so Zerglings could get better surface area on them.
Actually I like the Overseer, I just want to see a buff to contaminate. Maybe it could stop the target's recharging energy in addition to its other effects, to be somewhat strong vs OCs and Nexi.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Not going to respond to the rest of the OP as his/her terran comments were pretty silly.
Redesign: Corruptor, Mothership, Hydralisk, Colossus - Corruptors are silly. - I'd really really like to see arbiters in place of the mothership. Also vortex is not a very interesting spell and has caused a multitude of exploits. - Hydralisk. I have a motto that if I build hydras, except to counter air, i'll probably lose. This usually turns out to be true. Also, the lack of AA for zerg at tier 1 is infuriating and terrible design. - Colossus. I just find it boring to watch colossus. I also do not like the rock paper scizzors mechanic they create.
Tweak: Void Ray, Hellion, Raven - Void Ray. Too strong in groups, but I also wish it could have some moving shot potential like banshees. - Hellion... Blue Flame is too good at what it does, and not good enough at killing armored units. Blue Flame creates too much of a rock paper scizzors. And BFH drops are just way too strong against all races. - Raven. Air casters in general need to be redone, but the raven doesn't help terran out at all. The science vessel gave terran mobility in BW. PDD/turret are not bad, but only work to help terran doing what it already does well - controlling space. The abilities are redundant in that fashion. And seeker missile just has no synergy with the rest of terran.
I feel like terran need better control in the air vs zerg. If I have 25+ mutas and control them well, Terran basically can't hold more than 3 bases. Brood War punished you for massing too much of the same unit, and thor is not the answer. I play zerg, I hate thor, and I understand the terran counter [pressure the zerg] but still feel it is a little unfair.
I'd like to see the movement redone with less clumping. Right now it's kinda funny - you spend a lot of micro making your units spread out. In BW I feel like it was the opposite. (You wanted them to clump more to get through chokes, setup a recall, and stop running around like idiots)
On June 01 2011 06:07 GinDo wrote: Wow after reading the whole thread the general consensus is:
Units that are uninteresting:
1) Marauder 2) Roach 3) Collosi
Its really interesting how EVERYONE seems to dislike the Collosi .
Damn if it was removed or reworked in HOTS it would make me so happy :D
Its just such a horrible unit (not from a balance perspective at all) that this would pretty much make the expansion for me.
Its seems pretty popular with the ultra casuals that blizzard wants to "reemphasize" though so I'm sure all we can hope for is some kind of tweak to it or its general functionality. Its really a tragedy because the casuals will all be gone in one-two years after LOTV and anyone still playing star2 will be stuck with such a cruddy unit if they don't change it at all.
Collossus very boring easy to use unit, needs some sort of ability that makes it hard to use
Raven pdd is a great spell, but giving auto turrets to a slow gas sink made of paper is just absurd, auto turrets would be more suited to a unit like the reaper, raven also needs a better spell than seeker missle since a close range spell on a slow caster and does friendly fire and costs a lot of energy and can be micro'd away from is pretty worthless, seems like it could fill the role of a support unit Mothership Getting this unit is so insulting it's a form of BM slow expensive spells very gimmicky
Dynamic unit movement would definitely add a great deal to the game
for terran i'd like to see some sort of use of the liftoff mechanic other than walls and add-on switching, something you'd bring into battle and support your units
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
Why in the world would you remove most of the games spells that make it interesting at all? You're basically implying you want this to be A-movecraft 2: Heart of the click
i basically with everything here, but im not optimistic about blizzard implementing any changes like this. these are not balance changes, the are massive changes in the game and would literally be like a new game, and while I and probably other would welcome some or all of these changes I dont see that happening : /
Yea, more than three, but the Colossi, Roach, Thor, Marauder and Corruptor are all incredibly boring while the Overseer, Reaper, Raven, Carrier, Mothership and Hydralisk are fairly useless.
Mechanics to Tweak:
Pathing AI - The excessive clumping is the root of a lot of problems with SC2. Units need to not clump so much, and then we can have a lot of different changes happen to compensate, resulting in a far more interesting game.
Force Field - It is a cool idea but it's entirely too spammable and this, along with Concussive Shells and Fungal Growth, needs to be tweaked. Abilities that reduce mobility just aren't fun, to play with or watch. FF has especially caused a ton of problems. Protoss armies rely on it because their Gateway units are so weak and the Protoss army is really bad unless in a ball, but they are this way because of the fact that they have FF to spam.
Everything else is fine, I just really think they need to tweak units/mechanics.
Why in the world would you remove most of the games spells that make it interesting at all? You're basically implying you want this to be A-movecraft 2: Heart of the click
The problem is that those spells don't make the game interesting. They're very boring. Like I said, abilities that reduce mobility are just frustrating in general. They can be in place, but at this point they're entirely too commonplace.
Blizzard, please give Protoss some good harass! Phoenix isnt that effective, warp prism is way to fragile and expensive (takes up valuable colossus build time) And dts are only effective in the extreme lategame.
I really hope blizzard listens to professionals, and not anybody who posts here or in the blizzard forum. I couldn't take this thread seriously after the OP that was quite obviously terran biased. After that the thread is: GET RID OF THIS BLIZZ! I honestly wish that people would just keep their opinions to themselves. Because this game would probably be better if the community had less say in the balance.
On June 01 2011 02:02 Crawler wrote: Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Corruptor 2. Overseer 3. Colossus (tbh I like every single unit in sc2 and bw but if you really want 3 units then maybe these are a bit less interesting and could use some changes)
Why in the world would you remove most of the games spells that make it interesting at all? You're basically implying you want this to be A-movecraft 2: Heart of the click
They're all abilities that basically immobilize your opponent and remove any chance of having a real 2-sided micro battle. At best, you have a short dance prior to the battle for ghost vs sentry/ht or whatever, and after that, just watch your units die or spread out and steamroll depending on that first bout. The side that's been boxed in FFs or Fungal can't just cut his losses and leave because he has to hope to still do some damage with the rest of his army to even out the trade, and the side that was victorious with their casts has no reason to do anything other than a-click and wait. So you just have army vs army auto spread and autotargeting each other until one dies. That is "a-movecraft" imo. This is one of the core problems with SC2 as a competitive game and spectator sport.
On June 01 2011 06:14 Mikilatov wrote: Damn Baituri. I think you listed 75% of units in the game, haha.
Yes, because I think a lot in this game is lacking. I just don't think a lot of units are interesting in the way they are right now. A lot of units have just 1 purpose and can't be used in another way. Which is pretty bad.
Although I enjoy watching SC2 (At least 4-6 hours a day) I don't think I will do this for another 5-10 years if the game stays like this.
I think it was Day9 that said this, maybe it was somebody else. Every unit needs to feel overpowered and imbalanced. You need to have feeling when you are watching/controlling a unit that it is the most interesting thing on the playing field. And with a lot of units I do not get that feeling.
Like i said, it is hard for me to really put this into words, because it is not really clear for myself what I dislike about a lot of things. Also I think if you look at all the posts together, I just made a list with all the units that are called by the people. It just happens to be I dislike them all, or other people just listed the 3 of them.
Units I would tweak: Corruptor Colossi Roach/Hydra
Corruptor and Colossi are just plain boring for both players and spectators. You can't really do much with them except 1a or focus something, corruption is a joke. Please revamp them in a way that they are not as effective out of the box but let them scale a little bit with micro/give them something interesting for the game. Corruptor look kinda cool atleast.
And I still find Roaches really boring and dull and would prefer Hydras as the massable unit and Roaches as some kind of t2 tank/ambush unit. Right now Roaches scale too well with upgrades imo and make Hydras obsolete, there is rarely a reason to choose Hydras over Roaches.
On June 01 2011 04:17 SpaceToaster wrote: - What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Viking/Thor - Theres no good mech antiair, and vikings are pretty uninteresting to fill that gap. Thors are also pretty boring. Colossus - Creates the most boring unit dynamic in the game. Would honestly be okay without the range upgrade, but even then its still a boring A-Move unit. Roaches - They just don't fit with the zerg swarm concept. Another boring AMove unit.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Fungal Growth - Snares have no place in Starcraft. Maybe change it to a slow, but slows don't really have a place in Starcraft either. Colossus - As above, the viking/colossus dynamic is really lame, and poorly designed. Warp-In - Removes defenders advantage, reduces the effective size of maps. Would be okay if it was a building with entrances/exits like nydus, but that would homogenize the races somewhat. Forcefield - The thing that made spells great in BW was that both players could micro and the spells effectiveness depended on how well both players handled it. SC2 spells like fungal and FF make it extremely one sided and pretty boring.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? None really, the game looks fine. Maybe some changes to custom game browser, to make it more like Bnet1.0
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Reavers - Would encourage warp prism play, and are all around more fun than Colossus. Lurkers - Allow for Z to hold ground, maybe only allow burrow on creep (since creep can spread everywhere easily in SC2) Scourge - More fun than corrupters. Goliaths and Wraiths - To replace Thors/Vikings. Gols could require Armory but not Techlab, making them the meat of a mech army. Wraiths have great synergy with banshees. Vikings could replace goliaths in their alpha state, where they were built from the factory with a ground to air attack, but flight was an upgrade at starport.
Yeah man removed BW units > New SC2 units for the most part xd.
To be fair I'm not against them coming out with completely new units, but they're the professionals, so I'm not gonna try my hand at new units. I do think the removed units were better than some of our current options.
Protoss - Collosus: Obviously not much to add here. Powerful unit to make up for crappy gateway units. Protect at all costs. - Carrier: Hard countered too easily. Marines shred interceptors to bits, and if they have a starport and a reacter handy (read: every game) you've just spend 20~ minutes wasting your time. - Immortal: All round useless. Only good against Ultralisks and sucks against everything else, even the 'supposed' units it counters. Also built out of the Robotics Facility, while the Dragoon wasn't, I guess current Protoss engineers aren't as good as their forefathers.
Terran - Viking: A 9 range no-upgrades-required flying unit which counters everything in the air and can be reactered out in a moments notice. Also kills Collosus. Nice. - Marine: Too good against everything. It costs 50 minerals, 1 supply and no tech. Pretty good. - Marauder: Kills everything with 'Armoured' in its description.. and you can't run away from it.
Zerg - Roach: 1a 1a 1a. Damaged? Burrow to heal. Splendid. - Overseer: Dumb unit. I mean, I can see why they removed detection from Overlords (to make cloaked units actually effective v Z) but I kind of like that -Zerg- trait. But on the other hand Corsairs were actually pretty mean. So.. - Infestor: Spawn Infested Terrans? Zzz. Fungal Growth? Well you see, I use this ability, click on your army, and not you can't move and take 100% guaranteed damage. Which also sets me up for the next click. Awesome.
*Stalkers/Marauders/Roaches, all tier 1.5, all armoured, all fast, high hp.. wait what race am I supposed to be playing here?
On June 01 2011 06:39 mewby wrote: I read the OP, if you are going to try to make an informed post and actually add something please dont have that much terran bias, jesus christ.
Except the post does a pretty good job of encouraging discussion and doesn't force his bias on anyone. He's basically just asking for opinions and presenting his own.
I think the most uninteresting unit from each race would be:
Thor Roach Colossus
The Thor has pretty much been nerfed to oblivion. I think they should take out roaches all together and make the hydralisk more like it's Brood War counter part. I think that'd be so much better for the race. The design behind the Colossus isn't very good to begin with.
Colossus: needs to be removed from the game, this unit does not increase in effectiveness as the skill level of the Protoss player increases (terrible design). This unit is overpowered in choke low skill situations, and underpowered in open high skill situations (bad balance design). This unit has also made Gateway severely underpowered compared to other races Tier 1 which leaves the game predetermined and boring.
Infestor: Started out as a great unit but it was found that this units ability to hold air units in place was overpowered. Now its the ultimate unit in the game that counters everything except tanks emp and feedback.
HT: started out underpowered and useless at the begining of the game because of effectiveness of colossus and the necessity of having AoE against stim marines or you free lose. However once the skill levels increased and the failings of the colossus became apparent HT took a life of their own, unfortunately blizzard determined that low masters players can't possibly emp via 10 range before an ht psi storms from 6 range. Archon change was necessary for a long time but currently Colossus/Archon is the way to go because HT still can't hold their own.
Also, how bout units that are great/shouldn't be removed or only minorly tweaked at most
Terran: Marines: Staple, simple, easy to control, effective, get better with micro Hellions: Interesting harass unit Tanks: same as marines Thor: Goes well with the whole immobility of terran, good at holding a position as anit-air. Banshee: Interesting unit Raven: Awesome support unit. PDD is underrated battle cruiser: Although rarely seen, great in certain situations.
Zerg: Zergling: Baneling: Most fun unit in the game Hydra: Maybe needs more tweaks, but a good unit Infestor: Ok, too much tweak, but still good unit Broodlord: Great unit for lategame
Protoss: Zealot: Great unit Stalker: Awesome unit, blink is a fun ability Sentry: Makes the game super interesting positionally Phoenix: Has it's specific place in the game
On June 01 2011 06:48 Striding Strider wrote: Boring/Unintersting Units
Protoss - Collosus: Obviously not much to add here. Powerful unit to make up for crappy gateway units. Protect at all costs. - Carrier: Hard countered too easily. Marines shred interceptors to bits, and if they have a starport and a reacter handy (read: every game) you've just spend 20~ minutes wasting your time. - Immortal: All round useless. Only good against Ultralisks and sucks against everything else, even the 'supposed' units it counters. Also built out of the Robotics Facility, while the Dragoon wasn't, I guess current Protoss engineers aren't as good as their forefathers.
Terran - Viking: A 9 range no-upgrades-required flying unit which counters everything in the air and can be reactered out in a moments notice. Also kills Collosus. Nice. - Marine: Too good against everything. It costs 50 minerals, 1 supply and no tech. Pretty good. - Marauder: Kills everything with 'Armoured' in its description.. and you can't run away from it.
Zerg - Roach: 1a 1a 1a. Damaged? Burrow to heal. Splendid. - Overseer: Dumb unit. I mean, I can see why they removed detection from Overlords (to make cloaked units actually effective v Z) but I kind of like that -Zerg- trait. But on the other hand Corsairs were actually pretty mean. So.. - Infestor: Spawn Infested Terrans? Zzz. Fungal Growth? Well you see, I use this ability, click on your army, and not you can't move and take 100% guaranteed damage. Which also sets me up for the next click. Awesome.
*Stalkers/Marauders/Roaches, all tier 1.5, all armoured, all fast, high hp.. wait what race am I supposed to be playing here?
Most Bias post I have ever seen.
On the OP. Removal 1.Collosous- Everyone already listed. 2.Mothership-Add arbiter Tweaks. 1.Hellions- Make them fit better with Terran mech. 2.Carriers 3.Tanks in the sense to make them more useful TvP. 4.Hydralisk-Just plain sucks.
I will attempt to do some theory crafting here and not balance complaining. I can only hope people take this for what it is. Some thoughts and ideas, that's all. With HotS being produced, sweeping overhauls are a real possibility and we the community should try our best (and owe it to this great game) to put forth ideas that could help the game in the long term.
For PROTOSS (my race) I dislike FF's, they are too strong when abused, the protoss army is too weak without them, and overall protoss is too dependent on them for early game survival. I feel protoss is too vulnerable to cheese and all ins, in every match up (even with FF, it's hard to get enough gas early to have them and then have enough muscle in your army to push out, tech, and keep up on expansions) Colossus are just too expensive (especially after getting sentries), too strong, too predictable (blind countered often) and too necessary in almost every match up. Really, this also speaks to a more general problem with protoss, imo. The gateway armies are just too expensive and not cost effective without FF, and or Colossus. Immortals are good early and mid game, but they are too close to colossus in cost when compared with how strong they are for the mid to late game, Like many protoss units I feel that Immortals only counter 1 or 2 units effectively, don't have the range to be good in large armies, and are weak against the same units that smash zealot/stalker. (like hydras, MM, emp, for example). I feel protoss anti air is lacking too, protoss's longest AA is stalkers,(blink helps but their slow rate of fire hurts this role) and the only AA splash is archons or psi storm. HT's and archons are too slow to catch air units, and storm can be dodged pretty easily by muta's. Also, protoss harass needs some love, phoenix and dt are your only effective options (gateway units don't kill retreating workers fast enough to be very scary). Phoenix and DT both get shut down by the same thing, 1 well placed turret or spore crawler.
I'd like to see FF's kill-able (if targeted maybe 50-100hp) but also some kind of buff to gateway units, (more damage for sentries and a better cool down for stalkers or better upgrade bonuses) I'd love to see immortals (or colossus if immortals had a +2 range upgrade) replaced by reavers (won't happen lol) this would give toss some scary harass, on par with zerg or terran drops, and muta or banshee harass. (or nydus) I'd like shield batteries to come back, (make them require 2 pylons so they don't get abused in 4gate or 3gate robo all ins at your front door) then protoss could actually defend all in's and harass early game, even with killable ff's. Batteries would also give protoss a mechanic to help taking 3rds and later bases (Terran has PF and sensor, zerg has creep and insane unit speed) toss has a slow army and warping in 5 units isn't going to save your expo! Batteries would also help protoss air play, carriers and motherships are very bad right now imo. If you win with them, you probably would have won without them. For upgrades I think shield upgrades should be put to 100/100 or 150/100 because of the fact that protoss units get half the armor benefit that zerg or terran gets (armor only helps half a toss unit's health) This would also make air units a little stronger to mix in. As well as cannons having shield upgrades would be a bit better vs marine drops or mutas (which I feel is needed) Stalkers should also get +2 per attack upgrade. Lastly, just fix motherships, they are horribly bad for what they cost. Either make them hard to kill so the cloaking makes them worth it, or cheaper (just to tech to them is costly!) or both.
For ZERG I think overseers are just bad. Roaches are too close to stalkers in strength (and get +2 for every +1 to stalkers) and for cost roaches can be made almost 2 to 1 against stalkers (they need to stay what they are vs terran IMO so this could be fixed with some buff for stalkers). Hydras are too slow to be good AA. Mass Muta is too strong in general. Spines take too long to build, creep spreads too far per tumor.
I'd make roaches morph into lurkers (upgrade available after lair) because zerg needs some better defense (spines), and using hydras for lurkers would put them too far up the tech tree. But going lurker roach would be risky (vs air). Overseers should just cost 50/50 (or 50/25) to morph and add detection,speed and drop (instead of lair upgrades to all overlords) would help the detection situation. Also, as soon as zerg gets lair, it would have a lot of options, good scouting, good defense, opportunities to punish a lack of detection or vision (lukers or drops or both!)
A speed upgrade should be available for hydras so they can actually be useful in more situations and be re-treatable. For the creep tumor thing, I just feel this is one of those things that makes zerg insane in the late game because of the amount of vision and the mobility it adds to an army that is already the fastest in the game. Fungal just needs to be reworked, maybe split into 2 spells (ensnare which slows units and cooldown and plague which does damage) right now having both with the dps it does, is ridiculous. Make zerg choose if they want to delay or reduce enemies dps (ensnare) or do damage (plaguuuu!). (but they will probably cast both with 2 infestors so I'm not sure if this would work or not) Right now, fungal growth is a soft counter to everything, and hard counter to many core units of all 3 races. There is also nothing you can do against it, in many situations, you just sit there staring at your army hoping for your opponent to mess up so you can retreat. Mass muta is only a problem imo because of magic box, thors are supposed to counter muta but flying over them and pressing h to reverse hard counter them is just wrong. Protoss AA is just too weak to handle them in larger numbers. (cannon dps is a joke compared to missile turrets) To hear people actually say that you just attack zerg when you see muta's and you win or loose depending, is just not good for the game imo. (Maybe increase thor AA splash, and giving stalkers +2 per attack upgrade and cheaper shield upgrade would fix this)
(Best for last lol) TERRAN: I have a lot of issues with terran. ( I actually play T quite often for fun) With terran I feel like marauders step on the role of siege tanks, and because of stim + concussive it is impossible to retreat from them (without loosing half your army). Which I don't like. I'd like to see a cooldown nerf to stim and a slight buff for siege tanks. (maybe make the stim bonus to attack speed half of what it is now, make the research a little faster and give tanks a 5 or 10 dmg increase at least in siege mode) This would also make it slightly easier to retreat from concussive. I think terran has problems with going anything that doesn't include lots of marines because thors AA doesn't work well vs muta, broodlords or voids/carriers and vikings take too long to get out in mass. I think putting vikings at factories instead of starports could fix this, just require armory to produce them (or required to switch to air mode) and allow for reactor production of them from factories. Start them in walker mode. They share upgrades with the other factory units. This alone could revive mech and change the way bio is so strong early, so weak late and nearly impossible to transition out of. Move emp to ravens, this would make them good vs toss, and with vikings at factories, starports and ravens would become necessary vs toss. But if emp gets removed from ghosts, than cloak and snipe would have to be cheaper for research and usage. I feel emp comes out too fast and is too good vs toss especially with the dependence on FF early game. 1 good emp + stim/concussive bio can too easily be GG. I think mules need their income reduced, you loose the production of 3 scvs for OC, yet 1 mule is equal to twice that in income and they actually overlap ( a mules lasts slightly longer than it takes to get energy for them) Mules don't keep terrans even on income, they put them slightly ahead and a terran who expands inside his main and double mules/scv pumps gets way ahead unless protoss expands. Which means terran takes much less risk in trying for an economic advantage. Mules on gold bases is a problem too. Terrans put a PF at gold and drop mules and instantly have double their opponents income which is sustainable >50% of the time. Maybe make mules only dropable within a certain distance of an orbital. Get rid of calldown supply, terran should be punished for missing supply just like toss or zerg or make the energy cost of supply calldown a little higher. PDD is just way too strong against toss, it should have half as much energy and not stay around forever recharging energy. Protoss has weak AA as it is, PDD blocks phoenix, stalker and cannon fire. (Which I find weird that it blocks energy weapons with a laser but not projectile weapons like marine and tank fire, would love to hear the lore on this!). Unfortunately, I think ravens would be crap without them. Seeker missile needs to be more available/useful and maybe replace turret with emp for ravens to still be worth getting.
Overall, I'd like to point out I am perfectly open to anything that would help some of what I feel are problematic areas of sc2. It's not like I am saying this is broken or this must be changed in this way to fix it. The game is pretty damn balanced but I really feel it's more gameplay factors that hurt sc2. I just feel there are some things that make the game less fun,interesting, and competitive than it could be. I know plenty of people are going to read this and think "go play BW" and actually I've played over 50 games of BW this week with my brother. I play all 3 races, he always plays toss. It's not really units that I miss in BW but the gameplay. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and I feel I can finally articulate some insight into the two games and how they play out.
It's not anything super specific (like units or abilities) that makes bw play out better but basically the way the races play. In BW Toss's army is very strong and can apply that strength anywhere, this gives them the best mobility even though their army isn't the fastest or much faster. However,in sc2 toss's army has to back itself into a corner or choke to be strong (FF, colossus, storm) which greatly constrains its mobility. Also, the harass of reavers compared to the much weaker protoss harass in sc2 means that in bw, zerg and terran have to put serious thought into defending every base they take and has to scout toss constantly to know what he's going. Reavers are by no means a necessity. In sc2 this is not the case, you often scout toss to know 1 thing, 'did he go colossus or something else?" place 1 turret at each base and your army can just react as needed. In BW, protoss's strength and mobility is compensated by the fact that zerg and terran armies would get crushed if they got caught out of position or on the move, but if set up zerg and terran armies are 3x stronger. Like when a zerg gets Dark swarm and lurkers, or a terran gets siege tanks backed by mines, missile turrets, bunkers, and depot walls. This is what created those awesome army dances and struggles for positioning. Which made BW so beautiful to watch at high levels. Think of how important those high platforms are on Match point in bw for example.
Sc2 just lacks this positional, strategic play in the vast majority of situations. Too many games come down to, whose army counters who's, who's army has better dps, who has aoe like fungal, emp, colossus/storm. The strategy is too focused on whats in your base and not how your army is setup or positioned on the field. TvT is the only matchup in sc2 I feel achieves this up to par with bw. Yet just like in bw it is possible for one player in TvT to try and sidestep this kind of positional game, in which case it all comes down to execution. These last 3 paragraphs are the essence of where most of my ideas in this post come from.
No TLDR for you here, I think this post all needs to be taken as a whole to really understand my points and ideas. I realize I didn't answer the op's questions directly, I think the complexity and interactions in the game are really to much to be perfected from those answers. I hope this isn't seen as being off topic or an inappropriate response to the op.
In closing I am cautiously optimistic for the future of Sc2, even though I am utterly dismayed at some of the answers given at interviews by members of the Sc2 design team. Once the shock wares off I realize that because just one member of the design team has an opinion on one unit or concept that I disagree with, isn't enough for me to doubt all the people on their team on every issue.
It is entirely too much the focus of everything about Protoss's matchups. In PvP its a race to see who gets more. In PvT its about very fragile micro from both players to either kill/protect the Colossus. PvZ is much the same, perhaps with an even larger emphasis on avoiding Colossus in combination with Forcefield. I play Protoss at the low Master's level for reference.
In my opinion, creates many of the same effects the Colossus does but for Terran, albeit in a different way. Even in the matchup where they are rarely seen, PvT, they help create the degenerate state that its in because if you don't get Colossus, the Marines just destroy pretty much everything (I guess storm qualifies too but it has its own problems). It also leads to TvZ and TvT lategames that are essentially something along the lines of "Marine Tank Medivac into... Marine Tank Medivac." Not unlike the Colossus, if they aren't handled properly, their dps makes most things irrelevant. They serve as a deterrent to other strategies.
In the case of the Hydra, I think it needs to be redesigned not because it useful in too many situations, like the above, but simply not good enough in a wide variety. Hydralisks suffer immensely off creep which creates a certain fragility to map size. Too small and zerg dies due to its fundamental mechanics, too big and you just can't use hydras aggressively. They're also probably too good in the situations where they are useful, perhaps to compensate for their narrow usefulness. Their glass cannon dps and anti air capabilities are absurd and keep the zerg from getting other varieties of units to potentially fill those gaps.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. 1) The damage spell trio (Fungal, Storm, EMP) + Show Spoiler +
They all feel a bit too hit or miss. They all have their difficulties in actually being delivered but in the event they are delivered well are probably too good. It again creates this feeling of fragility and perhaps randomness as to whether a given spell will connect and end the game, or cost you one. I think all of them should be more consistent but be compensated by some reduction in potency, e.g. increasing range at the cost of damage.
I like how they function in the early game, as a deterrent against Zealots and the like but late game, combined with Stim and Medivacs, make retreating from an engagement with a bio ball not only costly, but effectively impossible. Stim's speed increase serves as a sufficient deterrent from running but is not so back breaking that any sizable fight with a Marauder ball must necessarily decide the game. Again, fragility bad.
The only macro mechanic that actively and critically punishes a player for not using it. Not having an upgrade finish 10 seconds earlier can occasionally be costsly, but losing 4 Larva, perhaps indefinitely, is often straight up game ending. It creates a disparity in the Zerg talent pool I believe, leading to the difficulty in balancing that race. That is, the race ends up feeling abnormally fragile (broken record, I know) so their representation gets minimized and reduces the amount of development that can occur. Also just straight up makes people not wanna play the race.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? 1) Make it easier to tell what does or does not create a hard wall (zealot blocks, etc). 2) Make it impossible to tell what is building from a Stargate. 3) Provide a visual indication of when Stim is researched.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? 1) The Lurker. Zerg could really use a more reliable form of AoE damage than Banelings and need an actual detection threat, burrow doesn't do it enough. Will also help Zergs actually control space.
2) Protoss drop threat. Perhaps not the Reaver for obvious reasons but something between Storm drops (huge investment, huge payoff) and Zealots (low investment, small payoff). Perhaps a unit that does some AoE damage upon Warp In but is otherwise cost inefficient?
3) For symmetry's sake I was attempting to think of a Terran unit to suggest, but I honestly don't see a whole lot of holes in Terran's gameplay, so I have no idea.
Zerg should have scourge. I don't see how it could hurt the game at all; would help defend medivac drops and I'd say if scourge could hit collosi that would help a lot too. There is nothing the scourge could do that would shut down current air balances (phoenix easily can outmicro them, banshees are supposed to be getting damage dealt before lair/overseer is out and certainly before spire, probably not too bad against voidrays, etc) while helping zerg deal with protoss death ball and protect expansions from drops on large maps zvt.
Props if we could get some observer sniping like in broodwar; could help zerg slow down protoss from just walking all over zerg's creep and killing all of zerg's creep tumors. Maybe even let zerg "run away" from protoss army if you snipe observer and burrow roaches instead of getting trapped and killed by forcefield.
edit- current uninteresting units: hydra (slow, as someone said no micro, etc), corruptor, thor (just a big beefy unit with nothing conceptually interesting and complete lack of micro). Other terran mech you do build up a ball, but siege tanks have positioning and hellions are definitely micro-intensive if you open with them. A weaker/cheaper/faster build time thor with more mobility/micro capabilities would be a help imo (not down to a goliath's level, but cheaper/less strong than current thor).
Terran needs more drop possibilities... when you said terran, did you mean protoss? I feel that terrans drop more than the other two races by far. That being said.
Protoss Archon - Bigger Splash radius and/or damage a flock of mutas or a swarm of zerglings should not be able to crush archons as easily as they do.
Zerg Lurker - I don't even think you need to do much more than port the unit and adjust the stats, restrictions like being a building and staying on creep are cool ideas, but they seem sort of redundant as far as space control options go, spine crawler
Terran The WaterBat - FireFighters on Stim ain't nothing to mess with. Tasteless is brilliant
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Corruptors - Only real reason to use them are for brood lords or to snipe colossus, If you make too many you loose the ground war, Make too little you still lose the ground war also I find their spell a bit boring and costs too much energy
Colossus - Force your opponent to go air which then prevents you from tech switching in to star gate at all while forcing boring 1a battles on the ground
Thor - Amazing vs mutalisks in T v Z but since the energy Nerf they lost their usefulness vs Toss and lack a role for use in TvT
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Forcefields are great defensively but rather overpowered when using them on the offence I can really think of a fix besides only being able to construct force fields on pylons or something allowing it to keep it's defensive use. That change could also possibly promote warp prism use but I still think that would not be a good fix.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
Not fussed about this
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Protoss and zerg need a unit that can control areas like the siege tank, Possibly bringing back the Reaver / Lurker
On June 01 2011 06:59 N.geNuity wrote: Zerg should have scourge. I don't see how it could hurt the game at all; would help defend medivac drops and I'd say if scourge could hit collosi that would help a lot too. There is nothing the scourge could do that would shut down current air balances (phoenix easily can outmicro them, banshees are supposed to be getting damage dealt before lair/overseer is out and certainly before spire, probably not too bad against voidrays, etc) while helping zerg deal with protoss death ball and protect expansions from drops on large maps zvt.
What, you think zerg is particularly suffering on large maps zvt?
Drops are among the last things terran has to gain an advantage against zerg. You can't just expect to outmacro and beat the zerg player without dealing some economical damage, especially after the infestor buff.
banshee, way too strong, encourages gimmicky, all-in plays, i would like to see its damage nerfed or removed/replaced by another unit VR, see banshee marines, stutter micro? is it good for the game or not? 2 rax + scv against hatch first zerg is in my eyes is a game of chance (slow lings are really inefficient against marines being stutter micro'ed maruders, one of the core unit of every match up, im not sure how it should be changed, even a slight change can cause a big difference in the match ups... but this unit just doesnt feel right thors, i would like to see some changes to 250mm, its animation setup is way too long right now, making them horrible in large battles, but then again removing animation makes thors imba, 250mm removed in compensation for a faster movement speed? helions, does not fit in the terran mech play, should provide some sort of zoning ability that allows terran mech play (ie, spider mines) tanks, remove smart fire, buff damage hydralisks, needs to be fixed/buffed, its roles in SC2 is way too small, (lurker maybe?) roaches, way too cost efficient, its just such a well rounded unit for every situation, i would like to see units that have their own specific roles take over roaches banelings should be removed, 1/2 base all-in b-bust is way too strong, yeah terran can wall off with 2 rax, sacrificing 10-15banelings to bust it ends the terran production, defending against a well executed baneling bust is like tossing a coin, bad for the game sentry, ff too much of a game changer? added with map choke points, is this ability too good? collolol this doom unit def needs to be fixed, IMO, protosses only doom unit should be the HT
The Roach is Zergs biggest problem imo. I would like to see it get taken out back and shot, and then tweak the Hydra to take its place. Add the Lurker in the Hydra's current spot, and nail (very gently) a pair of wings on the baneling and call it a Scourge. Tell the new Scourge to go kill the Corruptor.
As for Protoss I want to se something done to the Colossus just as everyone else. And add a unit that can hold help hold a position aswell as do good in drops.
I think that somewhere in development of WoL someone got drunk and mixed up the weapons of the firebat and the vulture and then they just rolled with it. Should be corrected it imo.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
Colossus: it really looks like this unit was made to work in a deathball situation, seeing a toss army of stalkers hiding between the legs of 6 colossus is the most boring thing in this game... problem is that it is almost the standard lategame army for toss :s. Marauder: concussive shell looks fun, but it's some one sided micro , there is not much you can do. sentry: FF are stupid , they need to change that Err... when i start to think about it a bit more , roaches are absolutely boring , especially in zvz , the corruptors/viking dynamic against colossus is kind of dumb , void rays as well ( shitty in low number , unkillable when they reach a critical mass), battlecruisers are still not really good , reapers are useless, hydra die to any aoe and you can't micro them...
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
warpgate , negates defender advantage and in late game making a lot of gates means that if your opponent doesn't win the fight decisively you will be able to kill him before he can make any reinforcement . The pathing need to be changed , the ball mechanic makes for a terrible spectator game. I mean , just compare it to bw. Force field is also a bad mechanic , it denies any kind of surround/positional play from the opponent ,it encourages ball play ( easier to protect with forcefield) , and makes battle completely one sided: if you have good forcefield you will almost not loose anything, otherwise your army will die to marauders or roaches in the blink of an eye
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Don't know, I don't think there is anything you can do to really make the game better if you don't get rid of the "ball" effect and the "go 200/200 , see who wins the big fight and we will have our winner" [/spoiler]
Why I think units should be changed or why I think they should not be changed.
Roaches: How can you guys say Roaches after witnessing Mondragon play with them, I was once of the same opinion as you guys, but Mondragon proved me (in my eyes) wrong.
Hydralisks: I think Hydralisks being weak is a biproduct of how strong Colossi and Marines are. Marines I think would suffer from an introduction of dynamic movement. Would not mind seeing them gone, but Protoss would need something to make up for that loss.
Corruptors:[ Would love to see a melee AtA unit, (in my mind it) fits the Zerg style.
Colossi: Colossi and silly, silly units, and the fact that you rarely see a game where a Protoss doesn't get it really depresses me.
Warp Prisms: Give origamiplane some shields, PLEASE!
Marauders: Marauders are the epitome of a-move. They make for very boring games too, as you can't really "poke" them, due to the Concussive Shells. Would not mind seeing them go, as they really do not fill any role other than "not being fried instantly by Colossi".
Reapers: I would like to see some of the Reaper nerfs reverted, and maybe they should be granted something to be useful as the game progresses past the early-game.
Vikings: I love Vikings, but I do think the ground mode needs some love.
Thors: Simply not interesting, their spell is boring too. Would like to see how Terrans would do with this unit simply being removed.
Ravens: Do not like how the PDD was given to Terran in such a (in my opinion) boring fashion. Would love to see it get an ability that can protect you from melee units rather than ranged. Also Seeker Missile (again, in my opinion) needs to properly blow shit up, have more range, and be impossible to kite forever. The unit targeted should suffer damage no matter what, but it should be possible to micro the targeted unit away from your "deathball". + Show Spoiler +
Being a zerg, and given zerg will probably be the most modified race, I focus mostly on that. Things have to be tweaked balance wise ofc, but I think there are some fundamentals wrong things with the race.
A) bit faster default overlord or B) a new scouting unit, f ex a summoned scourge-like flying unit spawned by the queen from energy (think hallu pheonix). So imo, change either queen, overlord or something else to improve early game (opponent 1base) scouting. Possibly even make overlord speed hatch-tech and 100/50 or something...
- Corruptor, boring unit that doesnt really do its role very well. Doesnt have any flash, slow, boring abilities, very low dps. No real need for a strong tank air to air.
- Hydralisk, needs to be faster.
- Queen, PLEASE TO GOD dont punish me for being good with larvae inject. the fact that 23 energy is regenerated in 1 cycle instead of 25 is so insanely annoying and a huge flaw... Nothing is more annoying than spending 2sek on injecting instead of half a second, just because you were "too good" at keeping energy low... I'd even settle for larvae popup lasting 1sek longer if that was the fix required.
Also. Colossus, the unit is dull, too strong in numbers, hard to balance, makes for boring games from a spectators point of view.
Forcefields, once you hit a certain number, this spell becomes a bit too good, and more importantly, bad game mechanics. It hinder micro, impossible to play w/o almost and is too excessive at times... I propose having a cooldown on the spell, so if you want to cast 8 forcefields at once, you better damn well at least have 8 sentries.
Concussive marauders, hinders micro and can punish too hard in the early game compared to its cost.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Warpgates. The ability to remove defender's advantage regardless of map design or size is a really bad design imo, and is main reason why protoss timing attacks seem ridiculously strong at times.
If Day9 heard everyone here bashing Overseers he'd probably go kill a Kitten.
The Overseer is actually a really good potential unit, what needs to happen is - time, time for strategies to revolve around contaminate timings and so on. I would be really upset if they removed it, the unit has so much potential.
Immortal needs to be more unique...maybe reduce their hp but increase their hardened shield effect to say 5. For being the 'tank unit' the opposition loves to prioritize them for focus fire.
Roach...needs to have their range nerfed back. As they are right now, they are too cost effective, too boring and lack any particular weaknesses. Their short range before was what made them unique and this should come back.
Marauder...it's an A attack unit with no unique weaknesses and is more cost effective then its higher tech sibling units at the factory. Worst unit in the game. Would love to see it's hp nerfed and/or a stronger stim damage. Close 2nd place goes to the marine...right now they are essential to fend off mutas, so I say nerf muta speed so you can nerf marine hp's (as T1 units they should not be as strong as they are).
Graphics?
Get rid of the stupid purple creep...it offers very poor contrast and can make it difficult to see what is going on top of creep.
Less polygon art please and more art with rounded corners. Less unit art that looks like anorexic demon elves with exaggerated body parts/weapons like from W3 and more art that resembles the amazing sci-fi art we saw from SC BW.
Game design?
Many things need changed here. You just have to do too much APM busywork to stay competitive and that's not fun.
High level pro's largely lose chrono-boost energy after roughly the 12 minute mark because it is too APM intensive to use (eg Huk and he has amazing APM). CB needs either an auto-assignment cast option or an option to super dump all CB energy into one building for a super boost (so say 150 energy increases production speed by +150% of 20 seconds.
Warpgate mechanics are also messed up as again even pro's miss warpgate cycles because it is too APM intensive. We need to be able to warp in on the mini-map, have auto-assignments to hotkey grounds and/or a warp in rally point.
Zerg by far needs the most overhauling as far as mechanics go. Shouldn't have to waste keystrokes doing boring stuff that doesn't have to do with the strategies in the game. We need overlord rally points (separate from resource/military rally points), auto-inject (maybe compensate by slowing down the injection process) and auto-creep tumors (click a spot on the map and the tumors automatically extend themselves in that direction...would probably need to nerf tumor speed though).
Many more things need to be able to be done from the mini-map or wireframe selection. You should also not be able to cast a spell on a unit that can't receive the effect. eg CB'ing an already CB'ed Nexus, feedbacking an already drained ghost, or having a queen heal an already full hp utlralisk (these things happen in battle when things get hectic which Blizzard can fix).
The hotkey system has to be dramatically improved. The toggle keys (ctl and shift) need to be assignable ANYWHERE but they aren't. This is a huge design problem as these toggle keys should be controlled by the thumb to better enable APM (spacebar/alt/super key are in much better locations then ctrl/shift).
Much has to be done to fix SC2, but there is very little hope that any of this will be
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus, Colossus, Colossus
Seriously though, Colossus, Thor, and Corruptor are the most uninteresting units in the game.
Colossus: Colossus is basically a tank that can walk up and down cliffs, has no mobility disadvantage, and can walk over armies, creating a kind of super death ball synergy with other units which is very unfun to watch and play. (I just hate using Colossi). The only Colossi micro I ever see is after big battles when there are no units left or mid game pvp. They're a good enough meat shield themselves that they don't need to be microd, just box+a-move them them into the enemy army and they're cost effective enough before aa can take them out that you can just let them sit there and absorb air attacks with no micro and just let them do their insanely long ranged splash damage. I'm definitely not saying it's over powered, because in relation to the rest of the Protoss army, it's not, but it's just too good of a unit by itself and is too much of a crux for the Protoss army.
Thor: It's just a giant slow and lumbering unit. It has a lot of hit points, but because it's so slow people tend not to micro it. It has a completely different mobility disadvantage from the Tank. The tank is one of the most interesting units in the game because it goes from being severely cost-effective but completely immobile to being very mobile but inefficient, which creates a very interesting dynamic for engaging tanks. Thors on the other hand are just so lumbering and slow that Blizzard had to give them an extremely effective and very long ranged ground and air attack and pad them with way too many hit points. The dynamic this creates is that when you mass them with tanks and hellions it just creates a massive snail of an army that barely crawls across the map that the other player can't engage, so invariably, more often then not, mech play turns into base races which I think makes for incredibly dull games, and much like the colossus based Protoss army, it becomes a unengagable death ball which is a-moved into the opposing player's base. It requirs much more micro than a Protoss death ball, because you still have to pay attention to which units are in the front and leapfrogging your tanks, but that doesn't make it any more fun to watch. (I'm sure the Goody fans will disagree with me, but whatevs, he's one of the most boring SC2 pros to watch) Remember how interesting mech was to watch and play in BW? I'm thinking I wish that the Thor was a much faster, smaller, and less powerful version of what it is now. Goliaths anyone?
Corruprtors: What else can be said that hasn't already been said about this worthless unit? The only time you ever see them get built is when Colossi are out or Zerg is about to go Brood Lord, which I actually think creates a huge weak timing in which Zerg is nearly defenseless (in which so much of the Zerg supply is wrapped up into useless Corruptors and slow-morphing brood lords) that the other player can easily exploit if they see it.
I actually think Immortal is one of the best designed 'new' units in SC2. What makes it seem uninteresting is that it is rarely seen used extensively. Whenever it is used it is in few numbers and then either with good success or total failure. It could need to be altered so that its damage is less dependent on the target being Armored.
1. Colossus - Powerful units with intensive micro demands are exciting to watch and to use (Vulture, Reaver). Powerful units that can obliterate entire armies in seconds by just being a-moved? Not so much. (Obviously this applies to several late game units, but none of them are as matchup defining as the colossus.)
2. Marauder - Really it's just a heartier marine, and has too much overlap with the roach and stalker. Concussive shells negates micro from the opposing player and does not belong in a game like Starcraft.
3. Roach - The roach is slow, has a high supply, and is very hearty. It’s a protoss unit in zerg clothing. BW hydras ought to return, and the roach needs to either be redesigned or scrapped.
1. That units automatically clump into dense little balls is detrimental to every aspect of SC2: the way it plays, the way it looks, the way it has shaped Blizzard’s design choices (reaver for colossus, for example). It’s a giant obstacle in the way of SC2 ever becoming as great as BW, and needs to go. Period. (I agree with the OP that it works relatively well for banelings and zerglings, but for nearly every other unit it’s totally inappropriate.)
2. Forcefield isn’t inherently awful, but it should be a niche utility like hallucination, not something so ubiquitous and game defining. It also doesn’t really need to exist, since protoss already has a way to split up armies and trap units. It’s called blink. My suggestion would be to remove forcefield and merge the stalker and immortal into a single defensive unit that can block ramps and blink into enemy armies to split them up.
3. A lot of unit abilities are a bit dull. Guardian Shield makes little sense from a design perspective since units clump automatically in SC2. Infested Terran and Auto Turret are extremely uncreative, as if they were an alternative to having to come up with an interesting idea. As for 250mm Cannons, it’s hard to get excited about an ability that involves a unit standing in one place for 6 seconds. Seeker Missile, what is probably SC2‘s best new ability conceptually, is so undertuned that it's boring.
4. I’ve already mentioned Concussive Shells, but zealot Charge is like a mirrored version. Whereas Concussive Shells negates micro from the opposing player, Charge negates your own micro. Despite being less flashy zealot speed was a far more interesting upgrade.
1. The stalker is probably the most frequently massed Protoss unit, but its tall slender design is unappealing in large numbers. The unit clumping change would help, but really I think it just needs a more dragoon-like model that's lower to the ground. (The immortal looks very good massed, for example.)
2. I've never understood why zerg units look like they've been greased down with baby oil, but I think it’s time to try and replicate the appearance of the zerg in BW. Also the roach (if it does stay) ought to be made to look more the high-poly HOTS campaign roach we've seen. That is: with shorter spikes and with a more compact frame like a crab or beetle. (It also doesn't look shiny or slippery at all, and nor does any other zerg unit in cinematics or in concept art.)
3. Siege tanks still look like toys and thors look like they've been glued together out of pieces of siege tanks. Both are begging for a remodel. Additionally the thor has some serious clipping issues that could be solved by reducing the size of its model but not its detection box.
4. Units need to be brighter and easier to see overall. Give them some sort of native lighting so that shadows don't affect them and even on dark maps they remain equally bright. Also make team colors a little more pronounced on certain units, in particular the roach. ZvZ is a nightmare to watch on low quality streams, especially when played on dark maps. SC2's success as an e-sport with wide appeal depends to a high degree on its visual clarity. (Another reason that unit clumping is seriously hurting the game.)
My three units would be: roach, viking/corrupter, and sentry.
Roach
My complaint about roaches is from a viewing perspective. They're fat, they take up a lot of supply, and when people get them, they get a huge number of them. Plus, they tend to be kind of indistinct and, imo, just boring to watch. I personally think that roaches should get a decrease in their dps (or possibly just their upgrades giving them +2 damage), but that lost damage should shift over to hydras, which would encourage a more mixed army where the roaches actually act as tanks and the hydras as glass cannons.
Viking/Corrupter
Okay, so I think these two units go together because they're extremely similar, except that the viking works amazingly well and the corrupter is really boring. Both units have a very rarely used secondary ability (people land vikings once in a while and corruption is nice to make immortal hardened shields go down faster). Both units are air to air only. The difference is that the viking has range 9 and has its bonus against armored units, whereas the corrupter has range 4 (I think? or is it 5?) and only has a bonus against massive units. What I think should happen is that the viking should get a range decrease, the corrupter should get a range increase, and they both should end up around range 6. The viking should also be a tiny bit better on the ground, so that it works more like a versatile fighting unit and less as pure air to air dominance, and corruption should probably just be reworked entirely into something different. Hopefully this would make it easier to use the units for some air dominance yet still have carriers and battlecruisers around.
Sentry Honestly, I play protoss and I hate forcefield because the entire race is balanced around it. I'd much rather have slightly stronger zealots and stalkers, with the sentry providing guardian shield and some new ranged support spell (my suggestion would be an offensive version of guardian shield, where it increases your own units' damage in a field by +2, but you can only have 1 of the 2 abilities up at the same time). I hate having to rely on forcefield, I hate how much it pisses off everyone else when it sometimes feels like the only way to win, and I hate the fact that it makes all micro one-sided in any battle.
I feel like if anything truly needs to be revamped, it's the ground-unit pathing mechanics that let everything degrade into deathball fights. It's such a simple change from BW to SC2 that they made: let allied ground units push each other around so that anyone with a move command can always have a clear line to wherever they're going.
It's a nice idea, but it led to such a huge difference, and one that ends up being quite silly at times. Can you really imagine a single marine walking through a giant outfit of tanks and saying, "b____ please, I gotta get through here", and shoulder bumping all the tanks out of the way?
If things were instead rejiggered such that an allied unit is seen as an obstacle in the shortest-past-possible, a few things would happen: -- Terrain like ramps and chokes would instantly become so much more important (as they slow down movement and inhibit the ability to slam through and try to get a concave). Now, at least as protoss, all they are is a chance to throw down a single forcefield to delay the inevitable.
-- AoEs like psi storm would need to be increased in potency. While this seems like it's not a big deal, it's kind of huge. <iframe width="960" height="750" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F3IbwjeCx6U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Imagine seeing that many tanks in SC2: there is no way in hell anyone would think "oh, I'll just use psionic storm". But with storms and other AoEs becoming more powerful, they'll be viable options on more than just tiny units that tend to clump together (like terran bio).
-- Siege Units
Beyond that, I really with there were some siege units for Protoss and Zerg. In BW there was the lurker and the reaver, which basically said "I own this area. You can push in, but you are guaranteed to take heavy heavy losses". Without some additional tech (like the shuttle, or defiler), however, you can't really use these units to aggressively push forward. In SC2 however, the replacements (colossus/baneling) are necessarily weaker than these siege units because of their mobility, making their only real purpose offensive.
Really I just wish someone could make a mod for the traditional BW pathing. The anti-deathball maps were a good start, but there needs to be more physical demonstrations of what effects this new pathing mechanic actually has.
On June 01 2011 07:44 Dystisis wrote: I actually think Immortal is one of the best designed 'new' units in SC2. What makes it seem uninteresting is that it is rarely seen used extensively. Whenever it is used it is in few numbers and then either with good success or total failure. It could need to be altered so that its damage is less dependent on the target being Armored.
Big problem is that they are hard to mass when each one takes about a minute to produce. So say you get a fast robo and observer out by 8 minutes and most games average say 15 minutes...that doesn't give you too many immortals even if you produce them non-stop. Their build time seriously has to be reduced.
Good points. Graphics definitely need to be brighter and more high contrast. The slime factor is way overdone with the zerg...it's so cliche in the sci-fi art community to slime up aliens to make them look more creepy when they almost always look better with the stupid slime.
As for clumping...a solution might be to add a scatter option that other RTS games have. Too many game situations get you into trouble because your units are too close together.
Whilst reading through this thread, I have an idea.
This idea, if I recall correctly was suggested by another member on TL a while ago, I think possibly on another "collosus balance" thread.
Instead of the colossi shooting two beams from left and right and ending in the center, have it so that the colossi shoot both beams from the left and sweep to the right.
This could allow some micro as units that haven't been hit yet a chance to escape the beams.
I don't know how effective it will be with multiple colossi firing though.
If not, even just allow the colossi to do more damage but have a slower beam sweep with the ability for units to escape.
Guys, I think far too many of you think that "uninteresting" means something different than what Blizzard does. The example was of the Overseer. Units that really just don't have a role in the multiplayer. Colossus, Marauders, and Roaches are far too central to the kit of each race to remove. They aren't "uninteresting" in the way that Blizzard is talking about, no matter how "unfun" people may believe they are to watch.
My only complaint about any Starcraft 2 units is that Overlords cannot act as detectors. Therefore, it means that Zerg either HAS to rush lair, or throw down a potentially unwanted Evolution Chamber in order to detect anything.
All that I ask is that we get our Overlords back to the way they were... granted, I do love the Contaminate ability in ZvZ, although I never get around to using it.
On June 01 2011 02:18 videogames wrote: my top 10 boring units would be colossus, roach, colossus, hydra, colossus, corruptor, colossus, marauder, colossus and colossus
I like this.
Roaches and Hydras really need to be combined back into one unit. Splitting them was a weird idea that I really don't like.
Lings were made relatively obsolete by Roaches, and Hydras have gone to becoming very, very weak and situational units.
Roaches and Marauders are both just too strong as general-purpose units.
The Colossus is really just a terrible idea I want to see get axed from the game.
On June 01 2011 08:14 teh_longinator wrote: My only complaint about any Starcraft 2 units is that Overlords cannot act as detectors. Therefore, it means that Zerg either HAS to rush lair, or throw down a potentially unwanted Evolution Chamber in order to detect anything.
All that I ask is that we get our Overlords back to the way they were... granted, I do love the Contaminate ability in ZvZ, although I never get around to using it.
Do you really think it's fair other races must pay for detectors, while zergs don't? Yes, I used to play BW... but bringing BW as a reason doesn't seem persuasive to me.
What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? 1. Collosus Colloxen the #1 most uninteresting unit in the game? Shocking, I know. No unit with that much power should also be fairly durable, highly mobile and capable of winning fights with 1a. I'm not violently opposed to 1a units in general, but the 'power units' should at least have some sort of interesting feature, like the whole siege mode thing, or the inherent drama of banelings. Yes it gets hit by air units and can't hit them back, but that hasn't mattered since about GSL3. Protoss players have learned to keep blink stalkers under them. Plus, even if that is a big thing, it's hardly an excuse for the lameness of the collosus. You know a unit is badly designed when the only time it's ever even slightly exciting to watch is when it's dying. 2. Corruptor Ewwww. Air-to-air unit? Blech. No proper anti-ground skill? Blech. It lacks the mobility and raw ground killing power of the phoenix but also doesn't have the viking's range and anti-armoured DPS. Its only saving grace is its HP, which only actually matters in air-to-air battles, which we all know occur... never. The only practical purpose of the corruptor is to kill colloxen, which in a perfect world would be replaced by, say, the reaver, and it also renders the carrier and battlecruiser obsolete. So overall it's a horribly boring unit that prevents interesting units from seeing the light of day. 3. Void Ray Yep, two Protoss units. I considered doing one from each race, but in the end I just couldn't find a Terran unit this bad. Void rays are pure 1a deathmachines, but that's not always a problem - marines are that, and they're kinda cool I guess. No, the problem with the void ray is that it's such a gimmicky unit. They're used for all-ins against Terran, never used in PvP and are currently only ever used in gimmicky stargate play against Zerg. Not only is it a boring unit, but there's no stable strategy that works even when scouted that uses them in any way, shape or form. Also, air units really shouldn't have raw killing power, because it's just so polarising - either you have enough anti-air and win or you don't and you lose. With units like the medivac it's more that you have enough anti-air and get an advantage or don't and have a disadvantage, which is fine. Consolation Prizes Other units I considered but didn't include. - Thors: Slow, very strong and lacks any real interesting uses. The only reason I didn't include it is because they never get used (and when they are they get the nerf bat, so clearly Blizzard is fine with this state of affairs...), so I don't know whether they have any potentially interesting uses that haven't been discovered yet. The reaver, for instance, looks the same at first glance, but ended up being one of the most interesting units in BW. - Marauders: Blech. They're just so... boring. But unlike the three that did make the cut, they have an overall positive effect on the game. Well, actually, it's possible that without them bio would be useless in TvP and Blizzard would have had to make mech usable instead, which would be excellent, but that's too hypothetical for my liking. - Banshees: Good for stupid 'durr i hope he has no detection lol' rushes and little else. Terrible unit overall. However, their one saving grace is their role in avoiding late game TvT from turning into a stalemate, so I couldn't put them in the Top 3. - Sentries: See Mechanics. - Dark Templars: At least one intelligent, attractive and highly reasonable pillar of the Starcraft community has been complaining about them since BW (and has since become a filthy traitor, grumblegrumble), and it's because the unit is bad. Like the banshee, it's great for gimmicky cheeses and that's about it. - Mothership: It's an awfully designed unit. Unfortunately, the OP asked for uninteresting units, not bad ones, and there's a slight distinction. The mothership is of course pretty interesting to watch, simply because it's such a train wreck of design that it actually being used is impressive. - Roaches: Same as the marauder.
Yeah, there's a lot of bad units in this game. Fortunately the basic framework of the game is strong enough that it works anyway.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Warp Gates They're a cute idea, Blizzard. We know it's super-cool that Protoss units just appear. Good job. But it's really, really awful as a game mechanic. The raw power of the 4gate means gateway units need to be nerfed into late-game uselessness, which means other late game options like colloxen and spamming infinity force fields need to be stupidly powerful to compensate. Simply removing the warp gate mechanic would allow Blizzard to make Protoss so much more interesting as a whole. Unfortunately we're pretty much stuck with it at this point, so all I can hope for is significant balance changes, like putting them on the twilight council, upping the cost to 200/200 and making them build at the same speed as regular gateways, then buffing the gateway units. Force Fields
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Artosis Bots should scream "THAT'S SO IMBALANCED!" when you kill them. Other than that, not much.
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Tricky. I'd say Terran needs some sort of damage-over-time AoE spell to match fungal and storm. Doesn't have to be as strong, of course, there should be some sort of limitation because Terran really doesn't need to have something that just nukes an area. I like the idea of the raven, it's cool that Terran air is all about support and having various abilities, so probably put it on a flying caster.
Zerg has two problems I think. The first is that they die too easily late game. They really need some sort of second caster, since they're the only race that only has one (queens don't count), so maybe something that makes it harder to kill your units? I dunno how, but it sounds kinda cool to me. And the second problem is the total fail that is burrow movement, I can see how it's meant to work but in practice Zerg just doesn't have anything to punish a lack of detection. So yeah, Blizzard should really do something with burrow. Not sure what, but something.
Protoss? Replace collosus with something interesting. Maybe make them a LOT slower, but keep the whole 'over 9000 aoe damage' thing. I guess they'd need to have their vulnerability to air removed then, otherwise they'd auto-die if a viking came anywhere near them.
On June 01 2011 07:35 Fungal Growth wrote: Most uninteresting units?
Immortal, roach, and marauder.
Immortal needs to be more unique...maybe reduce their hp but increase their hardened shield effect to say 5. For being the 'tank unit' the opposition loves to prioritize them for focus fire.
Roach...needs to have their range nerfed back. As they are right now, they are too cost effective, too boring and lack any particular weaknesses. Their short range before was what made them unique and this should come back.
Marauder...it's an A attack unit with no unique weaknesses and is more cost effective then its higher tech sibling units at the factory. Worst unit in the game. Would love to see it's hp nerfed and/or a stronger stim damage. Close 2nd place goes to the marine...right now they are essential to fend off mutas, so I say nerf muta speed so you can nerf marine hp's (as T1 units they should not be as strong as they are).
Graphics?
Get rid of the stupid purple creep...it offers very poor contrast and can make it difficult to see what is going on top of creep.
Less polygon art please and more art with rounded corners. Less unit art that looks like anorexic demon elves with exaggerated body parts/weapons like from W3 and more art that resembles the amazing sci-fi art we saw from SC BW.
Game design?
Many things need changed here. You just have to do too much APM busywork to stay competitive and that's not fun.
High level pro's largely lose chrono-boost energy after roughly the 12 minute mark because it is too APM intensive to use (eg Huk and he has amazing APM). CB needs either an auto-assignment cast option or an option to super dump all CB energy into one building for a super boost (so say 150 energy increases production speed by +150% of 20 seconds.
Warpgate mechanics are also messed up as again even pro's miss warpgate cycles because it is too APM intensive. We need to be able to warp in on the mini-map, have auto-assignments to hotkey grounds and/or a warp in rally point.
Zerg by far needs the most overhauling as far as mechanics go. Shouldn't have to waste keystrokes doing boring stuff that doesn't have to do with the strategies in the game. We need overlord rally points (separate from resource/military rally points), auto-inject (maybe compensate by slowing down the injection process) and auto-creep tumors (click a spot on the map and the tumors automatically extend themselves in that direction...would probably need to nerf tumor speed though).
Many more things need to be able to be done from the mini-map or wireframe selection. You should also not be able to cast a spell on a unit that can't receive the effect. eg CB'ing an already CB'ed Nexus, feedbacking an already drained ghost, or having a queen heal an already full hp utlralisk (these things happen in battle when things get hectic which Blizzard can fix).
The hotkey system has to be dramatically improved. The toggle keys (ctl and shift) need to be assignable ANYWHERE but they aren't. This is a huge design problem as these toggle keys should be controlled by the thumb to better enable APM (spacebar/alt/super key are in much better locations then ctrl/shift).
Much has to be done to fix SC2, but there is very little hope that any of this will be
im just going to comment on what you said about apm intensive, how can u compare this to scbw? where u cant even hotkey all ur buildings to produce? sc2 should not be made anymore easier to micro/macro, infact it should be made much harder
Collosus -- It's a great unit, i love it to bits, but you get this unit to win games easier, its easy to get 5 collosus and a click, or you could go mass gateway/micro intensive stuff, needs something to make it a cool unit as tier iii.
Reaper -- It's a very useful, harass intended unit. One thing i think we don't see enough is reaper drops against toss to just snipe a few probes/ buildings Since they were nerfed immensely, not tons of usage now. In my opinion they still haven't been to their potential yet, could still be used a bit more but still good.
Corruptor -- Not sure what to put this unit under. It's main purpose at this moment is to kill off air units, and turn into broods. I think there is some sort of thing that this unit should have to make it a really useful unit, like the phoenix has gravitation beam to pick off things like tanks, terran has viking to harass a little with coming down etc. All the corruptor has is Corruption
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
Harassment units to start off the game. Any unit can be a harass unit, or they can be a big key in your strategy. I think terran has a big part of harassment with drops, but really i can't make judgement, people make judges like, OMG OP they can drop 3 places at once, where that's VERY hard to do and their just outplaying you etc. PS: I think mid-game just passes by, like there isn't tons of games where mid-game is harassment-filled and an all around great game. Seems like mid-game is just skipped overall, since all it is, is macro up and not any fun-filled excitement
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Fun-filled exciting units that can be used to change the meta-game and explore new strats that not a lot of people would think of. Something new that comes out of the stargate or the gateway, maybe even a unit like the dark archon, those units were amazing . In my opinion the robo,factory,tier ii units overall could all have +1, like in B.W it was vulture, lurker, reaver, now its not there It would be nice to have some units like these overall ) Like Defiler but possibly new??
protoss biased, im sorry but its the race i play !
lol I mean I agree that some of the units should be changed but all of the one's suggested by the OP are not good.
Units to change:
1. Overseer (even Blizzard says this unit is "not cool")
2. Corrupter (the only thing good about this unit is that it can morph into a Brood Lord) <- Okay, I might be going overboard but goddamn they are the Zerg counter to Collossi but A) Do a shitty job and B) Become worthless after doing a shitty job.
3. IMO, the racing car look of the hellion needs to change. Really boring design. A car with a flame thrower attached to it. They should keep the mechanics but make it look baller.
On June 01 2011 08:19 jHERO wrote: im just going to comment on what you said about apm intensive, how can u compare this to scbw? where u cant even hotkey all ur buildings to produce? sc2 should not be made anymore easier to micro/macro, infact it should be made much harder
Well some things we're made easier like with grouping, mineral rally points and hotkey assignments which were nice but there was APM regressions as well (CB, larvae inject and warp gate mechanics were the big ones).
I don't think it is fair to make a blanket statement that SC1 is everyway more or less APM demanding than SC2 because it just depends on what you're doing.
But all in all, there are too many crucial elements in SC1 that steal APM away from battles so players can do mindless tasks that add no strategic value to the game. This has to change or blizzard will scare away too many players from battle.net.
I would really like to see a return to the previous fungal growth and an additional + 1 range to NP. As a zerg player I currently find fungal growth such a boring ability to use. Sure, it's powerful, but that doesn't make it interesting to use. The pure mobility/area denial of the previous fungal added a depth of strategy that the current form has reduced.
The +1 range to NP would make it far more viable vs 'deathball' protoss styles since it would actually outrange colossus and perhaps further extend the utility of Infestors in ZvT. Hence there is some compensation for the reduction in FG DPS.
On June 01 2011 08:11 Takkara wrote: Guys, I think far too many of you think that "uninteresting" means something different than what Blizzard does. The example was of the Overseer. Units that really just don't have a role in the multiplayer. Colossus, Marauders, and Roaches are far too central to the kit of each race to remove. They aren't "uninteresting" in the way that Blizzard is talking about, no matter how "unfun" people may believe they are to watch.
I don't really see what your point is. Even if we made the (dubious) assumption that Blizzard would never do something like remove the roach and put Hydras back at tier 1, it's still possible to change a unit without removing it.
This is like hate on the colossus over here, it makes me sad because no 3 base+ play is viable in any match up without the colossus. I understand this is a flaw, but just because a unit is good doesn't make it boring. If anything the colossus is one of the coolest units they have implemented because of how different compositions flow with a colossus based army. I think a minor nerf would be warranted with major buffs to different tech paths, but really removing the "coolest" and strongest unit in the protoss arsenal is the dumbest idea i've heard because putting balance aside the colossus is the most fun unit to play with.
the most important thing that will probably NOT get changed is sound design. There was a lot of community upset with the sound design (unit voices, music, and especially sound effects) when WOL came out. Sounds need to be more distinct and recognizeable and unit responses (especially zerg units) need to be more recognizeable. Siege tank shots should sound more thunderous and game changing spells like fungal growth need to stand out more (think of the dire sound effect for the Defiler's Plague in BW vs the pathetic *squish* sound of the Infestor's Fungal Growth). There are a ton of other sound related issues that need to be looked out, but will probably be left out, sadly.
Zerg: Overseer is pretty boring indeed, could be changed to something bit more usefull. Terran: Ravens HSM could be changed (not buffed) cause it's rarely trained and used. Maybe it's just not really figured out yet. Protoss: Colossus or warp prism. Colossi should be more fun (1a sup dawg) and prism is just meh... Not nearly as much used as Blizzard expected (I would guess).
1. Reaper.. Seriously not many people mentioned this it officially has no role to fill anymore since marines are more powerful as a harassment tool and cost less.
2. Raven - Just uninteresting and to situational I would love to see more use of it since it should fill the role of the science vessel.
3. Thor - Just overall to big and useless. They counter light air which is really only mutas I'd rather have some more massable unit like the goliath to supplement my mech army and hopefully make mech more viable I would love to see Bio and Mech be good options in at least 2 MUs.
Im a terran player and don't really want to go into other races since I don't have an expert opinion.
- Collosus: Simply the most boring unit in the game. The most interesting part of it, the cliffwalking, just isn't utilized that much. It's simply a big fat unit you want to make a lot of to overpower your opponent. It doesn't promote micro or strategy very much. - Overseer: Preferably I'd like to see a rework than a replacement. From the sounds of it, it used to have more interesting abilities like toxic creep. Changeling I think should just be removed. It's such a gimmicky ability. - Carrier: I don't know why they can't have the old Tempest unit's ability of anti-ground shields, perhaps as an upgrade at the Fleet Beacon. The interceptors also die way too quickly. Overall what should be an awesome unit is very lame and unused. - Reaper: Quite simply, it was overpowered as an early game unit because of its high speed, damage and mobility. Yet it's almost COMPLETELY useless mid/late game because of its incredibly long build time (which is there to offset its early game power.) Basically, it's just a unit with a messed up role that deserves to see more use, but is burdened by roundabout nerfs and such.
The most useless, least reasonable unit by far is the Overseer. The change didn't make sense after BW, there's no lore to support it, and it's Zerg's only mobile detection which is just weird (especially after BW).
The next biggest problem (but should stay in) for me is that the siege tank feels weaker... maybe it's not, but I feel like I pay more for less oomph, especially sieged.
1-Warp Prism. Toss units are all space heavy and need to clump together so drop play is weak. The mobile warpin feature doesn't compare to simply building proxy pylons as you go. Doesn't have a good role in the game and so is barely ever used.
2-Overseer. It's an overlord on steriods. It moves faster and has more eyes. Contaminate is nice but never really utilised. It's one of those "cute" things which seems awesome in theory but in practice it doesn't really work. Changeling is simply underwhelming. It gives vision, thats about it.
3-Mothership. It's a good concept let down by its implementation. Ludicrously expensive, awkward tech tree and forces you to cut probes. However because the mothership is so powerful and brings so much there's no other way to do it. You either have a massively powerful mothership which nobody can get or a weak mothership where there's no point getting it. I'd simply start from scratch and create 1-2 new units to give the mothership's abilities to.
On June 01 2011 08:36 TSL-Lore wrote: the most important thing that will probably NOT get changed is sound design. There was a lot of community upset with the sound design (unit voices, music, and especially sound effects) when WOL came out. Sounds need to be more distinct and recognizeable and unit responses (especially zerg units) need to be more recognizeable. Siege tank shots should sound more thunderous and game changing spells like fungal growth need to stand out more (think of the dire sound effect for the Defiler's Plague in BW vs the pathetic *squish* sound of the Infestor's Fungal Growth). There are a ton of other sound related issues that need to be looked out, but will probably be left out, sadly.
While I don't agree that gateway units are weak it's possible to get that impression as a toss player when you amove Zealot Stalker into stimmed Marine Marauder.
On June 01 2011 08:14 teh_longinator wrote: My only complaint about any Starcraft 2 units is that Overlords cannot act as detectors. Therefore, it means that Zerg either HAS to rush lair, or throw down a potentially unwanted Evolution Chamber in order to detect anything.
All that I ask is that we get our Overlords back to the way they were... granted, I do love the Contaminate ability in ZvZ, although I never get around to using it.
So protoss HAS to rush robo or throw down an unwanted forge, wait lets give pylons detection -_-... I think Orbital commands should require an engineering bay, but i can only dream cause then terran can't all in and still constantly stream marines, no that would make the game unbalanced.
1. Corruptor (Worst unit design EVER) 2. Overseer 3. Reaper
Useless units
1. Ultralisks (These NEED to change, they're like a staple of zerg brutality, they can't be THIS bad) 2. Carrier (Again, a staple of late-game protoss, I think that what REALLY screws carriers is the lack of shield recharge on return for interceptors. They just die)
As for other suggestions of possible additions. I'd go for something like this.
1. Give protoss an air unit that is more versatile, more useful in all stages of the game, one that maybe you can just, mix in, in your mid-late game army for some value. 2. Take the focus off collossi for protoss. It's too much of a centric unit right now. Either you counter them and survive, or not counter them and die, just like that. It's ridiculous, gateway units should be the centerpiece of an army. not collossi. 3. Zerg is fine imo, add what you will but do your best to make zerg stay as zergy as it is and has always been. 4. Do some change that will turn mech into a "more standard" strategy for terran, thus adding variety to the game. 5. Get some more impressive unit sounds, these are the ones that need fixing, some more "personality": -Hydralisk -Ultralisk -Zealot attack -DT -Mutalisk -Archon -Mothership -CORRUPTOR (Actually, forget this, just eliminate this unit)
I don't know how many of you play the campaign, but in the Piercing the Shroud mission there is this device called "chrono-rift" where movement speed and attack speed are slowed.
Personally I'd prefer something like this for the sentry than the current forcefields, you'd have to put more consideration in dropping it on high DPS units than simply splitting and blocking off whole armies. Make it more energy intensive so it's not spammable either. This way at least Protoss can survive a marine marauder push without relying on insane forcefields.
Marauders need tweaked as well. Either make it so they can't stim + use concussive shell, or make concussive shell active cast so you really have to target it's useage. It's ridiculous that you can have equal value armies and end up with barely anything left because you are physically unable to pull micro ANYTHING that has this on.
Collosi is not so much overpowered as it is a necessity because of the riskyness of pursuing other tech paths, ESPECIALLY against Terran bio-balls. Against zerg I always get a few to thin out their armies. Then they bring out corrupters which quickly become useless because I can switch very easily to a templar/archon supplementation to my initial gate mix.
I don't really have much to add only that perhaps immortals should attack with less damage but more frequently, or with more range, something to give them some offensive capacity. Either that or class them as a massive unit so that you can actually pull them out of a fight that marauders are in. This can change their role back to that of a high-value tank as opposed to a high damage ffired unit.
Personally I'm trying to think of tweaks that don't completely break the game, and it's pretty difficult, Blizz has designed the game in a certain way and it's difficult to get around that. Perhaps they could buff AoE damage, but implement less of a 'deathball' pathing system. This means the likes of tanks and collosi are not so stupidly effective with no micro involved, and AoE spells retain viability.
Fungal is kind of ridiculous as well, it basically makes me shit myself if we're playing on an even economic keel, I can't do any kind of aggression on his expos until I'm maxed out, because I cannot retreat ANYTHING. I'd rather not defend my own bases until I have a horrific deathball, but I feel I cannot engage a lot of the time otherwise unless I am 100% certain he doesn't have infestors sitting around.
Make certain unit abilities NOT require energy, but be on a cooldown. I played a ridiculous turtled terran yesterday, he had missile turrets positioned so well I couldn't get an obs in the entire game, tried to blink stalkers up there and they got wiped, hallucinations were either blocked on the ground or wiped out if they were air.
To cut a long story short, this guy rolls out with a maxed army of battlecruisers. I've got my 3/3 on blink stalkers and had my templar archives down. With a bit of blink micro (not much), some focus fire and MASS feedback I wiped those cruisers out with barely any losses. Why is an effective counter to one of SC's "premiere" units an anti-caster ability?
I actually think Colossus is ok, it's not an a-move unit at all since it's so fragile, anyone who knows how to focus fire can eliminate all your Colossi really quickly if you're not careful with it.
You can say that HTs serve the same role but protoss needs Colossus and HTs to do significant amounts of damage in the mid-late game, and if you can only make one or the other it's too easy to blind counter.
On June 01 2011 08:36 TSL-Lore wrote: the most important thing that will probably NOT get changed is sound design. There was a lot of community upset with the sound design (unit voices, music, and especially sound effects) when WOL came out. Sounds need to be more distinct and recognizeable and unit responses (especially zerg units) need to be more recognizeable. Siege tank shots should sound more thunderous and game changing spells like fungal growth need to stand out more (think of the dire sound effect for the Defiler's Plague in BW vs the pathetic *squish* sound of the Infestor's Fungal Growth). There are a ton of other sound related issues that need to be looked out, but will probably be left out, sadly.
+1 I'm glad someone brought this up
++1. The sound effects from SC1 were sooo much better. Very worried about the voice actor for Kerrigan. Unlike Raynor's actor (he was quite good), I think this actress is somewhat suspect.
I really only play Toss, so I'll comment on reworking/replacing units specific to Toss:
- Nerf Colossus but keep the unit. Perhaps lower the range to 8 and reduce it's AOE in some form? I think the mobility and cliff walking should be kept as it is vulnerable to air (not to mention turrets) and if immobility (like sieging, for instance) was introduced then this weakness should be removed. - Buff Archon, perhaps by an increase in splash/aoe damage? - Buff Immortals. I like the units and try to use them as often as I can, but they simply aren't very good. Maybe increase the range to 6 and re-introduce shield batteries (in base) to interact with hardened shield. Sentries could take on this role in the battlefield (especially if FF is removed/nerfed) so that they exchange mana energy for shield energy on the Immortal. - Carriers should be cool and powerful again. - Arbiters, or some variant, for the useless Mothership, I miss "Warp field stabilized". These can re-introduce stasis/vortex and recall to the battlefield (although perhaps not cloak). - Either push warp-gate back in the tech tree (Twilight Council perhaps?) with longer warp-in/cooldown times or remove it entirely. This would allow for the buffing of gateway units (the weakness of Zealots, without charge, for instance, goes totally against lore IMO) and the nerfing of the Sentry, for example, by reducing the time on FF or removing it altogether (especially if the Arbiter returns). Alternatively introduce Charge and Blink tech at Core level not Twilight, at a cheaper cost, with Charge Zealots immune to Concussive Shell (and Stalker scaling better: at least +1/+1).
I love Protoss and I love playing Protoss but I think there are a few things off kilter with the race in SC2. Hopefully Blizzard rectify some of their design errors in HOTS.
Edit/ LOL, my post has turned into something of a balance whine but meh. These are just thoughts I have been thinking for a while now and this seemed as good a place as any for them to come out.
Redesign/Exchange: Reaper (Patched into oblivion), Corruptor (they don't like this unit since beta), Overseer (They don't like that one either)
Mechanics: Spawn Larva is the most unforgiving macro-mechanic compared to Mule/Chronoboost because there's (almost) no way to spam spawn larva unlike mules or chronos when you lost focus. Just allow multiple spawn larva on a hatcherie. They don't have to be instantly active (although it would be very zerg-like and asesome to add like 16 larva and spawn them into 24 lings ^^) - just let them stack up. With a small delay so it would be a little bit more effective spawn larva more frequently.
Misc. Tweaks: Add LAN
New Unit: Terrors which can merge into Superterrors which can attack buildings!
from what i can see, lots of ppl say colosus and marauder
but when you really think about it, first you have ppl saying that marine dps is to good, and within the same post they say colosus brake the game.. so its like, contradiction after contraction, nobody has any really good points because they contradict eachother.
well anyway to be on topic, i play terran so ill only comment what i'd like to see for terran
-maybe a lil reworking for thor strike cannon ability, possible replacement for another ability
-and maybe a buff to heat seeker missile , if ppl see it in games, it always has ppl going wOWOWOWOWO , but right now in its current state i find its never really worth it.
On June 01 2011 08:36 TSL-Lore wrote: the most important thing that will probably NOT get changed is sound design. There was a lot of community upset with the sound design (unit voices, music, and especially sound effects) when WOL came out. Sounds need to be more distinct and recognizeable and unit responses (especially zerg units) need to be more recognizeable. Siege tank shots should sound more thunderous and game changing spells like fungal growth need to stand out more (think of the dire sound effect for the Defiler's Plague in BW vs the pathetic *squish* sound of the Infestor's Fungal Growth). There are a ton of other sound related issues that need to be looked out, but will probably be left out, sadly.
+1 I'm glad someone brought this up
++1. The sound effects from SC1 were sooo much better. Very worried about the voice actor for Kerrigan. Unlike Raynor's actor (he was quite good), I think this actress is somewhat suspect.
I think I read somewhere that the voice actor being used in the previews was just some temporary person from another department (Diablo?).
I'd like to see macro abilities pushed to the late game to nerf one-base all-ins. Mules and Calldown Supply should require Starport, Chrono and WG should be at the Twilight Council, and Larva Inject should be researched somewhere at Lair Tech.
force fields and collosi need to be reworked, its easy to get to the point where protoss has so many forcefeilds or collosus that they are unkillable, but its also easy to get to the point where they dont have enough forcefields or collosus and they just get rolled. its bad for gameplay if battles are so onesided and one dimensional
On June 01 2011 09:02 jalstar wrote: I'd like to see macro abilities pushed to the late game to nerf one-base all-ins. Mules and Calldown Supply should require Starport, Chrono and WG should be at the Twilight Council, and Larva Inject should be researched somewhere at Lair Tech.
thats kinda lame, talk about forcing a tech path.....
On June 01 2011 09:02 jalstar wrote: I'd like to see macro abilities pushed to the late game to nerf one-base all-ins. Mules and Calldown Supply should require Starport, Chrono and WG should be at the Twilight Council, and Larva Inject should be researched somewhere at Lair Tech.
That's actually a great idea man, one base all-ins are the bane of my SC2 career thus far, especially that 3 rax bottom ramp wall-in that seems to be gaining popularity
On June 01 2011 09:02 jalstar wrote: I'd like to see macro abilities pushed to the late game to nerf one-base all-ins. Mules and Calldown Supply should require Starport, Chrono and WG should be at the Twilight Council, and Larva Inject should be researched somewhere at Lair Tech.
thats kinda lame, talk about forcing a tech path.....
Maybe TC is a bad idea, but late-game Terran always gets Starports, and late-game Zerg always gets Lair.
On June 01 2011 08:49 mordk wrote: 1. Give protoss an air unit that is more versatile, more useful in all stages of the game, one that maybe you can just, mix in, in your mid-late game army for some value.
Sorry, what? We have the void ray. It's versatile, useful at any stage of the game, and mixes well with any army composition. Unlike other races who have extreme polarized air (either only works well as a harassment unit or is too expensive to tech to without using it to end the game), toss gets the void ray. The best air unit for sprinkling into a ball. Void ray play kills turtle terran. Wrecks big power units. Heavily complements the colossus. Can shoot down and up. Needs no tech other than the basic building. Has an okay mineral to gas ratio. Needs no upgrades to be effective. Never overkills.
I think colossi and forcefields are too dominant in the protoss playstyle and the other units suffer for it, but they both are not what you should be looking at if you think there's too little micro in SC2.
On June 01 2011 08:49 mordk wrote: 1. Give protoss an air unit that is more versatile, more useful in all stages of the game, one that maybe you can just, mix in, in your mid-late game army for some value.
Sorry, what? We have the void ray. It's versatile, useful at any stage of the game, and mixes well with any army composition. Unlike other races who have extreme polarized air (either only works well as a harassment unit or is too expensive to tech to without using it to end the game), toss gets the void ray. The best air unit for sprinkling into a ball. Void ray play kills turtle terran. Wrecks big power units. Heavily complements the colossus. Can shoot down and up. Needs no tech other than the basic building. Has an okay mineral to gas ratio. Needs no upgrades to be effective. Never overkills.
Plus it's not exactly a 'boring' unit, I actually like the charge mechanic they implemented with voids. Plus anything that helps me against turtling terran is great. I don't mind playing Terrans at all but my god hard turtling play is annoying as hell
I don't know how many of you play the campaign, but in the Piercing the Shroud mission there is this device called "chrono-rift" where movement speed and attack speed are slowed.
That's how FG should works, not root everything. And concerning OP: Infestor is the first to redesign. NP had better be removed or, at least, its range must be reduced twice. As of now infestor just all/everything purpose unit. Spellcasters must be very, very "specialized". Each one in his very narrow niche. Players must think how to play in this concrete situation and not just mass one unit and win with one button. And then complain in the forums how boring this game is.
On June 01 2011 08:49 mordk wrote: 1. Give protoss an air unit that is more versatile, more useful in all stages of the game, one that maybe you can just, mix in, in your mid-late game army for some value.
Sorry, what? We have the void ray. It's versatile, useful at any stage of the game, and mixes well with any army composition. Unlike other races who have extreme polarized air (either only works well as a harassment unit or is too expensive to tech to without using it to end the game), toss gets the void ray. The best air unit for sprinkling into a ball. Void ray play kills turtle terran. Wrecks big power units. Heavily complements the colossus. Can shoot down and up. Needs no tech other than the basic building. Has an okay mineral to gas ratio. Needs no upgrades to be effective. Never overkills.
What? The void ray is the opposite of versatility. It's only useful in large numbers late game or in the early game when not scouted, it is EXTREMELY fragile and vulnerable to almost anything that shoots up and serves very specific purposes.
A versatile unit is, for example, the stalker. The mutalisk. The marine. They are "core" units which can be useful in nearly any composition. The VR is no such thing.
Corruptor is the most uninteresting unit by far. I'm afraid Blizzard is just going to make everything too wacky though. Overseer is a cool unit that is really under-used at the moment in my opinion, it has potential. I'm afraid they are going to give every race hero units or something. It's all rather worrying D:
I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
For what unit changes would make the game more interesting:
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
The Corrupter needs a change. It's role is too limited right now. Its spell sucks. Maybe a new spell, or something else interesting to help it out. Preferably something that wouldn't leave it completely useless after the Colossus or (lol) capital ships are dead.
The Reaper was never really a good unit. It was only useful for early timing or for 5 rax reaper. It should be completely removed in favor of a more useful, gas heavy bio unit. (not caster but utility or something).
Now..separate from that, I will dream for a second: Nydus should be hatch tech (analogous to warpgate). It should also have a lair tech upgrade that makes it more useful somehow. Maybe
giving it an attack (like a weak Planetary fortress, helping Zerg to hold ground and harass at the same time!)
roach (really need it, not that interesting, would like to see more of a shorter range, smaller body but same everything else)
Vikings (I hate some match ups, mainly TvT and TvP because it's vikings taking out other vikings then an engagement dance sort of thing, or big deathballs clashing where both sides are focusing on killing viking or colossus)
Colossus (It's not the way they are now or anything, I just dont think they fit very much with toss. To me, toss has a more of a bulkier and slower, effing kill you sort of persona, and the colossus, with their mega range and being so massive and glass cannoney doesnt seem to fit with the stealthy warp prism, bad ass immortal, stealthy scout. I would much rather see a bad assey unit that is like the big brother to the immortal with massive cannons on his back and quite tight AoE and plus vs light. TBH, it would be really cool for it to be an archon and immortal mixture and simply remove the reg archon and maybe bring back the dark archon.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
I'd be more interested in hearing why you think their suggestions are bad than the disparaging labels you've come up with to describe them.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
For what unit changes would make the game more interesting:
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
The Corrupter needs a change. It's role is too limited right now. Its spell sucks. Maybe a new spell, or something else interesting to help it out. Preferably something that wouldn't leave it completely useless after the Colossus or (lol) capital ships are dead.
The Reaper was never really a good unit. It was only useful for early timing or for 5 rax reaper. It should be completely removed in favor of a more useful, gas heavy bio unit. (not caster but utility or something).
Now..separate from that, I will dream for a second: Nydus should be hatch tech (analogous to warpgate). It should also have a lair tech upgrade that makes it more useful somehow. Maybe
giving it an attack (like a weak Planetary fortress, helping Zerg to hold ground and harass at the same time!)
faster unit releasing
Good post.
Luckily Blizzard are not as dumb as the vocal players who want things for bad reasons.
I agree with your choices except the aside about the nydus worm, that would just disallow anything but heavy one basing from P or T which would suck. Nydus worm doesn't really need a buff, it is actually amazing, it is just underused because of the current state of the game.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Collosus , Thor, Hydra.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Warpgate mechanic, Inject Larvae.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Goliath for Terran, Reaver and Shuttle for Protoss, A redesigned version of the Defiler for Zerg.
On June 01 2011 10:06 grudgeStar wrote: - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Collosus , Thor, Hydra.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Warpgate mechanic, Inject Larvae.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Goliath for Terran, Reaver and Shuttle for Protoss, A redesigned version of the Defiler for Zerg.
Those units don't sound new to me...
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love BW, but I don't want SC2 suddenly turning into BW. I'd prefer if they gave us new, fresh units. Just a few.
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
a colossus nerf without a corresponding templar or carrier/stargate buff would just be a toss nerf.
the option of a legitimate templar based play as it was in BW is impossible for two reasons:
1. storms don't do enough damage
OR
2. you don't have enough storms available due to the amulet removal
if they wanted to keep templar + storms viable, they should have buffed damage (if not total damage then at least the DPS, say 80 over 3 seconds instead of 4) when they removed the amulet, so storms are actually worth waiting for the energy to accumulate.
oh and someone said the hydra wanted to be unique and needed to be changed. well guess what, all hydras did in BW was attack. they didn't chew up gateway units like they do now, and they didn't have the option to morph into lurkers until the expansion.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
For what unit changes would make the game more interesting:
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
The Corrupter needs a change. It's role is too limited right now. Its spell sucks. Maybe a new spell, or something else interesting to help it out. Preferably something that wouldn't leave it completely useless after the Colossus or (lol) capital ships are dead.
The Reaper was never really a good unit. It was only useful for early timing or for 5 rax reaper. It should be completely removed in favor of a more useful, gas heavy bio unit. (not caster but utility or something).
Now..separate from that, I will dream for a second: Nydus should be hatch tech (analogous to warpgate). It should also have a lair tech upgrade that makes it more useful somehow. Maybe
giving it an attack (like a weak Planetary fortress, helping Zerg to hold ground and harass at the same time!)
faster unit releasing
I'm an wc3 player and still think the game would only benefit from having something like T-1 Hydras or lurker back in the game, or at least the lurker. This game just lacks a lot of units that is hard to use but rewarding when used. Lurker is exactly that, fucking hard to use perfect, but fucking awesome when done so.
All the non micro units pretty much, and also the chrono boost, mule and inject larva.. I just wish they stopped withe cutsie shit and made a good game.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
So we're "bad people" for having an opinion, and you don't even give a reason why either. Comments like yours are basically just trolling.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
Well fuck you too. Just because you're part of the minority who somehow finds collosus going bzarp to be interesting and strategically deep doesn't mean you can insult everyone who disagrees with you.
If they nerf colossus, it won't be enough to compensate with templar or carrier buffs. It'll have to be the gateway units, or a big redesign of immortals. You need a strong robo option for protoss or the midgame will be a bunch of really nasty metagame traps.
On June 01 2011 05:41 Baituri wrote: Uninteresting Units
Terran:
Marauder It just doesn't seem like a interesting unit. Like said before, it is an marine who has more HP but can't shoot up. It also looks ridiculous if you ask me, but that doens't matter now.
Reaper The reaper does not have any uses in Starcraft 2 anymore. You can use it as an fast scout and then it is useless. I don't think a redesign could save this unit. I always thought that spider mines could fit on a Reaper. It already uses explosives on buildings and even in the singleplayer you get an additional grenade upgrade. But using a spider mine in someones mineral line by just jumping in seems to strong, so that won't happen.
Hellion I don't think this unit is very interesting either. You can burn a lot of workers with it if you are lucky and get passed the defenses. But after that I don't think it has many uses.
Thor A big hero unit sounds pretty interesting. But having an ability that is not very useful and having a "lucky" anti-air attack seems pretty stupid. The anti-air seems to be made to counter mutalisks. But it only works if the zerg makes an micro mistake. You should win because you are the better player, not because your opponent makes more mistakes than you.
Viking At first, in the beta, I thought that vikings were pretty interesting. An anti-air unit with a large range (you can kite other air units with it.) But the thing that was the most interesting to me was that you could land them and harass mineral lines. Sadly this just isn't viable and is only just as an counter to Colossus, Brood Lords and other Vikings.
Raven A spellcaster with 1 usefull spell in my opinion. auto turrets are not really the reason people are making Ravens. HSM is also a spell that isn't really usefull because of its energy cost, the need to research it and the slow movement on it. The only things that are interesting are the PDD and the ability to detect cloacked/burrowed units.
Also people have mostly reactors on their starports, because medivacs are more usefull.
Protoss:
Sentry This unit is to important for the Protoss army. It dictates to much. Force Field is IMO the best spell in the game. I like Force Fields as an defensive spell, but as an attacking spell it dictates to much of the fight. It negates micro and makes melee units useless.
Even without the forcefield (lets make it 75 gas and you don't have to upgrade hallucination) I still think it is an incredible unit. It would be more of an support unit, were you have 3-4 sentries in your army instead of 9 in your first push.
Immortal It is just as the description by Blizzard. It has a role it shouldn't have at the moment. Incredible burst damage on 1 single target doesn't really work in a game were you have 100+ zerglings or an MMM-ball.
I'd like to see the Immortal as a real tank. Maybe guardian shield would be an interesting spell on the Immortal. That way it makes sure all the attention would be focused on the Immortal (Like a tank) It also benefits the rest of the army.
Colossus Everyone hates it. It's counter is an air unit. You make to much of its counter (Viking, Corrupter) you lose because you kill the Colossus but don't have a ground army. You dont have its counter (Viking or Corrupter) you lose because it melts everything in 2 seconds.
Voidray I don't really think this unit is that interesting. It is mostly used to surprise your opponent and hopefully you can kill a few key buildings/units.
Also I like the idea of a lot of small battles and groups of units darting in and out to get the better concave or the better terrain to fight on. This is the opposite of what the Voidray does, be in a long battle and it gets stronger over time.
Mothership The only real Hero unit in the game. It has almost no uses and people are most of the time prepared for it. I just want the Arbiter back.
Zerg:
Baneling Actually it is my favorite unit. It is exciting to watch, and can control the battle immediately if you control them well. The thing I don't like is that is needed to counter the balls of units. (Actually I really hate the giant balls of units, but without them the Baneling has probably no uses anymore.)
Roach Easy to mass and not really interesting. I think it should be a unit that is used in small groups to backstab armies or mineral lines. I like the burrow mechanic from the roach, but it isn't used the way I like it to be used.
Hydralisk Low health, really, really slow and high damage. It is like an expensive marine. But marines get stim. Can easily be dropped, are not that slow (Stim helps) and get healed.
I like the idea to change them with the roach. This would also help my idea for the roach to be more viable as a small pack of units to harass with.
Ultralisk Big and stupid movement. I just can't think off anything else when I think about the SC2 Ultralisk. I want the SC:BW Ultralisk back.
Overseer See Blizzard explanation. This is a unit I like to see removed. Give detection back to the Overlord
Corrupter Counters Colossus and makes Brood Lords. Thats it. Nothing interesting. I like to see this unit removed and make Brood Lords from Mutalisks.
Mechanics
Creep I don't like the creep mechanic. Instead of punishing the people who don't spread creep. It should reward the people that do spread creep.
Warp Gates I see 2 problems with the Warp Gate mechanic. 1. You can warp in, into your/next to your proponents base which removes defenders advantage. 2. In the late game when you have a lot of Warp Gates and Money it is just ridiculous how much you can warp in at 1 time, (See Boxer vs HasuObs in TSL)
Larva Inject, Mules and Chronoboost It seems like an ability to let people do something. The game is so much simplified that it seems Blizzard implemented some mechanics to let the top players do something. In SC:BW we didn't need special mechanics to be productive...
balls of units. It stimulates 1a syndrome and is just not fun to watch.This post explains what I want.
Spellcasters I miss interesting spells. With Forcefields, Storm, Fungle Growth or w/e I am not getting excited. I don't know what is missing directly or how to change this. But spells are just not as cool and fun as in SC:BW
Graphics I don't really care about this...
What do I want? It is pretty hard to say what you really want. At least it is for me. Everyone knows some interesting features, but they need to be balanced for competitive play. I like the most that the giant balls of units disappear. But if that happens, the whole game needs to be rebalanced since it is made around balls fighting other balls...
Note Just take this all with a grain of salt since I am really bad at any game I play. I just like to watch and this are the points I dislike about viewing Starcraft 2.
Also English is not my 1st language, so it is hard for me to put exactly what I want to say on paper (or internet for this).
Ok so basically, you quite dislike most aspects of this game.
The marauder is interesting because it opens up alot of viable tech choices for terran - you are not purely restricted to mech, like what was very common in Brood War. It needs to stay.
I think the Colossus, Corruptor and maybe even the Roach are boring units. I think the Reaper and Hydralisk need to be reassessed. I also think that the Thor needs its Strike Cannons looked at, because as of their energy removal they were possibly too strong, and now with the energy they are useless.
As for new units, I think the idea of bringing back the lurker is flawed, but I think zerg needs a new unit to replace the old lurker, a unit that has a similiar sort of mechanic. The lurker was a fantastic design but it won't work specifically in SC2 in my opinion; a new unit with a similiar concept but different execution must be introduced.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
For what unit changes would make the game more interesting:
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
The Corrupter needs a change. It's role is too limited right now. Its spell sucks. Maybe a new spell, or something else interesting to help it out. Preferably something that wouldn't leave it completely useless after the Colossus or (lol) capital ships are dead.
The Reaper was never really a good unit. It was only useful for early timing or for 5 rax reaper. It should be completely removed in favor of a more useful, gas heavy bio unit. (not caster but utility or something).
Now..separate from that, I will dream for a second: Nydus should be hatch tech (analogous to warpgate). It should also have a lair tech upgrade that makes it more useful somehow. Maybe
giving it an attack (like a weak Planetary fortress, helping Zerg to hold ground and harass at the same time!)
faster unit releasing
Good post.
Luckily Blizzard are not as dumb as the vocal players who want things for bad reasons.
I agree with your choices except the aside about the nydus worm, that would just disallow anything but heavy one basing from P or T which would suck. Nydus worm doesn't really need a buff, it is actually amazing, it is just underused because of the current state of the game.
I agree with all of carmine's points except the nydus to hatch tech. I like the idea of leaving the nydus at lair with a hive upgrade that doubles the unit release speed (or something like that). Or maybe even lair upgrade, it depends on how strong it is and w/e.
The attack is interesting, summoning nydus worms for 100 gas to make a position stronger in a very short amount of time is kinda cool and would be a nice addition to cover the slow build time of spine crawlers, although if its still lair tech it will probably be too late to help w/ early game cheesy (which is what hurts zerg anyway.
On June 01 2011 09:12 mordk wrote: A versatile unit is, for example, the stalker. The mutalisk. The marine. They are "core" units which can be useful in nearly any composition. The VR is no such thing.
Yes it is, why do you think the 'Colo VR' ball is so popular?
Mutalisks are not versatile, they do very little damage, have little health, no range, and die to any antiair if they so much as hover within their range for a second. Their strength lies in the fact that they fly and they move fast. They can harass mineral lines and kill things like tanks that only shoot ground. Thats about it. Their gas/mineral/supply ratio makes them restrictive, you basically have to spam lings and banes or risk floating lots of money.
Voids have higher range, health, damage, are stupid cost effective when charged, complement any composition and don't eat up metric tons of gas requiring you to mineral sink like mutas. If you have a stargate and don't want to use it for phoenix anymore, it's quite reasonable to build them slowly, one at a time to add to your ball. They sit behind your ground forces and right in front of your colossus, probably the safest spot in the world. 3-4 void rays in a gateway/robo mix actually get to charge up and just wreck everything so quickly. Even if the enemy has lots of corruptors or vikings, the voids and stalkers rip them to absolute shreds when they dash forward to snipe colo. If the other guy is just A moving his air to air units, then the voids die but the colossus get off significantly more damage than they would in the absence of voids.
Spawn larvae is uninteresting. I hope they end up removing it and end up returning to more of a BW style. I just find it overall uninteresting and doesn't contribute to the game in a positive manner at the moment.
The Colossus needs a fix, but overall I like the unit. The idea of the Colossus is really great. It is just a little too powerful in large numbers. Weakening it would open up the possibility of legitimate Templar choice, including builds that use the Robo facility for support, like observers and warp prisms.
a colossus nerf without a corresponding templar or carrier/stargate buff would just be a toss nerf...
Who said Protoss doesn't need a nerf. I think assuming all 3 races are balanced right now is going a little far. It is a change that would help many matchups. I believe it was Tyler that said "when protoss needs to learn a different strategy then we will".
oh and someone said the hydra wanted to be unique and needed to be changed. well guess what, all hydras did in BW was attack. they didn't chew up gateway units like they do now, and they didn't have the option to morph into lurkers until the expansion.
not every unit needs an "ability" to be unique.
I totally agree with this and want to use this idea a little in my reply further down.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
So we're "bad people" for having an opinion, and you don't even give a reason why either. Comments like yours are basically just trolling.
You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
Well fuck you too. Just because you're part of the minority who somehow finds collosus going bzarp to be interesting and strategically deep doesn't mean you can insult everyone who disagrees with you.
Because choosing an area to throw down a storm is SO much more interesting. I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things. Every unit doesn't need a gimmick to be a useful or interesting unit. The cliff walking and synergy with blink stalkers (give high ground sight and both cross cliffs) makes for interesting confrontations in my opinion.
I would really like for them to do something about the corruptor unit ability. It's an extremely bland ability, and is not the type of ability that makes the game interesting or allows for strategies to be based around it (blink, graviton beam, invisible.) I know they originally had a more interesting idea for it, so they clearly did not intend for this current ability to exist, it would be great if they took a look at it.
On June 01 2011 09:12 mordk wrote: A versatile unit is, for example, the stalker. The mutalisk. The marine. They are "core" units which can be useful in nearly any composition. The VR is no such thing.
Yes it is, why do you think the 'Colo VR' ball is so popular?
Mutalisks are not versatile, they do very little damage, have little health, no range, and die to any antiair if they so much as hover within their range for a second. Their strength lies in the fact that they fly and they move fast. They can harass mineral lines and kill things like tanks that only shoot ground. Thats about it. Their gas/mineral/supply ratio makes them restrictive, you basically have to spam lings and banes or risk floating lots of money.
Voids have higher range, health, damage, are stupid cost effective when charged, complement any composition and don't eat up metric tons of gas requiring you to mineral sink like mutas. If you have a stargate and don't want to use it for phoenix anymore, it's quite reasonable to build them slowly, one at a time to add to your ball. They sit behind your ground forces and right in front of your colossus, probably the safest spot in the world. 3-4 void rays in a gateway/robo mix actually get to charge up and just wreck everything so quickly. Even if the enemy has lots of corruptors or vikings, the voids and stalkers rip them to absolute shreds when they dash forward to snipe colo. If the other guy is just A moving his air to air units, then the voids die but the colossus get off significantly more damage than they would in the absence of voids.
Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
On June 01 2011 09:12 mordk wrote: A versatile unit is, for example, the stalker. The mutalisk. The marine. They are "core" units which can be useful in nearly any composition. The VR is no such thing.
Yes it is, why do you think the 'Colo VR' ball is so popular?
Mutalisks are not versatile, they do very little damage, have little health, no range, and die to any antiair if they so much as hover within their range for a second. Their strength lies in the fact that they fly and they move fast. They can harass mineral lines and kill things like tanks that only shoot ground. Thats about it. Their gas/mineral/supply ratio makes them restrictive, you basically have to spam lings and banes or risk floating lots of money.
Voids have higher range, health, damage, are stupid cost effective when charged, complement any composition and don't eat up metric tons of gas requiring you to mineral sink like mutas. If you have a stargate and don't want to use it for phoenix anymore, it's quite reasonable to build them slowly, one at a time to add to your ball. They sit behind your ground forces and right in front of your colossus, probably the safest spot in the world. 3-4 void rays in a gateway/robo mix actually get to charge up and just wreck everything so quickly. Even if the enemy has lots of corruptors or vikings, the voids and stalkers rip them to absolute shreds when they dash forward to snipe colo. If the other guy is just A moving his air to air units, then the voids die but the colossus get off significantly more damage than they would in the absence of voids.
It is popular because:
-It's easy to do -It only requires 2 bases -It works when facing really passive players
Voids are soft as crap, are super non cost-effective when uncharged, and are only useful in 6+ numbers, since they're so weak any decent player will focus them down and kill them before they charge up. If you charge up 3-4 VRs in a gateway/robo mix then your opponent just sucks horribly and made no units to counter VRs. If terran allows VRs to kill all their vikings they're just doing it wrong, and if zerg uses corruptors to counter VRs they're just doing it wrong, of course they rip them to shreds. These are the reasons why VRs are popular on ladder, but increasingly less popular on high-level tourneys and games.
It really has nothing to do with the versatility or lack thereof of VRs. Mutalisks on the other hand, are fast, grant huge map control advantage, deny expansions easily, are a pretty decent burst damage unit in any composition, can snipe specific units, and are decent against any unit except marines, phoenixes,HTs, mass hydralisks and blink stalkers (And actually, with decent micro they do quite well at forcing and wasting HT energy). Also, when in mass, mutalisks are almost unstoppable. The only thing I agree with you on about mutalisks is their restrictive gas cost, but being cheaper would make them imbalanced.
On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote: Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever.
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about.
Why do you keep talking from a balance and skill perspective? Balance is not the point of this thread and it never was. It's about the game design itself and making sure that it's incredibly skillful to play and entertaining to watch.
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: Because choosing an area to throw down a storm is SO much more interesting. I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things. Every unit doesn't need a gimmick to be a useful or interesting unit. The cliff walking and synergy with blink stalkers (give high ground sight and both cross cliffs) makes for interesting confrontations in my opinion.
Because I totally said HT were an interesting unit, didn't I. Collosus are a stupid unit that does everything without requiring the slightest bit of skill. HT are a meh unit that is incredibly powerful but has noticable drawbacks and requires a small amount of skill. I agree completely about gimmicks being unnecessary and irritating. Cliff walking and standing on top of allies is a gimmick, and the collosus would be at least vaguely interesting without them.
EDIT: Before you start screaming BIAS at me, roaches are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Hydralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Ultralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Corruptors are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Broodlords are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Those units are all bad, they just aren't as bad as the collosus because they lack retarded gimmicks like 'can do everything'.
On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote: Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever.
I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? -Carriers: severely underused besides mass carriers in team games, they need a severe change. (does anyone know how often carriers were used in BW?) -Collosus: agree with what someone said before, A-move while the rest of the army is a meat shield. Maybe remove the range upgrade... or the dual attacks. Maybe just fire a single laser. -Overseers, as stated previously, just a glorified scout. - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. -I think the snipe mechanic needs to be fixed, when there needs to be multiple threads on it just so people know how to use it effectively, there's definitely a problem. -shorter build time/burrow time for spine crawlers -the 75% salvage on bunkers is still too much... make it 50. A terran should be punished for a fail 2 rax, not on even footing. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? -eh idk. i'm not a huge visual effects guy. maybe make ghosts die in a more manly way. - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? -I never played brood war, but i would love love LOVE to use lurkers. That would be awesome. (technically an old unit).
-It's easy to do -It only requires 2 bases -It works when facing really passive players
Voids are soft as crap, are super non cost-effective when uncharged, and are only useful in 6+ numbers, since they're so weak any decent player will focus them down and kill them before they charge up. If you charge up 3-4 VRs in a gateway/robo mix then your opponent just sucks horribly and made no units to counter VRs. If terran allows VRs to kill all their vikings they're just doing it wrong, and if zerg uses corruptors to counter VRs they're just doing it wrong, of course they rip them to shreds. These are the reasons why VRs are popular on ladder, but increasingly less popular on high-level tourneys and games.
But what about the 3-4 colossus behind the voids? Thats why the corrputor/viking are out in the first place. The colossus is the big target at the back, and the gateway units at the front (especially the chargelots) are distracting everything. The marines and hydras aren't gonna do anything about the voids. The mutalisks are gonna die to the stalkers (unless as you say, they have a huge cloud of them), and everything else that shoots air and can reach the voids is probably gonna be focusing on colossus or waiting for a better opportunity to focus on them. The only disadvantage to making the voids if you have the stargate open is you get a couple fewer warpgate units for each one. Other than that, I see no reason not to include voids in a standard ball.
On June 01 2011 08:58 shin ken wrote: Mechanics: Spawn Larva is the most unforgiving macro-mechanic compared to Mule/Chronoboost because there's (almost) no way to spam spawn larva unlike mules or chronos when you lost focus. Just allow multiple spawn larva on a hatcherie. They don't have to be instantly active (although it would be very zerg-like and asesome to add like 16 larva and spawn them into 24 lings ^^) - just let them stack up. With a small delay so it would be a little bit more effective spawn larva more frequently.
Disagree. And I play Zerg. Perfect Larva Injects gives you a *huge* macro advantage over "perfect" MULEs or Chronoboosts. They would have to take away that advantage if they made it easier to do perfectly.
It's one way for good players to distinguish themselves, tbh. Let's not dumb down things even more.
On June 01 2011 10:58 HiredGoonThug wrote: But what about the 3-4 colossus behind the voids? Thats why the corrputor/viking are out in the first place. The colossus is the big target at the back, and the gateway units at the front (especially the chargelots) are distracting everything. The marines and hydras aren't gonna do anything about the voids. The mutalisks are gonna die to the stalkers (unless as you say, they have a huge cloud of them), and everything else that shoots air and can reach the voids is probably gonna be focusing on colossus or waiting for a better opportunity to focus on them. The only disadvantage to making the voids if you have the stargate open is you get a couple fewer warpgate units for each one. Other than that, I see no reason not to include voids in a standard ball.
Voids are also still pretty damn good uncharged these days. I feel like the guy you quoted is still stuck on pre-"change" (not gonna call it a nerf or buff) VRs.
Also, VRs counter Corruptors, not the other way around. Most people don't think of it that way for some reason, but it's true.
I definitely would like to see spawn larvae changed to some other ability. It should I think allow energy to build up to some degree, like chrono boost or mules, and also should just be a mechanic that just improves macro instead of being such a focal point of Zerg macro.
On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote: Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever.
I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have.
VRs and carriers are completely different. Carriers aren't used because they're fragile for cost and supply and because interceptors get killed making carriers useless, marines don't even need to kill carriers, just A-move and kill interceptors. It's not related at all to VRs.
On June 01 2011 10:58 galtdunn wrote: - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? -Carriers: severely underused besides mass carriers in team games, they need a severe change. (does anyone know how often carriers were used in BW?)?
They are a very common site as a late end-game unit in PvT to take abuse certain map terrain and take advantage of the fact that mech was the only viable choice for Terran against Protoss.
well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping: collosus, thor, corruptor (i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about.
Why do you keep talking from a balance and skill perspective? Balance is not the point of this thread and it never was. It's about the game design itself and making sure that it's incredibly skillful to play and entertaining to watch.
I didn't know that we were talking about single player. I thought we were talking about multiplayer. If we were talking about MP then I think the decision on how interesting a unit is should be based off of a person knowing how to use it.
I don't like the idea of balancing the MP based off of gold level players opinions. (I'm being frank, but I am not trying to be mean.)
...eh edited because I missed a point: I think that a balanced good game is interesting. That's why I said the above, but the most important thing is that a unit can seem uninteresting if you aren't using it right.
On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote: Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever.
I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have.
VRs and carriers are completely different. Carriers aren't used because they're fragile for cost and supply and because interceptors get killed making carriers useless, marines don't even need to kill carriers, just A-move and kill interceptors. It's not related at all to VRs.
You a wrong, sorry. In BW there were absolutely the same interceptors(even less DPS) but i didn't hear that someone didn't build carriers because of marines. Carriers in a very big extent related to VR.
Hellions are boring, they should be replaced by Firebats :D Corruptors are boring. Fix them or replace them with something. And Collosi are boring. I want my Rivuuuuuuu!
-It's easy to do -It only requires 2 bases -It works when facing really passive players
Voids are soft as crap, are super non cost-effective when uncharged, and are only useful in 6+ numbers, since they're so weak any decent player will focus them down and kill them before they charge up. If you charge up 3-4 VRs in a gateway/robo mix then your opponent just sucks horribly and made no units to counter VRs. If terran allows VRs to kill all their vikings they're just doing it wrong, and if zerg uses corruptors to counter VRs they're just doing it wrong, of course they rip them to shreds. These are the reasons why VRs are popular on ladder, but increasingly less popular on high-level tourneys and games.
But what about the 3-4 colossus behind the voids? Thats why the corrputor/viking are out in the first place. The colossus is the big target at the back, and the gateway units at the front (especially the chargelots) are distracting everything. The marines and hydras aren't gonna do anything about the voids. The mutalisks are gonna die to the stalkers (unless as you say, they have a huge cloud of them), and everything else that shoots air and can reach the voids is probably gonna be focusing on colossus or waiting for a better opportunity to focus on them. The only disadvantage to making the voids if you have the stargate open is you get a couple fewer warpgate units for each one. Other than that, I see no reason not to include voids in a standard ball.
You usually kill the voids first, since if, as you correctly say, you let them charge, they become insane. The thing is, as I stated before, these strategies are becoming quickly obsolete, because to gather that 4+ collossi, 4+ VR with enough stalkers and sentries ball, you need A TON of time, which good players are no longer giving, particularly zerg, who are going for bigger early game pressure, which means you can't deathball like that anymore. It only works against passive, bad players.
Which is why, ultimately, VRs are not versatile. They either rush in the early game, if unscouted, or go into a huge lategame ball which is not really that viable anymore. They don't harass, they don't give map control, they're not fast, they don't provide tactical advantages, they suck in any other composition different from the ones being discussed, they don't really have "utility". Mutalisks have WAY more uses and aspects than VRs, so do marines and stalkers, even zerglings are more versatile than VRs.
I'm not saying they're a bad unit and should be removed. I think protoss could use a well-rounded flyer, not overpowering, and not needing any special circumstances to be useful.
On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote: Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors. It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever.
I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have.
VRs and carriers are completely different. Carriers aren't used because they're fragile for cost and supply and because interceptors get killed making carriers useless, marines don't even need to kill carriers, just A-move and kill interceptors. It's not related at all to VRs.
You a wrong, sorry. In BW there were absolutely the same interceptors(even less DPS) but i didn't hear that someone didn't build carriers because of marines. Carriers in a very big extent related to VR.
Wrong, sorry. BW interceptors recharged shields when returning to the carrier. Add to that the fact that marines didn't clump in a ball like SC2 ones do, and there you have it. Interceptors lived long enough to deal damage, you could also force interceptors back into the carrier to make them live longer, attacking in bursts. Because of graviton catapult, having this possibility in SC2 carriers would make them insanely powerful, combined with their awesome DPS. All of this makes SC2 carriers only useful for 1 shot, then interceptors die and that's it lol.
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about.
Why do you keep talking from a balance and skill perspective? Balance is not the point of this thread and it never was. It's about the game design itself and making sure that it's incredibly skillful to play and entertaining to watch.
I didn't know that we were talking about single player. I thought we were talking about multiplayer. If we were talking about MP then I think the decision on how interesting a unit is should be based off of a person knowing how to use it.
No shit sherlock. That's why this thread is here. What I don't understand is why you're trying to disregard our arguments because you believe we aren't skilled. Nobody here is arguing based on just our personal experiences, but also what we see and hear from high-level play. Keep in mind that even pro players share many of our complaints. Jinro for example dislikes colossus for the same reason that we've been saying all along: the unit is boring to use and watch.
In fact, most of our complaints come from the fact that there are plenty of units and abilities that are boring to watch even in the hands of pros. Crowds go wild over a good reaver shot, or a baneling bomb. You'll never see anyone get excited over colossus A-move or marauders using concussive shells. This thread is made in the hopes that Blizzard will possibly make units MORE exciting to watch and play.
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious.
..
I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things.
So in short, people you disagree with are either bad or they have "biases".
I think I have explained my opinions enough. People giving bad (imo) suggestions probably got their butt kicked one too many times by Marauders. Now they think they are a bad unit. I cannot take every whiner on TL at face value. I must just cut my losses and not argue with them (assuming their opinions are influenced by something other than the crap reasons they bring up in an argument.)
On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote: Because choosing an area to throw down a storm is SO much more interesting. I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things. Every unit doesn't need a gimmick to be a useful or interesting unit. The cliff walking and synergy with blink stalkers (give high ground sight and both cross cliffs) makes for interesting confrontations in my opinion.
Because I totally said HT were an interesting unit, didn't I. Collosus are a stupid unit that does everything without requiring the slightest bit of skill. HT are a meh unit that is incredibly powerful but has noticable drawbacks and requires a small amount of skill. I agree completely about gimmicks being unnecessary and irritating. Cliff walking and standing on top of allies is a gimmick, and the collosus would be at least vaguely interesting without them.
EDIT: Before you start screaming BIAS at me, roaches are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Hydralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Ultralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Corruptors are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Broodlords are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Those units are all bad, they just aren't as bad as the collosus because they lack retarded gimmicks like 'can do everything'.
Wow you really don't like units that can attack without having to target and activate an ability. Cliff walking could be considered gimmicky, but I think it makes the unit much more interesting than otherwise. I meant that the fact that it can still be an interesting unit with its current attack method instead of having to charge laser and play a guitar hero minigame.
I wish they would change around the sounds. Before in BW your units just sounded... powerful. Like zerglings sounded like some crazed beast throwing itself on a door. Zealots and hydras sounded so manly. Now lings and hydras, and everything else just doesn't give the feeling that it's a unit that's made to kill.
Also i hate the balled up, A move army clumps we always see. Leads to less exciting battles and gimps the spectator excitement.
Very interesting perspective from David Kim on explaining how the game did not turn out how they wanted to. Especially how immortal turned out to be a DPSer instead of a tanker.
Top units I find needing changes. Zerg: Either marines need a nerf or zerglings need a buff, though I think that the latter would be better. Marines are too good against zerglings imo, such that early game terran has SO MUCH POWER Hydralisks need a speed increase or SOMETHING to give them a better hand in any of the matchups. Sometimes you see them in ZvZ and you see them as a counter to stargate or a 6-WG timing push in TvP. I think banelings should move at the same speed as stimmed marines and marauders to make it so they are actually the counter they should be. Lots of people will disagree with me on that, but it would make a marine nerf not needed imo. (And yes... as people say, fight on creep. because you can so clearly ALWAYS fight on creep since T will usually marine tank push and kill creep tumors along the way.) Terran: Reapers need a tweak. Something to make them interesting. at this point in the game they are similar to the overseer. a glorified scout with a little bit of versatility, in this case doing damage or being put in a bunker to take down zerg hatcheries. Raven... Yeah. I don't understand why more terrans dont use PDD against P, it's such an amazing ability. But HSM REALLY needs to be usable or changed to something equal or better, and auto-turrets shouldn't last as long as they do. to be able to use them to deny expansions for until someone brings an army over, or to force an entire army out of position to save a mineral line because they would be there for a ridiculous amount of time is OP imo. Also doesn't see as much use, but because of the incapability of getting the raven there I understand why. the rest of terran I don't see too much of a problem or uninteresting ability with. Protoss: Carrier. need I say more? I've never seen a pro-game that showcases this unit having ANY PURPOSE. seriously. Needs to change. Colossi are uninteresting. I think they could at least make it better by giving them something like half damage or 3/4 unless they use an ability which gives them more damage than normal. that way they aren't ALWAYS the death-machine they are and would give TvP a much more interesting poke and run and poke and run game. Warp prisms need a change of some kind. They have their power because of the warp-in future. but maybe P needs a unit that can act as just a drop-ship, one that has actual health to make it more useful. Yeah, that's about it. HT are fine. warp-in storms were too powerful without a doubt, and P haven't been practicing to get them in before timings at all because of how powerful colossi are. make collosi less of a win button and HT will start seeing more use.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. I think the zerg larva mechanic needs a tweak. Yes, it is great that zergs can instant remake their entire army and everything, and can choose to just get an all-in timing at XX drones, but the fact that if they make any small mistake early game they HAVE to stop droning COMPLETELY to compensate for it and thus put them behind on equal bases? It makes particularly the ZvT matchup a bit ridiculous imo. (of course, I think ZvP is stupid too. generally just mass up a shit ton of roaches, maybe with hydras and corruptors or just corruptors and attack unless you do some early all-in kinda thing from either side.) Zerg needs some kind of tweak to prevent terran from taking space. Yeah, we have creep and banelings. but if the terran gets a raven or scans to kill creep tumors and just slowly encroaches, they have to wait for broodlords to get rid of them without taking heavy damage. and they can't get broodlords early enough sometimes. Also, I think BW had the right idea when it had dropships being ONLY dropships. Terran medivac dropship options are EXTREMELY powerful. Granted, I don't necessarily think I would tweak this, because it is VERY interesting to watch for games, but there is something about the mechanic that makes it too powerful. That the terran can have a dropship waiting near 1 or 2 expansions, and unless someone has static defenses or an army there, the terran can lose his entire main army but take out almost all of the opponents economy and thus rebuild at his main and win anyways with the greater economy (Note, with the current ZvP style this doesn't really work since T usually wants EVERYTHING in the main engagement because of the power of the colossus.)
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? I almost want to see zergs have two sets of larva for the hatcheries, one for drones and one for units. wouldn't change TOO much about the game, but it would get rid of 6-pools, make ZvZ more interesting (less all-in at the beginnings) and force zergs to play less holy-shit macro-ey and more standard-ish. Would lead to less of the 300 food army and more of the "I'm going to pressure you BACK now." which I don't think we see enough out of pro zergs. I think Zerg needs its own kind of siege unit, get rid of the broodlord and give us something faster, something that doesn't essentially require 15-20 minutes into the game to get, and something to make a contain against zerg not near game-ending. Terran mule's should require you having one or two scv's to use them. ;~; but that's just a base-trading zerg whining and wouldn't really make too much of a difference anywhere.
Yeah, if you couldn't tell I'm a zerg, and fully believe that some of my ideas MAY turn out to be overpowered, but that's what playtesting would be for anyways.
P.S. Just for the lols, make a terran whose only base is floating be revealed anyways until he lands.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Corrupter, colossus, hydra
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Would like to see zerg stronger earlier and weaker later. At the moment feeling zerg feels like 'surivive to hive then rollover the enemy'. Needs a way to bust a position other than ultras/broods
Move observer away from the robo so it opens up more tech paths for protoss. Could maybe be built from the cyber core for an increased cost
In general, I think battles are too fast, I'd like to see in general unit hp increased or dps decreased
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
More variety in terrain, eg the beach map is great for something different to look at.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Would like to see more emphasis on position. Examples: - either neutral or player built building that gives units within x radius a buff. Could possibly be movable with something similar to root/uproot time - building that gives passive income (like the oil wells in c&c). This might need removal of Xel'naga towers though to avoid too many points of interest on the map
On June 01 2011 11:07 DuckS wrote: well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping: collosus, thor, corruptor (i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
Yeah, a placeholder that you can't get until hive tech at 15 minutes at the earliest probably. Whereas terrans have a bunker 2 minutes into the game and protoss have force fields from a tier one gateway unit.
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
I'd be more interested in hearing why you think their suggestions are bad than the disparaging labels you've come up with to describe them.
I second Rococo on this.
To just expand on the subject, I think what people mean by "boring" in most cases is really: a battle happens, player A has unit X, and player B doesn't have unit Y (or infinity unit Y) hence player B just loses his whole frikin' army, in exchange for 3 units for player A. More or less it's no different then very very extended cheeze, since it all boils down to the one battle that makes or breaks everything, instead of multiple (committed) attacks, probably happening in multiple areas in multiple stages of the game.
The infester is probably the most problematic I would say. The problem is not that it doesn't have counters! (it actually has plenty for T & P) It's that countering it doesn't really put you at an advantage. I'll ignore zerg in the discussion since according to blizzard the way to counter infestor is with infestors or infinity ultralisks. :-)
If you counter infestor, what did you gain? You gained nothing, the zerg still has it's big army. The only thing you counter is actually "gg in the next minute" because zerg just killed all your army for free. - colosus with stalker? MC on colosus, fungal on stalkers, maybe some infested marines - bioball? fangal - thors? MC - heavy air? fungal + infested marines. BCs, Cariers? MC infested marines - immortals? MC + fungals on other stuff - cloaked units? fungal (de-cloakes them for your army) - hellions, repears? fungal - mutalisk? fungal - benaling? fungal - rape enemy expantion/buildings? marines - (enemy) base defenses? throw some marines around - drops? fungal - tanks? infested marines on his army, or MC on tanks, +fungal - thors? MC - thors with cannons? MC + cannons - raven + HSM? (official counter to Inferstor from Blizzard), MC Raven + HSM his army (HSM used to have range 9, sadly it was nerfed to range 6) - need harass? burrow + fungal his mineral line etc. (there isn't anything it doesn't do "terrible terrible damage" to; excepting Ultra :-) )
Now lets look at counters: (1) blink stalkers (blink into the mass of infestors) -- provided he conveniently keeps them unburrowed and all in one place so you can blink into them. (2) ghosts -- ideally you should be sniping them (1 ghost @ 200/200 can kill 4 infestors) or otherwise if he has them hidden with other units like maybe burrowed (probably with some decoys), scan + emp (3) high templar -- feedback or storm.
For (1) fungal hits your stalkers, they can't blink no more. If he has the infestors clump with his army, and/or burrowed, good luck targeting. In the time you took to target fire or even if you got perfect spread fire with the stalkers so the infestors died in record time, if the zerg had good army positioning your stalkers took a good punch to the face in return; and if fungals went off before all died, some stalkers are probably dead.
(2) If infestors are spread out emp isn't so viable, and if you accidentally target a burrowed roach instead of a burrowed infestor it's pretty bad. Equally it takes only one infestor MC a ghost to drain your entire ghost army of energy, or throw 3 snipes off to kill another ghost and have the MC one emp himself (assuming 200/200).
(3) It takes 2 storms to kill 1 infestor (roughly 5.5s) so if you go for storm your probably going to get MC and feedbacked; probably get your army fungal/stormed too. So you probably always want to go for feedback. The problem of burrowed infestors comes into play again. You need detection; and incidentally infestor have fungal to counter detection. You have to get all the infestors, but it takes only 1 infestor to mess you up, and any micro exchange where zerg is still left with some infestors results in your army getting raped.
But what happens if you do kill the infestors? Zerg is usually on more bases then you so they have a ton of larva, and also more gas then you (ideally). So all those infestors that got killed could in theory pop up straight back out if the zerg player has the gas for them. If not it's now up to your army to kill his army. In some cases this might mean zerg loses, but that's not necessarily the case. If you have high templar you might be able to storm once or twice, but your energy is probably drained severly at this point.
So bascially the end result is two armies meet and in a few seconds the game is decided. And that's if the other side tried to counter, ie. "avoid death".
I'm not trying to say it's OP or anything, but having the infestor make or break it is pretty uninteresting and the balance between casters like the infestor and "anti-caster" isn't really very risk/reward from my POV. At least from the player "countering" there's not much reward involved other then not-dieing. It may be "balanced" and depending on which side you're on "fun", but from a spectator standpoint, or from a design standpoint, it's not the greatest balance ever.
Same goes for Colosus vs it's counters: Mass Viking/Corrupter. The difference there is the colosus has things like production strain and you can't just instantly re-produce 9 colusus. The advantage of the player who supposedly countered it is also very iffy (ie. you overcounter = you lost) and even when done properly you don't win because because you're in a better position (viking/corruptor aren't the most useful units ever), but mostly because the protoss is now in a really bad position.
Yeah, if you couldn't tell I'm a zerg, and fully believe that some of my ideas MAY turn out to be overpowered, but that's what playtesting would be for anyways.
How about we avoid making posts like this. If we're going to have a thinly veiled balance whine thread, how about people actually think their ideas through and try to sketch out the larger consequences of the changes they are proposing.
As a Brotoss, I'd love to see a redesign on the Sentry...but that means a redesign on Zealots and Stalkers too (and maybe the rest of the Protoss army). Unfortunately, I have no idea how it would/could be done since Toss are so dependent on FFs.
On June 01 2011 11:07 DuckS wrote: well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping: collosus, thor, corruptor (i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
The problem I have with colossi is that their mere existence makes lategame toss air incredibly bad. To deal with colossi, T and Z need to have air dominance, generally in the form of units that have either a long range and the ability to be easily massed(vikings), or significant bonus damage to massive/armored(corruptors).
In all honesty, I'd be happy with colossi being removed if and only if there's a significant storm buff(100-120 damage, maybe) and/or an immortal upgrade on the robo bay(possibly either armor, range, or minor splash damage).
On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote: I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad.
Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
I'd be more interested in hearing why you think their suggestions are bad than the disparaging labels you've come up with to describe them.
I second Rococo on this.
To just expand on the subject, I think what people mean by "boring" in most cases is really: a battle happens, player A has unit X, and player B doesn't have unit Y (or infinity unit Y) hence player B just loses his whole frikin' army, in exchange for 3 units for player A. More or less it's no different then very very extended cheeze, since it all boils down to the one battle that makes or breaks everything, instead of multiple (committed) attacks, probably happening in multiple areas in multiple stages of the game.
The infester is probably the most problematic I would say. The problem is not that it doesn't have counters! (it actually has plenty for T & P) It's that countering it doesn't really put you at an advantage. I'll ignore zerg in the discussion since according to blizzard the way to counter infestor is with infestors or infinity ultralisks. :-)
If you counter infestor, what did you gain? You gained nothing, the zerg still has it's big army. The only thing you counter is actually "gg in the next minute" because zerg just killed all your army for free. - colosus with stalker? MC on colosus, fungal on stalkers, maybe some infested marines - bioball? fangal - thors? MC - heavy air? fungal + infested marines. BCs, Cariers? MC infested marines - immortals? MC + fungals on other stuff - cloaked units? fungal (de-cloakes them for your army) - hellions, repears? fungal - mutalisk? fungal - benaling? fungal - rape enemy expantion/buildings? marines - (enemy) base defenses? throw some marines around - drops? fungal - tanks? infested marines on his army, or MC on tanks, +fungal - thors? MC - thors with cannons? MC + cannons - raven + HSM? (official counter to Inferstor from Blizzard), MC Raven + HSM his army (HSM used to have range 9, sadly it was nerfed to range 6) - need harass? burrow + fungal his mineral line etc. (there isn't anything it doesn't do "terrible terrible damage" to; excepting Ultra :-) )
Now lets look at counters: (1) blink stalkers (blink into the mass of infestors) -- provided he conveniently keeps them unburrowed and all in one place so you can blink into them. (2) ghosts -- ideally you should be sniping them (1 ghost @ 200/200 can kill 4 infestors) or otherwise if he has them hidden with other units like maybe burrowed (probably with some decoys), scan + emp (3) high templar -- feedback or storm.
For (1) fungal hits your stalkers, they can't blink no more. If he has the infestors clump with his army, and/or burrowed, good luck targeting. In the time you took to target fire or even if you got perfect spread fire with the stalkers so the infestors died in record time, if the zerg had good army positioning your stalkers took a good punch to the face in return; and if fungals went off before all died, some stalkers are probably dead.
(2) If infestors are spread out emp isn't so viable, and if you accidentally target a burrowed roach instead of a burrowed infestor it's pretty bad. Equally it takes only one infestor MC a ghost to drain your entire ghost army of energy, or throw 3 snipes off to kill another ghost and have the MC one emp himself (assuming 200/200).
(3) It takes 2 storms to kill 1 infestor (roughly 5.5s) so if you go for storm your probably going to get MC and feedbacked; probably get your army fungal/stormed too. So you probably always want to go for feedback. The problem of burrowed infestors comes into play again. You need detection; and incidentally infestor have fungal to counter detection. You have to get all the infestors, but it takes only 1 infestor to mess you up, and any micro exchange where zerg is still left with some infestors results in your army getting raped.
But what happens if you do kill the infestors? Zerg is usually on more bases then you so they have a ton of larva, and also more gas then you (ideally). So all those infestors that got killed could in theory pop up straight back out if the zerg player has the gas for them. If not it's now up to your army to kill his army. In some cases this might mean zerg loses, but that's not necessarily the case. If you have high templar you might be able to storm once or twice, but your energy is probably drained severly at this point.
So bascially the end result is two armies meet and in a few seconds the game is decided. And that's if the other side tried to counter, ie. "avoid death".
I'm not trying to say it's OP or anything, but having the infestor make or break it is pretty uninteresting and the balance between casters like the infestor and "anti-caster" isn't really very risk/reward from my POV. At least from the player "countering" there's not much reward involved other then not-dieing. It may be "balanced" and depending on which side you're on "fun", but from a spectator standpoint, or from a design standpoint, it's not the greatest balance ever.
Same goes for Colosus vs it's counters: Mass Viking/Corrupter. The difference there is the colosus has things like production strain and you can't just instantly re-produce 9 colusus. The advantage of the player who supposedly countered it is also very iffy (ie. you overcounter = you lost) and even when done properly you don't win because because you're in a better position (viking/corruptor aren't the most useful units ever), but mostly because the protoss is now in a really bad position.
I appreciate your post. I think you had many good points. I will address your comment regarding me.
1. Throughout this thread I have made it relatively clear why I said the things I said. Brood war regressive's ideas my not be inherently bad but they are clearly motivated by nostalgia. Players who are not skilled at the game (bad players) opinions are often based off of things that don't happen in real games. (because of crazy differences in macro.)
I used to be in bronze. SC2 is the first RTS I have played competitively. (not professionally because I am still relatively noob but competitively). I used to think Stalkers were OP because someone massed them against me and beat me even though I had banshees and marines and marauders. Their macro was so much better than mine that even a weakish all purpose unit could beat me in mass. I was the example of the kind of people I am talking about. Not just bronze but even people in diamond have beliefs that are heavily influenced by misconceptions.
2. My original post was not about balance, but about the game being interesting (which is imo is heavily correlated with balance). In that post I talked about a slight nerf to make the Colossus less powerful, specifically in large numbers. This would make several matchups more interesting to me (all matchups involving protoss lol)
Now about your general comment about the infestors:
I Think that you are missing something in your reasoning. You said that in a Ghost vs Infestor matchup that if you neutralize (in one way or another) the infestors you don't gain anything, because the Zerg still has a big army, and multiple bases...
This is wrong. Infestors are an investment. If you are able to keep him from profiting on that investment, especially by doing it in a way that it costs you less than it cost him to invest, then you are gaining an advantage. (of some size)
If he invests 1000 resource into a strategy and you shut it down for 700 resources then you are not back to square one...you are 300 resources ahead.
You usually kill the voids first, since if, as you correctly say, you let them charge, they become insane. The thing is, as I stated before, these strategies are becoming quickly obsolete, because to gather that 4+ collossi, 4+ VR with enough stalkers and sentries ball, you need A TON of time, which good players are no longer giving, particularly zerg, who are going for bigger early game pressure, which means you can't deathball like that anymore. It only works against passive, bad players.
Which is why, ultimately, VRs are not versatile. They either rush in the early game, if unscouted, or go into a huge lategame ball which is not really that viable anymore. They don't harass, they don't give map control, they're not fast, they don't provide tactical advantages, they suck in any other composition different from the ones being discussed, they don't really have "utility". Mutalisks have WAY more uses and aspects than VRs, so do marines and stalkers, even zerglings are more versatile than VRs.
I'm not saying they're a bad unit and should be removed. I think protoss could use a well-rounded flyer, not overpowering, and not needing any special circumstances to be useful.
Well I think you framed your argument quite well and now I agree with you. Indeed, stargates in general are a rare sight in progames unless they are proxying it vs. Terran or following up a FFE vs. Zerg. Perhaps something akin to what speedrays used to be, but not quite as potent?
Warp Gates Reason: Negating distance is sooo stupid. It gives no defenders advantage at all! Genreally in Protoss games there is never any back and forward action like you see in TvZ. This is because of stupid warp gates, if you can't kill the protoss ball in the first push you are dead because of instant reinforcement anywhere on the map. Solution: If a pylon is not near a nexus, then warp in is 3-4 times slower. This means warp gate is still useful for defence but not OP when attacking. Give warp prisms normal warp in time and this unit will actually become useful.
Collosus Reason: Too strong and easy to use. Basically means when a Protoss pushes, it is kill the whole ball or lose. It also forces you too make a hard counter AA unit. Very boring unit. Solution: Not sure.
Marauder Reason: This is such an anti micro unit, once concussive shells hit you escape is impossible. It doesn't make sense that a unit that requires no micro can unleash such a powerful spell. Solution: Make concussive shells an active ability.
Roach Reason: When I think of ZvP all I can see in mass roach and attack move. Where is the skill in that? Very boring and easy to use unit. Solution: Not sure.
Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? 1. Queen - A 2 supply unit that is kind of lackluster. Its spawn larva and creep tumor mechanics are undoubtedly important, but for the majority of the game the queen's support abilities are more utility in design and not especially exciting. (Ever heard, "Ohh look at that Queen inject that larva!"?) 2. Thor - Large, slow, and pathfinding issues and energy vulnerable. (Would of put Ultralisk, but they already know) 3. Raven -- Hunter seeker missile nerf has dropped this unit into almost non-existance. Would like to see something replace this ability
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Feedback -- High templars have become the end-all be all anti-caster unit. Any unit that has energy has to be designed around this unit; from the amount of energy to the cost of spells. If Blizzard starts introducing new caster classes they'll all be vulnerable to templars and make them extremely more valuable than they are now.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Nydus worm alert -- consider whether it needs to go, or perhaps the alert will only sound when in light of sight. The nydus has many applications, not just aggressive attacks. Revealing that your building a network for your hatches will alert your opponnent to maintain vigilance.
Spine crawlers -- these giraffe heads have a visual presence that is jarring and oftimes ridiculous looking.
Zerg sounds - make them slightly more distinguisable. This is more of single player issue. I hope they take some more inspiration from Brood War. As offputting as some of those screams and screeches were, they were unique and added more personality to the race. - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? ...can't think of any. Good job Blizzard for covering your bases.
On June 01 2011 12:21 mousepad wrote: - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Feedback -- High templars have become the end-all be all anti-caster unit. Any unit that has energy has to be designed around this unit; from the amount of energy to the cost of spells. If Blizzard starts introducing new caster classes they'll all be vulnerable to templars and make them extremely more valuable than they are now.
Maybe I'm biased, but this really doesn't seem like a bad thing. Toss can't remax an army as efficiently as Z or T can, meaning that unit preservation is critical. If our army gets chain fungaled, hit with mass EMPs, our robo units are hit by strike cannons, etc., we're put behind by a fair margin and probably can't remax in time to defend.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Mothership i think its a complete fail this unit needs major redesign because no one use it it costs so much supply its slow and u can build only one of it.The spells of the unit are useful but require so much tech. Colossus is my 2nd pick because the unit is so strong but with no real disadvatage.They are mobile can walk up on high ground from low ground and walk onto your units.They are easy to micro with great dmg output i think they are like the reaver before blizzard made him dumb. Marines are my final pick because their dps is so strong that you can't pass them if you play terran but late game when the aoe units come out you are stuck at t1 units and there is no strategy involved or transitions you just get marines and roll whole game with them even with the aoe units out 1 mistake by the opponent means he is dead.Just look at what MKP was doing in TvT. - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. I think the warpgate mechanic needs to be tweaked cuz I think it makes "x warpgate push" at every map possible. The other thing that should be redesinged is the way AoE works and how the units clump into each other.... - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? No idea about those. - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Some kinda of map control units for zerg and terran.About buildings i think they should make the dt shrine and the templar achives to be 1 building.
This is just in terms of how subjectively "fun" it is to use the units. I'm not really speaking to balance here or audience enjoyment. Just as a player, which units are not that fun to use.
Boring Units: Zerg
Hydras in broodwar were signature zerg. They were the meaty mid game units you needed in your army, and maintained their utility vs terran because of the lurker morph and as a counter to vultures. In sc2, their role is pretty much taken up by the roach. So now they are boring a-move army, and you only make them for anti air until you can get corruptors out. I say to hell with the hydralisk. Combine them with the queen and add something new for early game offensive anti air. Or just make queens cheaper and buff their move speed a little bit. Crazy ideas but anything would be preferable at this point.
Corruptors are boring. Not much disagreement here.
And i am sad as hell to say this, but Ultras are also pretty boring. They dont feel all that terrorizing, and it takes forever to get them. And for most circumstances, you would rather go for brood lords instead. In broodwar they were suave as hell, but in sc2, they just come a little too late, a little too weak.
Boring Units: Terran
I'm actually hard pressed to say what terran units are boring. I think as a whole every terran unit fits rather well with everything else. With the possible exception of hellions, i think if they had a active ability it would make things more interesting, but as a whole not much complaint here.
Boring Units: Protoss
Mothership. Back when the archon toilet was viable, mothership at least had a moment of awesome all to itself, but not its just a slow ass arbiter. Not terribly interesting. It's not like it sees a lot of game time anyways.
Collosus are boring. Not much debate here. I'd much rather see a collosus buffed a bit and then take the role of the mothership. Its a late game destroyer unit that strikes fear into the heart, is a high priority target, but can be out maneuvered. At the moment they are a mid to late game unit, impossible to destroy en mass, and just a-move over everything. IMO make it bigger and merge it with the mothership.
In general I'm not too happy with the robotics bay. Collosus spamming makes immortals obsolete. I'd love to make more immortals, but collosus just win better, the opportunity cost really kills immortals.
buff gateway units add reaver nerf mutas remove FF
game awesome. I'm tired of HAVING to go colo all the time, and im tired that my stargate is 100% useless in PvT because of ONE unit. Vikings are OP air to air because they have to deal with colossus. I miss the days of Goliath vs Carrier micro.
Wow I'm surprised (and pleased) this thread hasn't been shut down yet.
However I do think many people are being overly negative. You shouldn't say "they need to remove X", instead it should be "they need to redesign X"
Like with Sentries. Remove them from the game entirely and you break the race; instead think about how they could redesign the unit to make it BETTER (not worse) for Protoss. For example, two problems that Protoss currently face are lack of early game scouting and lack of detection. What if they used the Sentry to solve these problems by giving them the ability to cast a Scan (ala Terran scan) at a short range. And exchange, tone down its effectiveness as a combat unit by somehow tinkering with either Guardian Shield or Forcefield.
These would be my 3 unit redesigns:
1. Corruptor. It is an AtA specialist that gets dominated by most other air units. It is also the only Air unit in the game that cannot significantly impact ground units. The Corruption ability does not any strategy to the game, its just an apm sink. I feel like they need to decide to either make the Corruptor THE anti air solution for Zerg, or turn it into a genuine spellcaster. Right now it does a weak job at both.
2. Thor. I feel like they made the Thor fill too many roles at once. It soaks damage with its massive HP. It is the only factory unit with an anti-air attack, and even then it's almost worthless vs non-light air. It sieges buildings with strike cannon. It countersieges units with strike cannon. It harasses very well as a Thorship. It crushes forcefields. And because it does all these things its ridiculously expensive. I feel like they need to split up the Thor's role into two smaller (and cheaper) units instead of being one big expensive catch-all.
3. Dark Templar. I hate the fact that DTs are an all-or-nothing unit. Ridiculously powerful if undetected, totally worthless if detected. They turn games into instawin or instaloss with very little inbetween. Instead I'd like to see them redesign DTs into EITHER a powerful harass unit OR a powerful melee unit. Its silly to make a glass cannon with a melee attack; melee units need to have either strong defenses or fast speed in order to be useful in battle. The DT has neither, it only has cloak which is 100% worthless when revealed.
On June 01 2011 12:19 Highways wrote: Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
I disagree. The only time banelings are used on Siege Tanks and the Zerg player is still fine is when they have a MASSIVE macro advantage. They are also pretty useless without the speed upgrade.
3. Dark Templar. I hate the fact that DTs are an all-or-nothing unit. Ridiculously powerful if undetected, totally worthless if detected. They turn games into instawin or instaloss with very little inbetween. Instead I'd like to see them redesign DTs into EITHER a powerful harass unit OR a powerful melee unit. Its silly to make a glass cannon with a melee attack; melee units need to have either strong defenses or fast speed in order to be useful in battle. The DT has neither, it only has cloak which is 100% worthless when revealed.
I don't think you understand how DT are used at a higher level. There is an idea of a DT expand. It is where protoss gets the DT to take map control. It forces the terran to save up scans or get a raven before he can push. This buys you time to get an expo. Obviously it would be beneficial if you did some damage, but it is in no way all or nothing.
There are strategies that require you to do damage or you come out behind, but that is not mean "all in" (paraphrasing).
DTs can also be used late game to test your opponent. It won't win the game but you may set your opponent back in some ways.
On June 01 2011 13:19 kNightLite wrote: Wow I'm surprised (and pleased) this thread hasn't been shut down yet.
However I do think many people are being overly negative. You shouldn't say "they need to remove X", instead it should be "they need to redesign X"
Like with Sentries. Remove them from the game entirely and you break the race; instead think about how they could redesign the unit to make it BETTER (not worse) for Protoss. For example, two problems that Protoss currently face are lack of early game scouting and lack of detection. What if they used the Sentry to solve these problems by giving them the ability to cast a Scan (ala Terran scan) at a short range. And exchange, tone down its effectiveness as a combat unit by somehow tinkering with either Guardian Shield or Forcefield.
These would be my 3 unit redesigns:
1. Corruptor. It is an AtA specialist that gets dominated by most other air units. It is also the only Air unit in the game that cannot significantly impact ground units. The Corruption ability does not any strategy to the game, its just an apm sink. I feel like they need to decide to either make the Corruptor THE anti air solution for Zerg, or turn it into a genuine spellcaster. Right now it does a weak job at both.
2. Thor. I feel like they made the Thor fill too many roles at once. It soaks damage with its massive HP. It is the only factory unit with an anti-air attack, and even then it's almost worthless vs non-light air. It sieges buildings with strike cannon. It countersieges units with strike cannon. It harasses very well as a Thorship. It crushes forcefields. And because it does all these things its ridiculously expensive. I feel like they need to split up the Thor's role into two smaller (and cheaper) units instead of being one big expensive catch-all.
3. Dark Templar. I hate the fact that DTs are an all-or-nothing unit. Ridiculously powerful if undetected, totally worthless if detected. They turn games into instawin or instaloss with very little inbetween. Instead I'd like to see them redesign DTs into EITHER a powerful harass unit OR a powerful melee unit. Its silly to make a glass cannon with a melee attack; melee units need to have either strong defenses or fast speed in order to be useful in battle. The DT has neither, it only has cloak which is 100% worthless when revealed.
disagree on DT's
lategame ZvZ dt's are great cost effective at fighting expansions. warp in 5 DT go in kill the spore crawler at a zerg expansion and you can snipe the hatchery before overseer arrives.
lategame zerg runs in 70 zerglings to attack 1 of protoss expansions while army is advancing towards zerg main. some cannons are there to help defend while 6 DT's warp in. now you have 6 DT's that are 1shotting lings left and right killing them all saving expansion/probes. a worthwhile investment for 750/750
lategame you have a DT patrolling 1 side of the maps bases. zerg starts a hatchery there and is forced to cancle as a DT starts hitting it. zerg must now send a 50/100 overseer there to counter that DT that costs 125/125
zerg zerglings with auto surround very hard micro due to how retardedly fast they move and with auto suround micro is not even rewarded. when was the last time you say a zerg actually micro lings to surround during a fight?
curputor lame unit all around with near useless ability
hydras rapes gateway units on creep. dies instantly off creep. just give it some speed and nerf the damage a bit.
terran marines without overkill just retardedly strong and it doesnt even makes sense for them not to overkill, how is the marine next to the other one know who is about to die.
concsive shells does nothing other than prevent micro.
thor stupid unit which kills everything without micro.
helion like a fast reaver which can score over 20 probe kills and costs only minerals. moves too fast (the vulture was good since it had a buggy ai so micro and movement took skill)
protoss charge takes away all zealot micro.
forcefields lame to lose to some retarded cheeser just because you missed a ff on your ramp. nearly uncounterable for t and z.
colossi stupid unit all around.
voidray lame unit as well since it doesnt overkill
I will speak only from the Z PoV. I think Corruptor is a really boring unit. I understand that Z needs a flying unit that can keep Air Control almost at all costs, if Z wants so. But i would rather have some fast, versatile unit, maybe also change corruption to do some DOT dmg to ground units (not to be completely useless when it has killed of air).
I would also like to add some form of "evolve" function to infestros after they have used up their energy. Similar to Archon. Since they are the only thing that remains useless after 1 fungal in battle.
Other then that, I would really like if they add some interesting units to Z which can abuse Cliffs (really needed considering all the stuff T/P have). And some harass unit which will allow z to do some pressure and not defend so much and be tunneled into attacking chokes.
I think that changing the damage mechanic for buildings would signigicantly help the game. Rather than being considered 'armoured', buildings would simply be considered a 'structure'. In addition to this, all units would have a specific damage to the 'structure' class, which for balance purposes would be the same as their damage to armoured in many cases. However I feel that the case of the marauder, which were designed to be anti-armour, they are often used as anti-structure units too. For the marauder its damage to buildings would be reduced to its non-armoured damage. This marauder change would not only reduce the ridiculous efficiency of marauder drops, but also increase the use of the reaper, which has a specific anti-building attack. Perhaps, whilst the reaper may not be a combat unit, I feel that it was specifically designed in order to perform hit and run attacks on buildings. Admittedly, the reaper would also need a buff to its building damage to fill this role.
My only main gripe, is the mechanics that slow the game down.
So for example; Marauder conc shells, Infestor's fungal or even Sentry Guardian Shield (as it makes things last longer)
I think the worst is the concussive shells. I don't think it's overly broken or anything, but it's just a bad mechanic as it slows the game down so much as it removes the ability to micro, and reduces the willingness to engage at all.
Observer - ok it's a cloaked scout, but I find it's plain dull. Everytime I have to build an observer I just think "uhh, 75 gas and 1 supply that I'll never see a return on". In a game they are just plain forgettable, I'm thinking a lot of players just skip them now days or only use them to stick with their army to spot cloaked/burrowed units. What could be done: don't know. An ability, even an averagely average one, would make it interesting.
Collosus - Though I think a lot of the arguments for this unit being "boring" are confused with thinly veiled "OP" arguments, I do agree the collosus is a bit dull, moreso from a Protoss players point of view. "Oh I'm against <race>, Collosus are good against them". In a way I wish Collosus were weaker against one race just so they weren't relied upon as much. I mean, Siege tanks are great, but not great against P. Collosus are great, and good against everything? Can try be cute about doing other Protoss builds, but most wins come from a Collosus deathball at the end of the day sadly.
Mothership - Sure, abilities are great, but generally I find the mothership a bit dull. See a mothership, response is: "Ok so I need detection and it's going to vortex me with 99.9% guarentee." I find sentries a more interesting casting unit...
Terran
You know, I actually don't think any of the Terran units are dull. Sure, reapers could potentially use a buff. Sure Marauders seem really powerful with stim+conc. And sure, mech is not great against Protoss. But you know what, every unit in the terran tech tree is, from my PoV, interesting in it's own way. Been thinking about switching to terran for some time now.
Zerg
Overseer - For the reasons Blizzard basically stated. It's a glorified scout, even changelings are just another way to scout with no success in higher leagues. Contaminate is a great ability, but since that's all Overseers are good for they just don't seem interesting enough. Maybe if OL drops could be done with Overseers also?
Hydras - They're just not interesting. If you're getting hydras, you're going to use them in an army vs army attack. Unlike the utility options for other units (whether it's the pure speed of zerglings, or roach burrow movement), hydras are only used to go kill the other guy. I've been saying I think hydras need an ability for a while, still think thats a good option.
Corrupters - For the same reason as many others mentioned. Basically they exist to shoot down air or morph into brood lords. I think they do their job well, but doesn't make them less dull because of it.
I think most everyone's "most uninteresting" list is just the same as "hasn't found full potential yet" or "wasn't in BW so should go".
As far as most boring: 1- corruptor: it has only one role, anti-colossus 2- mothership: useless in general 3- viking: see #1. transform to ground mode also useless
can't really think too much of mechanics that need changed. Most anything that anyone wants changed is based on a balance issue, which i don't really prefer to delve into
The Roach and Marauder are both very uninteresting. They feel like a protoss unit with a zerg/terran skin. I also hate the Hellion/Thor with a passion but I feel that's mostly BW bias as Vultures/Goliaths were 2 of my favorite units.
I wasn't trying to start an argument about Colossus being OP. I just thought that Protoss as a whole is kind of dull because of the Colossus situation. I don't even think Colossus are really dull, it is just the way they are used: (pro caster voice here) "Ok, there is his 8th colossus...he is probably going to push here..oh nope he is getting one more..." It just seems so dumb the way it is played now. I think that is a change they could make that wouldn't only make every match up involving Protoss more interesting but it would probably make Colossus use more interesting as players started to use it in other compositions instead of all colossus all the time.
Units can become interesting out of necessity to survive. Marine micro and positioning became more interesting when people started using banelings a lot.
On June 01 2011 14:54 bittman wrote: Collosus - Though I think a lot of the arguments for this unit being "boring" are confused with thinly veiled "OP" arguments..
And why do you think this? I'm curious because it seems like that unit more than any other has had the most consistently well reasoned arguments against it. In fact, arguments against the colossus's design go back to not long after it was first unveiled, well before anyone had a chance to know if it was overpowered or not.
On June 01 2011 15:03 Comprissent wrote: I think most everyone's "most uninteresting" list is just the same as "hasn't found full potential yet" or "wasn't in BW so should go".
Likewise, I don't understand how someone could read this thread and come away with that impression. The colossus and roach have clearly found something close to their full potential, and more popular units like the stalker and baneling have barely been mentioned at all despite not being in Brood War.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
1. Baneling. I believe the baneling should be nerfed significantly to make way for lurkers. Lurkers will make the game much more interesting, it will force better positioning, much more micro, and much more game sense, instead of just 1a 1 control group of units into the terran/protoss ball. 2. Thors. Thors should be 100% removed and replaced with Goliaths. Goliaths are superior in every single way. 3. Mutalisk. The mutalisk should be reverted to what it was in broodwar. Have it's damage reduced but increase it's effectiveness by increasing its micro ability (move shot).
The warpgate mechanic I think is overall just stupid. I feel that the game for skilled protoss players would be much more enjoyable and rewarding if warpgates weren't an option, as it would require much more mechanics to chrono each gateway to produce faster units, instead of never chrono'ing your warpgates because, who cares? My units will come quicker than theirs anyway?
And perhaps the mule, I'm not sure, I'm just a little tired of the mule saving the Terran players at times, when without it, they would be dead.
For one, the blue flame hellion icon changed to blue xD Make stalkers shoot a ball (similar to dragoons) instead of those pansy looking laser beams. Not a graphical change, but bring back some of the broodwar sounds. One key sound that I loved and wish was brought back was the sound of marines shooting and mutalisks.
1. Lurkers, 2.Reaver, 3. Goliath and Science Vessel
It's all about making this game Hard, Rewarding and Enjoyable.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I liked what blizz said about using ragdoll effects for single units, could make small skirmishes cooler to watch ^^
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see 1. Spidermines and Lurkers - They can be used in a siege like fashion and can create tense moments like baneling bombs, also more micro. 2. I just want more units and stuff that can make me go "awwwwmaiiiigaaaaaawd" and bask in the skill of the worlds best players
I completly agree with the above post. I think ragdoll physics is completly in SC2's grasp, but watching a bunch of marines die and flipflop over the other rines as they continue shooting may look a lil weird. It would obviously have to be done just right instead of just getting injected in there.
for what its worth, the mothership definitely needs to be changed. for the time that it comes in the game, the fact you can only have one, the amount of time it takes to make it, and the resource cost it is way to fragile and does way too little. it's just a glorified glass arbiter.
imo blizz really needs to take a stand on this issue. Either make buff it, restructure it (make it smaller and allow more than 1 or give different spells), or just remove and replace it. As of now it's just a gimmicky "loltroll" kind of unit
On June 01 2011 11:22 MeteorRise wrote: I wish they would change around the sounds. Before in BW your units just sounded... powerful. Like zerglings sounded like some crazed beast throwing itself on a door. Zealots and hydras sounded so manly. Now lings and hydras, and everything else just doesn't give the feeling that it's a unit that's made to kill.
Also i hate the balled up, A move army clumps we always see. Leads to less exciting battles and gimps the spectator excitement.
Sound is my main complaint.
What happened to the incredible tank blasts
What happened to the Mutalisk scream
What happened to the EVERYTHING THAT WAS INTIMIDATING HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A 4TH GRADE, BAD QUALITY VERSION OF ITSELF.
It's like Bobby Kotick literally told you guys to go find random sounds off the internet instead of providing any budget for the sound guys.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Colossus -- Not a good design concept. Make them much slower both attack speed and movement speed, attack much stronger. Remove Thermal Lances, give it by default. Make it so Colossus drop and Warp Prism + Colossus micro actually useful.
Hydralisk -- Either really good or completely useless. Bad, bad design. Introduce a base Hydralisk speed increase along with a Hydralisk speed research. Reduce damage and probably resource cost.
Reaper -- Reintroduce Land Mines to Reapers. Probably will need to nerf or take away the building attack.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
The people who took the time to master microing certain units in BW (like Mutalisks and Wraiths) were highly rewarded for their time. I think SC2 needs some units that are designed to have a very high skill cap on how effective they can be microed. I'm not saying it should be the same way (stacking) but something needs to be done so that all three races has a couple units that go a long way when microed like an expert. No, forcefields don't count.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
New unique sounds, bad sounds changed, something done about army clumping. Also, the Corruptor model looks so stupid.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Stargate caster for Protoss, upgrades on Dark Shrine
New Factory unit for Terran, revamp to Reaper (Restore D8 charges to being Land mines)
Lurker reintroduced, Corruptor rework and a new morph besides Broodlord -- perhaps an air caster (like BW queen)
I would like it abit more like the BW ai (they dont clump like that) and i agree with the creater that thors, mothership and rauder is pretty lame... and another thing i dont really like to much in sc2 compared to bw is that In bw you could have tactics like Zealot archon or dt sair or reaver drop etc in sc2 you only have Stalkers stalkers stalkers then maybe immortals or zealots or collie for void ray... i would like that choice of unit abit more... :/ like terran have to go rines... in bw you more often did vultures but rines worked...
one thing I would like to mention in this thread: if you just want to play BW... play BW!
I am not really happy with everything in SC2 but BW had a-click units too! And bad unit control options and bad AI are not what I am looking forward to in a 2010 PC game! and I would like to see new units rather than just having all the BW units back (lurkers, arbiters, reavers, dragoons) yeah redesign the colossus, make some other changes, but plz DON'T remake the lurker!
The hydra is the obvious contender for change IMO. Atm, it just feels completely wierd. It like a roach which die instantly and move like a spine crawler, but can shoot air. It needs to be faster and have some form of quirk to it, like the lurker transformation (which would fix the issue of getting some new unit for zerg). Something which makes you WANT a hydralisk, instead of being forced to make them because A) Someone goes allin air or B) Someone goes allin gateway units.
I feel sentries (or rather forcefields) need to change as well. Make sentries cheaper and give them a way smaller cap in energy maybe. Toss need the FFs and the mechanic itself isn't horrible, but it's just annoying how abuseable it becomes if a toss has enough sentries. There's NO counter to it except massive units way late-game and possibly burrow, though burrow is only useful in a short timing window when the toss doesn't have an observer with his army yet. The only way to fight it is to snipe sentries (which is almost impossible when they are in the protoss ball and the protoss is saving them skillfully) or bait FFs (which doesn't really matter later in the game when the toss has 10+ sentries with full energy).
Infestor might need to be changed as well. Fungal is bordeline imbalanced but the whole unit lives and falls with it. Infested terrans into mineral lines is cute, NP is a decent counter to mass-thors/colossi, but overall, you build infestors to cast fungals to stall and cost-effectively fight the enemy. Without fungals, no one would be building infestors.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Roach-hydra combo. One or the other needs to go I think and honestly think it should be the roach. Give hydra's speed and suddenly you have a unit that can be microed. Storm dodging etc. Slow units with no aoe can never find a place for gosu microing. Similarily tanking units have less need to be microed. Now you could replace both hydra and roach with some other short ranged, easy to kill, massable unit. But make them microeable. Even with burrow, roaches are rather boring.
Collosi- On paper they're cool. But I miss my storm casting, reaver microing, stasis and warping in race. I love BW protoss for the harassment options and the amount of stuff that required excellent control else you'd lose. I don't need the reaver back, but I'd like something that requires more control.
3rd? I'm not sure, I could throw in any number of units, but the above 2 seem to be the worst. Perhaps how the interceptors work on carriers? On paper they have a lot of dps, but the intercerptors disappear so fast... either change the auto targetting on other units, or give more health to interceptors, I thought I remember somewhere that BW interceptors would occasionally go inside the carrier to heal if damaged?
Oh, I have a better one. Spine Crawlers. Seriously, give them the old sunken colony attack animation. The poking giraffe's look so silly in comparison.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. More positional control- doesn't need to be mines and lurkers, and dark swarm but there definitely needs to be more units that can hold space. Once you have that, people can claw their way back from getting behind because they snuck an expansion out and held a ramp with 2-3 positional controlling units (lurkers from bw). You can also control from what direction an enemy is attacking.
Stacking- I get that 40 muta stacking like bw would be imba. But couldn't the mechanic be changed so that 11 mut with one slow unit will stack like bw and any more will have them spread out like currently? I know they kinda stack if you click enough, but I really think if zerg could have 2-11 muta stack as a micro tool to snipe lone units and add-ons, we could start seeing a new level of play. You see bits and pieces of muta control from July, but it's much more clunky than in BW. You add this to SC2 and the skill ceiling goes through the roof as players are able to harass to get ahead/ keep players defensive while the expand or tech etc. It just makes things more epic.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Graphics are fine as far as I'm concerned. (Except they're too good for my poor laptop.)
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Something for the Zerg's to control space. Blizzard said the lurker conflicted with the role of the baneling. I don't believe them. The baneling threatens, then is gone. If the baneling's territory is threatened, but the Zerg player is not ready to attack, the banelings must retreat in order to be effective. It can never hold space. Lurkers or something to replace it can sit on the top of the ramp and hold of a large group of troops.
Something for the Zerg (and maybe Protoss) to get their melee units into combat. Eventually melee becomes hard to use because of critical mass of ranged units/ aoe. Melee only has the front row attacking. From the beginning of the engagement till when the back units hit the enemy, they are being shelled at the entire time. If we add in more units that control space, this will become more critical as it will become even harder to use melee units. Positional control units by definition make life difficult for melee units. BW had Arbiter's cloak and zealot bombs, Zerg had Dark Swarm. I don't really care what takes there place, but I do think some sorts of spell or mechanics will be needed to make melee effective in the late game. (I seem to recall some late game PvT where the Protoss killed off his own zealots in order to create more stalkers and collosi.)
Just throwing it out there, but it would be interesting if there was some unit or building that utilized creep that would make it even more scary than it already is. I remember in the early days of BW, I didn't understand that the sunken colony was what actually attacked my units. All I was told by my friends was to not go on creep because you'll get attacked. The few times my buggy dragoons wandered onto the creep, these things would pierce through the goons and kill them in a couple shots. I avoided creep as much as I could and used reavers or carriers to kill the zerg. But if in SC2, there was some sort of unit limited to the creep, but was very flexible in what part of the creep it could defend... that is the unit can strike within creep pretty much anywhere, but it's body is burrowed way far back from the front line.... how scary would that be?
On June 01 2011 16:47 Tobberoth wrote: The hydra is the obvious contender for change IMO. Atm, it just feels completely wierd. It like a roach which die instantly and move like a spine crawler, but can shoot air. It needs to be faster and have some form of quirk to it, like the lurker transformation (which would fix the issue of getting some new unit for zerg). Something which makes you WANT a hydralisk, instead of being forced to make them because A) Someone goes allin air or B) Someone goes allin gateway units.
I feel sentries (or rather forcefields) need to change as well. Make sentries cheaper and give them a way smaller cap in energy maybe. Toss need the FFs and the mechanic itself isn't horrible, but it's just annoying how abuseable it becomes if a toss has enough sentries. There's NO counter to it except massive units way late-game and possibly burrow, though burrow is only useful in a short timing window when the toss doesn't have an observer with his army yet. The only way to fight it is to snipe sentries (which is almost impossible when they are in the protoss ball and the protoss is saving them skillfully) or bait FFs (which doesn't really matter later in the game when the toss has 10+ sentries with full energy).
just one thought about sentries: if OLs were detectors again (read the OP for blizzards opinion on Overseers ), a roach/hydra or roach/corruptor army would have detection way easier, thus observers would be pretty vulnurable and burrow more powerful in the later stages of the game vs FFs. + Protoss would have to build more observers, means they would have less/later colossi (which would still need some change) and there would be 1less cheese to prepare for in ZvP
On June 01 2011 16:52 ABAH wrote: Another thread, that in essence - is talking about balance. Good stuff..
Yes, because P users saying that Colossus has to go is hidden balanced whine... There are weeds of QQ in some posts and idiotic suggestions, but the essence of this thread is to point out how problematic SC2 is some of it's aspects.
On June 01 2011 00:52 Black Octopi wrote: So basically my opinion is, - spell casters should have just ONE specialized spell that is good against a certain composition - other spells should just be "utility spells" nothing to merit the investment in the spellcaster by itself - there should be more spellcasters rather then more spells on one spellcaster, to allow for casters to be scouted and countered, and also so that... (see next) - spellcasters should (for the most part) be an aggressive choice. You should have plenty of viable options to survive with out them, and... - mass spellcasters should always result into you auto-losing the game. - spellcasters should be very very situational (ie. I need this caster to counter tanks, I need this caster to counter marine balls, I need this caster to counter heavy air, etc)
I almost completely disagree. Having spell casters be a situational hard counter just dumbs down the game. it also makes them boring because they wont be viable unless that certain situation comes out. that leads to people not playing a certain way because of the threat of that spell caster hard countering them, meaning spell casters will rarely ever be used.
On June 01 2011 16:52 ABAH wrote: Another thread, that in essence - is talking about balance. Good stuff..
I fundamentally disagree. And if posters are going that way, they're off topic. This to me, is about what is fun for players to play and for spectators to spectate. What's the 'wow' factor when watching games. Amazing macro sure, but also goso micro at the same time. What units contribute to gosu skills and what units are simply a-move in a ball? BW had it's share of a-move units, but issues of positional control meant that even with 'a-move' units, you couldn't actually do that unless you wanted to lose your whole army. (Clumped zealots and dragoons into spread out tank force with vultures, mines, and turrets protecting. Goodbye 120 supply army.)
And that's what this thread should be promoting, ways that will allow players of skill to demonstrate that skill above and beyond others.
blizzard is unveiling single player but doesn't even have any clue of its plan for HOTS multiplayer?? not even knowing if they will be adding any units at all?? this is worrisome.
seems like they dread the work and re-balance work of it. which makes me frightened....
1. Raven, detection unit for 200 gas that sucks outside of a PDD, and it requires a tech lab on your starport, lol enough said about that.
2. Roach, zerg have no anti air early game, which makes this so frustrating to play zerg, having to build multiple queens and spore crawlers to defend vs it sucks. Terran and protoss are fine vs air without having to build turrets/cannons in the early stages of the game.
3. Sentry, you could maybe keep this unit in but i feel like in Hots you have to remove force field and balance protoss around not having it. I feel collosi may be hard to deal with but without forcefields i think its fine.
banelings are pretty stupid in zvt imo. the zerg strategy in a nutshell is, 'how many banelings can i afford?' playing this MU at both sides in masters league, i think the MU is ruined by the coinflip nature of baneling vs tank battles. the game is decided on the # of banelings that connect.
I think the concept that "you have an advantage, and you lose the advantage" is sound. However the fact that you can so easily "lose the advantage" early on in the game is not. Abilities like the warpgate which nulifies distance should possibly be moved all the way to fleet beacon. Simple reasoning: does protoss need warpgates to survive early game? probably not. If anything it makes what would be a all-in proxy, not that all-in.
I agree with the point, but perhaps the fleet beacon ought to be replace with a much longer upgrade time or so. I mean going for gateway units shouldnt require going for carriers or any other way. Though having the robotics facility as it's building would be somewhat logic as the warp prism is in it. But that's probably still too much. Turning it into something just for the midgame. And not having a different unit-training time between gateway and warpgate. I'd like to see that
On June 01 2011 16:46 Big J wrote: one thing I would like to mention in this thread: if you just want to play BW... play BW!
You realize most of the units from SC2 are from SC1 right? The entire SC2 concept is BASED off BW right? You also realize that esports wouldn't exist w/o BW as the launching pad for SC2 right? Your "play bw if you like bw!" argument is absurd considering SC2 is MADE from BW. If you don't want ANYTHING SC1 related then we will have to remove zerglings, hydras, mutas, drones, ultras, marines, zealots, tanks, observers...ETC.
Enough of these bullshit "NO BW STUFF! BOO BW!!" comments...absolutely sick to death of reading them.
The stuff that makes the game uninteresting is things like:
Marauder concussive shells. "oh he's retreating and the terran just a-moved and gets free fleeing units" how boring, it would be so much more interesting if the player had to epic stutter step or something micro intensive to catch those units.
Colossus. This unit needs to be replaced by something like the reaver which was so slow yet so powerful. would also make warp-prisms used to transport them.
a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW.
Oh really? Please enlighten me by telling me the story of how SC2 even got popular in the first place then. I've only been paying attention to competitive starcraft for 5 years now and I am slightly clueless.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW.
Oh really? Please enlighten me by telling me the story of how SC2 even got popular in the first place then. I've only been paying attention to competitive starcraft for 5 years now and I am slightly clueless.
The quoted comment is about esports, not SC2. You said esports wouldn't exist without BW, which is arrant nonsense.
On June 01 2011 17:10 Yaotzin wrote: The number of banelings that connect, and the damage they cause, is a matter of skill.
Aggred, shame the same thing cant be said for Fungal growth.
Yes it can.
Nope, it really cant. Unless you play Zerg. But then Mutalisks firing nukes seem fair to you.
Oh really? Please enlighten me by telling me the story of how SC2 even got popular in the first place then. I've only been paying attention to competitive starcraft for 5 years now and I am slightly clueless.
I think he is talking about Esports as a whole. Not SC2.
Hard to have a sequel to a game that does not exist, yknow.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
On June 01 2011 17:32 Hypemeup wrote: Nope, it really cant. Unless you play Zerg. But then Mutalisks firing nukes seem fair to you.
I play Protoss so nope. It is skill based because you can control how much damage the fungal causes by spreading your marines. Much like controlling the damage of a psi storm. It's impossible to completely avoid the damage of a storm, but you can minimise it by moving. For fungal, you spread your units. Different method, same result.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW.
Oh really? Please enlighten me by telling me the story of how SC2 even got popular in the first place then. I've only been paying attention to competitive starcraft for 5 years now and I am slightly clueless.
The quoted comment is about esports, not SC2. You said esports wouldn't exist without BW, which is arrant nonsense.
Launching pad FOR sc2. You get my idea. Don't try to get caught up in specifics here and dodge the question, let's hear the story. I'd actually like a PM if you don't mind so we don't diverge this thread too far as mods probably won't like that. Really am looking forward to learning some history. Thanks!
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
Why don't people read what they quote? I was talking about esports, not SC2. Of course SC2 is what it is because of BW, it's a fucking sequel.
Launching pad FOR sc2. You get my idea. Don't try to get caught up in specifics here and dodge the question, let's hear the story. I'd actually like a PM if you don't mind so we don't diverge this thread too far as mods probably won't like that. Really am looking forward to learning some history. Thanks!
I have no idea what you're going on about. You equated BW to esports, I corrected it, the end.
On June 01 2011 17:10 Yaotzin wrote: The number of banelings that connect, and the damage they cause, is a matter of skill.
Aggred, shame the same thing cant be said for Fungal growth.
Yes it can.
Nope, it really cant. Unless you play Zerg. But then Mutalisks firing nukes seem fair to you.
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
On June 01 2011 17:07 OrangeSoda wrote: Bad design:
...
2. Roach, zerg have no anti air early game, which makes this so frustrating to play zerg, having to build multiple queens and spore crawlers to defend vs it sucks. Terran and protoss are fine vs air without having to build turrets/cannons in the early stages of the game.
...
I hate the Roach as well. Doesn't feel like a Zerg unit at all. Requires 3 upgrades to use it to it's full capacity, supply inefficient, terrible range and just a slow and fat in general when compared to other Zerg units.
With the exception of ZvZ I try my hardest to not make them at all. Mutaling makes larvae management more difficult but the reward is an army that can accomplish things.
Oh and Corruptors. What an absolutely shit unit rofl.
Also if they are removed from MP that means a new detector would be needed for zerg, but a zerg detector wouldn't really feel right if it wasn't an OL upgrade or overseer.
But yeah, Corruptors, Hydras, Immortals and Mothership seem pretty uh......... bad (in terms of interestingness etc.).
I would like changes/replacement of: Carrier (it's basically never used) Ultralisk (too long build time, zergs that use it usually loose) Corruptor (it's just dead boring)
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
Where did I say infestor control takes no skill? What I am driving at is that once a fungal lands the units are dead unless the zerg is a moron. You cant dance out of it like with storm or fan out on the fly like you can with banelings.
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
Where did I say infestor control takes no skill? What I am driving at is that once a fungal lands the units are dead unless the zerg is a moron. You cant dance out of it like with storm or fan out on the fly like you can with banelings.
Only for a select few units that are especially squishy. I'm assuming you're Terran so let me just say I see nothing wrong with not being able to just stim your 2948245dps marines and pick of whatever you like, whenever you like. They're 50 minerals and 1 supply, they should die easy like lings.
I dislike how Fungal destroys Mutalisks and some other expensive units however.
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
Where did I say infestor control takes no skill? What I am driving at is that once a fungal lands the units are dead unless the zerg is a moron. You cant dance out of it like with storm or fan out on the fly like you can with banelings.
The problem I see, and this is coming from a zerg player, is that the fungal "freeze" is a great tool against protoss and anything but marines for ZvT, it's even necessary to deal with vikings against broodlords, without immobilize the vikings could just dance in and out with their huge range.
But against marines the damage is enough, what would be perfect imo is that once fungal hits it does full damage, but still allow the marines to move. But that's not possible to make it affect only marines.
Or maybe remove the freeze effect and instead make units slow down?
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
Where did I say infestor control takes no skill? What I am driving at is that once a fungal lands the units are dead unless the zerg is a moron. You cant dance out of it like with storm or fan out on the fly like you can with banelings.
Are tanks shit because they're immobile and if you get caught with your pants down (ie moving unsieged) you're fucked? No, of course not. You prepare for such possibilities, with scouting and careful positioning. Same deal with fungal. Yes, once it hits there's nothing you can do. There's plenty you can do before it hits, however. Spread your marines, cloak ghosts and go emp them, etc.
Only for a select few units that are especially squishy.
If you are playing bad, yeah, it only applies to squishy units.
I'm assuming you're Terran so let me just say I see nothing wrong with not being able to just stim your 2948245dps marines and pick of whatever you like, whenever you like.
Neither do I, Marines need a change.
I dislike how Fungal destroys Mutalisks and some other expensive units however.
Yeah, like say... Vikings.
Honestly I dont want to derail this further, PM me on the issue if you want to continue chattin 'bout it.
Edit:
Are tanks shit because they're immobile and if you get caught with your pants down (ie moving unsieged) you're fucked? No, of course not. You prepare for such possibilities, with scouting and careful positioning. Same deal with fungal. Yes, once it hits there's nothing you can do. There's plenty you can do before it hits, however. Spread your marines, cloak ghosts and go emp them, etc.
Yeah fair enough. I still feel counteracting banelings take alot more skill, but I should not have said fungal is skillless.
On June 01 2011 17:59 Hypemeup wrote: Hellions... Boring?
I think seeing some pro attempting to torch mineral lines is quite exiting as a spectator. It can be such a gamebreaker.
i dislike how 1 random hellion drop can put you so far behind that its impossible to come back, its hard not to do damage with them since if you run your workers away they line up and you instantly lose them
On June 01 2011 17:59 Hypemeup wrote: Hellions... Boring?
I think seeing some pro attempting to torch mineral lines is quite exiting as a spectator. It can be such a gamebreaker.
i dislike how 1 random hellion drop can put you so far behind that its impossible to come back, its hard not to do damage with them since if you run your workers away they line up and you instantly lose them
hellions are no vultures imo
I'd take vultures over a buggy with a flamethrower anydays. Mines <3<3<3
I would like to note that first there is a lot of flaming because Blizzard said that they want to have "cool" units. This wouldnt be good because the hardcore gamers want to have stable balanced units instead of gimmiky abilitys. Now suddenly everybody wants to get rid of the stable "easier" units and get "cooler" harder to use units for them in return. I dont have a strong opinion about either of the two and which direction sc2 should go, but for the people that do have strong opinions, they should really think which way they want to go imo.
As for the units I will keep it to Terran since I only play that race :p
1) Raven, for a detector its very far in the tech tree imo. pdd is cool, but other than that its a pretty useless unit imo. seeker missles are to slow and expensive and turrets just dont cut it.
2) BC, not saying I want it to leave, but the way game is now it feels like the tech tree stops after the Thor, this is evenly true for the Protoss. they kinda miss that last big viable endgame unit imo
3) I love Terran
On a site note, if they would ad a unit I think there is place for a good ground to air mech unit. Both the barracks and starprort have 4 units that can be created out of them, why not ad a 4th unit to the factory as well.
On June 01 2011 18:04 arb wrote: hellions are no vultures imo
To be fair, the vulture is possibly the most exciting, most strategically open-ended unit in RTS history. As long as it's off the table because of SC2's clumping, we could do worse than the hellion.
Hellion zergling and hellion marine battles are very tense when they happen.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
yeah but you know what: SC2 IS NOT BW if you want to play BW with SC2 graphics, there is an awesome galaxy editor that gives u the option to produce SC1 BW with SC2 graphics.
Of course there should be trademark units of SC1 in SC2, else you could just make GalaxyWars1, Scrin vs Human vs SpaceOrcs vs Zombies, but Im really sick of people saying: "remove unit X (new SC2 unit) and bring back unit Y (BW unit)". yeah maybe zerg could use a spacecontroling unit like the lurker... LIKE THE LURKER! lurkers are not the only way to control space! Protoss got sentries, terran has siege tanks and got planetary fortresses, queens were intended to work like that (on the creep).
and you know what? I like my units clumped up in 1 or 2 huge control groups. I really don't see the point of only selecting only 12zerglings in SC2. I really don't see the point why I shouldnt be able to select 2casters at once and only cast 1spell. THIS is an advanced game and whatever you want to reply, keep in mind, that people like me, that actually enjoy those IMPROVEMENTS, have already won, because the IMPROVEMENTS are there!
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
yeah but you know what: SC2 IS NOT BW if you want to play BW with SC2 graphics, there is an awesome galaxy editor that gives u the option to produce SC1 BW with SC2 graphics.
Of course there should be trademark units of SC1 in SC2, else you could just make GalaxyWars1, Scrin vs Human vs SpaceOrcs vs Zombies, but Im really sick of people saying: "remove unit X (new SC2 unit) and bring back unit Y (BW unit)". yeah maybe zerg could use a spacecontroling unit like the lurker... LIKE THE LURKER! lurkers are not the only way to control space! Protoss got sentries, terran has siege tanks and got planetary fortresses, queens were intended to work like that (on the creep).
and you know what? I like my units clumped up in 1 or 2 huge control groups. I really don't see the point of only selecting only 12zerglings in SC2. I really don't see the point why I shouldnt be able to select 2casters at once and only cast 1spell. THIS is an advanced game and whatever you want to reply, keep in mind, that people like me, that actually enjoy those IMPROVEMENTS, have already won, because the IMPROVEMENTS are there!
I'm glad you have a lot of pride in how you are different from people who like BW. However your reasons have no relevance to your argument.
12 unit selection has nothing to do with unit clumping. It is not unit clumping that is the problem, it is unit control. BW allowed you to move clumped armies, spread armies, and "formationed" armies. SC2 only allows one, clumped.
Creep does not control space, it is merely a mild form of map hack and also makes worker scouting impossible. Blizzard also managed to leverage creep to make Queens and Hydras terrible offensive units.
Controlling space has nothing to do with uninteresting units but more to do with utility. Lurkers can kill lots of marines without dying unlike banelings, and lurkers can "control space" without needing energy, and lurkers can actually kill lots of stuff on their own while "controlling space". 2 well positioned lurkers can defend an early 3rd expansion against infinite marines, 10 well positioned banelings will defend your expansion for 2 seconds until more marines arrive.
A counter to lurkers is siege tanks, however lurkers can destroy massive tank lines with micro and positioning, and marines can kill lurkers even though they are countered by lurkers.
Sentries on their own, do you have the same dynamic?
Maybe Zerg could bring back the reaver/lurker, because hell, its better than Blizzard making a new unit and screwing up the design like they do all the time these days, when we already have something that's perfect. Why break something that's perfect?
If you think Infestor control takes no skill then I can't imagine how you feel about the other 80% of SC2 abilities and units lmao.
Where did I say infestor control takes no skill? What I am driving at is that once a fungal lands the units are dead unless the zerg is a moron. You cant dance out of it like with storm or fan out on the fly like you can with banelings.
Are tanks shit because they're immobile and if you get caught with your pants down (ie moving unsieged) you're fucked? No, of course not. You prepare for such possibilities, with scouting and careful positioning. Same deal with fungal. Yes, once it hits there's nothing you can do. There's plenty you can do before it hits, however. Spread your marines, cloak ghosts and go emp them, etc.
But Tanks would be pretty shit if Zerg was the one that decided when they should siege and unsiege.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
yeah but you know what: SC2 IS NOT BW if you want to play BW with SC2 graphics, there is an awesome galaxy editor that gives u the option to produce SC1 BW with SC2 graphics.
Of course there should be trademark units of SC1 in SC2, else you could just make GalaxyWars1, Scrin vs Human vs SpaceOrcs vs Zombies, but Im really sick of people saying: "remove unit X (new SC2 unit) and bring back unit Y (BW unit)". yeah maybe zerg could use a spacecontroling unit like the lurker... LIKE THE LURKER! lurkers are not the only way to control space! Protoss got sentries, terran has siege tanks and got planetary fortresses, queens were intended to work like that (on the creep).
and you know what? I like my units clumped up in 1 or 2 huge control groups. I really don't see the point of only selecting only 12zerglings in SC2. I really don't see the point why I shouldnt be able to select 2casters at once and only cast 1spell. THIS is an advanced game and whatever you want to reply, keep in mind, that people like me, that actually enjoy those IMPROVEMENTS, have already won, because the IMPROVEMENTS are there!
I'm glad you have a lot of pride in how you are different from people who like BW. However your reasons have no relevance to your argument.
12 unit selection has nothing to do with unit clumping. It is not unit clumping that is the problem, it is unit control. BW allowed you to move clumped armies, spread armies, and "formationed" armies. SC2 only allows one, clumped.
Creep does not control space, it is merely a mild form of map hack and also makes worker scouting impossible. Blizzard also managed to leverage creep to make Queens and Hydras terrible offensive units.
Controlling space has nothing to do with uninteresting units but more to do with utility. Lurkers can kill lots of marines without dying unlike banelings, and lurkers can "control space" without needing energy, and lurkers can actually kill lots of stuff on their own while "controlling space".
A counter to lurkers is siege tanks, however lurkers can destroy massive tank lines with micro and positioning, and marines can kill lurkers even though they are countered by lurkers.
Sentries on their own, do you have the same dynamic? Lets see, sentries can completely stop units from moving up a ramp until they run out of energy, sentries are countered by ghosts, however mass sentry forcefield micro does nothing when faced against mass ghost.
Maybe Zerg could bring back the reaver/lurker, because hell, its better than Blizzard making a new unit and screwing up the design like they do all the time these days, when we already have something that's perfect. Why break something that's perfect?
I never said I don't like BW. BW is awesome. Sc2 is awesome too. making SC2=BW would make an awesome game. One that already exists. it is called BW, get it? Im not talking about queens controling space, but if you look at the original concept of the queen, it was made to be a unique basedefender unit, that could kill tons of marines and build defenses. That is what I was refering to.
I won't reply on the lurker stuff, because I can only say: you're right. That is how BW worked.
about blizzard screwing up every unit... That's just bullshit and you know it.
I like how most people disguise their intentions of making balance changes (ie removing units that they have trouble with) like they actually care about how interesting some units are.
Most of the post here are: - first line - unit from my race that i dont use, so do anything you want with it - all other lines - remove this or that because its boring.
Like some people suggested removing Thor from game. Its by far coolest unit. Or redesigning infestor, although for the first time zerg has great spell caster.
If I was making decisions, i would give more abilities ti units. Like thor has 250 mm cannons (IMHO its not good at the moment), but its more interesting to see these battles where there is micro all around.
On June 01 2011 20:08 Mali__Slon wrote: I like how most people disguise their intentions of making balance changes (ie removing units that they have trouble with) like they actually care about how interesting some units are.
Most of the post here are: - first line - unit from my race that i dont use, so do anything you want with it - all other lines - remove this or that because its boring.
Like some people suggested removing Thor from game. Its by far coolest unit. Or redesigning infestor, although for the first time zerg has great spell caster.
If I was making decisions, i would give more abilities ti units. Like thor has 250 mm cannons (IMHO its not good at the moment), but its more interesting to see these battles where there is micro all around.
What!? Zerg having for first time a great caster? Defilers were way better... Also, I cannot understand why Colossi are not OP, or Corruptors a boring unit.
On June 01 2011 09:12 mordk wrote: A versatile unit is, for example, the stalker. The mutalisk. The marine. They are "core" units which can be useful in nearly any composition. The VR is no such thing.
Yes it is, why do you think the 'Colo VR' ball is so popular?
obviously the skill level here isn't very high when you still have people thinking the colossus/vr build is popular, or even effective in pvz...
On June 01 2011 20:08 Mali__Slon wrote: I like how most people disguise their intentions of making balance changes (ie removing units that they have trouble with) like they actually care about how interesting some units are.
Most of the post here are: - first line - unit from my race that i dont use, so do anything you want with it - all other lines - remove this or that because its boring.
Like some people suggested removing Thor from game. Its by far coolest unit. Or redesigning infestor, although for the first time zerg has great spell caster.
If I was making decisions, i would give more abilities ti units. Like thor has 250 mm cannons (IMHO its not good at the moment), but its more interesting to see these battles where there is micro all around.
nothing cool in thor, its boring slow ass unmicrable unit
On June 01 2011 20:08 Mali__Slon wrote: I like how most people disguise their intentions of making balance changes (ie removing units that they have trouble with) like they actually care about how interesting some units are.
Is it really so outlandish that people who post on this forum might genuinely care about the quality of the game?
the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
On June 01 2011 03:25 teekesselchen wrote: 3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
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Every single one of these choices, and i mean EVERY SINGLE ONE are make this exactly like brood war. While I do agree that many of these need adjustments, just saying let's go back to brood war isn't much of a solution.
As I said, I am not wanting these changes only for the sake of turning back to Broodwar, but for the sake of making the game better. Because all these units I meantioned in their current SC2 form are much less amazing than their counter part in Broodwar. They provide less options, less micro, less tactical value. All they're better at as their broodwar pendendands is fighting head on. And that is a terribly boring trait of a unit.
i'm 100% sure that corruptor (at least their spell) and overseer will be taken out or heavily changed in hots..they are just sooo bullshit units...
edit: also ich hope they fix the gap between zerg and the other two races in the sence of how much units they have....Z has like 9? and the others 12-13?...
warpgate which nulifies distance should possibly be moved all the way to fleet beacon.
rofl. stuff like this makes it hard to take you seriously.
3units; collosus (no micro potential), hydra (too high on tech tree to use early, no use lategame), ultralisk (they just keep bumping in zerglings until they die).
On June 01 2011 03:25 teekesselchen wrote: 3) New Units: -Arbiters instead of mothership, because it was an awesome casting unit -Marauders removed or replaced by a fire-bat like unit -Hellion revamped, because it's a stupid unit right now. It can roast a players whole economy in seconds making millions of players rage every day, but has few uses otherwise. I'ld love seeing spider mines return, on bigger maps at least. -Lurkers. Positional play for Zerg is totally missing and badly required. -Thor beeing made smaller, cheaper, weaker again. The concept of hero units failed. They have so few tactical value that I don't even really want to mind control them, even though they are so expansive. I'd rather take a couple of siege tanks. -Colossus beeing switched back to Transporter+Reaver. I don't think a unit should be as strong as colossus when just beeing a-clicked into the opponent (only exeption: Utralisks, because Zerg mechanics work differently). I always saw Protoss as a race that should have to micro a lot but be rewarded for it, too. Reaver-Shuttle provides that. Colossus does not nearly as much.
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Every single one of these choices, and i mean EVERY SINGLE ONE are make this exactly like brood war. While I do agree that many of these need adjustments, just saying let's go back to brood war isn't much of a solution.
As I said, I am not wanting these changes only for the sake of turning back to Broodwar, but for the sake of making the game better. Because all these units I meantioned in their current SC2 form are much less amazing than their counter part in Broodwar. They provide less options, less micro, less tactical value. All they're better at as their broodwar pendendands is fighting head on. And that is a terribly boring trait of a unit.
We already have one BW, making one more with just better graphics is lame and redundant. I strongly object returning any of BW units, if possible i wouldnt have any at all.
Make new units, with new game mechanics, thats what i want. And if there are some balance problems, mechanics problems, reverting them to BW style is just terrible.
Units I dislike in their current state, not because of balance but because they are boring:
1) Colossus (I play Protoss btw) 2) Corruptors 3) Marauders (w/Slow)
Honorable mention: Roaches
The only thing carrying Roaches into 'mildly exciting' at the moment is the speed and burrow upgrades.
Marauders are just plain boring, the only time they can be slightly exciting is when dropped or sniping Colossi etc. Otherwise dull. Terran did not need another heavy anti-armour unit.
Corruptors: Ability = dull, they don't look exciting. I suppose they can morph into Broodlords, but... meh.
Colossi - promote a deathball playstyle, don't require a great deal of skill to use, their ability and upgrades make them LESS exciting instead of more... Just dull.
While we are talking about what we DON'T like, I think it would be good to mention what units we DO like (coolwise rather than balance-wise):
1) BANELINGS 2) Ghosts (NUKE) 3) HTs/Archons
Honourable Mention: Mothership
Also like to mention that ANYTHING used in drop-play is exciting, but for drop-play to be exciting you need the dropship and the units, so they didn't fit on.
Mothership - cool abilities, shame it's been nerfed significantly. None of it's abilities are clearly amazingly powerful, and the cloak-everything-near promotes deathball mentallity, but the Mass Recall has potential (I know, shamelessly stolen from SC1 Arbiter). Ideally, Cloaking Shield should be replaced with something else which promotes splitting army up etc. I was thinking perhaps the Mothership could have an ability which makes air units around it faster. This would help Carriers as well and promote more air-play which we don't see lategame. However, it wouldn't be exciting and seems more a balance change than a 'fun' change.
Hts/Archons: STORM. Feedback wars with Ghosts and Infestors. ARCHONS ARE SO COOL. Pretty much all I have to say. HTs use cool abilities and then morph into a massive ball of energy.
Banelings: Massive splash damage, on Marines/Zerglings/workers/buildings. Just overall very cool. Undecided as to whether they are better than Lurkers were though...
On June 01 2011 21:32 Tchado wrote: I know this is off topic , but we please have daily tournaments and clans like warcraft 3 ? it seems like it won't happen in WoL .
There are various tournaments every night, if look around almost any time you ll find something.
On June 01 2011 21:32 Tchado wrote: I know this is off topic , but we please have daily tournaments and clans like warcraft 3 ? it seems like it won't happen in WoL .
There are various tournaments every night, if look around almost any time you ll find something.
I think he means the automated tournament system that WC3 had.
first of all, i cry on the inside when a terran says he needs more drop options. Your dropship is a medic....
Well, uninteresting units/features...
1) Colossus. It's stupid who a whole fucking race is designed around these goddamn things. I'm not raging about it being overpowered, but why is it that colossus is really the ONLY viable option? Sure you can try for timing attacks or whatever, but what protoss do you see go into late game without a colossus? None, because gateway units lose a ton of their efficacy late game (except the sentry as a dual caster/fighting unit), storm is pretty bad as a stand alone thing. Brood War toss had some interesting dynamics between templar, arbiters, reavers, archons, and just straight up gateway units. The colossus as a unit just takes away the fun of protoss for me, because even as a random player, I can think to myself, ok, how does this effect how he goes colossus every single game. It's never if, it's when.
2) "chargelots" and Stalkers: I think it's stupid that they changed legs to charge. Sure, charge is pretty cool, but up until you engage, you just have a bunch of slow ass zealots. Stalkers are a nerfed version of a dragoon, and as a result, late game, stalkers are pretty bad (see colossus).
3) Thor. Why. The. Fuck. did they replace the goliath with the thor? How do you make the anti air unit bad against air? The cool thing about goliaths was they had like infinite range and a high rate of fire. Goliaths were great at holding mutalisks back, regardless of their formation. The thor is only good against mutas if the zerg player doesn't know how to magic box. Also, they were good against single targets. The thor discourages "mass" air but can't really do shit against a dropship harass because of it's low RoF/damage, but it's necessary to deal with the fact that that it has huge splash, it would just make mutas a non option if it actually had a decent RoF/Damage. Also, the thor, really, is just a fighting unit in ScII. You remember thorzain's thor timings? They made this thing so it looked bad ass, and it did a lot of damage to ground, but forgot what it's purpose was. You just didn't want to make goliaths unless your opponent was going carrier or had a lot of mutas because they weren't the best fighting units, but thors just decimate the ground. I'd 100% rather have the goliath back (as a zerg player. It's rediculous that if i know how to magic box I beat the "anti-air" unit.
4) Addons/Macro Mechanics: These seem cool (you can build 2 marines at a time! You can get four extra larvae if your queen pisses on a hatchery!) but just serve to make the game faster. This is a big reason we don't see the huge long slugfests with engagements all game long. Why not just hit 200/200 when you're significantly stronger? It's only an extra 5 or 6 minutes (2 if you're zerg). Also, it's a big reason why agression is so good right now. 2 gate powergoon was scary as hell for terrans in BW, but what the hell can you do with 2 gates now? Nothing. Sure, I only have one hatch a base now as zerg, which feels cool, but why? I can hit 200/200 SO fast, as a result, everything has to be worse. They're fitting the units around this idea. You can't have BW lings with larvae inject, because lings would kill EVERYTHING. I can have like a billion speedlings off one hatch really fast. Each larvae was precious in BW, now they're pretty disposable (whatever, I have 16 extra larvae on the way in a second). Also, the system is much less transparent which makes scouting hard. Is he doing 2 hatch or 3 hatch? There was a major difference between 2 haching and 3 hatching, but in scII, you just have a billion larvae available to you.
5) Marauders. I'd love to have sat in on the meeting the Maruader was shit out of. "So, terran bio is pretty good against zerg. Yep. Terran bio is pretty bad against protoss. yep. Fuck that, we don't want anyone to go mech, besides, how would mech work against against the colossus and with the thor. Scrap it, we're putting grenade launchers on firebats.
6) "counter" units. Quite a few units in SCII are sort of designed to "counter" another unit. For example, vultures were pretty good against zerglings when they couldn't be surrounded and were great at killing off workers. The replacement (hellion) took that concept of good against light infantry and said "you know what, instead of this really mobile unit being able to micro and kill stuff, lets just make it so anything in it's path that's light just dies. How stupid is that. 1 blue flame hellion gets into your base and all your drones are dead. I'm fine with a harassment unit that's really good against light so is good against workers, but taking that to the extreme of "lets make it so they all die if they get hit, because, you know, it's good against light" is stupid.
7) banelings. So, the unit itself is pretty cool. But, it just removed a ton of utility. Banelings took the place of the aoe dealer, the lurker. Lurkers were pretty essential becuase they delayed pushes, as tanks would have to leapfrog up to deal with them as the lurkers leapfrogged back. They were really good agains tmassed units (marines, etc). The baneling burrow on the other hand, is just like a hold position lurker. Yeah, if your opponent happens to walk right on top of them, they're really good. If he doesn't though, and has any kind of detection, you have no recourse, they just die. Also, a suicide unit as a core unit is something I have a problem with. If a lurker hits one marine, that marines just going to die, it a baneling hits one marine, it's going to die and the marine will as well. There's no longevity to your investment, you just have to hope your opponent doesn't split. Also, it's pretty rediculous how much damage they just do instantly.
8) Raven. Pdd is pretty cool, i guess, but is super limited. Sure, PDD is good in TvP, but that's really the only thing it's good at, besides spotting cloaked things. They should make it worth the gas you're shelling out.
I think zerg needs something like scourges from BW so we have something else to take out medivacs apart from mutas. It would give us more of a choice to not make mutas every ZvT game.
Since I am a protoss player most of these suggestions are going to be directed towards tweaking protoss, for I have little understanding for other races and the difficulties they are facing at this state of the game. Sorry if it is kind of biased.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
1. Warp Prism - This unit is one of the 2 most underplayed unit in the protoss arsenal in my opinion. Pylon power mechanic is what defines a warp prism essentially, because when it goes into prism mode its basically becomes a pylon. So in order to increase the effective usage of warp prism, I thought that the pylon needs some tweaking. This is any unit standing/hovering under pylon power will receive increased plasma shield regeneration and cool down time, to say, starts recharging in around 5-7 seconds (opposed to 10) and 3 shield/sec (opposed to 2/sec). - Why would this be good? because after transforming into a prism it is stationary. This means if a protoss player is going for a drop it wouldn't be a constant heal, like a medivac. It would mean that if they want full efficiency they would need to stand under the circle (which should be smaller if this mechanism is implemented)
2. Carriers - This is the 2 one out of the two most underplayed unit, just because of its cost/build time/etc. I haven’t come up with a brilliant idea for it yet, however I would share my thought for it to date now. If the intention of the design for carrier is to be a support it should be some splash/low shield hp/glass cannon unit, like other support units (tanks/infesters/banelings/colossus). So instead of all the interceptors focusing on 1 target it should be targeting 8 different units each time it flies out. This would give a constant output of dmg that is splash like.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
As mentioned before, I would like to see the radius of the pylon that gives power give a defender’s advantage, which coincidently is what Black Octopi is looking for. Again just summarizing what I have elaborated on before. Units on the pylon power field grants faster shield regen, starts recharging in around 5-7 seconds (opposed to 10) and 3 shield/sec (opposed to 2/sec). This would be interesting to see as a strategy where a player would retreat to a specific location to recharge their shield before coming back into battle with additional warp in back up
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - A map that is mountain like with deep valleys separating the two players :D
Ravens just need some changes, i like the unit as a whole.
Btw: How do you kill 10 Ravens in a kinda "efficient" as Zerg? Had this some time ago against me... I won the game but these fuckers seemed pretty close to invunerable (whiteout going masssssshydras which would die to anything else the Terran had) :D.
On June 01 2011 21:54 tomatriedes wrote: I think zerg needs something like scourges from BW so we have something else to take out medivacs apart from mutas. It would give us more of a choice to not make mutas every ZvT game.
You have that. Its called infestor. All good zergs are now scraping muta, and going for infestor which is much more interesting.
Muta are more easily microed, but if you can use infestor properly its more rewarding unit.
On June 01 2011 21:32 Tchado wrote: I know this is off topic , but we please have daily tournaments and clans like warcraft 3 ? it seems like it won't happen in WoL .
There are various tournaments every night, if look around almost any time you ll find something.
I think he means the automated tournament system that WC3 had.
Exactly , thats what I mean , I'm surprise they didn't include it in sc2 to begin with
On June 01 2011 08:00 roymarthyup wrote: """""""""""""" Blizzard made a stupid announcement. Marines are the most standard and boring unit in the game, should we remove them?
Seriously, they should start basing their decisions upon good competitive play and not interest. """""""""""""
Marines are interesting due to their potential when utilized with micro.
Reaper I think it's a cool unit actually that sadly it's never worth the cost. In the high tempo of sc2 spending that much gas/ barracks time for a unit that might kill some workers or a few buildings just does not work. I can understand the difficulty in making this unit useful though. It can easily go from worthless to overpowered. Hope Blizz finds a way though.
Seeker Missile Similar to the reaper really. Was to strong in it's original form and now it's a "i hope the opponent does not know i have it/ is a retard"
Colossus Like the Reaper, i actually like the Colossus, as a cool unit. However, i think it's to easy to use. The 1a "frendliness" coupled with it's devastating power makes it to much, IMO. Increase the skill cap for using Colossus effectively. The "vulnerable to air attacks" is just not much of a disadvantage since them air units (vikings/ corruptors) will be useless afterwards.
By far my biggest wish is to have a Factory unit good at anti armored air. Vikings are great yes, but they are a 100% specific counter since they are on a different upgrade path to mech. Landed Vikings are just a complete waste. Or, to make it more simple, i gues Vikings could benefit from mech (ground vehicles) upgrades while in assault mode.
On a general note, i would like to see the scouting options improved for all 3 races.
On June 01 2011 22:01 Velr wrote: Btw: How do you kill 10 Ravens in a kinda "efficient" as Zerg? Had this some time ago against me... I won the game but these fuckers seemed pretty close to invunerable (whiteout going masssssshydras which would die to anything else the Terran had) :D.
If they have HSM you should be able to make 2 infestors with neural parasite and mind control 2 raven and hsm the ball, that's probably the simplest solution. If it's in a ball the whole HSM drawback is just non-existent because it will accelerate in at range 2.
Otherwise just get enough infestors to fungal/marine them. I can see how it can be difficult because of mass PDD, but at the end of the day all you need is to just throw a few marines around and they should be able to snipe either ravens or PDDs. The moment PDD fall and fungal hit it's pretty game over because of the infested marines dps. In theory mind controling the ravens and throwing turrets then using the rest of the energy for marines would probably be the most cost efficient (in theory).
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Simplest and most true post in this thread IMO.
Some units need to be redesigned because they're just bad (corruptor, mothership, raven), but the three Intrigue mentioned are just boring because there's nothing to them. Colossus micro equates to moving your hurt Colossi back. Stalkers can Blink, Tanks can siege/unsiege, and Marines can split, but there's nothing you can do to make your Colossi more effective (or your opponent's Colossi less effective). They will ALWAYS do well against bio/light and will ALWAYS have to worry about Vikings/Corruptors because of the hard-counter design that's in many units in SC2.
That's boring.
The current state of FFs, Fungal Growth, and Concussive Shells are in a similar boat where the opponent can't do much to mitigate their usefulness. Forcefields less so because you can prepare your army for an engagement to not get split, and you can also try to bait FFs--the only problem is that the Forcefield's ability to stack on each other and trap infinite units in a small space seems way more like a bug than an intended game mechanic, and I believe it should be fixed. Fungal isn't a bad spell, but it's unexciting how you can't do anything against it. While the 1.3 early PTR version where Fungal was a missle didn't work out, it was a step in the right direction. I'd rather see the spell be more powerful but harder to hit with as it's micro-intensive, rather than a spell where you click and get damage. Same with Concussive (except you don't even have to click!).
Anyway, other game mechanics things that I think should be changed:
I've watched very exciting games of SC2, but a lot of games, even professional ones, fall into the same boring category of either a build-order loss or a unit-composition loss. The added damage units do, coupled with the ball movement mechanics, coupled with the added supply costing units, coupled with the added macro mechanics that make getting to 200 supply faster, coupled with not needing more than 3 bases for optimal economy, coupled with the supply still being the same as BW despite these things, coupled with the amount of 1-dimensional units such as Colossus or Marauder that require little micro, coupled with the amount of direct counter units, coupled with the lack of a defenders advantage -- it all makes 200 supply battles ridiculously short, comebacks difficult, and games boring.
It sounds like a lot of whining on my part, but honestly these are all minor things that amount to one big problem. SC2 mechanics don't have to be like BW to have exciting games. We don't need 12 unit control groups or macro mechanics to be any more difficult (because it's no fun as a player to have to deal with bad UI), but we do need to change a few things.
Units -- Units need to be more dynamic and multipurpose, and less one dimensional. We need more units like the Siege Tank, that has a great defender's advantage and is very strong in some situations, and you can't just 1a to use it to near perfect efficiency. Or Marines, which are strong units but even stronger with micro. Situations like Marine vs. Baneling or Blink Stalker vs. Roach/Infestor are exciting for a spectator and a player. For God's sake, change the Colossus. As a Protoss player, I hate that unit, because I hate how most of my effective late-game strategies revolve around using that boring unit.
Spellcasters -- These are units, but I think they need special mention. Because of smartcasting, spellcasters can't only be there for sheer damage attacks. There need to be more support spellcasters, like Sentries and Ravens, or just more units with some support spells. Ravens could be an AMAZING unit for controlling space if PDD/Turrets were more efficient and HSM was faster, but right now they're a lackluster mobile detector.
Supply -- Something needs to be either done about the max supply, the current required supply of units, or just the beefiness of the units. I think it could just be the last two. Units die extremely fast in this game compared to BW, in the early and late game. It's a problem when a 200 supply army dies in 5 seconds -- that's not fun and climactic; it's a disappointment. Part of it is the 200 supply is often compromised of direct counter units (Colossi vs. MMM + Vikings) so one side dies quickly, and part of it is that units just die fast regardless. Max supply armies often feel small because of the 4 or 6 supply units -- which makes sense in WoL because they had to balance out the power of the Colossus somehow, but I think with changes they don't have to be so supply heavy.
Imo they should change marauders and hellions to get a more flexible bio/mech changes. Not exactly change but make replace the marauders with a fast fire dealing dmg (sth like a Fast firebat doing less dmg) and the hellions with sth that works simuilar to a marauder just more gas expensive and a bit better (same cost efficents).
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Hellion - Reduce the attack animation delay so that they can be microed more and reward more skilled players (like Vultures). I'd also like to see them change the blue flame bonus, instead of stacking it heavily toward only light units, make it more of like a 5 (+5 to light) thing or something to make Hellions a bit more viable versus other types of units.
Thor - Terrible anti air, not even good at crushing FFs because it's slow, big, and clunky. Strike cannons are useless in almost all situations. I'd like to see them at least add an AoE effect or something to them. There's no reason to get a Thor except to scare away large packs of Mutas and even then they can just magic box you. It's an expensive unit that basically does nothing. Easily the worst unit in the game imo.
Raven - Way too expensive to get the upgrades for it. It's already a gas heavy unit and only has one really good ability that still has situational use. Seeker Missiles should not require an upgrade, honestly. Either that or they need some buffs, they're too expensive to upgrade, they move slow, and can be dodged.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Banelings - They reward low skill gameplay by allowing people to 1a large clumps of them into things and still do heavy damage even if the other player micros immaculately. Lurkers required tactical positioning and strategy, Banelings are more of a herp derp blow things up unit. Baneling bombs are difficult to use because of the splash radius (see Moon), so most players just opt to 1a them because it actually works. I also think the fact that they do full splash damage even when they're killed (rather than self-detonated) is extremely stupid.
Marauder - Stim + slow + the bonus to armored and being pretty bulky, all for a cheap price tag and requiring tier 1.5 level tech? It's too much. They're better now than they were in the beta but they are still extremely good, could use a light nerf.
Reaper - Could go in the redesign thing I think, but all I think they need to do is fix the Nitro Packs requiring Factory thing, that really killed the Reaper's viability in most scenarios.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
B.net 2.0 still needs a lot of work. Graphics are fine.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Terran: Replace Thors with Goliaths, tech reactors (lol), would like to see Science Vessels and Medics return somehow Protoss: Reavers Zerg: Bring back Lurkers and Defilers
A lot of the people in this thread are having problems grasping the idea of what makes a unit uninteresting.
A lot of people have named the carrier as an uinteresting unit that needs to be changed.
This is ridiculous.
The only reason people say this is because no one uses them very often. If you saw a carrier being used in the GSL or NASL, you would absolutely go nuts. It's a unit that is so powerful and thus so exciting to see. It's battle animations of sending out interceptors is great fun, and it plays its role well. I don't see how anyone could find it boring.
That being said, on the other end of the spectrum you have the Colossi. I find it to be a very fun unit. The only reason people do not find it interesting is because it's so overexposed. Changing it to any other unit is not going to help this. Don't you realise that you'll just have to watch that other unit and that you'll eventually get sick of this new unit too? If you saw a Colossi for the first time, you'd think it looked awesome. A huge walker with lasers? Come on. It's a good unit, end of story.
Units I DO agree with changes to are units like the corrupter. This unit is just your standard air to air attacker. Obviously it performs its role well, but it doesn't look good doing it, and its 'bonus' ability that all the other air-to-air attackers have is relatively bland. Corruption is the ability that needs changing, not the unit itself. It simply needs spicing up in abilities, not a changing in its role.
Note: The following are a set of ideas that I think can improve the excitement of the game, mainly through two main ideas: 1. Big impact units that open up comeback possibilities. 2. Increase micro These ideas would definitely require further balancing. It is only the general ideas that I am proposing.
What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Colossus - Death ball to victory.
Corruptors - Two uses: Counter colossus. Building Broodlords. Otherwise useless.
Zealots, Immortals, Archons - really minimal control involved. A-move and watch your army. All your Zealots died? No problem, they were free anyways.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. HT Storms - Make it hard to use. Have large energy requirements that force you to build them much earlier to use. Make it so each HT can only storm once even at full energy. For example, Storm should cost 150 energy. Max energy should be 200. Starting energy should be 50. As compensation for the added difficulty in using this spell, the damage should be increased to have a greater impact. ie. If you land a good storm, it should be devastating. Also, ghosts should have similar treatment to make EMPs harder to use so it won't be able to counter this as easily.
Big Impact Player For Terran - HTs change the game in one storm. Infestors can wipe out huge bio armies with 2-3 fungals and can change the game instantly. Baneling mines can do the same. Terrans should also have a game changing unit/skill that works vs all races.
Right now, Terrans only depend on positioning and winning that decisive battle. Sure the Terran needs skill in positioning to wipe out the opposing army, but it is also the opponent that loses the army in the engagement through no special spell casting of the Terran. How many times has a Terran beat a Zerg player by rolling tanks out and leap frogging them when they reach the edge of the creep line? This is not the most exciting thing to see. But when all those marines fall to a single baneling trap, that is what brings the excitement to the game.
It is true that Terran has nukes, but this is far from practical. The solution? Possibly make the seeker missile High Impact. The seeker missile is FAR from useful. Even off racing players who choose this tech path and expect a big bang end up disappointed due to... well, due to the missile doing absolutely no noticeable damage. Seeker missile is already slow, it can be dodged by most units, and the AOE is quite small as well. Seeker missile needs to be a game changer. It should force enemy units to micro.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? N/A
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Flamethrower static defense for Terran - Ground only static defense that is hidden until the enemy is in range? Maybe even a command like the ghost where the structure does not auto-attack until commanded to? Adds that little element of surprise to the table that also builds suspense for viewers of a cast, etc.
Lurkers - Zone of control unit. Counterpart to the tank if you may. Creates those back and forth matches. This reduces the opportunities of scenarios where a player would just A-move their way in and win. If you do that, the opponent has a way to punish it.
On June 01 2011 22:23 Sapphire.lux wrote: Redesign
Reaper I think it's a cool unit actually that sadly it's never worth the cost. In the high tempo of sc2 spending that much gas/ barracks time for a unit that might kill some workers or a few buildings just does not work. I can understand the difficulty in making this unit useful though. It can easily go from worthless to overpowered. Hope Blizz finds a way though.
Seeker Missile Similar to the reaper really. Was to strong in it's original form and now it's a "i hope the opponent does not know i have it/ is a retard"
Colossus Like the Reaper, i actually like the Colossus, as a cool unit. However, i think it's to easy to use. The 1a "frendliness" coupled with it's devastating power makes it to much, IMO. Increase the skill cap for using Colossus effectively. The "vulnerable to air attacks" is just not much of a disadvantage since them air units (vikings/ corruptors) will be useless afterwards.
By far my biggest wish is to have a Factory unit good at anti armored air. Vikings are great yes, but they are a 100% specific counter since they are on a different upgrade path to mech. Landed Vikings are just a complete waste. Or, to make it more simple, i gues Vikings could benefit from mech (ground vehicles) upgrades while in assault mode.
On a general note, i would like to see the scouting options improved for all 3 races.
let me guess, you play terran?
I think the hellion. does so much dmg to workers its silly
Colossus, for obvious reasons. High power units need limitations to balance them and make them interesting, not hard counters.
One no one seems to mention is banelings. These are a huge proponent of massive A move encounters that end in an instant, and that's simply because of the nature of the unit. I think a lot of us want fights to last a little longer with more interesting micro, but this really just can't happen with banelings. And given that they're one of the most efficient units in the game vs clumped units, they're often mandatory for zerg and so they really force the game in a poor direction.
Hellions I think are another poor unit. I'm not obsessive about making this back into BW or anything but the concept just seems terrible compared to firebats. Their mobility just makes them too strong for worker harass, whereas the firebat wouldn't be so abusable.
Roaches, but only coming from a BW background personally, I never really saw how the roach fitted properly in the zerg race. It just seems like a mini tank, something which absolutely does not have a place in the zerg army imo
I wish Zerg would have a unit that vomited a "creep carpet". Something to give Z's a speed boost when crashing Ultras/Lings/Banes into siege lines. It would be a targeted directional spell, maybe makes a creep patch that was 2x10, vomited from an Ultra or something?
On June 01 2011 23:08 BigKahunaBurger wrote: That being said, on the other end of the spectrum you have the Colossi. I find it to be a very fun unit. The only reason people do not find it interesting is because it's so overexposed. Changing it to any other unit is not going to help this. Don't you realise that you'll just have to watch that other unit and that you'll eventually get sick of this new unit too? If you saw a Colossi for the first time, you'd think it looked awesome. A huge walker with lasers? Come on. It's a good unit, end of story.
I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic or if you're Dustin Browder.
On June 01 2011 22:23 Sapphire.lux wrote: Redesign
Reaper I think it's a cool unit actually that sadly it's never worth the cost. In the high tempo of sc2 spending that much gas/ barracks time for a unit that might kill some workers or a few buildings just does not work. I can understand the difficulty in making this unit useful though. It can easily go from worthless to overpowered. Hope Blizz finds a way though.
Seeker Missile Similar to the reaper really. Was to strong in it's original form and now it's a "i hope the opponent does not know i have it/ is a retard"
Colossus Like the Reaper, i actually like the Colossus, as a cool unit. However, i think it's to easy to use. The 1a "frendliness" coupled with it's devastating power makes it to much, IMO. Increase the skill cap for using Colossus effectively. The "vulnerable to air attacks" is just not much of a disadvantage since them air units (vikings/ corruptors) will be useless afterwards.
By far my biggest wish is to have a Factory unit good at anti armored air. Vikings are great yes, but they are a 100% specific counter since they are on a different upgrade path to mech. Landed Vikings are just a complete waste. Or, to make it more simple, i gues Vikings could benefit from mech (ground vehicles) upgrades while in assault mode.
On a general note, i would like to see the scouting options improved for all 3 races.
let me guess, you play terran?
I think the hellion. does so much dmg to workers its silly
Do you disagree with something in particular? With what and why? I can understand if you disagree with the Viking thing, i am biased towards mech TBF.
Yes i play terran and that is why i addressed terran based units/ situations. I do not have the experience to talk about Zerg or Protoss mechanics and all.
In terms of units, what needs review in my opinion:
- Collossi: Too much potential for mass destruction with too little handicaps. Either their mobility needs to be cut down a notch, their range reduced or their damage reduced (or made more specific +light or +armored). Terrans at least have vikings as a workable counter, zergs are too dependant on lackluster corruptors.
- Immortals: They need more range imo.
- Reapers: Just no place in the game for them right now. Just an expensive scout.
- Marauders: Their ability to stim combined with concussive shells is just a bit too much. However, they are also quite bad against light units. Maybe some tweaking could be done there.
- Thors: Badly designed unit basically. The only thing they are good for is abusing mass-repair. And maybe punish zerg who are too bad for magic boxing.
- Ravens: Apart from the PDD, they don't have useful spells. Especially HSM in the current implementation is just a joke. Terrans basically only get ravens for detection - the pdd helps to pay off the investment but that's it.
Apart from that, i think that creep tumors need some kind of review. I think that the mechanic pretty much prevents zerg burrow to be used effectively. As a terran has to pretty much always scan the creep to kill the tumors, he'll also see burrowed units (a protoss will bring an obs for the some reason). So there's little potential for burrow to be used as a surprise tactic. Also, zerg units are maybe to weak off creep, making them too dependant on it.
I have been thinking about this thread and would like to add some more ideas
i think the raven should be given Irradiate. That would be very cool vs bio balls and zergie in general, but i dont think it would be too much. IMO they could nerf to hell HSM where there is waaaaay less damage and move it to the autoturrets spot. Then they could add irradiate as the 3rd ability. Also slow the raven. I feel like this would add more use to the raven, plus it would be more of a high priority damage dealer instead of something no one really cares about. Since it would be slower, worker harrass would still exist, but you wouldn't be able to irradiate the whole mineral line. Also, it would make for a really good positional aspect and would make it harder for terran to 1a and push all the way to the base with stim.
For graphics:
I want a much more swarmy feeling aspect from zerg, especially on the minimap. I want the minimap to be writhing.
I would change the fact that almost no one who posts in these threads has any idea of how the metagame is going to evolve and is prematurely assessing every unit and situation based on what tastosis or (even worse) idra says.
Uninteresting units: -corruptor (vikings can land, phoenix can graviton beam but corruptors are useless against ground) -warp prism (they halt colossus production and they can't be army unit like the medivac) -mothership
The Collosus. It might be an important unit for Protoss with the way the game currently works but its so uninspired and boring. It's clearly a case of design over mechanics. A real 1a unit.
On June 01 2011 23:32 OrgCom wrote: Note: The following are a set of ideas that I think can improve the excitement of the game, mainly through two main ideas: 1. Big impact units that open up comeback possibilities. 2. Increase micro These ideas would definitely require further balancing. It is only the general ideas that I am proposing.
What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? Colossus - Death ball to victory.
Corruptors - Two uses: Counter colossus. Building Broodlords. Otherwise useless.
Zealots, Immortals, Archons - really minimal control involved. A-move and watch your army. All your Zealots died? No problem, they were free anyways.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. HT Storms - Make it hard to use. Have large energy requirements that force you to build them much earlier to use. Make it so each HT can only storm once even at full energy. For example, Storm should cost 150 energy. Max energy should be 200. Starting energy should be 50. As compensation for the added difficulty in using this spell, the damage should be increased to have a greater impact. ie. If you land a good storm, it should be devastating. Also, ghosts should have similar treatment to make EMPs harder to use so it won't be able to counter this as easily.
Big Impact Player For Terran - HTs change the game in one storm. Infestors can wipe out huge bio armies with 2-3 fungals and can change the game instantly. Baneling mines can do the same. Terrans should also have a game changing unit/skill that works vs all races.
Right now, Terrans only depend on positioning and winning that decisive battle. Sure the Terran needs skill in positioning to wipe out the opposing army, but it is also the opponent that loses the army in the engagement through no special spell casting of the Terran. How many times has a Terran beat a Zerg player by rolling tanks out and leap frogging them when they reach the edge of the creep line? This is not the most exciting thing to see. But when all those marines fall to a single baneling trap, that is what brings the excitement to the game.
It is true that Terran has nukes, but this is far from practical. The solution? Possibly make the seeker missile High Impact. The seeker missile is FAR from useful. Even off racing players who choose this tech path and expect a big bang end up disappointed due to... well, due to the missile doing absolutely no noticeable damage. Seeker missile is already slow, it can be dodged by most units, and the AOE is quite small as well. Seeker missile needs to be a game changer. It should force enemy units to micro.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? N/A
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Flamethrower static defense for Terran - Ground only static defense that is hidden until the enemy is in range? Maybe even a command like the ghost where the structure does not auto-attack until commanded to? Adds that little element of surprise to the table that also builds suspense for viewers of a cast, etc.
Lurkers - Zone of control unit. Counterpart to the tank if you may. Creates those back and forth matches. This reduces the opportunities of scenarios where a player would just A-move their way in and win. If you do that, the opponent has a way to punish it.
this is like the perfect example why this topic sucks... most people really just comment on their version of balance and not really on how interesting units/abilities are :/
Colossus, most uninteresting, boring, and in my opinion ridiculously easy-to-use unit in the game. I feel like I'm smashing my head against the keyboard when I quote-un-quote "micro" them.
Thor, and mothership are my other two. Like previously stated, they feel too much like "hero" units, it just adds a bad feel to starcraft.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
I think some people really underestimate just how long it takes to get everything you can out of a complicated game. For a perfect example, I was watching a bit of Destiny last night, and saw he's switched to infestor ling vs t, and would burrow some infestors and toss a few infested terrans in front of his rushing zergling army to distract some of his opponent's tank fire. I've never seen anyone do this before, and its is very micro and tactically dependent....and only just now, >1 year into a games development do we see it finally being used.
I'm not saying everything is fine, I personally hate marauders, colossi, sentries, roaches, and ultras. But many of you are throwing random BW related mechanics out as being the only interesting things you can do, when there are quite a few really high level things possible that might well turn games around in the future, it's just that the game hasn't developed to the point where that advantage is worth the risk of screwing up something else with your macro. I'll throw in gosu immortal/WP use vs roaches as a really high level, high reward tactic that just isn't being used now because, quite frankly, noone is good enough to do it without screwing up their macro and other units while doing it.
You people just throw BW mechanics out there because you're already good at, and understand how to use it properly, and don't want to try to learn or develop anything new because it's not a fun as crushing some poor n00b who doesn't know how to do "X" mechanic that you've been practicing for 12 years. Could there be better mechanics in SC2? Yes. Do they need to be BW mechanics? Fark no. This is a new game, we shouldn't have to go back to 1999 to have interesting gameplay mechanics.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can spread your units out beforehand, especially with vikings, to help mitigate the damage from fungals.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can spread your units out beforehand, especially with vikings, to help mitigate the damage from fungals.
Yeah but if fungal were missile then it would require more micro for both sides, and micro is always good for SC2.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can spread your units out beforehand, especially with vikings, to help mitigate the damage from fungals.
Yeah but if fungal were missile then it would require more micro for both sides, and micro is always good for SC2.
Infestors are barely viable as they are right now. If you make fungal a dodgeable missle, that would just make them not viable any more. The missle wouldn't make the fungal more effective in any way, so it just nerfs it.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can spread your units out beforehand, especially with vikings, to help mitigate the damage from fungals.
Yeah but if fungal were missile then it would require more micro for both sides, and micro is always good for SC2.
Infestors are barely viable as they are right now. If you make fungal a dodgeable missle, that would just make them not viable any more. The missle wouldn't make the fungal more effective in any way, so it just nerfs it.
Then just buff zerg in another way to compensate. Don't say no to interesting mechanics for the sake of balance. Balanced but boring should not be what we want for SC2.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can avoid them with good positioning and superior preparedness. This is like saying immortals are overpowered because if you attack them with roaches you die
Try thinking more than 5 seconds in front of your face. Spells that make positioning more important are what add interesting choices to the game, not spells that are easy to dodge with a right click. If you didnt see those fungals/FFs coming at all, you got outplayed. End of story.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can spread your units out beforehand, especially with vikings, to help mitigate the damage from fungals.
Fine with it not being a missile, but the hold is to much for Terran. The FG stacking is just stupid.
Yeah but if fungal were missile then it would require more micro for both sides, and micro is always good for SC2.
Infestors are barely viable as they are right now. If you make fungal a dodgeable missle, that would just make them not viable any more. The missle wouldn't make the fungal more effective in any way, so it just nerfs it.
On June 01 2011 15:03 dreamsmasher wrote: turn the warp prism into a mobile shield battery + warp in. give it a t3 upgrade to make it into a warp in arbiter!
I really like the warp-prism-as-shield-battery idea. That would be cool and none-too-overpowering because they're made of paper anyway.
On June 01 2011 20:59 intrigue wrote: the marauder, colossus and hellion are the most boring units ever. forcefields, fungal growth and marauder slow are all spells with no counter micro, which is boring and terrible for competitive play.
Couldn't say better myself.
That is so hilariously wrong I don't really know how to laugh at it. fungal and slow add sooo much depth
But you can't avoid them. You can't avoid fungal if it is casted, you can't avoid FFs is they are casted and you can't avoid concussive, so no micro from opponent.
Blizzard had really good idea about giving fungal a missile effect - that way both sides needs to micro their units.
You can avoid them with good positioning and superior preparedness. This is like saying immortals are overpowered because if you attack them with roaches you die
Try thinking more than 5 seconds in front of your face.
There are two ways to avoid spells: pre-battle positioning and in-battle micro. The issue with SC2 is that it's completely removing the second option due to its anti-micro spells, which leads to 1a syndrome when a fight actually begins. Less options isn't going to make this game a lasting e-sport.
On June 01 2011 15:03 dreamsmasher wrote: turn the warp prism into a mobile shield battery + warp in. give it a t3 upgrade to make it into a warp in arbiter!
I really like the warp-prism-as-shield-battery idea. That would be cool and none-too-overpowering because they're made of paper anyway.
so overpowered.
while we're at it lets give overseers instant free nydus canals
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus - they are able to stack up too tightly (see below) and should rather be rare and difficult / slow to maneuver like the Thor. War of the Worlds please instead of the current smooth super fast movement. Battlecruiser / Carrier - they die too fast since they are late game units and are added last to an army and putting them against any decent number of units which attack air renders them useless too easily. (The Broodlord does not have the same problem since it creates a wall of free Brrodlings which prevent the movement of ground units.) Corruptors seem to be a bit on the useless side, but so are Vikings once you have air superiority. In short all those "air only" air units seem to be not worth having if your opponent doesnt have air to attack. The Viking transformation is a neat gimmick, but nothing else ... if it had its air attack rockets still available in ground mode things might be different, but that unit would be called differently. Only the Phoenix seems somewhat useful due to the ability to lift units off the ground and totally neutralize them for that time.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. The perfect movement AI really screws up the game by making tight death balls too deadly. There is no point in trying to build Carriers, a Mothership or BCs usually because they are shot down too easily by a tight ball of anti air units. There isnt even a need to kill a Carrier, because you can render it useless by shooting the tiny Interceptors with your tight ball of stimmed Marines or machinegun Hydras. This is a major issue and it makes SC2 wayyy too volatile to be truly skill and thought based.
Tight and perfect movement AI really make a "Planetary Fortress" totally defenseless against a line of Banelings which are rolling in (or maybe just send in a decoy Zergling first). Its a stupid right-click which takes zero skill ...
The tight unit movement make slow attacks like those from Siege Tanks and Planetary Fortresses super vulnerable and exploitable ... and in other words: weak (because they had to be nerfed).
The super fast regeneration of Protoss shields is a bad concept IMO and should be changed to the BW version of mediocre regeneration + Shield Battery which is much more stylish.
Feedback ... too many targets have no useful ways of getting rid of their energies (BC, Thor, Corruptor, Overseer) and take too much damage from that spell. My suggestion would be to reduce the damage taken by a proportional amount to the number of armor of the unit, i.e. a Thor with 0 armor upgrade only takes half its energy in damage (because it already has 1 armor anyways) and if it has 3 armor upgrades it only takes 20% damage ( 1 / (1 + 1 basic armor + 3 armor upgrades) = 1/5 = 20% ). The main use of the spell should be to get rid of the energy of the BC / Ghost / Thor so they cant use their powers and not to deal damage.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Misc tweak of Blizzard creating maps which allow the Zerg to cover their ramp with Spine Crawlers without needing a creep tumor.
Misc tweak of Blizzard getting rid of their tiny and close spawn maps on the ladder.
Misc tweak of adding more maps from the community to the ladder.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Personally I would love to see tweaks to existing buildings by being able to research more levels of building armor for Terrans to be able to exceed the attack upgrades of the opponents and really turtle.
Zerg might want to have some kind of wall building (at least some whine about not being able to wall off) or maybe a goo pit which slows non-Zerg down and could be used to cover the top/bottom of a ramp.
Shield Batteries for Protoss are much cooler than the super regenerating shields they have now.
On June 01 2011 15:03 dreamsmasher wrote: turn the warp prism into a mobile shield battery + warp in. give it a t3 upgrade to make it into a warp in arbiter!
I really like the warp-prism-as-shield-battery idea. That would be cool and none-too-overpowering because they're made of paper anyway.
so overpowered.
while we're at it lets give overseers instant free nydus canals
I think a better comparison would be giving dropships the ability to heal bio. Oh wait.
On June 01 2011 02:17 GreatOldOne wrote: Blizzard made a stupid announcement. Marines are the most standard and boring unit in the game, should we remove them?
Seriously, they should start basing their decisions upon good competitive play and not interest.
marines have like one of the highest skillcaps for use in the game what?
Theres no particular unit I think is flawed, but I wished units moved and behaved differently. Engagements feels so surgical in SC2, you can tell who will win a battle 3-4 seconds in, and the slippery slope is so steep.
I wish units had reaction time and a little bit of randomness in path finding. If players cant maintain a 200 supply army in a ball while moving it around the map, they will split their armies into different groups and battle on different fronts/flanks. I cant explain why I want this from a logical viewpoint, I just love broodwar battles which goes on forever, with armies several layers deep, I dont think we will ever see something similar because of how SC2 units move and behave.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
Why don't people read what they quote? I was talking about esports, not SC2. Of course SC2 is what it is because of BW, it's a fucking sequel.
Then I don't understand the relevance of what you wrote earlier. You're nitpicking on the semantics of what other people wrote for the sake of argument. That's completely pointless.
On June 01 2011 15:03 dreamsmasher wrote: turn the warp prism into a mobile shield battery + warp in. give it a t3 upgrade to make it into a warp in arbiter!
I really like the warp-prism-as-shield-battery idea. That would be cool and none-too-overpowering because they're made of paper anyway.
so overpowered.
while we're at it lets give overseers instant free nydus canals
I think a better comparison would be giving dropships the ability to heal bio. Oh wait.
no it's like giving dropships the ability to heal all bio units at once
Overpriced arbiter from sc1. Slower, her skill is useless too with the recent patches:
Although blizzard designed the mothership to be the "HERO" or the ultimate weapon of protoss,
All I can see is it being used as retreating mechanism (since the vortex makes them immune for
couple of seconds, I can't see how it is used as an offensive measure).
Also, mass recall... pretty much useless because the mothership is very slow itself...
Ideas: Make it move faster, give her more variety of skills (or replace the ones that she already has). I would love to see her using the skills she had when Blizzard first showcased the mothership. You know...the shield and the armageddon-like attack...
The OP seems to reallly attempt to nerf zerg and protoss while increasing terran so ill assume he is a terran player. Why should zerg upgrades be differentiable to others when it is not known what the other races are getting from their upgrade facilities. Why should queens lose the transfuse ability? its a strong ability but very rarely will you have enough energy unless specifically building queens for army purposes to get a lot of transfuses off. Why should there be a spell that just makes colossi not a usable unit.
1)Things that I would actually like to see from blizzard is a way of lessening the power of a protoss deathball to make it more able to be dealt with. 2) Removing upgrade to overseer as the only means of moving vision where other races have a moving vision(observer/raven). 3) Revamp the contaminate spell to make is something more usable at all times. 4) Make a Tier three unit for zerg that is less powerful overall but can attack both ground and air 5) Make carriers a more usable unit, because in its current state they are pretty useless and very rarely used. 6) Lessen emp vs toss(not drain shields) 7) Lessen the duration of sentry force fields. 8) Remove Marauder slow or lessen the duration so you are not continuously slowed. (Make the time shorter then the interval between their shots) 9) Remove the thermal lance upgrade -This may seem silly, but if you really look at the underlying problems with the deathball, it could be that the lack of ability to stay in range to kill collosi while not dying to the stalker meatshield could be mitigated if you remove the range upgrade and keep collosi at their starting range. Just a suggestion. =]
3 UNITS THAT NEED TO BE REVAMPED: 1) Colossus(remove thermal lance) 2) Reapers(pretty useless since they were slowed. They should try making them a more viable unit in armies rather than the unit they were when they were just rushed for gay early harass than useless mid to late game) 3) Overseer (I think the upgrade should be removed completely tbh, and just leave the speed and other upgrade in the hatchery)
Ik some of my ideas may be a little biased, i tried not too, and I am sure that not all my ideas would be perfect balance, but I think that atleast some of them are pretty solid ideas. Just some food for thought i guess =]
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. HT Storms - Make it hard to use. Have large energy requirements that force you to build them much earlier to use. Make it so each HT can only storm once even at full energy. For example, Storm should cost 150 energy. Max energy should be 200. Starting energy should be 50. As compensation for the added difficulty in using this spell, the damage should be increased to have a greater impact. ie. If you land a good storm, it should be devastating. Also, ghosts should have similar treatment to make EMPs harder to use so it won't be able to counter this as easily.
I actually really would like something like this. You can tweak the numbers so it works, but the concept of trading power for number of storms, I would be down with. Right now it feels like you can fill the screen with storms and they don't do that much.
I'd rather have the ability to absolutely kill 3 key areas in the battle field because of 3 well-placed storms. It feels like you're doing something as a player, it looks exciting to the audience as those 3 key spots get pummeled and if the opponent can predict where the storms are coming, they can try to storm dodge. There's no real need to storm dodge if the whole screen is storms that do minimal damage. You would also see more high templar harass because 1-2 storms would actually clean out a mineral line.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
Why don't people read what they quote? I was talking about esports, not SC2. Of course SC2 is what it is because of BW, it's a fucking sequel.
Then I don't understand the relevance of what you wrote earlier. You're nitpicking on the semantics of what other people wrote for the sake of argument. That's completely pointless.
No he wasn't. The other poster was equating E-sports with SC2. He pointed it out.
On a seperate note:
Marauders and Roaches are not boring. The hydralisk in SC1 couldn't do anything but attack, but it still had its place. Marauder slow is an interesting ability and it may not have a specific counter micro, but it creates tense situations. Roaches have speed, burrow-move, and fast regen.
I want to make a custom game where every single attack of a unit is prefaced with a guitar hero-esque mini game, that way we can have no strategy but whoever has the higher apm would win./sarcasm
On June 02 2011 02:21 Eknoid4 wrote: HT storm is incredibly hard to use vs good micro.
But it doesn't do much and it is actually quite easy to fill the screen with storms compared to BW. Hold t and start clicking. Obviously people don't want to get rid of smart-casting so storm's power has been nerfed. Compare it to the BW storm- storming mech actually put significant damage- 2 storms would take out tanks. Storming mineral lines took 1-2 storms rather than 3-4.
That's where I'd rather have power over spam minimal damage storm.
I actually wonder how armour effects BW and SC2's damage output. BW was 8 volleys of 14 damage. (112 damage). SC2 is 10 damage over ever half second. (80 damage) But BW maybe also has a bigger damage output thus overcoming armour a bit better?
Fix unit clumping while moving for some unit types such as marine Increase AOE damage Add high ground damage bonus
Other tweaks:
More environment enhancements like line of sight blockers and destructible rocks. I'd suggest moveable platforms (elevators), destructible ramps or bridges, trigger floods of water/lava, neutral structures small units can hide inside (require detector to see units), short underground pathways to bypass higher ground for units of a certain size.
Add trip wires with limited distance, fog of war spell to reduce vision in an area for the enemy, poison/disease/radiation cloud that can effect an area and any bio units that enter that for a while.
Fix the carrier, remove colossus and mothership, add new units to replace those two. Buff zealots by making charge not only give them the dash but also improve their overall speed significantly.
Yeah speedlots from BW were a lot more useful than chargelots are currently. They can just be forcefielded off, fungaled etc sometimes so they don't even get to use their charge ability. If they just had a higher base speed for a start Protoss would have a more mobile force and you could rush Zealots into positions of high importance. As it is they don't really have that, plus if you autocast charge they sometimes assume retarded positions
^^ to poster above, are you sure about this? In fairness I rarely use chargelots but if they do have a higher base speed I might actually reconsider that
On June 01 2011 02:17 GreatOldOne wrote: Blizzard made a stupid announcement. Marines are the most standard and boring unit in the game, should we remove them?
Seriously, they should start basing their decisions upon good competitive play and not interest.
marines have like one of the highest skillcaps for use in the game what?
There is merit to why a Marine is a boring unit. It's pretty much the answer to everything. Every situation, matchup, and composition could do better with Marines. Their stutter step micro is one dimensional, too. Difficult to execute, but no variability.
On June 02 2011 02:38 Ubertron wrote: ^^ to poster above, are you sure about this? In fairness I rarely use chargelots but if they do have a higher base speed I might actually reconsider that
yep chargelots move faster than regular zealots
EDIT: the movespeed increase is from 2.25 to 2.75 i believe
Haha, can't say I've ever noticed it because I'm usually chilling with the rest of the ball, and in battle I tend to be concussive shelled/fungalled
I have no problem with marines in the slightest, really good stutter step micro is actually good to watch for me. They may be rather cost efficient but you really can't nerf marines without ruining Terran.
I'd happily trade a forcefield nerf for some sort of marauder nerf though. I think people have suggested making concussive shells a proc, like 50% to work, making it so you have to directly cast it, or removing stim from marauders. I would actually like to be able to pull a unit from a battle occasionally and would happily trade the ability to forcefield spam.
Regarding fixing general deathball mechanics, it's something I'd certainly be open to but it would require a MASSIVE reworking of a lot of the mechanics. There was a good thread on merely increasing collision detection which looked promising, but again can the game be reworked that much? I'm not amazing by all means but my unit control is one of my strengths from a bit of BW and a lot of WC3, and I'm finding this ability almost completely negated in anything other than early game skirmishes
I'm going to throw this out there and likely get absolutely shit on for saying so but...
I think the biggest problem in this game is the Marine.
With multiple rax/reactors, marines can be produced en masse at an incredible rate of speed and at very low cost. I don't believe any other unit has as high a dps and utility for such a low price as the marine does. Even when faced with "hard counters" marines can still be controlled in such a way as to limit and or virtually nullify those counters (i.e. stim + run + spread, or pre-emptive spreading to avoid AoE, or unit sniping with small leading groups).
Given solid upgrades and a strong economy, I'm of the opinion that marines do way more than they should given their mineral and supply cost. They can die quickly, they can also be replaced at a rate that makes Terran seem like the new Zerg.
But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
It is, in my opinion, responsible for a lot of unnecessary changes to the game.
I think siege tanks were nerfed because of their damage in conjunction with infantry support when the infantry was as lethal as the tanks; and also to facilitate more variety (i.e. marine use) in TvT (though this wasn't deemed necessary in BW)
I think the FG change was to help with marines and medivacs primarily, and bonus to armored an added fringe benefit.
I think the heavy-hitting AoE units people currently loathe (Colossus) haven't been changed too much because of the fact that they're needed to counter units like the marine (and lings of hydras I guess you could say, but zealots do that just fine). For their cost, you can almost throw waves of marines into their counters until you either a) take it down, or b) drain it of mana making it useless.
I think the only thing stopping more people from really using this unit to it's full potential is a lack of skill in micro, shoot-n-scoot, or spreading. Outside of that, this unit is the SC2 powerhouse.
Watching GSL, NASL, etc. and I am almost disappointed at how almost any game involving Terran revolves almost solely around marines. Everything seems to support marines - even the notion that "tanks are the backbone of the Terran army" doesn't sit well with me because I'm convinced that tanks support marines.
TvT - mass marines and tanks TvZ - mass marines and tanks TvP - bio + viking
Now, I will say I may very well be totally wrong - and no, the marine isn't game breaking; but I say this as a player who started off random, switched to Terran, hit masters, and switched back to random because Terran felt ridiculously silly to play. Perhaps it was how I was playing that was ridiculous; but it worked well, and I swear up and down, no race can get as far with one unit as Terran can with marines.
I'm going to throw this out there and likely get absolutely shit on for saying so but...
I think the biggest problem in this game is the Marine.
With multiple rax/reactors, marines can be produced en masse at an incredible rate of speed and at very low cost. I don't believe any other unit has as high a dps and utility for such a low price as the marine does. Even when faced with "hard counters" marines can still be controlled in such a way as to limit and or virtually nullify those counters (i.e. stim + run + spread, or pre-emptive spreading to avoid AoE, or unit sniping with small leading groups).
Given solid upgrades and a strong economy, I'm of the opinion that marines do way more than they should given their mineral and supply cost. They can die quickly, they can also be replaced at a rate that makes Terran seem like the new Zerg.
But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
It is, in my opinion, responsible for a lot of unnecessary changes to the game.
I think siege tanks were nerfed because of their damage in conjunction with infantry support when the infantry was as lethal as the tanks; and also to facilitate more variety (i.e. marine use) in TvT (though this wasn't deemed necessary in BW)
I think the FG change was to help with marines and medivacs primarily, and bonus to armored an added fringe benefit.
I think the heavy-hitting AoE units people currently loathe (Colossus) haven't been changed too much because of the fact that they're needed to counter units like the marine (and lings of hydras I guess you could say, but zealots do that just fine). For their cost, you can almost throw waves of marines into their counters until you either a) take it down, or b) drain it of mana making it useless.
I think the only thing stopping more people from really using this unit to it's full potential is a lack of skill in micro, shoot-n-scoot, or spreading. Outside of that, this unit is the SC2 powerhouse.
Watching GSL, NASL, etc. and I am almost disappointed at how almost any game involving Terran revolves almost solely around marines. Everything seems to support marines - even the notion that "tanks are the backbone of the Terran army" doesn't sit well with me because I'm convinced that tanks support marines.
TvT - mass marines and tanks TvZ - mass marines and tanks TvP - bio + viking
Now, I will say I may very well be totally wrong - and no, the marine isn't game breaking; but I say this as a player who started off random, switched to Terran, hit masters, and switched back to random because Terran felt ridiculously silly to play. Perhaps it was how I was playing that was ridiculous; but it worked well, and I swear up and down, no race can get as far with one unit as Terran can with marines.
Too me, you just proved the marine was an interesting unit :p
If you have to end your post with "I may very well be wrong" don't expect your argument to hold any extra weight just because you admitted you dont know everything.
On June 02 2011 03:07 Eknoid4 wrote: If you have to end your post with "I may very well be wrong" don't expect your argument to hold any extra weight just because you admitted you dont know everything.
Noone knows everything, even blizzard isn't good at designing units.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
1. Corrupter This unit is just terrible, it costs 150/100 and can only attack air, they are good in large numbers but by themselves they are quite weak. They are only useful against colossus, anything else hydralisk can deal with. Since Hydras aren't like they are in BW they are quite effective in ground to air, so it seems stupid for corrupters to exist except as a very situational unit or to get broodlords. 2. Colosuss What can I say? it's a boring unit that is highly mobile and strong. It's not a great unit by itself but with others it's deadly. I love watching siege tanks and they are a similar unit to colossus yet colossus isn't bound by any weaknesses of mobility. Sure it can be attacked by air but that just means we now need specialized units just to deal with it, hence Vikings and Corrupters. At least vikings have an alternate usage in other matchups, overlord sniping in TvZ, air control in TvT; what do corrupters have? They counter air in ZvZ? They do nothing but create broodlords in TvZ? 3. Reaper I'd rather see a new bio unit that can use stim rather then the reaper. It's cost and build time has no place in a normal bio army, therefore it has no real use outside of the very early game. Yea the reaper can be a scout but good players won't let them see anything and in that case if terran really wants to see inside a protoss base he can just scan.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
Add scourge and take out Corrupter completely let the mutalisk morph into a broodlord. I like the idea of scourge more than a corrupter because you get a cheap unit from an expensive building and because of that it allows for reactive play. Let scourge counter colossus, a fast suicide unit that only targets air? I think ZvP would end up balanced. Scourge as a light unit that deals a good amount of damage across all armor types and phoenix and storm would counter them.
Change the colossus but I'm not sure how, I would say replace with reaver but they are best suited for harass where colossus works best within an army. Maybe slow down it's attack significantly but give it even more range with the thermal lance upgrade.
Remove the reaper completely, terran has scan after all. Terran needs a new bio unit that can fit well into the late game composition. Bring in the Spectre from campaign, costs 50/150. you need a ghost academy and builds from a barracks with techlab. This unit has mind blast, which costs 100 energy is an AOE and stuns a group of units for 8 seconds. Spectres can also cloak when it's researched as well as drop nukes. It's second ability is like spider mines. Spectres can place a spider mine for every 50 energy, the mine only targets one unit and deals 50 damage. You can select the mines and it will have autocast for explode on target or you can take off autocast and choose which unit you wish to attack yourself. In conjunction with cloak, I could see spectres laying mines everywhere, even behind enemy lines! Also mobius reactor is now a shared upgrade along with cloak for both ghosts and spectres.
On June 02 2011 03:07 Eknoid4 wrote: If you have to end your post with "I may very well be wrong" don't expect your argument to hold any extra weight just because you admitted you dont know everything.
Noone knows everything, even blizzard isn't good at designing units.
It's funny. They seem to be doing a pretty good job for being bad at it.
Colossus is just terrible, and has I was shocked in the beta that Blizzard went with such a dull and uninteresting unit. Stood out like a sore thumb.
Marines are cool as hell. No idea why but they are the coolest standard unit in any RTS game. Tho the way they have built the Terran around this unit kind of destroys the very interesting arsenal that Terran has.
Here are just a couple random modifications I wouldn't mind seeing:
1) Reaper re-designed. I think they should be given a Spidermine ability. I also think removing the need to have a tech lab in order to make them would be interesting, but a lot of re-balancing would be needed on their damage to not make it overpowered or something. I just think giving Terran more units that can be made from a Reactor'd Barracks would mix things up a bit more.
2) Queen movement. I think there should be a researchable upgrade to allow increased Queen speed movement off-creep at Hive or Lair tech, that way Queens can also end up being used in the Zerg army instead of being forced at home all game.
The science vessel was so freaking cool in the single player. =D
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
1. Colossus -- Not only is the a-move mentality behind this unit discouraging, but the negative synergy that it causes as soon as it's on the battlefield due to it's hard counter nature is really bad for the game. You basically NEED corruptors/vikings to deal with it and you can no longer use lings because they evaporate instantly. Ironically, only toss have really good tools to be able to deal with colussus on the ground and not the air. With colossus removed or severely changed there'd be less of a reliance on other factors which make the game boring.
2. Lots of zerg things. Would love to see Roaches start at Lair and have regen+speed by default and throw a weaker Hydra into T1. The infestor still feels "forced" with infested terran and neural parasite being gimmicky spells. Fungal+Banelings is OP now against marines, but it's sort of a necessary evil in order to balance lategame vs colussus deathball. As many people have mentioned, spells like forcefield, fungal & marauder slow -- spells that take micro away, as opposed to force it, are BAD for the game. I feel like all of these should go, of course with proper rebalancing done for the units following that.
3. Banshee -- There's a reason GtA damage, especially by Wraith's was slow in BW. Seeing someone lose half their mineral line because their detection was 10s slow is really lame. I feel like this is the sort of thing David Kim was referring to in his interview where "oh someone lost the game horribly because they missed a small scout window".
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
1. Unit(s) to help Zerg control space. Seems kind of obvious and has already been beaten to death. 2. A (more) mobile Protoss ground unit.
On June 01 2011 02:10 TheDougler wrote: Useless units: Overseer Reaper Carrier
Uninteresting units: Colossus Ultralisk ...There is no terran unit I find uninteresting
Carriers have the highest DPS in the game, and reapers are the best scout unit in the game aside from the observer. I can agree that colossus are boring.
Stop perpetuating nonsense, please.
units with higher DPS than a carrier [26.7 (+5.3)]: ultralisk vs. armored [46.4 (+8.7)] battlecruiser vs. ground [35.6 (+4.4)] thor vs. ground [46.9 (+4.7)] immortal vs. armored [34.5 (+3.5)] charged void ray against massive armored units[32.0 (+4.0)]
and it's towards the bottom of the list when you start comparing cost per supply.
I think maybe the biggest problem SC2 has is an over emphasis on unit hard counters. Having the correct counter will absolutely destroy a superior army size wise. Yes, I believe unit counters should matter. But it should tip the scale nicely in your favour in an engagement so you win, not roflstomp the opponent in a game ending way. Two max armies clashing should not come out with one side still at 200 and the other at 0. With the exception of gross army mismanagement that is.
The other thing I hate is xel'naga towers. I don't like how these towers can reveal so much of the map. Having just 2 units out on the field allowing you to see 90% of the attack paths just doesn't sit right with me. I much rather map design requiring players to have armies out on the field and fighting to maintain control and sight. There is almost no reason for them, Zerg has ols, overseers and zerglings to control, Terran has sensor towers, el'cheapo marines and free insta scans and Toss has relatively cheap obs they can put everywhere.
On June 02 2011 03:35 Gescom wrote: The science vessel was so freaking cool in the single player. =D
No, no, no. No way. I thought it was the coolest unit in the campaign (other than the totally sweet Predator vs. Lings lol), but the last thing SC2 needs is Tank/Thor medics. Imagine being a Zerg and trying to deal with those? There was irradiate, but no EMP, so even NP would be pointless.
On June 02 2011 03:35 Gescom wrote: The science vessel was so freaking cool in the single player. =D
No, no, no. No way. I thought it was the coolest unit in the campaign (other than the totally sweet Predator vs. Lings lol), but the last thing SC2 needs is Tank/Thor medics. Imagine being a Zerg and trying to deal with those? There was irradiate, but no EMP, so even NP would be pointless.
Should probably rephrase this: The unit looked and moved so cool in SP. Obviously the healing mech units would be the most terribly OP thing ever.
I think uniqueness of units is a little gone, and the peculiarity of units is very important.
Some units need moving shot to make them interesting.
Roaches would be awesome with moving shot vikings would be awesome with moving shot mutalisks would also be awesome with moving shot
I think it needs to be done like this:
the frontal area of the unit has to be aimed at the unit your targeting to do an attack while moving. You can assign the degrees the shot will go off centered so you can do this for balance
Hydra needs instant shot and instant turn speed turn speed.
and give some ground units acceleration and possibly base higher speed.
I think marauders with some acceleration, and slightly higher movement speed would be very interesting
They just need to give more ways to toy with units and give some peculiarity to units. It doesn't need to be intuitive, it needs to be interesting to look at and give advantages.
melee units need slightly large collision boxes to block.movement
scvs and probes and drones need minor acceleration
remove charge and replace it with speed.
Stalkers blink range should be slightly decreased.
Fungal should cause a slowing effect, damage, a slight slowing of firing rate. to give more interactions
Tanks should 40/50
force fields need to have health 250 (armored) health 3 armor. This will reduce the power of lings and marines against force fields(as it should) but allow harder hitting units to create holes in the defenses
Sentries should be slightly faster due to this nerf to forcefields
Stalkers should do 1 more damage
Colossus is tricky, for me, they are hard to make interesting. I think a changing of the beam architecture would be interesting. Possibly longer range is tighter cone
Hydras have speed upgrade now because they always should have
Hellions should have moving shot similar to marines and also have a slightly large model
zerglings should have a slightly higher attack speed
corruption should cause the 1 enemy unit to attack slightly slower(but not do extra damage)
corrupters should have one more range
archons should have slightly larger splash radius
ravens should cost 100/150
banshees need decreased range(like 4) and moving shot
Hellions should have spider mine upgrade(only 1 mine)
Carriers interceptors should heal
Thors need strike cannon removed, 1 less armor a faster ground attack, but lower damage
Ultras need to be slightly smaller, faster, and do maybe 4 more damage. also, cost 50 less gas
On June 02 2011 03:35 Gescom wrote: The science vessel was so freaking cool in the single player. =D
No, no, no. No way. I thought it was the coolest unit in the campaign (other than the totally sweet Predator vs. Lings lol), but the last thing SC2 needs is Tank/Thor medics. Imagine being a Zerg and trying to deal with those? There was irradiate, but no EMP, so even NP would be pointless.
Should probably rephrase this: The unit looked and moved so cool in SP. Obviously the healing mech units would be the most terribly OP thing ever.
Lol the thought makes me want to ragequit already. Now that you put it like that, though, I'd definitely be down for some Vessel action. What would replace the EMP though?
-What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. - What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
I am zerg. And so my answers will be from a zerg perspective or biased. 3 units that need reworking: There are many but I .ll give you my top 3. Hydra - Sentry - Baneling
Hydra is just too slow etc etc.
Sentry is just plain stupid. Protoss is supposed to be the strong race. Able to take a zerg army head to head with zealots leading the charge and not hiding behind force fields. I understand that you would get roflstomped without the FF. Its because your units are too weak now. You are no longer the strong race. That would be terran. WOuld never happen, moving on.
Why do i have to lose my gas everytime I kill something? What a stupid idea. Scourge was okay because you would never make 50 of them. You do with banes. Oh look i just owned your entire force, but I have nothing left. Oh, and it ruins ZvZ.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Number 1 on this list, hands down: Warp-in. You can 4 gate (which is retarded). 10 lings slipped past your front? Oh, just warp 3 zealots in at your line. You got dropped? Spawn 5-6 units to delay him while your army gets there. Its TOO strong and so if it were to stay, it should be higher up in the tree and not your first upgrade.
MULEs. I'd like to see a cooldown. There is no penalty for forgeting them.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
looks good. Would like to see some different terrain. Like snow.
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Lurkers. And remove banes. Lurkers bought the zerg valuable time so they can expand and get to hive. The closest thing to that now are infestors and they are no where close to being as effective. And they should do + dmg to light and not armored as it is now in the editor. For marines.
Planetary fortress. Its unfair that terran can drop 4 marauders and snipe off a hatch or nexus but I need my entire army to take down one of their expos. If I want to snipe a PF i need to suicide 20+ banes on it. Now I get owned by his force because I dont have banes.
Infestor. Is it their AI that is bad? Is it me that is bad? I really can't tell. All i know is that I rarely get more than 1-2 fungals from a single infestor before it decides to suicide into their army. And I have them in their own control group.
Corrupters may be boring as ass, but they're necessary to fight against Carriers (ok lol I know) and Cattlebruisers (I've actually seen this before). Without the corrupters, zerg would only have mutas for anti-air (when was the last time you saw anyone build a hydra den in ZvT?)
And what would morph into Broodlords?
Force Fields I think are a great mechanic. People make the argument that they remove micro, but it takes micro on the part of the protoss to do that and balancing the right numbers of sentries in with your gateway army. I think it also adds micro to keep the sentries preserved in battles (no one wants to rebuild sentries)
The archon still needs buffs. At this point (Atleast in PvZ) I actually laugh out loud when I see an archon. It's hilarious. At this point it's better just to let the HTs slowly regenerate their energy. They may be useless for a few minutes, but it's better than being useless forever.
Colossi fall into another case of boring but necessary like the corrupter. MMM is just to good otherwise and HTs take to long. People may argue that a Colossus deathball is unstoppable and that in high numbers (6? 8?) Any ground army will melt instantly, but we had that in BW with the seige tank. Work around it
And the paper plane Warp Prism needs a health buff. Seriously blizzard? Really? It's not even a glass cannon, it's just glass.
- Hydralisk. One of my favorite units in BW, far too slow and expensive in SC2. In TvZ I almost never see them. should be weaker, faster and cheaper.
- Overseer, remove this guy and give zerg something different with detection
- Carrier, too weak in almost every matchup. Pretty cool unit nevertheless
- Colossi, little bit too easy to micro. Maybe more damage but less attackspeed so you can micro it back and forth etc. Just an idea...
- Hellion, strange to micro, doesn't really work great in big numbers, thats why everyone does only Marines and mech isn't as powerful als Bio. I think Bio and Mech should be equally strong. Not nearly as awesome as the vultures :-(
- Thors, also impossible to micro, nearly the same problem as the hydras. I loved the Goliats in BW, the Thors are a unit for little kids... They are just like a huge and slow marine
- Raven, I hope he won't need a rework, I can think of good use if Zerg gets lurkers. Maybe HSM is too expensive... Don't know... I'd like to see spellcasters used more often by Terrans... Ghost change from 150/150 to 200/100 was definetly the right choice.
- Viking Ground. I love vikings at the ground. They look super awesome... Too bad they are superweak at the ground...
________
you might get the impression that i want sc2 to be like BW. That is not the case. e.g. the wraiths/valkyrie/dropship/medics/firebat are not nearly as their sc2 counterparts.
________
units i want to see: - vessel for sure. Such a cool unit in the campaign. healing mech might sound OP with the unitset right now, but i think it might be okay if some units get changed a bit.
- lurker
- I want to see Phoenix/DT in SC2 against Zerg. That would be superawesome...
On June 02 2011 04:25 rockon1215 wrote: Corrupters may be boring as ass, but they're necessary to fight against Carriers (ok lol I know) and Cattlebruisers (I've actually seen this before). Without the corrupters, zerg would only have mutas for anti-air (when was the last time you saw anyone build a hydra den in ZvT?)
And what would morph into Broodlords?
Force Fields I think are a great mechanic. People make the argument that they remove micro, but it takes micro on the part of the protoss to do that and balancing the right numbers of sentries in with your gateway army. I think it also adds micro to keep the sentries preserved in battles (no one wants to rebuild sentries)
The archon still needs buffs. At this point (Atleast in PvZ) I actually laugh out loud when I see an archon. It's hilarious. At this point it's better just to let the HTs slowly regenerate their energy. They may be useless for a few minutes, but it's better than being useless forever.
Colossi fall into another case of boring but necessary like the corrupter. MMM is just to good otherwise and HTs take to long. People may argue that a Colossus deathball is unstoppable and that in high numbers (6? 8?) Any ground army will melt instantly, but we had that in BW with the seige tank. Work around it
And the paper plane Warp Prism needs a health buff. Seriously blizzard? Really? It's not even a glass cannon, it's just glass.
On June 02 2011 03:07 Eknoid4 wrote: If you have to end your post with "I may very well be wrong" don't expect your argument to hold any extra weight just because you admitted you dont know everything.
Is that how your mind works?
That to say, "I might be wrong" is really just a sneaky tool to make other people think your argument has "extra weight"?
Man, see, to me, saying "I might be wrong" means: "I could be way off base with this line of thought and if you've got opinoins to the contrary, I'm willing to discuss it - and even concede that I was *gasp* wrong because hell, I sure as shit don't know everything about everything.
People seem to be shoe-horning in their balance discussions into the thread.
Forget about balance. Pretend these are the early beta days. Nobody makes enough workers, there are no timing attacks, nobody gets an expansion... like, ever.
What do you think LOOKS/FEELS cool, not what needs a balance tweak?! I see the Raven and Reaper come up time and time again, with people going: "You know, nobody really uses the Raven or the Reaper right now."
That isn't because of the basic unit concept. If Reapers were cheaper than Marines, no-one would make Marines. That wouldn't mean on it's own that Marines are bad unit design. It's purely a balance issue rather than a unit design issue.
On June 02 2011 04:25 rockon1215 wrote: Corrupters may be boring as ass, but they're necessary to fight against Carriers (ok lol I know) and Cattlebruisers (I've actually seen this before). Without the corrupters, zerg would only have mutas for anti-air (when was the last time you saw anyone build a hydra den in ZvT?)
And what would morph into Broodlords?
Force Fields I think are a great mechanic. People make the argument that they remove micro, but it takes micro on the part of the protoss to do that and balancing the right numbers of sentries in with your gateway army. I think it also adds micro to keep the sentries preserved in battles (no one wants to rebuild sentries)
The archon still needs buffs. At this point (Atleast in PvZ) I actually laugh out loud when I see an archon. It's hilarious. At this point it's better just to let the HTs slowly regenerate their energy. They may be useless for a few minutes, but it's better than being useless forever.
Colossi fall into another case of boring but necessary like the corrupter. MMM is just to good otherwise and HTs take to long. People may argue that a Colossus deathball is unstoppable and that in high numbers (6? 8?) Any ground army will melt instantly, but we had that in BW with the seige tank. Work around it
And the paper plane Warp Prism needs a health buff. Seriously blizzard? Really? It's not even a glass cannon, it's just glass.
Let me guess.... you play protoss, right?
Actually, I play zerg. I rage at the Protoss death ball as much as the next IdrA fan, but without Colossus protoss would suck. Bad. They would get absolutely ran over by hydra/roach every game; although, an Immortal/Templar + Gateway support army composition looks very promising these days, especially for the Roach/Infestor users like me. However, this takes time to get up too (more time than Colossus from what I have heard and seen). Until HTs enter the field (later than immortals) it is very weak vs. Hydras or even infestors willing to NP the immortals in addition to FG on the Gateway support
On June 02 2011 04:25 rockon1215 wrote: Corrupters may be boring as ass, but they're necessary to fight against Carriers (ok lol I know) and Cattlebruisers (I've actually seen this before). Without the corrupters, zerg would only have mutas for anti-air (when was the last time you saw anyone build a hydra den in ZvT?)
And what would morph into Broodlords?
Force Fields I think are a great mechanic. People make the argument that they remove micro, but it takes micro on the part of the protoss to do that and balancing the right numbers of sentries in with your gateway army. I think it also adds micro to keep the sentries preserved in battles (no one wants to rebuild sentries)
The archon still needs buffs. At this point (Atleast in PvZ) I actually laugh out loud when I see an archon. It's hilarious. At this point it's better just to let the HTs slowly regenerate their energy. They may be useless for a few minutes, but it's better than being useless forever.
Colossi fall into another case of boring but necessary like the corrupter. MMM is just to good otherwise and HTs take to long. People may argue that a Colossus deathball is unstoppable and that in high numbers (6? 8?) Any ground army will melt instantly, but we had that in BW with the seige tank. Work around it
And the paper plane Warp Prism needs a health buff. Seriously blizzard? Really? It's not even a glass cannon, it's just glass.
Let me guess.... you play protoss, right?
Actually, I play zerg. I rage at the Protoss death ball as much as the next IdrA fan, but without Colossus protoss would suck. Bad. They would get absolutely ran over by hydra/roach every game; although, an Immortal/Templar + Gateway support army composition looks very promising these days, especially for the Roach/Infestor users like me. However, this takes time to get up too (more time than Colossus from what I have heard and seen). Until HTs enter the field (later than immortals) it is very weak vs. Hydras or even infestors willing to NP the immortals in addition to FG on the Gateway support
Of course protoss is bad w/o collosus, and it's bad w/o FF but that does not mean that those units/abilites do not suck and need to be left untouched. They are going to release an expansion so we can hope they will remove bad desing units and give us good design units. Reaver is 10x more fun and micro intensive than collosus and I doubt you will find someone on these forums who like collosus more than a reaver, just an example.
On June 02 2011 02:26 Carmine wrote: Marauders and Roaches are not boring. The hydralisk in SC1 couldn't do anything but attack, but it still had its place.
Is anyone saying that the Roach is boring because all it can do is attack? Maybe a few people are, but it seems like most of the criticism has more to do with its overall design as a slow, high supply, high armor zerg unit at tier 1, and also that it overlaps with the Hydra so much. The Hydralisk is one of Starcraft's most iconic units, but in SC2 it plays second fiddle to a far less iconic unit that basically does the same thing except it can't attack air and is more defensive.
There's a similar kind of overlap between the Marauder and Marine. In Brood War about the most similarity you got in a race's unit pool (for ground units anyway) was between the Goliath and Marine, or maybe the Zergling and Ultralisk. You didn't have marines and then jumbo-sized marines that dealt more damage to armor but couldn't attack air.
On June 02 2011 02:26 Carmine wrote: Marauder slow is an interesting ability and it may not have a specific counter micro, but it creates tense situations.
It's not that Concussive Shells doesn't have a micro counter, it's that it literally counters micro. Because of this it prevents tense situations more than it creates them. A group of marines trying to gun down a fleeing stalker is a tense situation. Add a Marauder with CS into the group and the outcome is pre-determined. A micro battle between units fast enough to be pulled back when their HP is low is a tense situation. CS puts a stop to that.
On June 01 2011 09:02 jalstar wrote: I'd like to see macro abilities pushed to the late game to nerf one-base all-ins. Mules and Calldown Supply should require Starport, Chrono and WG should be at the Twilight Council, and Larva Inject should be researched somewhere at Lair Tech.
thats kinda lame, talk about forcing a tech path.....
Every terran gets a starport, they are essential. You need twilight council for +2/+2 and lair ofc is needed. None of these force a tech path, the only one that comes close is the terran mules and that is only if you are going mech.
On June 02 2011 03:56 r_con wrote: I think uniqueness of units is a little gone, and the peculiarity of units is very important.
Some units need moving shot to make them interesting.
Roaches would be awesome with moving shot vikings would be awesome with moving shot mutalisks would also be awesome with moving shot
I think it needs to be done like this:
the frontal area of the unit has to be aimed at the unit your targeting to do an attack while moving. You can assign the degrees the shot will go off centered so you can do this for balance
Hydra needs instant shot and instant turn speed turn speed.
and give some ground units acceleration and possibly base higher speed.
I think marauders with some acceleration, and slightly higher movement speed would be very interesting
They just need to give more ways to toy with units and give some peculiarity to units. It doesn't need to be intuitive, it needs to be interesting to look at and give advantages.
melee units need slightly large collision boxes to block.movement
scvs and probes and drones need minor acceleration
remove charge and replace it with speed.
Stalkers blink range should be slightly decreased.
Fungal should cause a slowing effect, damage, a slight slowing of firing rate. to give more interactions
Tanks should 40/50
force fields need to have health 250 (armored) health 3 armor. This will reduce the power of lings and marines against force fields(as it should) but allow harder hitting units to create holes in the defenses
Sentries should be slightly faster due to this nerf to forcefields
Stalkers should do 1 more damage
Colossus is tricky, for me, they are hard to make interesting. I think a changing of the beam architecture would be interesting. Possibly longer range is tighter cone
Hydras have speed upgrade now because they always should have
Hellions should have moving shot similar to marines and also have a slightly large model
zerglings should have a slightly higher attack speed
corruption should cause the 1 enemy unit to attack slightly slower(but not do extra damage)
corrupters should have one more range
archons should have slightly larger splash radius
ravens should cost 100/150
banshees need decreased range(like 4) and moving shot
Hellions should have spider mine upgrade(only 1 mine)
Carriers interceptors should heal
Thors need strike cannon removed, 1 less armor a faster ground attack, but lower damage
Ultras need to be slightly smaller, faster, and do maybe 4 more damage. also, cost 50 less gas
This would be great for changes. Unfortunately, gateway units will still have to be buffed now. Right now, Marines + Marauders > Roaches + Hydras > Zealots + Stalkers. It's pretty bad seeing how Protoss units cost so damn much. Right now it's just maps and forcefields that are helping make Protoss even playable (which is completely true, hence why forcefield helps so much)
Exactly, I made a conscious decision to try and not make sentries and go toe-to-toe with a zerg massing roaches earlier, was using blink stalkers and DTs to try and stop him being able to max, got an expo of my own. Actually had an army out worth a ton more than his, with better upgrades. Still got wiped.
I'm playing the wrong race for the way I like to play, I like to be a lot more proactive and constantly harassing, but it's pretty tough
I'm not a great player, I'm not awful though, I use proxy's all around the place, I use probes and obs and have a great idea of the enemies position. Second I step on creep I'll not be able to retreat unless I can actually wipe his main army, same with Terran but that's more if I'm caught off guard. Sentries are pretty much a prerequisite! I can accept that marines are an integral part of a Terran army, but forcing me to make sentries which have a hefty gas cost, and having to rely on solid forcefields early game is a pain, but a NECESSARY one
Protoss have a great ability to warp in and move TO places, but once they're there it's bloody awful to try and retreat if you do miscalculate
To everyone saying the colossus needs to be significantly changed/removed, what if Z had scourge? It provides a cheap, efficient way of dealing with colossi and would allow what is probably the most boring unit in the game(corruptors) to become a more general air-to-air unit, or a support unit.
The risk you run with changing the colossus is that you effectively need to rebalance the entire race, if not the entire game, and I can't see Blizz doing that even for an expansion.
A couple things about my topic (closed now due to similarity with this thread) that I posted earlier:
I forgot to mention that while Dustin Browder is right in that the Overseer can't really be redesigned too much (due to its no food cost), I do not think it needs to be replaced either.
What I meant is I do not think it would be bad to have two detection type units for Zerg (if a new one were to be introduced for example, I say the Overseer could stay).
Also as for my comment about Firebat, Goliath, Dragoon being "a-move units", I meant that they were just kind of regular units (units without any special or fancy abilities) which I do agree there does not "need" to be more of in terms of added units (unless one got removed that is).
Anyway as for fewer units being more simpler and possible better, it does not necessary have to be that way.
While this may lean towards "apple and oranges", DotA has over 80 heroes (for examples) but a lot of heroes may have overlapping abilities (3-4 heroes may have the a very similar ability for example) but at the same time the game still is played on a competitive level (though nowhere as near SC of course).
What I mean is that having more does have to mean more confusion for the game (well in terms of the DotA example, a new player will definitely be confused. With SC2 though, a lot of players already know the units so I do not think 2 or 3 extra units would be make things too confusion for example).
Redesign list needs to be Reaper - rarely used Collosus - boring, too strong for its easy micro. Its like having templar storm but you dont micro. Corrupter - SO BORING, made for only anti air, but ITS TERRIBLE against Voidrays, which is the direct counter to corrupters ... which makes the corrupter absolutely retarded
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Colossus (obvious one, don't really need to explain) Thor - The idea behind it is neat (powerful support unit that can be tanky) but in reality Thors are barely used and die quickly even with their 400 HP. Terran need a mech unit like the Goliath that can do well against ALL air ( not just light) while giving ground some support as well. Ultralisk - Such a cool/ game-defining unit, and it gets countered so damn hard right now. I think they need to switch it's damage to be the same against everything.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Warp-ins - I'm sorry but the ability to get units INSTANTLY and ANYWHERE you want is really silly without some kind of downside.
Inject Larva- this mechanic is very gimmicky and pretty much defines the Zerg Race. I think it allows Zerg to get too much of an economic advantage too quickly. In fact, I think it would be best if they removed all 3 new macro mechanics (Mule/Chronoboost/Larva inject) because they dilute the balance so much and are not by any means required.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
Dynamic movement (units naturally spreading out)
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Strong/mobile anti-air mech unit and maybe another turtly building for Terran. Reavers to replace Colossus.
-Get rid of helions and replace with vultures.. Get rid of ravens and replace with science vessel. Get rid of banshees and replace with wraith.Nerf marauders.
-Get rid of colossi and replace with reavers. Get rid of stalkers and replace with dragoons. Get rid of phoenix and replace with corsairs.Nerf voidrays.
-Get rid of banelings and replace with lurkers. Get rid of corruptors and replace with scourge. Get rid of infestors and replace with defilers.Nerf roaches.
Also, set a max unit selection (in ladder at least). Either 12 or 18.
On June 02 2011 09:37 ScythedBlade wrote: This would be great for changes. Unfortunately, gateway units will still have to be buffed now. Right now, Marines + Marauders > Roaches + Hydras > Zealots + Stalkers. It's pretty bad seeing how Protoss units cost so damn much. Right now it's just maps and forcefields that are helping make Protoss even playable (which is completely true, hence why forcefield helps so much)
Yeah, Protoss gate units used to be expensive but tough, now they are just expensive. :-/
It's like Blizzard totally forgot their own SC lore when designing the race.
On June 02 2011 12:26 GGTeMpLaR wrote: -Get rid of helions and replace with vultures.. Get rid of ravens and replace with science vessel. Get rid of banshees and replace with wraith.Nerf marauders.
-Get rid of colossi and replace with reavers. Get rid of stalkers and replace with dragoons. Get rid of phoenix and replace with corsairs.Nerf voidrays.
-Get rid of banelings and replace with lurkers. Get rid of corruptors and replace with scourge. Get rid of infestors and replace with defilers.Nerf roaches.
Also, set a max unit selection (in ladder at least). Either 12 or 18.
I see what you did there. But seriously, Vultures replacing hellions would be a great change. Lurkers though would probably be broken considering that Zerg is balanced around a high economy so they can't really get any super efficient units early on.
-speedlings with flame throwers -flying ranged dts -flying defilers that aren't used enough -coli, once you have enough (4+) on the ground, it is amove and win and ensure you can win the air battle that ensues.
on a serious note though, end game toss is pretty lolzy. There are games were a toss has 15-20-30 warp gates and litterally fills back his supply in a matter of seconds instantly--no build time, meaning there was no "Strategy" that went into it.
Its kinda dumb how such a powerful unit (dt/ht) can be warped in so quickly as it takes no preparation to have one of the last tiered units.
Pseduo-offtopic, it is an extension of the original idea "boring units" As for the impending expansion (HOTS) I feel some of the units I mentioned above could be removed. I'm looking forward to seeing what units will be taken out/added. If I were to guess it would be: Its a toss up for T, but it most likely between raven, hellion, and thor. I would assume raven as it isn't seeing much use in games at the momment and I have a feeling blizzard wants all units to have a "use", currently ravens are only used in TvP as far as I can tell and not that often (just in the early game when 1 pdd makes 3-5stalkers useless).
As for zerg, I have a feeling the overseer will be taken out (after david kim's remarks) and possibly overlords given back detection. I doubt any other unit will be taken away, but there could be. They will prlly just add 1 more unit to zerg than other races as zerg will still have the least amount of units.
Lastly, we arrive at toss, once again after what David kim said, most likely the immortal will be removed seeing they wanted it to serve as X and instead it used as Y. Also, warp prisms could see a change due to their lack of use, however, I feel that is due to people being narrowminded on trying new things.
On June 02 2011 11:30 Daralii wrote: To everyone saying the colossus needs to be significantly changed/removed, what if Z had scourge? It provides a cheap, efficient way of dealing with colossi and would allow what is probably the most boring unit in the game(corruptors) to become a more general air-to-air unit, or a support unit.
The risk you run with changing the colossus is that you effectively need to rebalance the entire race, if not the entire game, and I can't see Blizz doing that even for an expansion.
You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
On June 02 2011 12:51 Stratos_speAr wrote: You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
To be honest, I don't dislike the Colossus although I think it boring and try not to use it (and often lose as a result). I also like FF and think they add some cool elements to the game especially in terms of battlefield control and unit positioning. I think both of these elements should remain albeit in a reworked form with slight nerfs. IMO the main reason Gateway units are relatively weak compared to their Terran/Zerg counterparts (especially when cost/supply is taken into account) is because of the warp-in mechanic (and not Colossus/FF). This ability needs to be pushed back in the Protoss tech tree and probably nerfed in some way or gotten rid of altogether. Then you could reasonably buff Protoss gateway units to the tough and hardy units they are meant to be.
On June 02 2011 12:51 Stratos_speAr wrote: You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
To be honest, I don't dislike the Colossus although I think it boring and try not to use it (and often lose as a result). I also like FF and think they add some cool elements to the game especially in terms of battlefield control and unit positioning. I think both of these elements should remain albeit in a reworked form with slight nerfs. IMO the main reason Gateway units are relatively weak compared to their Terran/Zerg counterparts (especially when cost/supply is taken into account) is because of the warp-in mechanic (and not Colossus/FF). This ability needs to be pushed back in the Protoss tech tree and probably nerfed in some way or gotten rid of altogether. Then you could reasonably buff Protoss gateway units to the tough and hardy units they are meant to be.
Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus I think the colossus is a poorly designed unit. It's viable as a core-army unit in every matchup. It's almost required in 2/3 matchups. Strictly speaking, it either needs to lose mobility or lose damage. Or they need to can it and bring back reavers. Choosing between reaver/HT tech would actually be a tough choice.
Carriers Most useless unit in the game. Poor damage output and very weak to focus fire from vikings or corrupters. Not to mention it has a ridiculous production time and cost, and only really works well in large numbers.
Marauders Lame unit. Terran would really do fine without them if it weren't for colossus in TvP. Too similar to marines in use. Too big of an investment. Overall a poor unit.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Spells that restrict unit movement. Forcefields, Fungal, Vortex, Concussive Shells (to a lesser degree). These are bad spells in the world of Starcraft. Almost all the spells in SC:BW promoted unit movement to be used or countered effectively. The only exceptions were ensnare and maelstrom (and Stasis but since it makes the targets invulnerable, it sort of doesn't count). Spells like Dark Swarm, Irradiate, and Storm required exceptional micro to be used effectively. Maelstrom and Stasis were huge investments and very hard to use, which is what made it okay in BW.
Instead of movement-restricting spells being powerful late-game entities, terran and protoss get them at tier 1 and in the case of forcefields, is a required spell to balance the small, weak deathball early on. Fungal is closer to being balanced, as it only lasts a few seconds and comes relatively late. Ideally I'd like to see all of these spells at tier 3 or removed entirely.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I think ghosts should be easier to spot inside a bio army. Maybe make them glow bright blue or something. This would add more incentive to get cloak for them, too.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Reavers (to replace the colossus) and Lurkers. I would also like to see tanks do their full damage to all units again
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
I definitely agree and I think that this is a big problem with SC2. Blizzard has put an entire race into a clusterfuck of intertwined problems that result in a boring race to both play and watch, and fixing it would be a complete nightmare.
On June 02 2011 02:56 Mjolnir wrote: But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
Its not a problem the Marine causes. This problem is caused by perfect unit movement and tight unit movement. This increases the dps per attacking square to "insane" ... but it is basically the reason for Colossi being too good when massed and Banelings, ....
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
I definitely agree and I think that this is a big problem with SC2. Blizzard has put an entire race into a clusterfuck of intertwined problems that result in a boring race to both play and watch, and fixing it would be a complete nightmare.
Maybe Blizz realizes this and it'll be an overarching goal between now and LotV? I can hope... >_>
I'm going to throw this out there and likely get absolutely shit on for saying so but...
I think the biggest problem in this game is the Marine.
With multiple rax/reactors, marines can be produced en masse at an incredible rate of speed and at very low cost. I don't believe any other unit has as high a dps and utility for such a low price as the marine does. Even when faced with "hard counters" marines can still be controlled in such a way as to limit and or virtually nullify those counters (i.e. stim + run + spread, or pre-emptive spreading to avoid AoE, or unit sniping with small leading groups).
Given solid upgrades and a strong economy, I'm of the opinion that marines do way more than they should given their mineral and supply cost. They can die quickly, they can also be replaced at a rate that makes Terran seem like the new Zerg.
But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
It is, in my opinion, responsible for a lot of unnecessary changes to the game.
I think siege tanks were nerfed because of their damage in conjunction with infantry support when the infantry was as lethal as the tanks; and also to facilitate more variety (i.e. marine use) in TvT (though this wasn't deemed necessary in BW)
I think the FG change was to help with marines and medivacs primarily, and bonus to armored an added fringe benefit.
I think the heavy-hitting AoE units people currently loathe (Colossus) haven't been changed too much because of the fact that they're needed to counter units like the marine (and lings of hydras I guess you could say, but zealots do that just fine). For their cost, you can almost throw waves of marines into their counters until you either a) take it down, or b) drain it of mana making it useless.
I think the only thing stopping more people from really using this unit to it's full potential is a lack of skill in micro, shoot-n-scoot, or spreading. Outside of that, this unit is the SC2 powerhouse.
Watching GSL, NASL, etc. and I am almost disappointed at how almost any game involving Terran revolves almost solely around marines. Everything seems to support marines - even the notion that "tanks are the backbone of the Terran army" doesn't sit well with me because I'm convinced that tanks support marines.
TvT - mass marines and tanks TvZ - mass marines and tanks TvP - bio + viking
Now, I will say I may very well be totally wrong - and no, the marine isn't game breaking; but I say this as a player who started off random, switched to Terran, hit masters, and switched back to random because Terran felt ridiculously silly to play. Perhaps it was how I was playing that was ridiculous; but it worked well, and I swear up and down, no race can get as far with one unit as Terran can with marines.
You got it backwards bro. Most other units should be as flexible and microable as a marine, not the other way around. You should be able to do the equivalent of marine splitting micro with hydralisks to make them effective against colossus. You should be able to out micro your opponents Marauders with your zealots if you just plain out have better micro.
I dunno, don't get me wrong I think that some units should be good against other units, I just don't really like the whole hard-counter this. You getting a Colossus shouldn't mean any Zerglings/Hydras I have autolose, nor should broodlords cause Zerg to laugh in the face of any Terran without 20 vikings.
The Hydra in particular suffers from this hard counter thing, it either owns hard (gateway units, air) or gets absolutely obliterated. There is absolutely no where in between and micro aside from basic positioning/running individual ones away, hell you can't even poke in with an army of hydra's and then retreat. I bet your average Diamond zerg gets about the same use out of the hydra as a pro does.
As for Marines... well, do you remember this:
We need more units that let us showcase skill. And this is coming from someone who never played an RTS seriously before SC2.
On June 01 2011 12:19 Highways wrote: Problems with existing units:
Warp Gates Reason: Negating distance is sooo stupid. It gives no defenders advantage at all! Genreally in Protoss games there is never any back and forward action like you see in TvZ. This is because of stupid warp gates, if you can't kill the protoss ball in the first push you are dead because of instant reinforcement anywhere on the map. Solution: If a pylon is not near a nexus, then warp in is 3-4 times slower. This means warp gate is still useful for defence but not OP when attacking. Give warp prisms normal warp in time and this unit will actually become useful.
Collosus Reason: Too strong and easy to use. Basically means when a Protoss pushes, it is kill the whole ball or lose. It also forces you too make a hard counter AA unit. Very boring unit. Solution: Not sure.
Marauder Reason: This is such an anti micro unit, once concussive shells hit you escape is impossible. It doesn't make sense that a unit that requires no micro can unleash such a powerful spell. Solution: Make concussive shells an active ability.
Roach Reason: When I think of ZvP all I can see in mass roach and attack move. Where is the skill in that? Very boring and easy to use unit. Solution: Not sure.
Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
Warp Gates Reason: Negating distance is sooo stupid. It gives no defenders advantage at all! Genreally in Protoss games there is never any back and forward action like you see in TvZ. This is because of stupid warp gates, if you can't kill the protoss ball in the first push you are dead because of instant reinforcement anywhere on the map. Solution: If a pylon is not near a nexus, then warp in is 3-4 times slower. This means warp gate is still useful for defence but not OP when attacking. Give warp prisms normal warp in time and this unit will actually become useful.
I would change that to making the initial wg upgrade make it so that you can warp in anywhere inside of a ring (like the terran sensor tower, but only visible to the player controlling it) and then an upgrade that would allow you to warp in at a pylon anywhere (late tech upgrade, maybe on the cyber core that unlocks when you get a dark shrine, or robo bay, or templar archives or fleat beacon). Then buff zealots and stalkers to compensate.
As a side note, if you buff zealots, you should buff lings to compensate.
Collosus Reason: Too strong and easy to use. Basically means when a Protoss pushes, it is kill the whole ball or lose. It also forces you too make a hard counter AA unit. Very boring unit. Solution: Not sure.
the sad thing about the collosi is that at least 9/10 people have it on their list of 3 units to change or remove. It will be funny when they are unchanged in HotS...
Marauder Reason: This is such an anti micro unit, once concussive shells hit you escape is impossible. It doesn't make sense that a unit that requires no micro can unleash such a powerful spell. Solution: Make concussive shells an active ability.
I would like to see how you would implement this. Would it be a timed ability? would it be a 25 energy ability and they would start at 50 energy? How much would the attack do? What would you do about tricks where ppl could do a normal shot and then a concussive shot to deal double damage... being a spell would a player be able to just pump out 4 conc shots plus 2 reg shots to deal like 150 damage to armored units? It would be funny to see a marauder rape a stalker even worse with this.
Roach Reason: When I think of ZvP all I can see in mass roach and attack move. Where is the skill in that? Very boring and easy to use unit. Solution: Not sure.
The solution is to either get rid of this unit or put it at tier 2 (with a diff specialty) and put hydra back at tier 1. I would advocate to start testing at 1f, 7dmg, 2.5 move speed, .86 atk speed, a range upgrade (like it has) and a speed upgrade (like it had). this would also make it ez to implement the lurker.
Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
While I am all for making micro important, the tank messes with your entire plan. this unit already eats a shit sandwhich vs tank marine, the only saving grace is that it absolutely annihilates marines. I would get rid of the baneling. Yeah, I play zerg and I hate this unit. It is expensive (50min/25 gas each), fragile and so powerful that they are on the verge of being op. taking out 30 marines in 1 shot should be nothing less than a micro miracle. Someone else said it perfectly, "nail some wings to the baneling (gently), rename it scourge and tell it to get rid of the corrupter."
On June 02 2011 14:52 iCanada wrote: Most other units should be as flexible and microable as a marine, not the other way around.
Well said. For me the embodiment of this concept would be the vulture (with spider mines). It was both defensive and offensive, and capable of extreme efficiency in the hands of a skilled player but a powder keg in the hands of novice. And unlike forcefield the micro wasn't one-sided. (Youtube "Bisu's crazy micro against spider mines" if you haven't.)
It takes a lot of the tactical use away from Battlecurisers, Carriers, Colossus, Broodlords, Voidrays, Phoenix, Medivacs and other Viking
Air units are too mobile as they effectively move in free space--9 Range air-to-air shouldn't exist on fairly accessibly units. It should be like in Broodwar and how the Goliath had long range anti air, but due to it being a ground unit it fell victim to terrain so it didn't completely cripple air units
As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
Well imo most boring are marauder and roach which are made to counter themselves and stalkers. There was no need for these kinda units. Hard to say for the 3rd place there are so many dull units. Maybe its colossus since its so much talked about.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Collosus - Scrap it. When every match-up relies on the same unit there's instantly a big problem with it. Overseer - Redesign it with another spell or an energy upgrade so it can Contaminate right away. It shouldn't be scrapped though because of balance. Ultralisk - Cut the Ultra size down, like they did with Thor's, so it's not 10 buckets of retardation when trying to move 2 of the fucking things.
I could go on, but I won't.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. EMP Forcefield Unit movement (balls instead of armies is a no-no)
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Meh. Don't care.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Zerg needs a moderately timed siege unit to hold out, so Lurkers would be nice. Terran could do with either Vulture or Goliath. Goliath fits in better though because of the Hellion. A bit more mobile style of mech would come back. Protoss could do with something better suited to harass instead of balling up to 200/200 then 1A to victory. DT kind of fits, but only barely. Stalker too I guess, but a bit faster to get and assault with. It can be built on Gateway, builds faster than a Zealot, is faster, but nowhere near as strong. Kind of an assault or defensive posture on which one you get first.
- Units that need rework/redesign 1. Mothership - comes up as a very cool unit at first, but its current spells are too similar to the Brood War arbiter that make it a not very interesting unit. The problem might lies to the fact that it is currently a hero unit. - New unit or remove hero status.
- Spells that need rework/redesign 1. Marauder's Concussive Shells - got no problem with the concept of the spell, but it nelgate micro; punishes opposing player too much that make the matchup uninteresting. - Minor tweaks to the spell, maybe make it an active ability (with cooldown).
- Mechanics that need rework/redeisgn 1. Mule - not a really interesting marco mechanic, very little thinking involved when compare to the other races marco mechanic (although might say that Terran has to choose between Scan and Mule, but I find it Mule itself uninteresting). - Minor tweaks.
- New units/buildings/abilities 1. a Zerg ground to air unit - Zerg has only two ground to air units in the game which one of them (Queen) is a totally immobile off creep.
2. a Zerg spell that neutralize opponent's energy (similar to Feedback and Emp).
On June 02 2011 13:25 Meta wrote: Here are a few of my thoughts: - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus I think the colossus is a poorly designed unit. It's viable as a core-army unit in every matchup. It's almost required in 2/3 matchups. Strictly speaking, it either needs to lose mobility or lose damage. Or they need to can it and bring back reavers. Choosing between reaver/HT tech would actually be a tough choice.
This would be a nice change and we also would see more Warp Prism
Still also think that maybe Blizz should scrap Warp Gates tech > better PvP, HT could get back their Amulet (no instant Stroms because you build like in BW).
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A small buff to damage/health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A buff to damage, health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
I don't know how can you buff a stalker. Late game mass upgraded blink stalkers owns zerg. If they get buff then they need to nerf blink or it will become ridiculously OP.
Does it? I'm not sure I agree. Wouldn't Hydras destroy them? Or mass upgraded Roaches match them well? Although, to be frank, I'd be happy with just upgrades that scale well (at least +1/+1).
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A buff to damage, health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
I don't know how can you buff a stalker. Late game mass upgraded blink stalkers owns zerg. If they get buff then they need to nerf blink or it will become ridiculously OP.
Late game blink stalkers destroy zerg when zerg devotes too many resources to taking out collosus. Therefore by nerfing collosus you can buff the stalker.
On June 02 2011 18:03 aZealot wrote: Does it? I'm not sure I agree. Wouldn't Hydras destroy them? Or mass upgraded Roaches match them well? Although, to be frank, I'd be just happy with upgrades that scale well (at least +1/+1).
I've seen countless of times how blink stalkers wins vs. more supply of roach/hydra. Not to mention most of toss players are bad at using blink micro. If someone is really good at that he will just own any zerg composition (excluding maybe some kind of infestor play).
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A buff to damage, health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
I don't know how can you buff a stalker. Late game mass upgraded blink stalkers owns zerg. If they get buff then they need to nerf blink or it will become ridiculously OP.
Late game blink stalkers destroy zerg when zerg devotes too many resources to taking out collosus. Therefore by nerfing collosus you can buff the stalker.
Just pure blink stalkers, no collosus. Just watch a game of IdrA vs. Cruncher, where idra has literally 60 more supply and then adds hydras and looses to pure blink stalkers. + Show Spoiler +
Figure this is as good as any thread to say it in.
Does anyone else think that burrowed banelings are the replacement for lurkers?
Like lurkers they force detection and help the zerg to control space. Obviously there are massive differences between the two units, but I think this is just a great example of intelligent use of the mechanics that are already in the game, rather than just QQing and wishing for lurkers.
This isn't BW. Go play BW if you want to, no one is stopping you, hell go play SC2BW.
Also on the colo and FF qq, I can totally understand it. I play toss, and I never use colo. It hurts my game, but tbh I find them too fragile, and perhaps a tad boring.
FF are great tho. People don't realise that you can bait the toss into wasting FF, yes this is hard and if you do it poorly, half your army is gone, but this is why this game takes skill.
Thing is that both FF and colo are interesting mechanics. FF it's obvious why, they take skill to use well. Colo I think the battle between air units and colo is very interesting, especially regarding positioning.
Finally regarding both FF and colo, fact is that toss needs both to survive. People need to realise that removing them will require massive buffs elsewhere. One of the common ones is 'buff gateway units'. Can someone explain to me how buffed stalkers, zealots and sentires would make the game more interesting?
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A small buff to damage/health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
I think this is the solution to the warp gate, there has to be a reason to choose gateways over warpgates, either by making gateways produce units cheaper or quicker (or put another way, warpgates more expensive and slower).
Burrowed banelings 100% relies only on your opponent not having detection, while lurkers did damage even if opponent had detection. Lurkers were good defensive unit and in SC2 zerg does not have a unit which gives defenders advantage.
On June 02 2011 03:07 Eknoid4 wrote: If you have to end your post with "I may very well be wrong" don't expect your argument to hold any extra weight just because you admitted you dont know everything.
Is that how your mind works?
That to say, "I might be wrong" is really just a sneaky tool to make other people think your argument has "extra weight"?
Man, see, to me, saying "I might be wrong" means: "I could be way off base with this line of thought and if you've got opinoins to the contrary, I'm willing to discuss it - and even concede that I was *gasp* wrong because hell, I sure as shit don't know everything about everything.
No, making several pages of an argument (that no one asked you to make and is often a complete nonsequitur) and then saying "i might be wrong" is saying "I have no idea what i'm talking about, but i like to think that I do, so here is my opinion that could easily be a waste of your time"
They need to really emphasize the distinction between the three races.
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game? + Show Spoiler +
Overseer, Colossus, Corruptor. And roaches/hydras should be in there somewhere... Overseers are just useless and a waste of a unit, obviously. Either replace it or give the overseer real spells.
Colossus, though mostly due to the game's unit clumping mechanics. A range 9 aoe splash machine is just too good. Cliff walking is a gimmick that needs to go.
Corruptors need a use outside of killing Colossi. You'd never build them for Corruption, and if you want to stop drops, mutas are better.
I understand Blizzard wanting each race to have a unique air-to-air option, but they're currently all too gimmicky or useless. Broodwar had a unique, interweaving web which gave all three AtA units a use (corsairs kill overlords + drops, valks kill scourges to allow bcs to be used, etc).
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
Unit clumping, which makes splash so effective (and is the reason for the Colossus issue). Ability to select infinity units at once leads to far more 1-a battles and far less small harass/specialised groups. I'm not sure how to fix the latter though, because the 12 units thing in BW really was frustrating as hell.
I think terrain and strategy also needs to play more of a role, as much as it did in Broodwar. Tanks/Reavers/Lurkers were units that just utterly shut down spaces, but were massively immobile, so it became a question of trying to outmaneuver your opponent. And each race had options to both control and bypass terrain.
Just new and cool stuff. Nicer lighting, nerd-chill spell animations, etc. Like everyone, I'm excited for new content, I just hope they remember to make it look good :D
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
MORE SPELLCASTERS, MORE INTERESTING UTILITY SPELLS. Stuff that lends itself far more to micro than 1-a ing; this will make SC2 far more interesting both to play and to watch.
Remember Broodwar? Each spell had so many uses and niche intricacies. Irradiate against stacked mutalisks, maelstrom+storm against zerg, queens broodlings against tank lines, ensnare to buy time against timing pushes, dark swarm + lurker slow pushing, plague against lategame BCs/carriers, etc.
Spells should synergise WITH units, not just be gimmicks. Fungal is now the same thing as storm, forcefield is just "split army in half + win", infested terrans are just like "spit at mineral line + run", neural parasite can only be used against like 3 units effectively, etc. Oh, and overseers are just fucking useless and queens are a necessary mechanic (effectively meaning that Protoss and Terran have about 3-4 spellcasters each and zerg has 1).
I want to see each race having a tier-3 spellcaster, as well as more unit options to steer the game more towards a space control type of game (yes, that means lurkers!).
Number one ability/mechanics I'd like to see changed is the mule: it's a terribly boring yet extremely effective macro-tool which allows terran to keep up with zerg/toss without having to put much effort into it.
Good terrans should have a tool that allows them to use multi-task, bad terrans shouldn't be able to get back into games just by spamming 6 mules on gold minerals.
Number one unit to be reworked: mothership; it feels like someone desperately tried to implement a "hero"-unit similar to wc3; well, guess what, it doesn't work...at....all; if the mothership stays the way it is right now, I'll be really disappointed
I don't think Blizzard anticipated just how much the unit AI would affect gameplay. Fights are over so quickly that units don't have time to fill their roles, it's just a case of blob v blob and the winner will be known 3 seconds later.
On June 02 2011 18:23 PeggyHill wrote: Finally regarding both FF and colo, fact is that toss needs both to survive. People need to realise that removing them will require massive buffs elsewhere. One of the common ones is 'buff gateway units'. Can someone explain to me how buffed stalkers, zealots and sentires would make the game more interesting?
As a zerg player who used to play toss, I agree that you can't take FF away. Toss needs them to survive early game vs. both terran and zerg aggressive openings. To buff zealots or stalkers to an extent that would allow toss to live through that stage would make those units game-breakingly OP late game. But the needed buff could also come in form of some new unit or ability.
As for colo, if they were taken out, tosses would always use high templar late game which would also be boring. Again, some new replacement would have to come in.
I would like to see, as does the caster crota, a tension between gateways and warpgates. The tension lies in the build time where the gateways produce units faster than warpgates but where the warpgates can use their warp gate technology. If this is implemented the defenders advantage is restored in the early game and creates interesting choices in the late game (Mobility vs more army).
Zerg needs a cliff walking unit preferably in T1,5 and should be morphed from the roach (perhaps a changeling with attacking power). This would help against terran all ins as roaches dominate marines.
Collusus should be removed and subsequently the Corruptor and Viking. After that new units can be created and changed. If the Collusus is removed the gateway army needs a buff through better stats. If the Collusus remains in HOTS plz make it so that it can't walk over gateway units (different collision mechanics).
Terran needs a better raven especially the heat seeking missile and the infestor's fungle growth should result in temporarily slowed units (50% slow) not static units.
On June 02 2011 16:21 CrumpetGuvnor wrote: As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
That's an interesting idea. I also think that, apart from pushing WG tech to Twilight Council, making warped units more expensive (say Zealots cost 125 minerals and Stalkers cost 150/75; something along those lines) is another possibility. That would have a number of interesting repercussions. And yeah, it's the Stalker that needs a strong buff with the Zealot needing a weak buff. The Stalker is such a core unit for almost all Protoss compositions but it fares relatively poorly as the game goes on. A small buff to damage/health, and especially upgrades would be handy.
This would be a great change, it has a great synergy with my original idea of changing the Warp Prism
On June 01 2011 21:55 ClueLessx3 wrote: Since I am a protoss player most of these suggestions are going to be directed towards tweaking protoss, for I have little understanding for other races and the difficulties they are facing at this state of the game. Sorry if it is kind of biased.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? 1. Warp Prism - This unit is one of the 2 most underplayed unit in the protoss arsenal in my opinion. Pylon power mechanic is what defines a warp prism essentially, because when it goes into prism mode its basically becomes a pylon. So in order to increase the effective usage of warp prism, I thought that the pylon needs some tweaking. This is any unit standing/hovering under pylon power will receive increased plasma shield regeneration and cool down time, to say, starts recharging in around 5-7 seconds (opposed to 10) and 3 shield/sec (opposed to 2/sec). - Why would this be good? because after transforming into a prism it is stationary. This means if a protoss player is going for a drop it wouldn't be a constant heal, like a medivac. It would mean that if they want full efficiency they would need to stand under the circle (which should be smaller if this mechanism is implemented)
So the added benifit of the expanding pylon power would be shield regen and cool down
Slightly weaker, FASTER colossus is the answer. It will make them less powerful in lategame numbers. It will allow for the protoss army to be split up more. It will allow some interesting colossus/blink stalker harass. It will make them better at dealing with incoming harass. Did I mention lategame balls will be weakened by it!!
Give call down supplies the ability to be dropped anywhere with vision, no need to be on an existing depot. Prolly have to nerf the supply a little, maybe +5 suppy or even nerf the hp of the call down to 150 hp or so.
make spells like ff, fungal, conc shells counterable through micro
zerg need some way to control/block space like like lurker or dark swarm slow down fights (less damage), increase microability (however not that extreme as bw, where you could make a unit n-times as strong by microing hard, it should stay strategy > micro)
Just speaking for zerg now there really isn't one interesting unit. I mean yea, mutas are great, roaches can burrow and stuff and blings explode, but I miss the really cool units that could turn the tide of a battle like defilers and lurkers. Also, scourges are way cooler (and better for scouting) than corruptors are.
I think mineral mining pathing should be switched to bw style. Maybe even rework the whole AI, it kinda sucks.
Most of their units move at the same speed, which encourages the thoughtless 1A deathball mentality.
Because forcefields can split an army in half, the protoss' opponent must spend APM trying to flank and navigate the layout of terrain. The protoss player never even has to think about flanking because they're invariably in a single ball.
The presence of colossi forces the other two races to guess how many vikings/corruptors to make--both of which are otherwise nearly useless units (especially in the case of the corruptor, which can't even land). Meanwhile, the protoss player doesn't have any similar choices to make. If high templar run out of energy they can be merged into archons in a 3rd of the time it takes to morph a broodlord and without the additional cost or extra tech path.
On June 02 2011 23:09 jdsowa wrote: Protoss as a race needs to be addressed.
Most of their units move at the same speed, which encourages the thoughtless 1A deathball mentality.
Because forcefields can split an army in half, the protoss' opponent must spend APM trying to flank and navigate the layout of terrain. The protoss player never even has to think about flanking because they're invariably in a single ball.
The presence of colossi forces the other two races to guess how many vikings/corruptors to make--both of which are otherwise nearly useless units (especially in the case of the corruptor, which can't even land). Meanwhile, the protoss player doesn't have any similar choices to make. If high templar run out of energy they can be merged into archons in a 3rd of the time it takes to morph a broodlord and without the additional cost or extra tech path.
I'm guessing you don't play Protoss. My money's on Zerg.
Of course, decision making is always so much easier for the race you don't play.
I'm with you on the changing movement speed of some units, but that isn't a great contribution to the deathball. In fact, Colossi move at the same move speed as Hydralisks, but Hydralisks are considered a lot worse, so this isn't a move speed problem. The rest of your post is just bitterness.
I'd be happy if they changed the intensity of colour distinctions on units. As it stands, I can't distinguish allied from enemy colours in certain colour match ups (ever play PvP as yellow vs orange?????).
On June 02 2011 22:24 Carmine wrote: Slightly weaker, FASTER colossus is the answer. It will make them less powerful in lategame numbers. It will allow for the protoss army to be split up more. It will allow some interesting colossus/blink stalker harass. It will make them better at dealing with incoming harass. Did I mention lategame balls will be weakened by it!!
In that case the siege tank no longer needs to be in siege mode to shoot at 13 range with splash.
Colossus is already too mobile for the type of unit it is.
Top 3 most uninteresting units in my opinion are: 1. Collossus 2. Reaper 3. Overseer Basically the cliff walking ability should be removed from the game in my opinion. The positional advantage is less relevant than in BW. Walking a cliff requires no micro and forces the opponent to play regardless of the map geography. Taking position in a crucial spot is not rewarding as units could just cliff walk without having drop technology. The collossus makes boring game and doesn't reward micro.. I would prefere to see the reaver as a replacement.
Remove: 1) Marauder slow (well, not necessary remove but put it higher on techtree at least) 2) fungal (i play zerg and this spell is a bit too awesome imo) fungal should not do damages but should block units longer. I think the defiler should be added for PAAAAAGUUUU and darkswarm 3) corruptor ability (+20% damage on a single target doesn't feel being starcraft at all...)
Terran: - the thor should have an aa spell upgrade that counters magic box (spell radius) but is micro intensive. Strike cannon should be removed.
Protoss: - The collosus splash damage should be chanced. For example from linear to circular or by making the animation much slower so that it can be evaded with very good micro. The movement speed could be decreased when it moves over cliffs.
Zerg: - Add the swarm tech from BW. - non zerg bio units take damage on creep
In general just add more ways to do micro throughout game that favors the experienced player.
Corruptor: Really +%dmg on a single target as spell.. this must be straight up the most 1 dimensional unit in the game. Closely followed however by: Viking: The concept has some potential but seriously, making the transition between air & ground so slow limits the use to "oh i might as well land cus i cant shoot anything with them anyways" Colossus: A siege unit that doesn't take time to set up, and the main reason the other 2 boring units are seen a lot. Thor: Strike cannon is just silly, it's really good but making a unit that has to wait for 100 extra energy before using it's ability means you might as well just remove it.
The Roach is really boring and just doesn't even feel like a Zerg unit to me. The colossus replaced the Reaver. So basically Blizzard said lets replace this awesome unit with incredible drop capabilities and replace it with an A move unit. Hooray!!
I love the ui and graphics changes in SC2 but some of the unit changes are just downright stupid. Should have just kept the majority of Broodwar units. Zerg needs Lurkers and Dark Swarm back. Maybe then they'd actually be fun to play again.
The existence of this thread is ironic. I'd like to add something that almost brought tears of sadness in my eyes. Dustin Browder's thoughts on the Defiler -The most important tech Zerg unit and one the most impressive units to see being microed (consume, swarm repeat without shift-que commands ^_^_^) in BW.
"We might see the defiler as a COOL unit in the single player campaign"
This quote almost made me sick - degrading the Zerg king into a "we might see COOL campaign unit". This clueless man has one goal: to create COOL and fun units. Reaper-Thor-Colossus-Banshee-Voidray-Baneling-stimmed Marauder where all born in the name of "coolness". Look at the results. If you are happy with the current state of SC2 then Dustin Browder and his team have succeeded in their mission to create a great e-sport.
Personally I think they have failed and they don't even know it.
my 2cents: Replace thors banshees and vikings with goliaths wraiths and valkyries. Improve raven somehow(maybe replace hsm with irradiate)
Replace corruptor with scourge and bring back devourer morph for mutalisk, possibly replace broodlords with guardians. Remove hydralisks and add a better lair unit(possibly give roach a unique AAA). Change overseer to not be a morph from overlord, instead its produced from larvae, is not a detector but rather a better support caster. Overlords get detection back.
Replace colossus with reaver. Add unit with cliffwalk that is closer to reaper in tech, cost and utility but with a protoss twist. Replace mothership with arbitersss
On June 02 2011 22:53 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: make spells like ff, fungal, conc shells counterable through micro
I have been thinking the same thing. Every major micro oriented ability/spell should be able to be countered with micro somehow. If you're fungal growthed you're stuck. If you're forcefielded in it's almost impossible not to take major losses.
On June 03 2011 01:15 DARKHYDRA wrote: my 2cents: Replace thors banshees and vikings with goliaths wraiths and valkyries. Improve raven somehow(maybe replace hsm with irradiate)
Replace corruptor with scourge and bring back devourer morph for mutalisk, possibly replace broodlords with guardians. Remove hydralisks and add a better lair unit(possibly give roach a unique AAA). Change overseer to not be a morph from overlord, instead its produced from larvae, is not a detector but rather a better support caster. Overlords get detection back.
Replace colossus with reaver. Add unit with cliffwalk that is closer to reaper in tech, cost and utility but with a protoss twist. Replace mothership with arbitersss
On June 03 2011 00:10 Eknoid4 wrote: where is all this "micro is the only way to add depth to this game" pandering coming from?
The system of starcraft naturally leads to complex economy management and timings. We as players are fine with complex timing and strict economy management.
This all leads to battles obviously, and the problem is a couple of things.
we are forced into a ball so that we don't get rolled over by their ball.
Many units are limited to focus firing in micro because of how their shot mechanic and movement work
Many spells and abilities are 1 sided affairs that leave the outcome of the battle in one players hands.
Many units do not benefit that much from micro, or the micro is uninteresting.
On June 03 2011 00:10 Eknoid4 wrote: where is all this "micro is the only way to add depth to this game" pandering coming from?
The system of starcraft naturally leads to complex economy management and timings. We as players are fine with complex timing and strict economy management.
This all leads to battles obviously, and the problem is a couple of things.
we are forced into a ball so that we don't get rolled over by their ball.
Many units are limited to focus firing in micro because of how their shot mechanic and movement work
Many spells and abilities are 1 sided affairs that leave the outcome of the battle in one players hands.
Many units do not benefit that much from micro, or the micro is uninteresting.
It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
On June 03 2011 00:10 Eknoid4 wrote: where is all this "micro is the only way to add depth to this game" pandering coming from?
Simple. Marine split, blink micro, neural parasite, dark swarm etc. are what makes the game exciting and where the experienced players show some of their skills (apart from macro, tactics, build orders etc.). a-move battles are just boring and sc2 has a too much of that.
On June 03 2011 00:10 Eknoid4 wrote: where is all this "micro is the only way to add depth to this game" pandering coming from?
The system of starcraft naturally leads to complex economy management and timings. We as players are fine with complex timing and strict economy management.
This all leads to battles obviously, and the problem is a couple of things.
we are forced into a ball so that we don't get rolled over by their ball.
Many units are limited to focus firing in micro because of how their shot mechanic and movement work
Many spells and abilities are 1 sided affairs that leave the outcome of the battle in one players hands.
Many units do not benefit that much from micro, or the micro is uninteresting.
It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
LOL r_con clearly knows much more about this game than you do. I would play the game a bit, watch a bit, and then come back and say that micro doesn't add depth to the game. SC isn't chess.
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
On June 03 2011 00:10 Eknoid4 wrote: where is all this "micro is the only way to add depth to this game" pandering coming from?
Simple. Marine split, blink micro, neural parasite, dark swarm etc. are what makes the game exciting and where the experienced players show some of their skills (apart from macro, tactics, build orders etc.). a-move battles are just boring and sc2 has a too much of that.
Those are what make games the most exciting for players who dont know anything about strategy and can't see the depth of the game and decision-making that happens. Nada is the perfect example of this. Not even tasteless or artosis notice the genius of a lot of his builds, and every TL Average Joe thinks they're the gods of in-depth knowledge.
Watching somebody get mindfucked will always be infinitely more entertaining and skillful and fascinating than watching someone lose to marine micro. People just like marine micro because it's immediate and obvious
On June 03 2011 01:44 Eknoid4 wrote: It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
Vague, needlessly inflammatory little jabs like this aren't very effective at getting a point across. What is the concept of strategy to you, and why is it inconsistent with a high level of return on micro? Can't we have both?
Edit:
On June 03 2011 02:09 Eknoid4 wrote: Watching somebody get mindfucked will always be infinitely more entertaining and skillful and fascinating than watching someone lose to marine micro. People just like marine micro because it's immediate and obvious
Like I said, why can't we have both? And some of Brood War's biggest APM sink units were also its most strategically versatile, like the Vulture.
On June 03 2011 01:44 Eknoid4 wrote: It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
Vague, needlessly inflammatory little jabs like this aren't very effective at getting a point across. What is the concept of strategy to you, and why is it inconsistent with a high level of return on micro? Can't we have both?
On June 03 2011 02:09 Eknoid4 wrote: Watching somebody get mindfucked will always be infinitely more entertaining and skillful and fascinating than watching someone lose to marine micro. People just like marine micro because it's immediate and obvious
Like I said, why can't we have both? And some of Brood War's biggest APM sink units were also its most strategically versatile, like the Vulture.
I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
mmm i like the raven but sadly the seeker missile is a bit to short ranged for me as every anti air unit can fire back except phoenix and muta, making the seeker missile a easy to evade suicide skill. (or neural, fungal and feedback easily stop the raven from using this skill :/ ). Well there are a few ways to use it but they are rare especially since blizzards forced spell casters on zerg and protoss side a bit harder. And ravens are still a superb addition for ground control.
And from what i saw, zerg is evil if they attack from multiple sides, and toss needs their stuck togetherness ot be strong. And terran can attack at multiple places or fortify their postion. It sounds terrible exactly like bw xD. Though micro is a bit harder as they increased the game speed. So i don't really understand those omg we need da ball stuff. Or spells that are one sided. Not even fungal is one sided or force fields (if you think it is there is no need to explain it to you).
On June 03 2011 01:15 DARKHYDRA wrote: my 2cents: Replace thors banshees and vikings with goliaths wraiths and valkyries. Improve raven somehow(maybe replace hsm with irradiate)
Replace corruptor with scourge and bring back devourer morph for mutalisk, possibly replace broodlords with guardians. Remove hydralisks and add a better lair unit(possibly give roach a unique AAA). Change overseer to not be a morph from overlord, instead its produced from larvae, is not a detector but rather a better support caster. Overlords get detection back.
Replace colossus with reaver. Add unit with cliffwalk that is closer to reaper in tech, cost and utility but with a protoss twist. Replace mothership with arbitersss
That's what I would like to see.
Just go play sc:bw...
Not asking for broodwar just want the best of both.
On June 03 2011 02:18 thenextnight wrote: I think the queen needs to be looked at.
Forget to drop a mule? No probs! drop 2!
Forget to chronoboost? Of course not! I was saving it up!
Forget to inject larvae? LOLOL too bad that's 4 larvae you can't ever have back.
Have fun doing this mindless repetitive task over and over all game. glhf
Is this a joke? Trust me, it goes more like this.
Forget to drop a mule? fuck there goes my timing push,
Forget to chronoboost? lol who cares I have colossus.
Forget to inject? oh look, transfuse and creep tumors. those spells are useless right? My bronze league buddy told me so.
Honestly anyone who complains about larvae inject being boring or repetitive needs to sit back and realize it is easily the strongest macro mechanic in the game.
On June 03 2011 02:18 thenextnight wrote: I think the queen needs to be looked at.
Forget to drop a mule? No probs! drop 2!
Forget to chronoboost? Of course not! I was saving it up!
Forget to inject larvae? LOLOL too bad that's 4 larvae you can't ever have back.
Have fun doing this mindless repetitive task over and over all game. glhf
Is this a joke? Trust me, it goes more like this.
Forget to drop a mule? fuck there goes my timing push,
Forget to chronoboost? lol who cares I have colossus.
Forget to inject? oh look, transfuse and creep tumors. those spells are useless right? My bronze league buddy told me so.
Honestly anyone who complains about larvae inject being boring or repetitive needs to sit back and realize it is easily the strongest macro mechanic in the game.
Umm, about terran, unless you missed a mule in early game (which is hard to do), then sure, you deserve to miss that timing push. How would you even forget to drop the mule in that stage of the game? Larva injection is much more than just gaining energy for other uses, each larva is your "rax/starport etc". Each missing larva is like not building from the buildings. "Oh look, I just trade army but it's ok, zerg can remass the quickest. oh shit, forgot to inject, now I can only make 18 roaches instead of 30 roaches"
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus Reaper Warp prism(not sure though)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Forcefield - Remove this ability for the love of god. I mean I get impressed with good ffs like any other guy and I'm not going the route that they are to easy to do or anything, but they are still just dull and limit the game. Obviously toss needs a huge buff to compensate. Hunter seeker missile - HSM is awesome, there's no doubt about it. They are however only awesome if they can connect, if the raven gets in range, if you can survive while getting ravens+HSM aswell as waiting for the energy. It just doesn't really work, so change it to make it usable. Strike cannon - Ugh don't know what to say, the nerf was way to big. In general though, I just find the ability rather boring, so removing it or changing it would be nice too.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Don't know really...
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Zerg gets more units, such as roach to 1 supply but worse in return. Obviously larvae and stuff need looking at. With the ghost buff tank play TvP isn't explored that much, but in general TvP in BW is pretty epic, wish the same thing could be said about TvP in WoL...
Have you ever seen a gateway army fight the other 2 races without any forcefields ? Try it and come back and try say that again.
On June 03 2011 02:18 thenextnight wrote: I think the queen needs to be looked at.
Forget to drop a mule? No probs! drop 2!
Forget to chronoboost? Of course not! I was saving it up!
Forget to inject larvae? LOLOL too bad that's 4 larvae you can't ever have back.
Have fun doing this mindless repetitive task over and over all game. glhf
Is this a joke? Trust me, it goes more like this.
Forget to drop a mule? fuck there goes my timing push,
Forget to chronoboost? lol who cares I have colossus.
Forget to inject? oh look, transfuse and creep tumors. those spells are useless right? My bronze league buddy told me so.
Honestly anyone who complains about larvae inject being boring or repetitive needs to sit back and realize it is easily the strongest macro mechanic in the game.
On June 03 2011 01:44 Eknoid4 wrote: It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
Vague, needlessly inflammatory little jabs like this aren't very effective at getting a point across. What is the concept of strategy to you, and why is it inconsistent with a high level of return on micro? Can't we have both?
On June 03 2011 02:09 Eknoid4 wrote: Watching somebody get mindfucked will always be infinitely more entertaining and skillful and fascinating than watching someone lose to marine micro. People just like marine micro because it's immediate and obvious
Like I said, why can't we have both? And some of Brood War's biggest APM sink units were also its most strategically versatile, like the Vulture.
I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
We already have the strategically versatile game. Thats why more micromanageable units are, and should be, percieved as the most important aspect to add at this point.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
Missing inject is the equivalent of a Terran forgetting to queue up more units in his production facilities. The queen can't use that extra energy without another hatch, but the terran has to make more production to spend his money. To balance this out a bit, the Mule can be called down multiple times if it is forgotten, similarly to Z being able to pump out many units at once, since as long as you have injected and have money and the tech, it is pretty much equivalent to the unit being built already.
What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game?
-Reapers. Something about them just doesn't feel right, they're just "there" with no real purpose except scouting. -Overseers. I agree with Blizzard that they're just overglorified scouts. -Marines. Something about a unit that just does constant DPS isn't very exciting for me. I much prefer burst damage.
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
More units with burst damage, delivering serious damage in a short time with a cooldown. Banelings are a great example of such a unit, and so are Reavers from BW.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
It's not about lacking the skill to avoid it. It's about having options.
You normally have two ways to avoid a spell: 1. Position units so they don't get hit by it. (pre-battle micro) 2. Dodge spells while they're being casted on you. (in-battle micro)
The problem is that several SC2 abilities remove option #2 from the equation. Less options usually leads to a more shallow game. And taking away micro options is especially bad because in-battle micro is a HUGE part of spectator quality. You'll rarely see spectators get excited over a Colossus A-move, but you'll definitely hear cheers over a fantastic marine split.
Honestly anyone who complains about larvae inject being boring or repetitive needs to sit back and realize it is easily the strongest macro mechanic in the game.
Well, I play random, so I can compare (although I'm not all that great, just plat, so take this with a grain of salt). The other macro mechanics (mules, chrono) seem interesting to use, and I feel like I'm making a choice. Do I use this now? Do I use it on this or that? Sure you have to remember to do it, like everything else in the game, but it feels like another piece of the overall strategy.
Spawning Larva seems like a chore that I have to remember to do. Every x seconds, click that. It's like pushing the button on Lost. Strong or not, it's just not fun or interesting -- it's just an APM sink.
So yeah, uninteresting things to rework: - Colossi (boring) - Corruptors (boring) - Reapers (has potential to be interesting) - Spawn Larva (tedious and boring)
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
Honestly anyone who complains about larvae inject being boring or repetitive needs to sit back and realize it is easily the strongest macro mechanic in the game.
Well, I play random, so I can compare (although I'm not all that great, just plat, so take this with a grain of salt). The other macro mechanics (mules, chrono) seem interesting to use, and I feel like I'm making a choice. Do I use this now? Do I use it on this or that? Sure you have to remember to do it, like everything else in the game, but it feels like another piece of the overall strategy.
Spawning Larva seems like a chore that I have to remember to do. Every x seconds, click that. It's like pushing the button on Lost. Strong or not, it's just not fun or interesting -- it's just an APM sink.
So yeah, uninteresting things to rework: - Colossi (boring) - Corruptors (boring) - Reapers (has potential to be interesting) - Spawn Larva (tedious and boring)
and so is constant building of SCV's? and constant building of units. There is a shit ton that is repetitive and tedious stuff in starcraf, especially when you get better and better. Do you find building another round of marines(that you have already planned to build because of economic reason) this amazing decision or extremely interesting?
They aren't but they are what make starcraft great
This is why we can't have a game's community ever try to give balance advice. It divides itself into three camps and clamors for nerfs to whatever happened to beat them in the last game they played.
Please just leave it up to the designers and (relatively) unbiased pros, until we actually get to see the new units and abilities the expansion brings.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
On June 03 2011 03:10 Eknoid4 wrote: My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
No, because it seems obvious and uncontroversial to me. I have no idea why you think I disagree with it. Micro should not be the single most important part of the game, no.
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting.
Because they make micro less of a factor, yes. Ideally a better ability would accomplish the same thing as forcefield strategically, but make it less one-sided in micro.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
Or perhaps they really do think these abilities just make the game less interesting to play and to watch.
I agree collosus are not what they should be, but instead of just removing them we should try to fix them. like give them their AOE attack as a spell while giving them a type of lazor thats non-splash for their regular attack. So they can use their AOE but it wont just be A-move or too much for a zerg/terran to handle.
The cause of alot of balance issues in SC2 is WG and Larva inject. the removal of theese abilities will alow alot of reworking of the Zerg and Protoss race's.
On June 01 2011 02:06 Chronald wrote: Uninteresting units: 1. Corrupter 2. Hellion 3. Colossus
I like your ideas about the graphics, but besides that idk about your other changes, they seem very drastic.
I beg to differ. Hellions are not uninteresting at all. I would like to see some sort of buff on the corruptors though, as they're only really used against the protoss deathball (Colossus' and void rays), and even there they tend to fail miserably.
But honestly at the moment the most uninteresting units in this game are: - Battlecruiser - Carrier - Mothership
Only because they're never used. I've played 500 games on ladder, seen 1 battlecruiser build, 2 carrier and 3 motherships.
I like the idea of more "support casters", and some other points by the OP. But in some aspects (especially mechanics) he just went crazy.
As for the current units... well, i do think all of the ones we have now can have their uses... i mean, the reaper isn't that useful any more, but it's such a cool unit i don't want it to go. Can someone please make reapers be useful again? Think of something, use them in combination with drops to give them time to destroy buildings, or something
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
MKP didn't start to micro his marines because BoxeR won a match earlier in the day...
On June 03 2011 03:56 Jacob666 wrote: I agree collosus are not what they should be, but instead of just removing them we should try to fix them. like give them their AOE attack as a spell while giving them a type of lazor thats non-splash for their regular attack. So they can use their AOE but it wont just be A-move or too much for a zerg/terran to handle.
Started reading, thinking it would be another silly balance idea.
Turns out this post is made of pure WIN! Make the Colossus standard attack like it is here:
Then change the Thermal Lance upgrade to an upgrade allowing a spell on cooldown where the Colossus focusses its beams on a certain spot then, after a set amount of time with a fast loading bar beneath the Colossus health, a small 'explosion' occurs at the point of focus, dealing AoE damage.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
MKP didn't start to micro his marines because BoxeR won a match earlier in the day...
I never said he did. but chronologically, MKP's famous marine micro came after Boxer's showy clickin in the GSL. Glad you had something useful to add, though.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
Your entire post is a giant strawman. Nobody is arguing that spells that control positions are bad, or that people shouldn't be punished for mistakes. The argument is that the game shouldn't remove options from the game or punish the player to an extent that they can't do anything to make up for their mistake.
A good example is the complaint regarding zerg scouting. People feel that it's lacking because if a zerg doesn't guess correctly, he can be cheesed and knocked out purely due to a build-order loss. Nobody should be punished that badly just because they couldn't guess a build order, but it happened all the time early on in the game due to the fact that terran and protoss were much more powerful early-game until they got nerfed.
The point with the whole "anti-micro" debate is that there is no way for player skill to mitigate a mistake when they get hit with abilities like conc shells and fungal growth. If a person happens to run into a storm, they get punished for it, but they can also mitigate it by pulling their units back. If a person gets part of their army fungal'd, those units are dead, almost guaranteed, and no amount of skill can change that. This doesn't present a balance problem, but it does present a problem when a game can cancel out micro, which is one of the most important aspects of SC. Imagine how much more boring TvZ would be if banelings were somehow able to force marines to stay still, preventing the awesome split micro that is probably the most entertaining micro feat so far in SC2. The game needs more of this, not less.
can we let go of the pseudo philosophy expert crap. You're not an expert in logic, and my post isn't a strawman. If you can't refute what I have to say without logic buzzwords, kindly don't try. you should try studying logic without trying to exploit it before you understand it. And before you lecture me on whatever your excuse is and how I should be the one reading the strawman wikipedia article you wanna link to me, and how now i'm committing even MORE logical fallacies, just give it a rest. I have made a sound argument that you have not addressed at all, but I'll respond to you anyway since you quoted me.
What the fuck? Player skill isn't supposed to be able to mitigate every mistake. If you make a mistake, and it is too difficult(or impossible) to punish you for it, THAT is a broken system. You should have had skill/foresight to know that decision wasn't going t owork for you. There is no amount of skill involved in going "oh, my army is dying now. Why can't I change anything!?" Sure, I fully understand with the concern that these mechanics could punish players TOO hard, but most of the time when players think they're being punished too hard (And better players are mysteriously not having nearly as big of a problem), they are just blaming everything but themselves.
Is it possible that forcefields are too strong? Definitely. Are people still striving despite that? Yep. Does that justify it? Nope. Is blizzard working on it? Yep. Are Blizzard devs more qualified than you? Yep. Does constantly making threads to talk about what is broken help? Not after the first time the topic is mentioned. Have more than a handful of the suggestions made in this thread been based in reality or remotely close to a realistic solution? No. Has there been more whining than constructive talking? OH MY GOD YES.
What if you could spread a control group of units into some kind of formation, and then hit some key so that they hold that formation as you move them up and down across the map. Is this an utterly ridiculous suggestion?
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
Do you understand gray areas of combat.
Lets take dark swarm, from broodwar, an amazing ability, the most powerful spell in that game. When dark swarm happened against terran, they HAD to move back, they had to unsiege their tanks, they could make a positional mistake and not lose the entire game over it and suffer minimal losses, while the zerg could push forward slowly. Storms in PvZ against hydras were damageable to mitigate damage , and you could control area with them. Reavers scarabs damage could be reduced or mitigated by micro. Mines could be cost effectively dealt with by speed zealots.
One of the abilities that line up more with SC2, was statis, it shut down inter clumps of units, but this was necessary late game against a shit ton of tanks, it also made it so you wouldn't hurt the stasised unit. So even if you knocked out clumps of their army, they would be back, its more of a split and conquer kind of a deal, but that's because Tanks were just so good with a good minefield.
BW main stay spells and units allowed for alot of interaction and control from both sides of the engagement, and were not so black and white. Also, engagements were not always controlled by one race.
On June 03 2011 04:47 Eknoid4 wrote: can we let go of the pseudo philosophy expert crap. You're not an expert in logic, and my post isn't a strawman. If you can't refute what I have to say without logic buzzwords, kindly don't try. you should try studying logic without trying to exploit it before you understand it. And before you lecture me on whatever your excuse is and how I should be the one reading the strawman wikipedia article you wanna link to me, and how now i'm committing even MORE logical fallacies, just give it a rest. I have made a sound argument that you have not addressed at all, but I'll respond to you anyway since you quoted me.
Wait, what? Since when was my argument a logical lecture or a claim that I'm an "expert"? You took my strawman comment waaaaaay too personally. You made statements nobody claimed and I took issue with that, don't play it up more than that Mr. Sensitive.
What the fuck? Player skill isn't supposed to be able to mitigate every mistake. If you make a mistake, and it is too difficult(or impossible) to punish you for it, THAT is a broken system. You should have had skill/foresight to know that decision wasn't going t owork for you. There is no amount of skill involved in going "oh, my army is dying now. Why can't I change anything!?" Sure, I fully understand with the concern that these mechanics could punish players TOO hard, but most of the time when players think they're being punished too hard (And better players are mysteriously not having nearly as big of a problem), they are just blaming everything but themselves.
Is it possible that forcefields are too strong? Definitely. Are people still striving despite that? Yep. Does that justify it? Nope. Is blizzard working on it? Yep. Are Blizzard devs more qualified than you? Yep. Does constantly making threads to talk about what is broken help? Not after the first time the topic is mentioned. Have more than a handful of the suggestions made in this thread been based in reality or remotely close to a realistic solution? No. Has there been more whining than constructive talking? OH MY GOD YES.
Of course a player should be able to mitigate every mistake. You assume that when I say mitigate I mean nullify it entirely. That's not the point. It's kinda like in fighting games where you still take chip damage even if you block. You're mitigating it, but you're still taking damage. But the point is that you CAN mitigate it if you're skilled enough. You can't micro a fungaled unit though, which to me is a problem. Whether it's Boxer or Regular Joe, a fungaled marine is controlled exactly the same regardless of skill level, and I see that as something that should be avoided.
I also don't see how this makes our posts whining and not constructive either. We make multiple threads like this because it increases visibility since we can never be 100% sure whether Blizzard is reading this or not. If it annoys you, too bad.
On June 03 2011 02:15 Eknoid4 wrote: I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
You double posted for some reason and I skipped over this:
I never said micro doesn't add depth to the game. If that's what you're arguing against, you're wrong. This entire thread sounds like it was made because of an idra podcast or something.
If you believe micro adds more depth than anything else in starcraft 2, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. If you believe there is 0 depth to forcefields or fungals, you're an idiot, no matter what your division/rank/league is. You can anticipate them and work around them. That means they add at least an iota of depth to the game and taking them out would lower it.
Anyway, your point is completely banal and unnecessary. Micro is getting a lot of focus in this thread because it's one area that people feel SC2 is lacking, that's all. I haven't seen anyone suggest that it should be more important than strategy, just that it should be more important than it is.
As for fungal and forcefield, this thread is about things that should be redesigned or removed and replaced. Taking forcefield out and replacing it with a better designed ability would not necessarily lower the depth of the game, no.
My point is banal because it's different from most of the posts in the thread? It's unnecessary because you disagree with it? Why?
Micro isn't just getting "a lot of focus in this thread" This thread's focus has become very specifically that we should get rid of spells and abilities that hinder opponent movement because they make the game less interesting. With a bunch of "these other units are straightforward and too strong/weak, we should completely change them" peppered in.
I disagree with that, and you can't seem to handle it.
I posit that most players think it's so important that you need to be able to react to anything without anticipating it or being punished for late reactions SIMPLY because most players can't look more than 5 seconds in front of their faces and get mad when they think they're gonna win, but are completely wrong and have no idea until they attack, so they blame game mechanics. I don't see anybody complaining that cloaked EMPs are overpowered, when it's literally the same amount of skill required to avoid.
actually do not like EMPs, wish they had a slight travel time, but they are also counter able by disengaging the enemy units. You cant do that if you get forcefielded or fungaled or concussive shot.
So you're saying we shouldn't have ways to punish someone for not knowing how far forward they should move? If I walk in range of fungals before i'm ready to engage, that is totally my fault, and if i didn't know the risks it was my responsibility to know them before i ventured forward. Just because the current metagame is basically to throw roaches at forcefields and then go OMG WTF HE PRESSED F LIKE 9 TIMES doesn't mean it's for any reason other than players are still maturing and as such arent holding themselves to as high of standards in all levels of play.
I remember a day when nobody microd marines unless it was large scale in sc2. And then Slayers Boxer played a TVT where one scout SCV walked into his base and he micro'd a single marine to kill it either before it saw anything or before it escaped. Then he pushed out with 3 marines and an SCV and won the game.
After that, every terran started trying to micro their units. At the time I was gold, and playing vs terran suddenly got so much easier at that level because people were so busy trying to copy boxer that they would completely stop macroing. Then Fake boxer/MKP came along, then marine micro became standard. I don't see a difference with anticipating good forcefield placement other than obviously if you don't anticipate it it's a lot more immediate.
Spells that control positioning in a game where entire matchups (brood war and starting to become sc2 TvT) are built around controlling positions certainly add more depth in the game than they take away. We as a community just haven't matured enough to accept the fact that there is a way around them and you have to think ahead.
Do you understand gray areas of combat.
Lets take dark swarm, from broodwar, an amazing ability, the most powerful spell in that game. When dark swarm happened against terran, they HAD to move back, they had to unsiege their tanks, they could make a positional mistake and not lose the entire game over it and suffer minimal losses, while the zerg could push forward slowly. Storms in PvZ against hydras were damageable to mitigate damage , and you could control area with them. Reavers scarabs damage could be reduced or mitigated by micro. Mines could be cost effectively dealt with by speed zealots.
One of the abilities that line up more with SC2, was statis, it shut down inter clumps of units, but this was necessary late game against a shit ton of tanks, it also made it so you wouldn't hurt the stasised unit. So even if you knocked out clumps of their army, they would be back, its more of a split and conquer kind of a deal, but that's because Tanks were just so good with a good minefield.
BW main stay spells and units allowed for alot of interaction and control from both sides of the engagement, and were not so black and white. Also, engagements were not always controlled by one race.
Yeah, i understand that. And I totally agree that BW's spell caster units were more in line with ideal engagements. I guess my point is that everyone is rushing to create problems and talk about micro and just let someone else find the solutions. Or the solution is some half-baked idea they've had in their head for a while they think is solid gold but is terrible. I don't think forcefield and fungal are the best spells. They could totally be better. (well, to be honest, i dont have as much of a problem with fungal because it stops a small chunk of units rather than doing something like closing off an escape path)s are very easy to pick off if used incorrectly. forcefields just kind of get plastered on the field as needed). But i don't think we need such huge drastic changes. And I don't think most poeple understand WHY the changes would be good. They just think it's because THIS STUPID SPELL WOULDNT BE IN THE STUPID GAME AND I WOULDNT HAVE TO DEAL WITH STUPID MECHANICS FROM STUPID BLIZZARD ANYMORE
And maybe I am just fed up with all these intensely heated whinefests. Pop culture outrage of the month threads get bandwagoned on to a couple knowledgable posts with a serious concern and a genuine academic approach to a real problem.
"We should revisit these spells" turned into "We should get rid of these spells" and "they hinder interaction" turns into "They're boring and uninteresting and are impossible to counter" and that annoys the hell out of me. We're probably not really on different sides of the issue and i feel somewhat bad wasting your time as someone who'll take time to be thoughtful in a sea of people who resent the notion :p
I think with good unit design the balling becomes a non issue. ZvT at pro level is already ball free, and it makes the matchup more difficult by not having everything automatically spread out. TvT also ball free (just watched TLO vs Fenix today!). ZvZ can sometimes be ball vs. ball but it has a lot of other possibilities as well, and it's late game has been really slow as far as progess since it can be so easy to get a huge advantage early on. I think as that matchup gets more figured out in the late game people will realize that there are better ways to win than smashing your roach/infestor armies into each other and hoping for the best.
I really think we are already at the point were "unit balls" are no longer a problem with SC2, but a "problem" with Protoss exclusively. But maybe that isn't a problem at all, maybe having once race wanting to clump up, and the others wanting to spread out, is a good thing.
On June 03 2011 04:57 Spawkuring wrote: Of course a player should be able to mitigate every mistake. You assume that when I say mitigate I mean nullify it entirely. That's not the point. It's kinda like in fighting games where you still take chip damage even if you block. You're mitigating it, but you're still taking damage. But the point is that you CAN mitigate it if you're skilled enough. You can't micro a fungaled unit though, which to me is a problem. Whether it's Boxer or Regular Joe, a fungaled marine is controlled exactly the same regardless of skill level, and I see that as something that should be avoided.
Yeah, but we shouldn't just focus on the fungal itself. Fungal denies micro after the fact, but encourages micro to avoid it, micro that right now IMO is considered too difficult to pull off so players look for other ways to get an advantage, but it will only take one badass to show the world what to do, as always with innovation. Perhaps in the future - because of fungal - there will be epic micro of ghosts vs. infestors and overseer snipes. Either way, you certainly can't say that it's impossible to mitigate fungal with micro.
On June 03 2011 04:57 Spawkuring wrote: Of course a player should be able to mitigate every mistake. You assume that when I say mitigate I mean nullify it entirely. That's not the point. It's kinda like in fighting games where you still take chip damage even if you block. You're mitigating it, but you're still taking damage. But the point is that you CAN mitigate it if you're skilled enough. You can't micro a fungaled unit though, which to me is a problem. Whether it's Boxer or Regular Joe, a fungaled marine is controlled exactly the same regardless of skill level, and I see that as something that should be avoided.
Yeah, but we shouldn't just focus on the fungal itself. Fungal denies micro after the fact, but encourages micro to avoid it, micro that right now IMO is considered too difficult to pull off so players look for other ways to get an advantage, but it will only take one badass to show the world what to do, as always with innovation. Perhaps in the future - because of fungal - there will be epic micro of ghosts vs. infestors and overseer snipes. Either way, you certainly can't say that it's impossible to mitigate fungal with micro.
I've always been in favor of making spells like EMP and fungal to be dodgable missiles rather than the instantaneous AoEs they are now. But I still feel that there should be a way to micro your units even when they do get hit with a spell. Similar to how you can move units even when they're getting stormed.
This wasn't as big a deal in BW because such abilities only existed on very expensive, high-tech units like Arbiters and Dark Archons. But when we have easily massable forcefields and concussive shells, I feel that should be tweaks to that sort of thing.
On June 03 2011 04:57 Spawkuring wrote: Of course a player should be able to mitigate every mistake. You assume that when I say mitigate I mean nullify it entirely. That's not the point. It's kinda like in fighting games where you still take chip damage even if you block. You're mitigating it, but you're still taking damage. But the point is that you CAN mitigate it if you're skilled enough. You can't micro a fungaled unit though, which to me is a problem. Whether it's Boxer or Regular Joe, a fungaled marine is controlled exactly the same regardless of skill level, and I see that as something that should be avoided.
Yeah, but we shouldn't just focus on the fungal itself. Fungal denies micro after the fact, but encourages micro to avoid it, micro that right now IMO is considered too difficult to pull off so players look for other ways to get an advantage, but it will only take one badass to show the world what to do, as always with innovation. Perhaps in the future - because of fungal - there will be epic micro of ghosts vs. infestors and overseer snipes.
that already happens, its called having small packs of marines, and that leaves the micro all in one hand.
Its either this, you spread your marines, or you didn't, if you didn't spread your marines my fungal's win, you do, my fungal's lose. the exchange is predetermined in terms of control of the terran player, yes you mitigated it, but its just cause you spread beforehand, rather than responded after the situation happened. And that is not interesting usually, in terms of control, or spectating.
Wanna know something, late game TvP, was kinda boring in BW for a bit, because it was heavily based on how well the tanks were spread to mitigate the power of stasis. but things like aggresive vulture pokes and beast vulture micro let you deal with it. also, fungal kills, stasis does not.
On June 03 2011 04:47 Eknoid4 wrote: Is it possible that forcefields are too strong? Definitely. Are people still striving despite that? Yep. Does that justify it? Nope. Is blizzard working on it? Yep. Are Blizzard devs more qualified than you? Yep. Does constantly making threads to talk about what is broken help? Not after the first time the topic is mentioned. Have more than a handful of the suggestions made in this thread been based in reality or remotely close to a realistic solution? No. Has there been more whining than constructive talking? OH MY GOD YES.
This thread is about abilities and units that people find uninteresting, which is not the same thing as being too strong or broken. You don't seem to understand this.
On June 03 2011 04:47 Eknoid4 wrote: Is it possible that forcefields are too strong? Definitely. Are people still striving despite that? Yep. Does that justify it? Nope. Is blizzard working on it? Yep. Are Blizzard devs more qualified than you? Yep. Does constantly making threads to talk about what is broken help? Not after the first time the topic is mentioned. Have more than a handful of the suggestions made in this thread been based in reality or remotely close to a realistic solution? No. Has there been more whining than constructive talking? OH MY GOD YES.
This thread is about abilities and units that people find uninteresting, which is not the same thing as being too strong or broken. You don't seem to understand this.
No, this thread is about abilities that are uninteresting because their current functionality is fundamentally flawed and is not conducive to more interesting gameplay because of those flaws
Thus this thread is a discussion of those flaws and how/if to change/replace/fix them.
I would to give my opinion on that too Maybe i'm wrong but it's great to get feedback from the communauty on what's is "wrong" ( i prefer not refine) in this game.
- What units in the game need to go into the redesign list? First of all the Reaper. The design and the goal of this unit is to be a border raider. It's easy to just jump the cliff and attack nearby building. That's why they have a powerfull building attack. But if you made it to the worker, they are devastating. To counter this they are low on Hp and very weak to any armored unit due to the 2-shot attack. The effectiveness of this unit is really too map dependant. Not all map have good cliff to abuse ( but in Slag pits there is a way to jump and have all the worker in your range). Another problem that appears: the longer the game go on they lose their possibility to be a menace when the opponent begin to make their counter in any number over 5. He can spread his army to guard the cliff and then you can't, by any means, have any reason to continue harassing. Also, Nitro-pack needs a factory, and by the time you have one it's pretty likely that your opponent has more that enough to be fine. But you need it because it's greatly add speed to the reaper. And speed is a very important aspect of harassing, as you might imagine.
My crazy solution revolve around the Nitro-pack. Because the upgrade is late it's require to add another ability that compensate : The ability to fly! Imbalance you would say, but i don't want to make them fly like mutalisk. It's would be great if they have a ability that when they want to jump in non-walkable space, they would fly. When they fly they can't attack and are painfully slow ( to compensate they're ground mobility). I don't want them to jump in space and return so you can't attack them. So i would want that this ability have an after-use cooldown ( activate when they land) of something like 25 seconds that doesn't allow them to use the cliffjumping ability and reduced for 25 second their speed to 2,00.
. To resume they jump in the space, fly slowly to the ennemy base then land and attack buildings and worker. They have to wait for 25 second before being able to reuse any ability granted by the jetpack ( speed and cliffjumping) and after 25 second they are now fast and can rejump into the sky. That way I think it's balanced, but i maybe wrong and I would like to hear ( read) your thoughts on this. The speed increase of the Nitro-pack is unchanged.
The protoss gateway unit should also be more stronger. The warping and the forcefields cut too much the power of the gateway unit. I think Blizzard should at least remove one of the two and rebalance the power of gateway unit, because protoss should be a race with really strong unit that get beaten only by number or tech.
Finaly the unit "ball" should be remove. It's just painful to watch from a spectator perspective and is really too much powerfull.
I would really like to have your thoughts on my idea. I really love the reaper and i have try to add in my match-ups, but it's really difficults
What seems to basically be the case is that you've got stutter-step with a few units, but the vast majority of the rest is positional "micro". While ridiculously obvious in Terran games with tanks, forcefields, fungal/storm, and burrow(move) are also simply positional maneuvers. Taking it a step further, it's easy to argue that most battles are a-move affairs. Barring the ridiculously dumbed-down moving fire of the phoenix, there's really nothing like BW muta micro available in sc2.
While there are a ton of unit suggestions I could make (lurker and scourge would sure be more fun than roach and corrupter), I'd really like to see a concentrated effort to redo the cooldown and deceleration stats, return the moving shot to at least a few units, rebalance strengths, and finally replace some of the positional battles with actual micro fights.
On June 03 2011 05:39 Wren wrote: I stepped back in time and finally read the thread about the lack of moving shot micro in sc2, and it got me thinking about the current state of micro.
What seems to basically be the case is that you've got stutter-step with a few units, but the vast majority of the rest is positional "micro". While ridiculously obvious in Terran games with tanks, forcefields, fungal/storm, and burrow(move) are also simply positional maneuvers. Taking it a step further, it's easy to argue that most battles are a-move affairs. Barring the ridiculously dumbed-down moving fire of the phoenix, there's really nothing like BW muta micro available in sc2.
While there are a ton of unit suggestions I could make (lurker and scourge would sure be more fun than roach and corrupter), I'd really like to see a concentrated effort to redo the cooldown and deceleration stats, return the moving shot to at least a few units, rebalance strengths, and finally replace some of the positional battles with actual micro fights.
exactly my points in earlier things.
Things don't need a re haul to be fun, what units would benifit and be fun with moving shot and reduced attack animation cooldown. For the record, if any person that doesn't know, when i speak of cooldown i speak of how long you cant move because of the attack animation.
What units should, and should not have stutter step.
what units should or should not have moving shot air micro( talking broodwar esque), as give an attack command, then a move command, then an attack command.
What units would benefit from having to accelerate to make them more micro able and interesting.
tweaking damage and all that is fine. But why not take the approach of how can we make basic units interesting and pull out slight advantage.
Colossus and Corruptors are the only ones I think should just be taken out of the game. But I think carriers, motherships, immortals, overseers and ultralisks could be changed for the better.
On the topic of repear sucking and how to fix them I just got a crazy idea reading some of the last posts. It goes something like this...
- New (cheap) building "Pub". - Reaper removed from barracks. - Reaper = 20s of SCV in Pub drinking 35gas - Nitro packs makes SCVs go up and down cliffs; doesn't alter their speed
Even if they are still useless with this, at least now they are funny as hell.
Balance wise, - even if reapers were buffed it wouldn't matter early game since making 20 reapers = 20 less SCVs - since reapers are not a barracks unit it's even more of a pain to rush with them, if they fail you auto-lose since you don't have any infrastructure - reapers become viable late game, since it's more cost effective to make them then just sack your scvs for supply - reapers become viable army wise since they don't take barracks and only cost some gas, ie. they are a little worse then bringing a few SCVs along; particularly when you don't go mech
On June 03 2011 05:47 r_con wrote: Things don't need a re haul to be fun, what units would benifit and be fun with moving shot and reduced attack animation cooldown. ... tweaking damage and all that is fine. But why not take the approach of how can we make basic units interesting and pull out slight advantage.
Well, there are still some units that aren't any fun, but increasing the amount of potential micro helps the best players win more, and do so in more entertaining ways.
I think Terran is pretty much 'finished' with its WoL units, but the air units would be much better with moving shot potential. The marauder is really strong in most unit compositions, but it could probably be 'fixed' (ditto the ultra-strong-in-groups marine) by a stim nerf.
Protoss is fun and functional, barring the obviously unfun, too-necessary Colossus. Would like to see the Carrier mineral cost cut (or maybe decrease the absurd awesomeness of the Void Ray to increase its usefulness). The auto-shoot phoenix should be replaced with a very short attack animation so the same effect can be achieved, but must be done manually.
Zerg, to most anyone who's played them, feels unfinished. The Roach isn't a Zerg-like unit. The species has no invisible attack. Scouting is a problem. Setting aside the fact that Mutas can't be microed to the point where they are amazing, the zerg still needs an overhaul. Add in that there are at least 2 more units for each other species, and it's obvious that there need to be more options. WOuld be nice to have bonus damage units (corrupter against massive is nowhere near as useful as blue flame against light, marauders and tanks or stalkers and immortals against armored) and/or ranged AoE attack (especially since we're talking about increasing micro power, which would make the melee splash of banelings and ultras still less powerful).
tl;dr: there are units tweaks to make for at least 2 of the 3 species, but micro mechanics have lots of room for improvement.
5. Chrono boost: It's just some timid. Obviously using it well makes a big difference, but it's just really not important enough. You could almost never chrono boost in a whole game and barely notice, it also doesn't have great tension, it's mostly between probes and units and once you get the hang of it it's pretty simple. There's also on a huge timing aspect of it, for the most part if you have it, you want to use it, but that's hard so people don't.
Well, I have just the thing:
Make Chrono Boost usable on buildings, that are being built and on units. ( +X% to move and attack speed)
Reapers have been effectively been removed from the game lol. I still like the fact in early game they are very powerful untis and great for scouting. I wish I could see a little bit more being done to their mid-game and late-game capabilities. Maybe allowing them to be built from reactors lol...
On June 03 2011 01:44 Eknoid4 wrote: It is really sad how small your scope of the game is with regards to tactics, let alone the concept of strategy.
Vague, needlessly inflammatory little jabs like this aren't very effective at getting a point across. What is the concept of strategy to you, and why is it inconsistent with a high level of return on micro? Can't we have both?
On June 03 2011 02:09 Eknoid4 wrote: Watching somebody get mindfucked will always be infinitely more entertaining and skillful and fascinating than watching someone lose to marine micro. People just like marine micro because it's immediate and obvious
Like I said, why can't we have both? And some of Brood War's biggest APM sink units were also its most strategically versatile, like the Vulture.
I never saisd we couldn't have both. Why can't you read? Why do you assume i'm being absolutist? I am saying micro isn't and shouldn't be percieved as the MOST IMPORTANT, but it is. That's all I'm saying. Read it. Five times.
Micro is seen as so important because SC2 has pretty much everything else but is severely lacking in micro. Do FF and Fungal add some depth? Yes, but they take out far more by preventing your opponent from doing things. Abilities that just straight up shut down a large number of options with the slightest whim aren't good for the game. It makes battles entirely determined by one party - if a Protoss throws down good FF's, he will win. Nothing an opponent can do can change that. If he doesn't, then the opponent will (probably) win. This isn't how it should be. It should be both players battling it out to see who does whatever they need to do better. It shouldn't just be up to one player to decide the battle.
Put in a mechanic that rewards players for sticking to one tech path. I'm only terran, so my example is terran based, and deals with the uninteresting hellion/reapers.
Researched at Factory Tech lab. You lose the ability to make Marauders from Barracks, but reapers can now ride hellions (or some such). Now the hellion is a fast unit that's good against units and buildings, but if you try to go bio-ball, it's weaker because you lost the heal-able marauder.
Or it's a shitty idea and I should be beaten for my insolence...either/or
What seems to basically be the case is that you've got stutter-step with a few units, but the vast majority of the rest is positional "micro". While ridiculously obvious in Terran games with tanks, forcefields, fungal/storm, and burrow(move) are also simply positional maneuvers. Taking it a step further, it's easy to argue that most battles are a-move affairs. Barring the ridiculously dumbed-down moving fire of the phoenix, there's really nothing like BW muta micro available in sc2.
While there are a ton of unit suggestions I could make (lurker and scourge would sure be more fun than roach and corrupter), I'd really like to see a concentrated effort to redo the cooldown and deceleration stats, return the moving shot to at least a few units, rebalance strengths, and finally replace some of the positional battles with actual micro fights.
That thread is really fantastic! Thanks for the link. I wonder why it was closed without even an explanation at the end? It's an old thread, but I feel like they're just trying to hide it or something.
Lalush put words and details and explanations to what I could only describe as poorly design game on so many levels without his experience. I actually respect him more now.
On June 03 2011 03:56 Jacob666 wrote: I agree collosus are not what they should be, but instead of just removing them we should try to fix them. like give them their AOE attack as a spell while giving them a type of lazor thats non-splash for their regular attack. So they can use their AOE but it wont just be A-move or too much for a zerg/terran to handle.
Started reading, thinking it would be another silly balance idea.
Turns out this post is made of pure WIN! Make the Colossus standard attack like it is here:
Then change the Thermal Lance upgrade to an upgrade allowing a spell on cooldown where the Colossus focusses its beams on a certain spot then, after a set amount of time with a fast loading bar beneath the Colossus health, a small 'explosion' occurs at the point of focus, dealing AoE damage.
That mothership was badass. Let's get that back please.
I think there are 2 types of micro. You have army positioning which is seen with tanks, brood lords and the like. Then you have battle micro such as marine spitting, blink micro and spell casting.
I feel that spells like fungal and forcefield and concussive shells to an extent, mitigate battle micro to the extent that it is non existent. Now, you just put your army into position and control it that way. This results in half the amount of micro there should be in the gmae, leads to boring battles as the winner is not down to the engagement, but the positioning before hand. Whilst positional micro takes a ton of skill and rewards a skilled player, the prevalence of spells like fungal mean that beyond positional micro, there is not too much to do.
Wouldn't it be better If we had both? Imagine if we had super dropships which couldn't be shot down for Terran. If Protoss uses excellent forcefields and splits the Terran army in half, the Terran can respond by ferrying the trapped units away. Protoss, in response, blinks forward, knowing the dps of the T army has been reduced, and attempts to take advantage of this, however, a great concave for the Terran due to positional micro allows the army to be super cost effective. But the protoss is one step ahead, knowing the concave formation exposes a large surface area, chargelots flank from the side, and we have an even army trade.
Compare this to, "lol my army got forcefielded, guess I was dumb letting that happen. Cant win now." In the current state, once forcefields go down, there is nothing to do. The ideal situation is to have it so you don't want to be forcefielded, but if you do, you can try your best to micro your heart out to mitigate the situation.
On June 03 2011 07:47 Micket wrote: I feel that spells like fungal and forcefield and concussive shells to an extent, mitigate battle micro to the extent that it is non existent.
FF also have the problem of "pausing" the game and spoiling a lot of moments. Intense moments can only be intense for sooo~ long, particularly when everyone (units included) are just sitting on their ass.
Commentator 1: "And A is advancing to B's with a formidable army!" Commentator 2: "B has a few zealots, we're about to see some can he hold." *forcefield goes down* =| *2 minutes pass* >=| Commentator 1: "And A retreats with his army." ='(
FF in a battle in open space is somewhat interesting to watch, I won't lie, but I feel the "trade" happening here isn't exactly worth it. I mean we're trading positional play for... a pretty gimmicky effect?
Commentator 1: "And A is moving out with a very scary army here! Does B have the sentry count for this?" Commentator 2: "And we have a engagement... FORCEFIELDS are going down!" Commentator 1: "And A has to back off out of this."
Commentator 1: "And A is moving out with a very scary army here! Does B have what it takes to hold this?" Commentator 2: "And we have a engagement... defensive storms going down! roaches pulling back" Commentator 1: "Zerglings trying to flank. Chargelots are being microed to intercept!" Commentator 2: "The front of the army is defenseless, Roaches are engaging stalkers... a few are burrowing their way towards the templar!" Commentator 1: "Zealots being warped in the back." Commentator 2: "Immortals are out of position! Stalkers blinking back!" Commentator 1: "Zerg is reinforcing hard."
Also, I'm watching NASL and when commentators are talking about protoss expansions it as if they are broodwar tank lines: "A can't attack this". It's like sentry \w ff = new tank and along with warping protoss with their colosus are pretty much the terran of SC2. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but I can't imagine that was blizzard's intention.
Whoa, hold everything. No redesign of Spellcasters to be a one spell per unit deal. WHAT?! No no no no no, I'm completely against it.
1. Their spells come at a necessary time in the game to deal with X. Take the sentry. Take away hallucination, and now you can't scout unless you go the other tech paths. That would break Protoss in half.
2. Units are more boring the less they can do, and they are worse the less they can do. If you give them only one spell, what happens when that spell doesn't happen to be a perfect fit for your situation. That's sort of like saying change it so marines can attack zealots and phoenix, but not stalkers or voidrays.
Take the ghost. If all the ghost did was EMP, would you see any cool ghost plays? I mean snipe and nuke aren't the best things in every situation, but they are damn fun and cool when they work out.
Now perhaps the infestor is a little extreme right now in combination with banelings and such. And it's the best anti-air in the game. But I love the unit... it probably just needs a tweak or two.
Overall it sounds like you want to turn the game into more rock/papper/scissors, and I think that is bad. It actually sounds like you play Terran and don't like dealing with high templar or infestors is what it really sounds like.
I love how people took the "what uninteresting unit" and turned it into "what unit do you have the most trouble against and would like removed... plus a unit your race has that isn't powerful enough". Bunch of biased crap. I'm out of this thread, excuse me.
Redesign: - colossus (uninteresting, too strong in combination with forcefield) - corrupter (PoS) - mothership (none of the 1-at-a-time bs please, this is starcraft not warcraft)
I think Terran and Protoss really need more solid lategame spellcasters / units.... like, LATEGAME. Terran gets all the tech it needs by the 10 minute mark and Protoss just stays on tier 2 or 2.5 because their lategame units suck.
Whoa, hold everything. No redesign of Spellcasters to be a one spell per unit deal. WHAT?! No no no no no, I'm completely against it.
1. Their spells come at a necessary time in the game to deal with X. Take the sentry. Take away hallucination, and now you can't scout unless you go the other tech paths. That would break Protoss in half.
2. Units are more boring the less they can do, and they are worse the less they can do. If you give them only one spell, what happens when that spell doesn't happen to be a perfect fit for your situation. That's sort of like saying change it so marines can attack zealots and phoenix, but not stalkers or voidrays.
Take the ghost. If all the ghost did was EMP, would you see any cool ghost plays? I mean snipe and nuke aren't the best things in every situation, but they are damn fun and cool when they work out.
I didn't say they should have 1 spell, I said they should have just 1 major spell like mind control, storm etc. I actually gave ghost as a example of a well designed spellcaster. =)
Now perhaps the infestor is a little extreme right now in combination with banelings and such. And it's the best anti-air in the game. But I love the unit... it probably just needs a tweak or two.
What counters mass infestor? The closest thing is probably ultra, but infested marines probably counter that too. Like I said earlier on, I'm not saying there aren't counters, just that infestor have a good chance to counter those too with micro, so there's not much risk involved.
If you consider every other neat thing they do infestors are probably easily the best unit in the game. So yeah they're cute and all but I find variety more interesting to watch.
I don't entirely agree with the idea that players shouldn't be denied they're options by they're opponent. Maybe its done too easily with fungal and forcefield but really a good player should always be trying to limit his opponents options
First, you need to get rid of the evil trinity of roach-marauder-immortal. Each one of those exist almost solely because of the others. Get rid of one and you have to get rid of them all. I think that's necessary as each the roach ruins Zerg (messes with Hydra strength), and the marauder is anti-micro and really strong/cost-effective.
Next, they need to scrap the colossus. It's a terribly designed unit and is no fun to use at all.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
1) Colossus --> either remove it and replace it or completely redesign it. In its current state it has too much influence on the game. It is far too good compared to any other AOE alternatives Protoss have available. Yes, HTs are good but their storm requires enery, where colossus can just attack.
2) Roach --> Either scrap it entirely (and remake the hydra to be more general purpose), or give it meaning in the game. Currently it has the same job as the hydra but costs half, and is much more durable. Either make it a glass cannon (strong attack/low health) or a meat shield (what it was supposed to be, a mediocre, cheap unit that has tons of health).
3) Marauder--> like the roach, I feel this unit does not have a place, and is almost too good of an option compared to others. It makes Terran feel off when I play it (compared to SC1 Terran). It is better than tanks in many cases you would use tanks in and can deal a ton of damage while absorbing a ton of damage, which when combined with both its ability to slow units and the fact you can stim it, make it much better than it should be. To fix it I think they should either make it unstimmable, and/or remove slow, and/or make it only good against armoured units. Its ability to slow and be quite microable makes it much too good against enemy armies (Protoss more so than Zerg, though against roaches this applies.). Maybe move it to factory?
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Force field --> Protoss relies far too much on this currently and it has far too much power in shaping the outcome of the game. I think it is badly designed, in that at times it is far too good, and at other times it is bad. In the early game, one missed force field can often spell the end of the game. When used on the offensive, it can nullify much better armies solely because they can't pass get in range.
Fungal Growth --> Prior to the buff, I had no issue, but its current state feels broken at times. It is incredibly easy for a player to lock down armies much bigger than theirs and completely kill it without the other person being able to do anything about it. To fix it they should either make it akin to plague (damage over time without being locked down) or ensnare (Slow down a ton but not damaged). The current state of fungal feels quite abusable.
Warpgate --> I dislike this mechanic. I hope it either scrapped or adjusted so that you can only warp in at designated locations (within radius of a friendly nexus or something like that).
The Macro Mechanics - I want all 3 removed, as they don't feel rewarding, and their effects on each of the races varies far too much. The MULE is my least favourite, as it feels quite forgiving. Larva inject isn't forgiving enough, and missing it enough can kill you entirely. Chronoboost doesn't really have a role after upgrades are done, unless you are replenishing an army.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
Make it less CPU dependent, and more GPU dependent. Modern GPUs are incredibly powerful and it makes sense to have the GPU do some of the work.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Lurker --> The lurker is badass. Either the lurker or some other form of space control. Banelings are okay but a unit dedicated to space management would be awesome.
- Spells that need rework/redesign 2. Raven's Seeker Missile - rarely seen in competitive play because of its short casting range and slow movement speed.
Solution(a): Seeker Missile will moves really fast, but will has a countdown timer before it explode. - unit micro (spreading).
You could always give the missile more range and speed, but add a marker that highlights for the the opponent which unit has been targeted.
You'd get the old frantic-sort-through-mutas-to-find-the-one-with-irradiate-on-it going on, except instead of constant slow damage until you work it out, you have a second to get it right before all of your mutas/rines die.
As it is, obviously, HSM is pretty awful both to use and respond to, because if you're watching when it goes off it takes very little finesse to just run your ball away, but if you're unlucky and are looking somewhere else, you can just straight up lose everything you own.
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
-Roach. A bland unit that is a crutch for many players, buff hydras instead and give roaches a unique role -Stalker. Too pathetic without blink against the other races options (marauders, zerglings), yet weak and overpriced as it is, its the only unit protoss has that can actually fight earlygame vs roaches marines and marauders (zealots get kited, sentries are weak) This makes protoss extremely vulnerable earlygame and forces them to rely too heavy on forcefields to survive. -Banelings. Not a very interesting unit to watch, not much micro involved with it, its basically a-moved at the target 90% of the time. It can also decide a game based entirely on luck with player skill irrelevant via landmines. Way too decisive and I always feel cheated out of a real game when a player loses half his army to a lucky landmine. Only good thing about it is watching marine split micro but really people will have to split marines vs any aoe unit, I'd much rather see something more interesting like a lurker or a roach rework.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
-fungal growth. No skill ability at the moment, I'd like to see it reverted to how it was on the PTR, a moving glob that can be dodged. usage is then dependant on player skill nd fun to watch, the speed of the projectile can be adjusted for balance. -HSM. Pretty much what people above me have said, needs fixing. -warp-ins. Should come with some sort of penalty for using it the further away you get from a nexus. -workers only collecting 5 minerals each and 2 geysers per base. Results in smaller army sizes compared to bw as more supply is used on workers which is disappointing to me.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
-I'd like blizzard to fixed the low paged pool memory error or atleast give me an option to disable that popup. -A section for custom games with player chosen titles on bnet 2.0
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
-I'd like to see more variety for zerg it feels like they have less units that the other races. -I want stimmed firebats to replace hellions(tweaked so they function similarly), because the hellion is just a lame toycar while firebats are awesome. -New units or tweaks to improve the viability of terran mech and protoss heavy air (carrier + mothership) -I want to be able to combine 5 thors into an odin!!! (this one is not serious)
On June 01 2011 16:46 Big J wrote: one thing I would like to mention in this thread: if you just want to play BW... play BW!
I am not really happy with everything in SC2 but BW had a-click units too! And bad unit control options and bad AI are not what I am looking forward to in a 2010 PC game! and I would like to see new units rather than just having all the BW units back (lurkers, arbiters, reavers, dragoons) yeah redesign the colossus, make some other changes, but plz DON'T remake the lurker!
No, you should design the sequel to be better than the original but not remove what made the original hard and awesome. Just look at the disses that are different between the games, in bw it was 1a2a3a, in sc2 it's just a move.....
While I don't think that blizz will change the game now that they have the 3 macro mechanics introduced, I really think that the queen spawn larvae mechanic is broken. As a zerg player from bw and sc2 a part of zerg was to swarm and overrun the opponent; But in sc2 you can literally throw 100f after 100f armies at the opponent almost non-stop. Their are some inherent unit flaws to zerg units because if they could mass a stalker replica, the game would be rediculous. If the queen spawn larvae mechanic was removed, you could implement changes to zerg that would benefit the entire game.
On June 01 2011 17:24 Yaotzin wrote: a) esports != BW. There are other esports, and it would exist without BW. b) the annoyance is at people who want nothing BUT BW units. Of course it is SC2, of course it should have BW units. But it should also have different units.
SC2 would not be anywhere near what it is today without BW. SC2 owes nearly all (not all, but nearly all) of its success to BW. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
yeah but you know what: SC2 IS NOT BW if you want to play BW with SC2 graphics, there is an awesome galaxy editor that gives u the option to produce SC1 BW with SC2 graphics.
Of course there should be trademark units of SC1 in SC2, else you could just make GalaxyWars1, Scrin vs Human vs SpaceOrcs vs Zombies, but Im really sick of people saying: "remove unit X (new SC2 unit) and bring back unit Y (BW unit)". yeah maybe zerg could use a spacecontroling unit like the lurker... LIKE THE LURKER! lurkers are not the only way to control space! Protoss got sentries, terran has siege tanks and got planetary fortresses, queens were intended to work like that (on the creep).
and you know what? I like my units clumped up in 1 or 2 huge control groups. I really don't see the point of only selecting only 12zerglings in SC2. I really don't see the point why I shouldnt be able to select 2casters at once and only cast 1spell. THIS is an advanced game and whatever you want to reply, keep in mind, that people like me, that actually enjoy those IMPROVEMENTS, have already won, because the IMPROVEMENTS are there!
Queens are horrible vs ground units on or off creep... like seriously, for a GIANT unit called the "Queen" you would think it would be able to take a zealot or 4 lings or 2 marines.
For those who complain about the colossus: it's designed to compensate for the weakness of gateway units, which are weak to compensate for the warp gate mechanic. So replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
There's some good ideas in here, and some terrible ones. I feel like the most consistent complaint is the collosus though, which I'd have to agree with. It's interesting cliff-walking ability only gets used to pack more dps into a smaller area by walking on top of other units, which looks dumb, and functions dumb.
Personally though, I'd like to see forcefields go. There can be some pretty cool moments when someone makes a clutch forcefield, but more often it gets used to cut the opponents army in half and then demolish it, which is just frustrating to play against and frustrating to watch.
On June 03 2011 19:13 AndAgain wrote: replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
You're probably right on the first point (a weaker unit), but the second (a more micro intensive unit) is a bit of a non sequitur. It would definitely make the race harder to play, which may or may not be desirable, but I don't see how a few more key presses would necessitate drastic changes.
On June 03 2011 19:13 AndAgain wrote: replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
You're probably right on the first point (a weaker unit), but the second (a more micro intensive unit) is a bit of a non sequitur. It would definitely make the race harder to play, which may or may not be desirable, but I don't see how a few more key presses would necessitate drastic changes.
There is no point arguing about the colossus, as long as roaches and marauders are in the game.
On June 03 2011 19:13 AndAgain wrote: replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
You're probably right on the first point (a weaker unit), but the second (a more micro intensive unit) is a bit of a non sequitur. It would definitely make the race harder to play, which may or may not be desirable, but I don't see how a few more key presses would necessitate drastic changes.
There is no point arguing about the colossus, as long as roaches and marauders are in the game.
The warp gate must be changed. In my opinion you should have to choose whether or not you really want your gates to be warp gates. Increase the cooldown of warp-in so that you produce units faster from regular gateways but instead have to live with rally points. I could see a lategame where you have half your gates as warpgate for harrassment and quick defense of expansion and half your gates for building your main army.
I would slap my hands with glee if the Colossus and Roach were outright removed. Awful, boring, terrible units. Marauders are not in the same ballpark, but shares some of the problem the Roach has as well.
Reapers, Motherships, and to a lesser extent, Overseers, are also tremendous failures on Blizzard's part.
some ppl say SC2 Isnt BW .... we all agree that SC2 Isnt BW ... but there is problem in game mechaniks that all RTS games should have...
Micro and macro are part of RTS games no mether if they are coled SC2 or WC3 or SC1BW...or....
but in sc2 we have thing coled Force feald (i am toss player) and Fungel grouth = they are instantly kill micro and skill usage in gameplay...
whay Force feald kill micro ... i as toss player spamm Force feald and other side cant do enything abouth it....
exemple of micro i have 2 zealots u have 2 zealots and one of as can win a bettle... if i move my zealots better then you=you lose... that is great gameplay that is what is mising in SC2...
also colloss you cant dodge colloss ATC...also if you mass colloss there is no graund army that can kill em....=no skill involved...
also stim maraders marines and (banglings) = whatewer i do with my stalkers and zealots i cant kill stmed maraders marines...(who do A move) blink suraund(with zealots) i cant do nothing...a move hit and run is bad gameplay to me....
On June 03 2011 19:13 AndAgain wrote: replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
You're probably right on the first point (a weaker unit), but the second (a more micro intensive unit) is a bit of a non sequitur. It would definitely make the race harder to play, which may or may not be desirable, but I don't see how a few more key presses would necessitate drastic changes.
There is no point arguing about the colossus, as long as roaches and marauders are in the game.
Please explain.
Well those two are the "problem units" for protoss, which necessitate an AOE monster in the protoss arsenal. Its simple:
- ultra cheap, ultra effective units for T/Z + Colossus = balanced game - ultra cheap, ultra effective units for T/Z w/o Colossus = protoss are absurdly UP
Results in smaller army sizes compared to bw as more supply is used on workers which is disappointing to me.
I was never that good at brood war but i always made 30-40 probes per base, which is way more than in starcraft 2
units in SC2 are not supply efficient
Zerg
The lurker takes up 2 supply, the roach takes up 2(overall better than roach)) the defiler took 2 supply(overall better than the infestor) the ultra took 4 rather than 6 supply(also better in broodwar) hydras took 1 supply(arguably, the hydra is more powerful in sc2, but not enough to take up double the supply) corrupter take 2 supply ( scourge took 1, you got 2 of them, and were arguably better)
protoss
immortals take 4(arguably the reaver at 4 was alot better) colossus are one of the few units that are supply efficient, possibly more so than reavers, but that's possibly a stretch zealots were arguably better in broodwar(same supply) dragoons are arguablly better than stalkers(same supply) High Templar were better(same supply)
Terran
Tank= 3 supply (2 in broodwar, and better) marauder= 2 supply( vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and arguably better) hellion= 2 supply(vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and better) thor = 6 supply(goliath only took 2, probably more supply efficient) raven =2 supply (science vessel 2 supply, arguably better) banshee= 3 supply( probably overall better unit, its just after you have the tools to deal with them, the supply isn't what is keeping the unit back)
gas is also more hurtful on your economy due the the double gas system, not only in slowing tech down, but requiring double the SCVs to get the same gas in late game.
things in broodwar are cheaper
vulture versus marauder in relative price for supply baneling versus lurkers in relative price for supply tanks versus tanks in price per supply are all good examples
so basically, units are extremely expensive for what they are, so they require more supply in workers to support an arguably weaker army than in broodwar. The Gas mechanic requires a greater supply of workers to support an economy. And in addition, units cost more supply overall while costing a lot of money.
So that's why we have small armies, because armies in SC2 are EXPENSIVE, and you need a huge supply investment of an economy to support less units.
thats why we cap out at 200 supply so fast in addition to the accelerated economy.
in other words
100 supply in econ in sc2 is worse than 100 supply in econ in BW
100 supply of army in sc2 is worse and more expensive than 100 supply of army in BW
I see a lot of complaints about the infestor, but really I just think that people are not getting the appropriate response of either HT's or ghosts. If a toss gets colossi, I will get corrupter or infestor as my response, and I would never expect to win with pure roach or lings against a well-made toss army. Point being, even if the spell seems a bit strong because it locks units in place, there are many ways to mitigate the effects of the spell, and once the infestor enters the battlefield, it *should* force a response in many ways that others units like colossi or HT do. So I don't really see anything wrong with fungal growth, and I actually feel like the infestor is the best unit that blizzard thought up for zerg.
I am not very impressed after checking back to this thread time and again. The prevalent arguments are around colossus being overpowered, star2 vs bw, lurker, mules are OP.. infestors are OP .. 1a2a3a versus 1a...
A great point thats been brought up has been about the HSM. Its a very rarely used on a unit that is also less frequently used. But science vessels weren't instantly part of the game. They were always this oddball unit until people learned how to use them in proper situations.
The attack move/1a2a3a is probably the worst argument anyone has made here though. You're complaining about increased unit selection and extended control over what you do? Really now.
I want a single new unit for each race and a few old ones to be reworked like the reaper but What I want to see in HotS is more of the same.
Results in smaller army sizes compared to bw as more supply is used on workers which is disappointing to me.
I was never that good at brood war but i always made 30-40 probes per base, which is way more than in starcraft 2
units in SC2 are not supply efficient
Zerg
The lurker takes up 2 supply, the roach takes up 2(overall better than roach)) the defiler took 2 supply(overall better than the infestor) the ultra took 4 rather than 6 supply(also better in broodwar) hydras took 1 supply(arguably, the hydra is more powerful in sc2, but not enough to take up double the supply) corrupter take 2 supply ( scourge took 1, you got 2 of them, and were arguably better)
protoss
immortals take 4(arguably the reaver at 4 was alot better) colossus are one of the few units that are supply efficient, possibly more so than reavers, but that's possibly a stretch zealots were arguably better in broodwar(same supply) dragoons are arguablly better than stalkers(same supply) High Templar were better(same supply)
Terran
Tank= 3 supply (2 in broodwar, and better) marauder= 2 supply( vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and arguably better) hellion= 2 supply(vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and better) thor = 6 supply(goliath only took 2, probably more supply efficient) raven =2 supply (science vessel 2 supply, arguably better) banshee= 3 supply( probably overall better unit, its just after you have the tools to deal with them, the supply isn't what is keeping the unit back)
gas is also more hurtful on your economy due the the double gas system, not only in slowing tech down, but requiring double the SCVs to get the same gas in late game.
things in broodwar are cheaper
vulture versus marauder in relative price for supply baneling versus lurkers in relative price for supply tanks versus tanks in price per supply are all good examples
so basically, units are extremely expensive for what they are, so they require more supply in workers to support an arguably weaker army than in broodwar. The Gas mechanic requires a greater supply of workers to support an economy. And in addition, units cost more supply overall while costing a lot of money.
So that's why we have small armies, because armies in SC2 are EXPENSIVE, and you need a huge supply investment of an economy to support less units.
thats why we cap out at 200 supply so fast in addition to the accelerated economy.
in other words
100 supply in econ in sc2 is worse than 100 supply in econ in BW
100 supply of army in sc2 is worse and more expensive than 100 supply of army in BW
i agree everything you say in this everything are fects...
Conclusion and point in this is SC1 BW = more biger army more efective galioth vs thor hellion vs velture.. seige tanks vs seige tanks..... and you can have BIGER army in BW...and betther..
in SC2 you can have less army but you can faster build army.....cronobus larva mules...Less army faster to get...and i think this is ok but it should be biger armys....
my opinion is Thors colloss banglings senturiys should be single player unites ...and for multiplayer they should add less POP unites... like gilaoth ...they can add lurker to be 3 pop np...
i think seige tanks with 3 pop insted of 2 isnt big diferenc.. only thing is dps i think they should buff dps in HOTS....for em...
probem with sc2 is there is plenty of single player unites( great look but or to easy to use or not efective at all ) in multiplayer . Direction of thinking that blizz shoud made bether unites then sc1 for sc2 multiplayer bether abilitys...
i think they should murge sc2 economic with sc1 unites or at lest simular to them.. for multiplayer..
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
1. Collosi - without a doubt the most boring unit in the game. it's so strong that you're pretty much forced into making them. Perhaps they are slightly too strongs and it's high tier counterparts slightly too weak? This sole unit, used in every matchup, makes any protoss player quite uninteresting in the later stages of the game. 2. Hydra - they are terrible and used in none of the matchups. 3. Ultralisk - Again, incredibly underused unit because, well, it's terrible unless it has 3/5 upgrades and soft countered by t1 units *marines and zealots* (see morrow vs grubby in nasl; doesn't make sense that zealots survive so long to 2 ultras wailing at them)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
1. Chronoboost - I think it has too many uses compared to the terran and zerg comparision, and it's incredibly forgiving. Zerg inject larva is not versatile AT ALL and much less forgiving.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
Better music, obviously! The Terran music is the only one who's decent, and Zerg sounds are as if someone was playing with a pickle in a mayo jar. It's dumb.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
I'm not sure definitely some new zerg units to ad some versatility. Perhaps some 'gimmick' units like the banshee, hellion, dt that can make an unprepared opponent suffer, or some other air unit that has more than one boring spell. I also don't really like the pheonix I'd much rather see a caster air like the raven. Only terran seems like the complete race at this stage of the game.
1. Chronoboost - I think it has too many uses compared to the terran and zerg comparision, and it's incredibly forgiving. Zerg inject larva is not versatile AT ALL and much less forgiving.
Larva and creep tumors are both macro mechanics. MULEs and supply drops as well. I don see how CB can compare to that. In my eyes CB is the weakest of them all.
For the expansion I would like to see CB reworked a bit. For example:
- make it applicable to buildings under construction
- make it applicable to cannons
Yes, CB is more forgiving than Zerg mechanics, but also far less than Terran mechanics. It also provides the lowest utility of them all.
On June 03 2011 19:13 AndAgain wrote: replacing colos with either a weaker unit or one that takes more attention/skill would completely throw off the whole design of protoss. It's not feasible without drastic chances, and I don't know that Blizz has that in mind for HOTS.
You're probably right on the first point (a weaker unit), but the second (a more micro intensive unit) is a bit of a non sequitur. It would definitely make the race harder to play, which may or may not be desirable, but I don't see how a few more key presses would necessitate drastic changes.
There is no point arguing about the colossus, as long as roaches and marauders are in the game.
Please explain.
Well those two are the "problem units" for protoss, which necessitate an AOE monster in the protoss arsenal. Its simple:
- ultra cheap, ultra effective units for T/Z + Colossus = balanced game - ultra cheap, ultra effective units for T/Z w/o Colossus = protoss are absurdly UP
Yeah I agree with that but I don't think anyone is saying just remove the colossus and don't replace it with anything. What everyone is asking for is a unit that performs the same role but is designed better.
Just the fact that an AtA unit can shoot this particular ground unit goes to show that there is a problem with its design.
1. Chronoboost - I think it has too many uses compared to the terran and zerg comparision, and it's incredibly forgiving. Zerg inject larva is not versatile AT ALL and much less forgiving.
Larva and creep tumors are both macro mechanics. MULEs and supply drops as well. I don see how CB can compare to that. In my eyes CB is the weakest of them all.
For the expansion I would like to see CB reworked a bit. For example:
- make it applicable to buildings under construction
- make it applicable to cannons
Yes, CB is more forgiving than Zerg mechanics, but also far less than Terran mechanics. It also provides the lowest utility of them all.
I disagree. I'd rather have CB than either Mules or Larva inject. It's great being able to speed up critical units and upgrades. It really helps streamline my builds. Mules and Larva are just boring click this button every 30 seconds for free resources.
On June 04 2011 02:47 Probe1 wrote: I am not very impressed after checking back to this thread time and again. The prevalent arguments are around colossus being overpowered, star2 vs bw, lurker, mules are OP.. infestors are OP .. 1a2a3a versus 1a...
A great point thats been brought up has been about the HSM. Its a very rarely used on a unit that is also less frequently used. But science vessels weren't instantly part of the game. They were always this oddball unit until people learned how to use them in proper situations.
The attack move/1a2a3a is probably the worst argument anyone has made here though. You're complaining about increased unit selection and extended control over what you do? Really now.
I want a single new unit for each race and a few old ones to be reworked like the reaper but What I want to see in HotS is more of the same.
Yeah. I think Raven have to be more usefull against zerg to make the match-up evolve. I don't know if HSM is too weak right now or not, but it's clearly not as good as iradiate. But since we don't have scourge anymore, blizzard need to be cautious with that.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus Reaper Warp prism(not sure though)
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Forcefield - Remove this ability for the love of god. I mean I get impressed with good ffs like any other guy and I'm not going the route that they are to easy to do or anything, but they are still just dull and limit the game. Obviously toss needs a huge buff to compensate. Hunter seeker missile - HSM is awesome, there's no doubt about it. They are however only awesome if they can connect, if the raven gets in range, if you can survive while getting ravens+HSM aswell as waiting for the energy. It just doesn't really work, so change it to make it usable. Strike cannon - Ugh don't know what to say, the nerf was way to big. In general though, I just find the ability rather boring, so removing it or changing it would be nice too.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Don't know really...
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Zerg gets more units, such as roach to 1 supply but worse in return. Obviously larvae and stuff need looking at. With the ghost buff tank play TvP isn't explored that much, but in general TvP in BW is pretty epic, wish the same thing could be said about TvP in WoL...
Have you ever seen a gateway army fight the other 2 races without any forcefields ? Try it and come back and try say that again.
Have you ever learned to read? I said that obviously basically toss would need to be rebalanced, since forcefields are such a core ability of the race. My issue isn't with it being overpowered, it is with it being a "cast or die" spell aswell as it being retarded.
1. colossus 2. corrupter (bring back its original ability that turned units it killed into temp. corrupted units) 3.Id like to see overseers contaminate be able to shut down terran AA turrets, and pylon power. Would make it easier to stop proxy pylons and stuff
Results in smaller army sizes compared to bw as more supply is used on workers which is disappointing to me.
I was never that good at brood war but i always made 30-40 probes per base, which is way more than in starcraft 2
units in SC2 are not supply efficient
Zerg
The lurker takes up 2 supply, the roach takes up 2(overall better than roach)) the defiler took 2 supply(overall better than the infestor) the ultra took 4 rather than 6 supply(also better in broodwar) hydras took 1 supply(arguably, the hydra is more powerful in sc2, but not enough to take up double the supply) corrupter take 2 supply ( scourge took 1, you got 2 of them, and were arguably better)
protoss
immortals take 4(arguably the reaver at 4 was alot better) colossus are one of the few units that are supply efficient, possibly more so than reavers, but that's possibly a stretch zealots were arguably better in broodwar(same supply) dragoons are arguablly better than stalkers(same supply) High Templar were better(same supply)
Terran
Tank= 3 supply (2 in broodwar, and better) marauder= 2 supply( vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and arguably better) hellion= 2 supply(vulture 2 in broodwar, cheaper, and better) thor = 6 supply(goliath only took 2, probably more supply efficient) raven =2 supply (science vessel 2 supply, arguably better) banshee= 3 supply( probably overall better unit, its just after you have the tools to deal with them, the supply isn't what is keeping the unit back)
gas is also more hurtful on your economy due the the double gas system, not only in slowing tech down, but requiring double the SCVs to get the same gas in late game.
things in broodwar are cheaper
vulture versus marauder in relative price for supply baneling versus lurkers in relative price for supply tanks versus tanks in price per supply are all good examples
so basically, units are extremely expensive for what they are, so they require more supply in workers to support an arguably weaker army than in broodwar. The Gas mechanic requires a greater supply of workers to support an economy. And in addition, units cost more supply overall while costing a lot of money.
So that's why we have small armies, because armies in SC2 are EXPENSIVE, and you need a huge supply investment of an economy to support less units.
thats why we cap out at 200 supply so fast in addition to the accelerated economy.
in other words
100 supply in econ in sc2 is worse than 100 supply in econ in BW
100 supply of army in sc2 is worse and more expensive than 100 supply of army in BW
i agree everything you say in this everything are fects...
Conclusion and point in this is SC1 BW = more biger army more efective galioth vs thor hellion vs velture.. seige tanks vs seige tanks..... and you can have BIGER army in BW...and betther..
in SC2 you can have less army but you can faster build army.....cronobus larva mules...Less army faster to get...and i think this is ok but it should be biger armys....
my opinion is Thors colloss banglings senturiys should be single player unites ...and for multiplayer they should add less POP unites... like gilaoth ...they can add lurker to be 3 pop np...
i think seige tanks with 3 pop insted of 2 isnt big diferenc.. only thing is dps i think they should buff dps in HOTS....for em...
probem with sc2 is there is plenty of single player unites( great look but or to easy to use or not efective at all ) in multiplayer . Direction of thinking that blizz shoud made bether unites then sc1 for sc2 multiplayer bether abilitys...
i think they should murge sc2 economic with sc1 unites or at lest simular to them.. for multiplayer..
Yea I totally agree about the points for supply efficiency. You forgot Arbiter vs mothership, archon vs archon corsair vs phoenix, I think the bw versions were all more threatening .
I'd also like to see the return of the Dark Archon and maybe some kind of Templar/Dark Templar merge hybrid (in time for LoTV). This can properly be called a Twilight Archon.
On June 02 2011 02:21 Eknoid4 wrote: HT storm is incredibly hard to use vs good micro.
But it doesn't do much and it is actually quite easy to fill the screen with storms compared to BW. Hold t and start clicking. Obviously people don't want to get rid of smart-casting so storm's power has been nerfed. Compare it to the BW storm- storming mech actually put significant damage- 2 storms would take out tanks. Storming mineral lines took 1-2 storms rather than 3-4.
That's where I'd rather have power over spam minimal damage storm.
I actually wonder how armour effects BW and SC2's damage output. BW was 8 volleys of 14 damage. (112 damage). SC2 is 10 damage over ever half second. (80 damage) But BW maybe also has a bigger damage output thus overcoming armour a bit better?
2 storms do take out a tank in sc2, storming a mineral line only takes 1-2 storms if the opponent doesn't react, I would rather have the option to react and have more storms than the option to be totally screwed once the ht comes within about 10 range of the workers. One thing that I can't really look up is whether storm ignores armor, I thought that it did.
Also.... Someone else in this thread was complaining about siege tanks being less effective versus the new ai system. I would just like to point out that you are actually stupid. Like, literally mentally deficient. Units clump up more in sc2 so splash damage is more effective. WAYYYY more effective.
On June 02 2011 02:30 sysrpl wrote: Buff zealots by making charge not only give them the dash but also improve their overall speed significantly.
They do get a speed upgrade, they go from 2.25 to 2.75. I would say that making their speed equal to stalkers (2.95) warrants testing but the charge upgrade makes them faster.
On June 02 2011 02:30 sysrpl wrote: Buff zealots by making charge not only give them the dash but also improve their overall speed significantly.
They do get a speed upgrade, they go from 2.25 to 2.75. I would say that making their speed equal to stalkers (2.95) warrants testing but the charge upgrade makes them faster.
My take on what WoL units and/or mechanics are uninteresting are as follows-
Colossi- Quite simply this unit is too effective at what it does w/out any micro. It is a unit that does not need, nor want any more micro than A+ click. It is a design unit that doesn't fit the needs of a competitive follow up to bw. The saying "OP" truely does fit.
Hydra- The hydra is a tier 2 light unit with low health (equivalent to sentry) and is slow (for zerg it is extremely slow). It also was in a different tier in bw (and it makes sense in that tier). It fills a void and is malleable to boot. I would make the hydralisk.... 75/25 1f hydra den after pool range upgrade (like it has now) speed upgrade (+.5) Base speed of 2.5 7dmg, .86 atk speed, +1 from ups remove "light" from its unit status. Keep it at 33 secs spawn time (was 28) and ofc lurker aspect (obligated to mention lurker aspect because it is an upgrade for the hydra)
Roach- The roach is interesting, It started out as a 1f unit and was made to be 2f so now the unit that you mass w/ z gets u to 200f at 14 minutes instead of 16 like every other unit comp in all 3 races. This gives the illusion that Z is ahead in ZvP but in reality they are about the same. I would move the roach to tier 2, 150/100 3f 2 natural armor have it's attack be like 15 (+5 to light) and it's upgrade be 2(+2) health regen upgrade (above ground) 180 health high priority
I guess my reasoning as to why it would do bonus to light is kind of convoluted (competitive wise). The general lore behind the roach is that it is effective versus light units and weaker versus heavy units. I think that 150/100 is a hefty price tag for a true tanking unit that only has 180 health (for reference, stalkers are 160 and tanks are 180). I don't know if I would keep the speed upgrade, on one hand a fast roach might be bad balance wise (don't know) but a slow roach might be useless.
Baneling- I also absolutely hate the baneling, it is too powerful in many situations but also it dies no matter what!, there is very little micro with it in most games (baneling micro vs marines is pretty cool). When you make a baneling you are effectively saying that you are trading 50/25(x) to blow up his army and lose yours, You could spend 150/75 and w/ 3 banes and blow up 20 marines or you could spend 1500/750 and almost always have nothing left over.
Thor- This unit does not do it's job well enough, it rewards gimmicky play and in general lacks the micro that you would want from a unit. I think that the goliath was a better unit in almost every way and would rather see it come back.
Corrupter- This unit irritates me right away because it is similar to the devourer from bw but needs to be produced by itself. This makes the mutalisk worse and you have to waste a lot of money and food if you want to do heavy air for most of the game. In more of a standard sc2 note, it really only has 1 job and that is to combat the colossi (yes, it morphs into brolords but if your plan was to get brolords you wouldn't need the corrupter would you). This means that the carrier is also useless later in the game and that you have a good 20 supply and 1500/1000 resources just sitting on the battlefield. If the colossi was removed (I would like to see it removed) then the corrupter would almost be more interesting of a unit. Zerg is a very logical race in what species it chooses, so it sounds appropriate to have a unit that is meant solely for AtA. 1 thing that a lot of ppl might have problems with is the corruption spell. Compared to vikings and more specifically phoenix, the corruption spell is like shooting confetti at your opponent. While I don't think that the corrupter needs to be a spellcaster itself, I would like to see the corruption ability either moved to another unit (or removed tbh) or made to be useful (like a single target dot maybe).
Mothership- Oh boy was this a colossal failure of a unit. This WoW/wc3 unit has been rejected by the competitive community and really only sees play in odd games. The abilities it has are interesting (vortex is broken, even if the toilet crap is gone, the ability is still unmicroable and swallows a good portion of the army and then later craps it all out in a ball (so you can't just put all of ur stuff in the vortex and be fine) but they aren't worth the fleat beacon plus time on your nexus to be built (not to mention the general cost for them). I would love to see this unit removed, AND THE HERO THOUGHT TO BE THROWN OUT. I'm sorry, sc is a different game, if you need to keep the unit, have it in the galaxy editor and the campaign.
So... First I would like to mention that the 2 changes I have would need testing and I would only advocate for them as a starting point. I am a zerg player, I don't know enough stats to change terran or protoss units but I would expect the game to be fair to all 3 races. In my opinion, sc was practically a fluke, blizz happened upon an extremely competitive game with a great map editor program. SC2 was not a fluke, it is the follow up game and should be designed with competition in mind. If this means that all races should have a unit that shoots up at tier 1/1.5 to prevent air cheese; Or units that can control space effectively while needing micro on both sides, then I am all for the game to be completely redesigned and built up correctly.
A lot of people in this thread (and others) have complained about bw fanatics wanting the return of the reaver and the lurker and the vulture and while I would agree with them saying the firebat can stay, some units are essential to the game being interesting in all matchups. With my suggested removal of the colossi I would hope that the stalker would be given the goons stats and the reaver be replaced and the immortal get +1 range and zealot charge would increase their speed to 2.95 naturally. I think that adding the lurker is important, as well as the arbiter, defiler and science vessel (I loved this unit so much, even though I was a zerg player).
Oh and to the ppl that don't want the bw units to be added to the game I have a little spoiler tag for you + Show Spoiler +
Terran ________
marine- Core bio unit, transfered to sc2 firebat- good against light units, it did not transfer, but it's abilities were switched with the hellion medic- Did not transfer, but was combined with the dropship for the medivac ghost- Transferred and slightly redesigned vulture- did not transfer tank- transferred, cost increased, supply increased, damage decreased goliath- Did not transfer, its anti air was replaced by thor wraith- Did not transfer, it was replaced by the banshee and viking science vessel- Did not transfer battlecruiser- transferred drop ship- did not transfer, was replaced by medivac valkyrie- did not transfer, was replaced by the viking
Protoss __________
Zealot- transferred Dragoon- this unit did not transfer, but it was replaced by the stalker and lore wise it is the immortal High templar- transferred Dark templar- transferred Reaver- did not transfer Archon- transferred dark archon- did not transfer observer- transferred shuttle- was replaced by the warp prism scout- did not transfer carrier- transferred corsair- did not transfer arbiter- did not transfer
Zerg ________
Zergling- transferred Hydralisk- technically transferred, changed the tech tier and food and cost and damage lurker- did not transfer ultralisk- trasferred defiler- did not transfer mutalisk- transferred scourge- did not transfer queen- in this form, did not transfer, the name did though guardian- did not transfer, this was replaced by corrupter devourer- effectively the broodlord, but did not transfer
13 units in total did not effectively transfer, this is including the queen and valkyrie but not including the wraith, or goon. 7/14 are not in contention, 6 out of 13 (lurker, reaver, science vessel, scourge, arbiter, defiler, goliath) are units that add a lot to the game. If you look at the list of units that I listed are wanted you see 3 spellcasters, 2 units that are comparable to the tank at controlling space and a proper GtA unit for mech play. This list isn't biased and would add a lot to the game.
I guess I would like to end this w/ saying that as a zerg player and a fan of starcraft and e-sports I would like a balanced game, something that the only innate advantages are the metagame and map pool. A game where strategy and micro are extremely important.
I would like to give a new challenge-
Design/nerf/buff your race to be equivalent to my zerg ideas (t/p onry). I would also like to know how far off i remade the roach or hydra (from being a fair unit, so 0 on the scale).
On June 02 2011 13:25 Meta wrote: I would also like to see tanks do their full damage to all units again
I would like to note that tanks did not do full damage to all units. Their damage was classified as "explosive", which is 100% damage to armored units and 50% damage to light units. So they did 35 damage initially to zealots ect.
On June 02 2011 02:21 Eknoid4 wrote: HT storm is incredibly hard to use vs good micro.
But it doesn't do much and it is actually quite easy to fill the screen with storms compared to BW. Hold t and start clicking. Obviously people don't want to get rid of smart-casting so storm's power has been nerfed. Compare it to the BW storm- storming mech actually put significant damage- 2 storms would take out tanks. Storming mineral lines took 1-2 storms rather than 3-4.
That's where I'd rather have power over spam minimal damage storm.
I actually wonder how armour effects BW and SC2's damage output. BW was 8 volleys of 14 damage. (112 damage). SC2 is 10 damage over ever half second. (80 damage) But BW maybe also has a bigger damage output thus overcoming armour a bit better?
2 storms do take out a tank in sc2, storming a mineral line only takes 1-2 storms if the opponent doesn't react, I would rather have the option to react and have more storms than the option to be totally screwed once the ht comes within about 10 range of the workers. One thing that I can't really look up is whether storm ignores armor, I thought that it did.
Also.... Someone else in this thread was complaining about siege tanks being less effective versus the new ai system. I would just like to point out that you are actually stupid. Like, literally mentally deficient. Units clump up more in sc2 so splash damage is more effective. WAYYYY more effective.
Tanks also don't overkill anymore either. Anyone that says tanks in SC2 are worse is a complete idiot. They're splash isn't as great, but unit clumping makes up for it as well as the smart targeting AI they have.
My 3 Units that I don't like very much:
1. Hellions - They are simply too cost effective against workers, especially with the advanced AI that lines up workers when they are running away. Either reduce the splash radius or fix it. It's not fun when one build can win you the game, even if you're prepared for it.
2. Sentry - For the same reason everyone else has said. I feel like FF is broken in it's current state. You shouldn't be able to spam one spell mindlessy and turn one battle from a win to a loss like that. Either Sentries need to have a cooldown before they can cast another FF or FF needs to be a channeling ability like the Phoenix's graviton beam. The channeling effect I feel is the best choice. You would actually have to think before you just spam FFs. I also hate it that whenever a Protoss army gets caught out of position, they can make a wall of FFs and just run away to a better spot. It's a very forgiving race when FFs are in play. If you had to actually sacrifice some of those Sentries to save your army, then it would be much more balanced if you ask me.
3. Medivac Dropship - What were you guys thinking combining a Medic and a Dropship, Blizzard? This makes drops so overpowered. Instead of only being able to carry 5 marines and 3 Medics, you can now carry 8 marines that can easily pick off Tech Structures before you can even save them all while getting healed after every stim! Hooray!
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Collossus Stalker Raven - What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Forcefield and protoss tier 1 strength ( too weak )
Hydralisks are by far the most uninspired unit in the game right now, useful or not they're just plain boring and slow.
I'm also unimpressed by the way the Phoenix is designed. Moving shots that require no micro with the ability to lift up units. Every time I see Phoenixes, I feel like leaving immediately, cuz then you're kinda forced to use Hydras, and well... what I said about Hydras earlier. Like in BW where Corsairs were superior to Mutas but could be beat with superior play, and you could move out without fear of Phoenixes slaughtering your entire Muta flock on sight.
MULEs are a poor concept that show Blizzard's inability to grasp the basic rules of Starcraft - the economic game. Giving one race with the most efficient mineral only unit the ability to manipulate their mineral count so drastically, imbalanced or not, shouldn't have found it's way into the game.
Strangely I have no problem with Colossi, even though they are just glorified Prism tanks.
Apart from whatever else I've said in this thread, the main point of which was small buffs to Protoss gateway units, I wonder if the Immortal should not return to being a gateway unit (as I believe it originally was, and should do in terms of lore being the old Dragoon from SC1/BW). It probably shouldn't be accessible directly from the gateway, but through an upgrade at Core and should certainly be at least a little cheaper than it is now (250/100!). The availability of the Immortal in reasonable numbers would help meet mass Roach/Marauder pressure while, more importantly, increasing Protoss small unit efficiency thus opening up more aggressive play styles for many Toss players.
The Robo bay could then just make Colossus, Prism and Observers (with the Colossus maybe available with 6 range; the Support Bay would be required for the range buff and other robo upgrades. It would be nice if they added the increased observer sight range upgrade from SC1/BW as well).
On June 04 2011 19:17 aZealot wrote: Apart from whatever else I've said in this thread, the main point of which was small buffs to Protoss gateway units, I wonder if the Immortal should not return to being a gateway unit (as I believe it originally was, and should do in terms of lore being the old Dragoon from SC1/BW).
This is correct. Originally, the immortal was attached to the cybernetics core alongside the stalker. The sentry was built from a robotics facility(the immortal is a piloted strider, the sentry is a drone, go figure).
What if the immortal took the sentry's place, but didn't have hardened shields or their bonus vs armored units(maybe make them 30+20 rather than 20+30?) until upgraded, and then warp gate was pushed back onto the twilight council/templar archives?
On June 04 2011 19:17 aZealot wrote: Apart from whatever else I've said in this thread, the main point of which was small buffs to Protoss gateway units, I wonder if the Immortal should not return to being a gateway unit (as I believe it originally was, and should do in terms of lore being the old Dragoon from SC1/BW).
This is correct. Originally, the immortal was attached to the cybernetics core alongside the stalker. The sentry was built from a robotics facility(the immortal is a piloted strider, the sentry is a drone, go figure).
What if the immortal took the sentry's place, but didn't have hardened shields or their bonus vs armored units(maybe make them 30+20 rather than 20+30?) until upgraded, and then warp gate was pushed back onto the twilight council/templar archives?
Thanks, I wasn't sure. The sentry from the Robo bay? That late in the game? I wonder what purpose it was originally meant to serve then? It cant have been gateway support with FF/GS that late.
I think warp-gate of some kind would still be needed early game to withstand pushes and all-ins but maybe it can be a defensive warp-in, call it a phase-in where units are teleported/phased from the gateway (with a different animation) anywhere within the psionic field of a Nexus (basically your base). This can later perhaps be interconnected between adjacent Protoss bases (rather similar to the Zerg creep) allowing defensive reinforcement of the Protoss through phase-ins. This upgrade should be available at Core level with what we currently consider Warp Gate Tech available at Twilight Council. Warped in units should also be more expensive than Gateway/Phase in units. Perhaps only the Warp Prism is able to skip this upgrade by being instantly able to warp in (more expensive?) units which should then also open up the possibility of harass and more variety from Toss play.
1. reapers, colo, and thors need to be redesigned. the colossus is boring and stupid, but it's one thing toss can do to force unit compositions (corruptors/vikings) that don't roll gateway units. it's not great design, but any changes to the colo's effectiveness will require gateway unit buffs i think. the thor is a very strange unit that doesn't seem to have a defined role. the reaper is prolly the most underused combat unit. (*edited this section)
2. i think the anti-micro abilities are the worst abilities to have in a game like this. fungal growth especially is ridiculous because it disables and damages in the same ability. i'd rate forcefield as being as bad as fungal growth, but forcefield's uses become limited as the game goes on. it can be very boring to watch some of these abilities at work (esp. FF all-ins, see: july vs mc finals)
i think there's also probably too much splash damage in the game and too much reliance on splash damage to beat units like marines and hydras. i think this makes for boring games, especially toss games. it can be easy to tell when a fairly large and expensive gateway army is about to lose against a similar tier composition, because the toss player didn't tech to T3 in time.
3. can't think of anything graphically/misc atm
4. i'm not too excited about additional units/buildings
If they were to remove FF and colossi then they had to rework the whole race, because protoss is balanced around them.
I just want battle to last much longer and require more micro. Micro also should affect the game greater, a-moving is just too effin strong. Also remove units that are just plain boring like corruptors and overseers. It's mostly the zerg race that suffers from boring units. Reaper needs a rework though and toss is just badly designed to begin with.
Redesign the iconic Zerg unit, the hydralisk. There is no reason for a giant snake with spike arms and the head of an alien from Aliens is a slow-moving pussy unit.
Corruptors, regardless of utility, are the lamest unit in the game. Phoenix can pick stuff up and shoot double beams while moving around and Viking are goddamn badass Robotechs. Corruptors are flying jizz with a lame spell and lame attack animation. Their only saving grace is that they transform into Brood Lords, a really well-designed unit.
2. Sentry - For the same reason everyone else has said. I feel like FF is broken in it's current state. You shouldn't be able to spam one spell mindlessy and turn one battle from a win to a loss like that. Either Sentries need to have a cooldown before they can cast another FF or FF needs to be a channeling ability like the Phoenix's graviton beam. The channeling effect I feel is the best choice. You would actually have to think before you just spam FFs. I also hate it that whenever a Protoss army gets caught out of position, they can make a wall of FFs and just run away to a better spot. It's a very forgiving race when FFs are in play. If you had to actually sacrifice some of those Sentries to save your army, then it would be much more balanced if you ask me.
FFs should be either destructible by targeting them or have certain abilities that destroy them. I feel they should only be a means of altering position for a very short duration if the opponent can effectively counter them in some way. This is coming from a Toss player, where even in Silver they are very easy for me to cast. It feels like I'm cheating sometimes because my opponents only two options are to commit and lose or attempt to retreat and still lose a good portion of their army.
Colossus isn't even that good when 4 vikings or corrupts hard counter it. just fly to the side and intercept and your fine, the root to the problem is that they suck.
I would hardly call concussive shells anti micro. They are tweaking it greatly too, without it marauders wouldn't be too useful, i mean they'd still do alot of damage but concussive shell is vital against stalkers and zealots. I feel like to make sc2 more challenging we shouldn't be able to have an infinite amount of units in a group, which would make it much harder. DOn't make it like 12 units per group but like maybe 24? They still have alot to figure out. I would love to see a mobile mech unit, and two cool bio units for terran. As for zerg, buff hydralisk, don't bring back lurkers, that'd be imbalanced because zerg already has good aoe units, buff hydralisks, remove the mothership, nerf colossus. Bring back arbiter, and reaver and I'll play protoss again
Its funny to see now after a year zerg have finally learn to use infestors. Infestors are probably the best unit in the game by far, and i dont whant to change them because like them even if im not a zerg player. But one thing they could do is make archons or some other units immune to mind controll.
Infestors are probably the best unit in the game by far,
A certain canadian said that they are 100% without a doubt the most powerful unit in the game.
Tanks also don't overkill anymore either. Anyone that says tanks in SC2 are worse is a complete idiot. They're splash isn't as great, but unit clumping makes up for it as well as the smart targeting AI they have.
Tanks are not even close to their BW counterpart. You might want to play the game you are referencing before calling someone else an idiot.
To be removed/replaced: Planetary Fortresses. Static defense should be used sparingly, if at all. It might give map control, but it doesn't require micro (Grabbing SCVs and right clicking a PF is not micro), unlike spider mines. And seriously, using upgraded CC's to stop/delay an army? That's a bit silly, imo.
Collosi: Shuttle/Reaver micro was so much more exciting to watch. These things require little micro, and they can't be micro'd anyways. It's more on you relying on stalkers to focus fire the units that attack the collosus
Viking/Banshee: Splitting the wraith into two units? Why?
Thors: At least valkries could fly and were somewhat mobile. You can pick them up in dropships, but you might as well play bio.
Roaches: It's a good concept, but the stats.... It's basically a Protoss unit in disguise.
Warp gates: As people have said, eliminates defender's advantage. (also can't use your keyboard to macro)
Immortals: Amount of skill required to use hardened shields: 0.
Chargelots: Slightly more skill required. Slightly.
Reapers: Aren't ever used past early early game. I get and appreciate that you can use them for scouting, but I'd prefer if all units had a role that lasted longer than one minute.
Mothership: Glorified arbiter indeed...
To be tweaked: Hellion: It's really slow. I find it hard to see hellions line up good shots just because it is slow. I would replace blue flame for hellion speed any day. It's better to see good micro from players than a ridiculous damage output.
Carriers: Old carrier micro doesn't exist anymore, and I really fail to see any reason why it got removed.
Warp Prisms: Not used enough. Perhaps they are too slow? I want to see storm drops yo.
Fungal growth/Forcefield: Anti-micro. You can't really do anything against these. Ironically, they are probably the best spells in the game because they can be used defensively and offensively. If anti-micro spells are meant to be in the game, it should be late game tech and counterable (SC2 counterparts to arbiters, science vessels, defilers)
Overseer: costs 100 gas. Acts as detector. Really poor spells. You only get these against cloaked units.
Raven: What kind of spells are these? For 200 gas, I get: a 125 energy spell that might not even kill things (has to be researched) a 25 energy spell that summons a turret a 100 energy spell that blocks 20 particle attacks
Not exactly enough to warrant its use in standard play, considering you can now get two ghosts for one raven...
My Thoughts on A-Move units: In BW, there is this unit called a hydralisk. It has 2 upgrades, one for range, and one for speed. It has no extra functions, except for morphing into a lurker. It is cheap to produce and easy to mass. It is, in a sense, the perfect A-move unit. It is used in the staple of ZvP. However, you NEVER A-Move this unit. Protoss had Psi Storm and Reavers. You have to storm dodge to get the most out of your hydralisks, and have to scourge the shuttles/move hydras out of the way to not lose your army . An A-Move unit ceases to be an A-move unit as soon as it becomes necessary to micro them.
TLDR: You should have to babysit your units. Game is more fun that way.
1. Hellions - They are simply too cost effective against workers, especially with the advanced AI that lines up workers when they are running away. Either reduce the splash radius or fix it. It's not fun when one build can win you the game, even if you're prepared for it.
Is a very easy question: There could be many opinions about uninteresting mechanics, but the most OBVIOUS are all those cheap 1a units: marauders, roaches and collosi.
And also, the overall dps in the game should be slightly decreased, to make battles more interesting.
On June 05 2011 16:40 Belha wrote: Is a very easy question: There could be many opinions about uninteresting mechanics, but the most OBVIOUS are all those cheap 1a units: marauders, roaches and collosi.
Given how quickly burrowed roaches regenerate, I have to think there's a lot of untapped blink-esque micro potential
I don't get why everyone hates corruption? I think its fucking brilliant. Idra's been using it in his play, and it completely destroys protoss army balls.
On June 05 2011 16:40 Belha wrote: Is a very easy question: There could be many opinions about uninteresting mechanics, but the most OBVIOUS are all those cheap 1a units: marauders, roaches and collosi.
Given how quickly burrowed roaches regenerate, I have to think there's a lot of untapped blink-esque micro potential
Given how long it takes for them to burrow and then unborrow I don't think it's very viable.
One thing I would like to see is for all units to be viable in at least some way in every match up. For example, hydras are rarely seen in any match up other than zvp and Terran mech gets stomped by protoss and blink stalkers/collosi.
I would like to see some more effective ways for Protoss to to harassment. It seems far more common for zerg and terran players to do drop play and this often gives them the edge economically. I would like to see maybe the warp prism being redesigned so that toss can drop drops and get more aggressive. When i try to do these drops they get cleaned up so fast and any unit that we send such as the colossus probably wont make it back, especially since the warp prism has such low hp. I feel as though the only way to do damage with Protoss is with a big army but that is a little boring for me.
Improving the warp prism is something i would like to see, or them adding a unit that we can do harassment with thats cheap and is not a massive loss if it dies.
The last thing id like to note is that phoenix probably needs to be changed. I would rather it was cheaper and died faster so that i could actually use it more. I feel like this unit is really rubbish unless we mass lodes of them and even then it's not super effective.
i just really hope they don't flat out remove anything. relatively speaking, players haven't had enough time to write anything off for sure. i'd much rather they attempt to rebalance the numbers, add upgrades and spells, add a unit to change the unit interactions, something like that.
like how they mentioned the overseer - yeah it's an underwhelming unit, but it has uses. strategies can't hinge on changelings, but every once in awhile they gather some useful information without risking the loss of the overseer itself. contaminate can be really powerful zvz, and as far as i know mass contaminate hasn't really been seriously explored against the other races. i'd rather they add a spell, maybe as an upgrade so the player can choose to use it for that functionality or just for contaminate or even just for detection, but why remove it? it's a cool art asset and the more units that can morph, the more zergy zerg feels. or like the mothership - so it's "useless". what harm is it doing? just don't make one. it was a cool idea and it's better to leave something like that around so maybe someday in a few years some genius will make it viable, or blizzard will find a way to tweak it so it's more practical. on that note, it'd probably be best to concentrate on the carrier first since that will get people building fleet beacons and then the mothership will follow out of curiosity.
it'd just be vastly better to redesign and rebalance units like that than to remove them. it seems hasty and reactionary and to me it would be blizzard pandering to their reputation for making competitive RTS games without taking into account the fact that all their previous vanilla releases have been far worse, and that it takes time for players to discover the full utility of the units in the game.
as far as my own suggestions i'm not feeling very imaginative. only thing i'm sure i want is a speed upgrade for hydras. at tier 3 if that's what's necessary to keep it balanced but i don't want to be stuck turtling in my base forever because i chose to tech to a unit that is supposed to be a linchpin of the zerg army. either that or make nydus worms cheaper or something so they have more utility as fast transport and not just as a risky alternative to overlord drop.
On June 05 2011 18:41 Doc Daneeka wrote: i just really hope they don't flat out remove anything. relatively speaking, players haven't had enough time to write anything off for sure. i'd much rather they attempt to rebalance the numbers, add upgrades and spells, add a unit to change the unit interactions, something like that.
like how they mentioned the overseer - yeah it's an underwhelming unit, but it has uses. strategies can't hinge on changelings, but every once in awhile they gather some useful information without risking the loss of the overseer itself. contaminate can be really powerful zvz, and as far as i know mass contaminate hasn't really been seriously explored against the other races. i'd rather they add a spell, maybe as an upgrade so the player can choose to use it for that functionality or just for contaminate or even just for detection, but why remove it? it's a cool art asset and the more units that can morph, the more zergy zerg feels. or like the mothership - so it's "useless". what harm is it doing? just don't make one. it was a cool idea and it's better to leave something like that around so maybe someday in a few years some genius will make it viable, or blizzard will find a way to tweak it so it's more practical. on that note, it'd probably be best to concentrate on the carrier first since that will get people building fleet beacons and then the mothership will follow out of curiosity.
it'd just be vastly better to redesign and rebalance units like that than to remove them. it seems hasty and reactionary and to me it would be blizzard pandering to their reputation for making competitive RTS games without taking into account the fact that all their previous vanilla releases have been far worse, and that it takes time for players to discover the full utility of the units in the game.
as far as my own suggestions i'm not feeling very imaginative. only thing i'm sure i want is a speed upgrade for hydras. at tier 3 if that's what's necessary to keep it balanced but i don't want to be stuck turtling in my base forever because i chose to tech to a unit that is supposed to be a linchpin of the zerg army. either that or make nydus worms cheaper or something so they have more utility as fast transport and not just as a risky alternative to overlord drop.
Why do you want a speed upgrade for hydras? "What harm is it", if hydras remain slow like hell? I mean, Blizz took the perfectly useful arbiter and made a perfectly useless mothership out of that, and you are fine with that. Why not the hydra?
My god, 1 unit is relatively fast, has good spells, is small and can be microed to a degree (arbiter). The other unit is big, slow, costly, unmicroable, has an absurd tech/build time. I really dont know what to say. And when you look at the 3 tech trees for protoss, it becomes obvious that in a similar way, everything BUT the robo tech has been fucked up.
Templar: you now need 2 buildings, and the one for DTs ist costly like hell, and takes forever to be built. Archons are much, much weaker than in the previous game. In PvT HTs lose much of their utility thanks to the ultra cheap ghosts and EMP. The upgrades of the templar tech path were also fucked up...well, except blink. But just compare the utility of speedlots vs chargelots. Speedlots were almost as fast as speedlings, it was very hard for the zerg to surround and kill them. Thus, you could use them to harass the shit out of enemy expos and run out. And why was that possible? Because speedlots were much faster then workers and killed them really fast. 4 speedlots could wreck an entire mineral line even if the workers were pulled of. Chargelots are slower than workers and only land a hit every 10 sec (cooldown for charge), you also cant run them in and out of an expo, like you could do with speedlots. Once they engage, they are dead. Every fucking T1 unit in the game is faster than chargelots. (accounting for stim and speed upgrades) As I've said, blink is cool, and enables good micro, but since stalkers have very low DPS, they are not very good for harassing mineral lines/shutting down expos.
Thats why you dont see much harassment from protoss in sc2. The core units are not good for harass. Its simple as that.
Add/Change 1.Roach/Hydra position switch(?) with hydra doing less damage 2.L - U - R - K - E - R....(probably reduce damage since they destroy everything they touch now in unit tester) 3. Unit clumping(just seems kinda unnatural to me, if i was a marine i would not want some other marine walking so close behind me he's basically rubbing his junk on me.) 4.Reaver instead of Colossus because it is just a much more exciting unit. 5.Get rid of Raven/Infestor bring back Science vessel/Defiler
All in all though SCII is a great game and is fun to play, I just personally hate the colosuss I sigh every time I see it whether watching a stream or playing against it.
things i would do in an expansion; put the lurker as a roach upgrade and make hydras viable, ditch mothership and fix collussi, change warp gate mechanic so toss t1 can be more viable, remove reaper
and stop units clumping to that degree oh and ultras up ramps = FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I hate Colossi(random player here). They cause nothing but boredom and frustration; coupled with how seemingly mandatory the unit is just makes for disappointing encounters.
Roach/Marauder are bad units in terms of interest--they are very bloated considering they're not Toss units--but, the thing is, they *have* to be like that. I understand that this thread is, in a sense, a glorified wishlist, but it would require such fundamental redesign of the game if those units were weakened that I seriously don't think it will happen. My suspicion is that Roach/Marauder are so beefy is because of how good banelings would be in those matchups(firebats at 50 HP would get rolled, and light armor hydras would die instantly). I think it requires more than I suspect Blizzard is willing to put in at the moment. That said, I would be greatly interested in seeing these three staple "1A" units all removed from the game or heavily, heavily reworked.
I think ultimately I agree with a fair amount of whats been said so far.
Ill add my contribution though:
Units Collosus: Unit needs to be either removed or adjusted to be much much slower. Like said, it just doesnt have the draw back of a siege unit, being vulnerable to air just means its too good at forcing heavy air, and their range and durability often means that even with a heavy air presence they still do a good amount of damage before being picked off.
Sentry: FF should be changed, either removing it or if you have to have it then make it channeled, I like the idea of a support unit but I think it should have other spells to reflect this which work similar to guardian shield (buff) or perhaps some kind of debuff. Perhaps making an area 'ability stopping' so you cant stim in a certain area (and it would cancel if you've already stimmed perhaps) if the spell is cast there, this could also help against thors strike canon vs immortals, buying time for Protoss in a similar manner to FF but w/o doing so by removing any chance to micro.
Mothership: Just remove it, no purpose for it.
Marauder: I like the idea of it in principle but in practice it creates more problems than it solves. Im not entirely sure what could be done though, I dont think conc shell is as big a problem as people think, not like FF or FG, but I am Terran so I have bias there.
Reaper: I love the idea of a great infantry harass unit but its gas cost makes it pretty useless in the mid / late game, as well as insane build times. Again not sure how to change it as I like it a lot, maybe increasing its mineral cost to 100 and giving it the ability to lay spider mines, that way you could always have a small squad of reapers out, controlling space and harassing where possible. I guess cliff jumping + spider mines could be a little much though.
Raven: If spidermines on reapers is too much then ravens should be able to do it. Replacing auto turret perhaps, PDD is good, but HSM also needs a fix, its too situational to make a raven a sound investment in all but a few situations.
Overseers: Id like to see the overseer take a more defensive spell caster role, at the moments theres no point in it besides changeling, instead I would like to see changeling as a 50/50 (or more) upgrade for the overlord and the overseer take on a more defensive role to help with pushes.
Infestors: FG should be changed, I like its damage but its lock down ability makes it worse than storm. I like the role of the infestor as an offensive / harassment spell caster if the overseer is made defensive.
Hydras: The roach kinda ate up part of its original role, I still think its good and with new styles involving more drop play and better creep spread I think people should be looking at it again, on its own I think its fine but what it should have is the ability to become a unit which is powerful and compliments the hydra (ala the lurker). Its main drawback is its speed, but if the zerg army had a unit which was powerful and relatively immobile then the speed wouldnt be as big an issue and it would see more use I think, maybe combined with a good defensive / offensive spell caster it would be really effective and become a favorite again.
Mechanics Macro Mechanics: I think that all the macro mechanics need toning down somewhat, with an increase in game speed and these mechanics being so important they've made things too fast in my opinion. Zerg should use larva as a nice boost to their production, to delay a hatchery or otherwise, as such I think maybe larva production rates should increase as hatches get upgraded to lair / hive. I think that this would also promote getting more than one lair which would be good imo.
Chronoboost is ok in my eyes, but would probably need to be adjusted if other things were changed.
Mules, again I dont see a huge issue, they are incredibly limiting, only minerals and T has trouble late game in a lot of situation however I would instead like to see them toned down and given an ebay upgrade to be able to harvest gas (ebay up to stop 1 base being too powerful), I think this would help out T's late game, T generally has less bases so it would allow T to make more econ decisions and reduce a reliance on mineral heavy units like the marine which lose effectiveness in the late game.
With a reduction in the potenency of macro mechanics they could be expanded to provide more economic choices for the player, meaning you wouldnt have to spend all your energy in injects if you instead got 2 lairs with 1 queen on inject and one to push creep. The ability to adjust your econ directly as T with mules for gas or minerals and Toss already has this with cb.
Warp In: I like warp in as a defensive tool but it should be limited to within a relatively small area close to a nexus (ie in your base, and a small area around), either that or it should be much slower to produce than a standard gateway. That way you could build up, switch to warpgates, push out and if you think you can clinch it or need to put more pressure, or a key unit like a DT you can warp in, but otherwise you'd go back to gates, fall back and produce quicker. Giving it the best of both words makes it too obnoxious and makes protoss too hard to deal with if you find yourself on the losing end of a fight.
Game Speed I dont think this has been mentioned but I think the default game speed is too fast, it should be decreased to fast as default, it makes battles too fast, slower speed would make fancy micro more possible and controlling multiple locations a bit easier which can only lend itself to better games. This wouldnt make the game easier, it would simply require you to do more.
Collosus This unit has several problems. First off it doesn't have any interesting features and promotes ball a-move type play. Secondly the balance of power of this unit doesn't make it fun for anyone. What I mean by that is, it's not fun to go up against Collosi because they are so powerful yet demand so little effort to use. For the same reason it isn't fun to use Collosi because you don't feel any satisfaction when you anihilate an army with them. And the vulnerability to anti air attacks is just a really annoying weakness that makes them even less fun to use. Collosi needs to be cut and replaced by a more interesting robo unit (like the reaver or better yet something entirely new).
Marauder The Marauder single handedly transforms Terran from a race that is all about positioning into a ball a-move race. Furthermore the concussive shells take out a lot of potential micro from battles where they are involved. Marauders need to go or to be radically redesigned.
Reaper These guys are either overpowered or obsolete. I really don't see how you could make them work no matter how you tweaked them. Right now it's a glorified scout and doesn't really deserve a spot in the game.
Corruptor Simply a boring unit. Corruption is really meh and on top of that they are a low damage high hp unit with an extremely narrow niche. Just feels really dull even for an AtA unit.
Warp prism Way too hard to get any mileage out of this unit. It takes up precious robo build time, costs twice as much as a pylon, is fragile, and on top of that Protoss don't have many units good for dropping. Either remove them or give them some really kick ass secondary ability to make them worth using (something like shield battery comes to mind).
Roach While this unit should be interesting on paper what with all the burrow and regen, you simply have too many of them and they die too fast in large battles to allow for any cool burrow micro. Either remove them or turn them into a 4 food T2 unit with alot of hp and micro-bility.
Mechanics:
Warp in Move this to twilight council so we can get rid of 4gate once and for all and buff gateway units to be on par with the other races T1. Early warp in is the source of so many problems in this game. It forces the whole Protoss race to center their play around Forcefields and Collosus since the gateway units due to warp in need to be so weak.
Force fields and fungal growth While they are cool and require skill to use properly I think most people would agree that they take away more from the game than they give. Units and abilities that prevent micro should be very rare. A solution could be to make fungal only slow units by say 50% and making forcefields a channeled ability.
Mules They are just a 100% uninteresting waste of space and they come with their own problems like giving terrans a supply advantage in late game. Remove it and add another more interesting macro mechanic for terran.
HEY PPL i find out what could be done to fix Force feald gameplay.... do you know spell from wc3 called spirit link ....
wc3 spirit link reduce dps taken on one target to shere with others targets... that spell can be add insted of force fealds ... becous toss unites will be more alive and that would add AGEAN MICRO intensive bettles...
SPIRIT LINK WC3 SPELL ..they can change name ofc but simply try to find if you dont know i think that speel would help insted of FORCE FEALDS....
gateway unites are 2 week.. so without force fealds they are easy killed but SPIRIT LINK speel would help toss unites to stay alive....
ppl i hope you understend what i am seying that would be great simply more micro intensive game will be in it
Spirit link would only help against Zerg, and even there only sometimes. What if a Zerg makes banelings and rushes into your army? Its no problem for the terran, MM can stim and run away. But for protoss? Lots are way slower than speedbanes.
And in PvT, w/o FFs, you would be kited forever, and would never get to deal any damage. In PvT you have to trap T units with FFs, so you can catch onto them and kill them.
With the current speed of toss units, you could not survive w/o FFs. Its as simple as that.
Now I know everyone hates the colossus but really, how is that more lame than the corrupter?
Because corruptor-> gglords, and for the time they are on the battlefield before the greater spire pops, their only function is to counter colossi.. Colossi have no follow-up.
Idea: Remove Marauder ---> Rebalance/design the Reaper My toughts go kinda in this direction: Weaken the Reapers damage vs light a little, use it's "building"-attack against armored (also with rebalancing!)... Let it Stim but remove the Speed upgrade?... Something like that... Well, thats assuming the Roach (and to a lesser extend the Stalker) stay as they are.
I don't know, but for me "Terran-Infantry" should be low HP, high DPS with good Healing capacities due to Medivacs and atm thats just not the case with Marauders?
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
- Colossi for sure. They're too good not to make and because of that, the tactics that a Protoss player can actually use are very limited. Makes for predictability and dullness. - Warp prism. A flying umbrella made of paper. Give Protoss a reliable transport. - Hydralisk. No creep? Oh look, I'm an autoturret now.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
-Unit clumping. It makes the AoE abilities so incredibly strong. Infestors, banelings, siege tanks, colossi, high templar and a couple of others less used. The vast majority of 'standard' strategies will use one of these en masse. And the reason is unit clumping.
- Also, Autoturrets and PDDs are awesome but the HSM leaves a lot to be desired.
- Inject lava is very unforgiving. For a suggestion maybe injection gives you an extra three faster instead of an extra 3 more?
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? - I can't comment since I multiplayer on low
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? + Show Spoiler +
- Something for zerg to not be forced into the coin flip scenario that Idra currently has problems with. I think he's right, all I have to do is wall off and a zerg can't tell if I'm expanding or going 6-rax
- I <3 Medic!
- I guess I'm an old WC3 fan but I did always enjoy my hero unit. Just the same army with a different hero could really give an army a whole new something to it, which I've always enjoyed.
LoL...Collosi has so much hate , I think they are cool units. It may be uninteresting in how it works in armies, but it's still a cool looking, cool shooting unit o.O. I feel like this thread is just which unit you hate to fight against most ;p.
On June 07 2011 19:12 supdubdup wrote: LoL...Collosi has so much hate , I think they are cool units. It may be uninteresting in how it works in armies, but it's still a cool looking, cool shooting unit o.O. I feel like this thread is just which unit you hate to fight against most ;p.
the point of the game shouldnt be to have cool looking units -.-, who are you dustin browder...
Units in starcraft are extremely clever when it comes to movement. This looks great in some situations (mass of zerglings) but kind of lame in others (marine balls). It's been suggested on these forums that maybe units should return to broodwar mechanics, the advantage being armies would look grander, battles last longer, and a few other balance problems be solved (such as the efficiency of bio-balls, or protoss balls).
I believe instead of one or the other units should just have behaviour, so in that idea: zergling will try to form groups of 6 and each group has the current flow mechanic, but groups themselves would try to avoid each other, marines try to avoid each other, marauders push marines, tanks and thors push marauders and marines, etc, protoss units flow with units of the same type, but avoid units that are different, etc. Basically, each race could have very different ai for unit movement, adding to the racial traits.
On the topic of units and movement, massive ground (such as thors and ultralisk) units should have two collision boxes, one of the size of the current one that only interacts with other massive units and one the size of a roach that interacts with smaller (friendly) units. They should also be able to push any small units to the side (friendly or otherwise).
I agree with the unit movement in the OP 100%
In fact i agree with alot of what was said in the OP especially:
>Zerg does need a space controlling unit >Spell casters need a change
I just don't see Blizzard changing the unit movement though and they might introduce a couple of new units with HoTS but i can guarante that people will complain about them at every oportunity.
Is there a single unit in the game that people have not complained about and have at some point said they want changing?
I disagree with most stuff the OP says. Having one race have only buffs would be extremely boring. They want to keep the warpgate and FF mechanic because it make protoss different from other races i think at least. All though i kinda agree with the clumping and splash dmg part.
I don't think the solution to that is having an AI which controlls your units a lot (like spreading them) because it would be harder to controll them manually. I think this problem could be solved by having more expensive units with more HP allowing more time for micro in longer battles. When you fight with smaller numbers, splash is less effective. Also when you have a maxed army of units you can't pull individual units back when they are dying in a super tightly packed large army so less units would allow more micro. Highly microintensive battles are nice and exciting to watch. Of course this would require balancing like hell. Also switching hydra and roach would make any air play against zerg unviable because hydra + queen + spore.
One thing i don't like is that in SC2 you can just throw away units like hell and be fine. In WC3 there is allways a battle going on and it's nice to watch action filled games. I'm not saying they should add hero system or something, but i'm saying they should punish for loosing units harder. Perhaps making it possible to turn kill counts into caster energy (and add more castres)? Just throwing that out there, not a serious suggestion. They should also reward somehow from constantly engaging the enemy. When your units would have more HP, it wouldn't be impossible to constantly engage and not loose anything. To make it easier and more rewarding to save units there should be more and more effective healing options.
Yeah... I mean they should take WC3 influences. But do you really think that having more micro in a game is bad?
GOOFY and not so serious mechanic ideas - Zerg could utilize corpses somehow to either get resources or summon infested terrans or lings or something - Ultralisk corpse could be used as a bunker for hydras - When Brood Lords die they turn in an egg and if that egg isn't destroyed it ressurects - Changlelings could morph into banelings :D - Protoss will get some super slow deathball unit to replace colossus - mutalisk cloak :D okay maby not - roach morph into hydra morph into mutalisk morph into infestor morph into ultra
Spirit link would only help against Zerg, and even there only sometimes. What if a Zerg makes banelings and rushes into your army? Its no problem for the terran, MM can stim and run away. But for protoss? Lots are way slower than speedbanes.
And in PvT, w/o FFs, you would be kited forever, and would never get to deal any damage. In PvT you have to trap T units with FFs, so you can catch onto them and kill them.
With the current speed of toss units, you could not survive w/o FFs. Its as simple as that.
i agree with some staff you said hire... but i think it would help vs Terran bio ball simply toss army would be a lot stronger then.....
also they can combine Spirit link with guarding shild to difensive staf that would help toss army to survive longer....or spirit link to add 2 armor to unites and + guarding shild that add 2 armor = 4 armor...exemple...
i think SPIRIT LINK insted of Force Fealds would bring beck MICRO intensive bettles for TOSS but it should be tested ... ppl what is your opinion on it ?
also i whont to add they could buff zealot speed then becous without Force fealds then zealots couldnt get in range to atc.... so that would help....
i like the colossus but however i think Protoss rely on them way too much and it makes games quite boring for them. i would rather not have to make colossi in every late game match. don't think that it should be removed but it could be changed or other units changed to fill the hole made by the colossi.
immortal -> really think this is a unit that needs changing. i really wish they made it easier for us to make this unit or make more of them.
On June 05 2011 22:34 adwodon wrote: Raven: If spidermines on reapers is too much then ravens should be able to do it.
That would be really interesting.
Warp In: I like warp in as a defensive tool but it should be limited to within a relatively small area close to a nexus (ie in your base, and a small area around), either that or it should be much slower to produce than a standard gateway. That way you could build up, switch to warpgates, push out and if you think you can clinch it or need to put more pressure, or a key unit like a DT you can warp in, but otherwise you'd go back to gates, fall back and produce quicker. Giving it the best of both words makes it too obnoxious and makes protoss too hard to deal with if you find yourself on the losing end of a fight.
How about going - remove warpin from pylons - give nexus a wapin range the size of sensor towers - warp prisms can still be used for warpins
On June 07 2011 09:52 thebole1 wrote: HEY PPL i find out what could be done to fix Force feald gameplay.... do you know spell from wc3 called spirit link ....
wc3 spirit link reduce dps taken on one target to shere with others targets... that spell can be add insted of force fealds ... becous toss unites will be more alive and that would add AGEAN MICRO intensive bettles...
SPIRIT LINK WC3 SPELL ..they can change name ofc but simply try to find if you dont know i think that speel would help insted of FORCE FEALDS....
gateway unites are 2 week.. so without force fealds they are easy killed but SPIRIT LINK speel would help toss unites to stay alive....
ppl i hope you understend what i am seying that would be great simply more micro intensive game will be in it
Given how good blink stalkers are this spell may be too much. It would nulify the need for blink stalkers, and at the same time make just about every unit a perfect blink stalker for free.
I guess it could just be a shield ability (ie. affect only shields) but even then you have units like the colosus who have pretty big shield batteries, I'm afraid coupled with this spell they would just become even more obnoxious as air would tickle them. What was it in WC3 4 targets? say it's a colosus and 3 stalkers, that means colosus would have now another 80 x 3 = 240 shields for a total of 390 shields. You also have to ask the question of what happens if the 3 stalkers are not in combat? (say they are in the back of your army) does that mean the colosus now has monster shield regenaration?
On June 07 2011 19:30 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote: Is there a single unit in the game that people have not complained about and have at some point said they want changing?
Of the top of my head.
Marine Zergling Broodlords Broodlings Ghosts High Templar Dark Templar Tanks (for the most part) Drone/SCV/Probe Zealot Queen Changeling
Battlecruisers/Carriers got the "we want to see them used more" (ie. easier to transition to) argument, but nobody directly complained about them being uninteresting or bad.
Banshee/Vikings only get the "wraith was better" comments.
- What are your top 3 uninteresting units in the game?
Colossus is #1 by a long shot, they make me dislike watching any PvX matchup due to the playstyle they promote.
Thor, such a general unit that doesn't stand out at all. Also doesn't look like it fits into SC (same deal with mothership, but at least the mothership has some potential for interesting play.)
Overseer, their ability sucks.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Clump mechanics - I personally found broodwar was much more interesting to watch due to the back and forth fighting going on all over the map. Most sc2 games consist of light harassment and macro for about 10 mins then a large fight and its over. I feel this mechanic is the main reason for this.
Macro mechanics - although I do like creep tumors and chronoboost, the others really add nothing to the game at all. - What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Something to replace the lurker, i'm sorry the baneling is absolute shit in comparison. The lurker was a unit that could be used in a lot of different ways effectively and offered zerg a unit that could be used defensively and offensively.
I would like to see protoss have something to replace the colossus, more in line of the reaver is what I would vision. But really blizzard would have to think pretty hard to replace the colossus with anything worse.
On June 07 2011 19:30 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote: Is there a single unit in the game that people have not complained about and have at some point said they want changing?
Of the top of my head.
Marine Zergling Broodlords Broodlings Ghosts High Templar Dark Templar Tanks (for the most part) Drone/SCV/Probe Zealot Queen Changeling
Battlecruisers/Carriers got the "we want to see them used more" (ie. easier to transition to) argument, but nobody directly complained about them being uninteresting or bad.
Banshee/Vikings only get the "wraith was better" comments.
Units mentioned rarely: benalings, pheonix
Dude, what forums do you post on? I've seen people complain about marines, broodlords, ghosts, HT's, DT's, tanks, zealots AND queens. Either being OP or UP, and oftentimes, both.
Please link me to this mythical land so that I may have less brain cancer.
Edit; that's not to say TL is a bad place to post, it's just that there are alot of silly balance whines that happen (most get moderated), but just because they get banned, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen (or keep happening).
On June 07 2011 19:30 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote: Is there a single unit in the game that people have not complained about and have at some point said they want changing?
Of the top of my head.
Marine Zergling Broodlords Broodlings Ghosts High Templar Dark Templar Tanks (for the most part) Drone/SCV/Probe Zealot Queen Changeling
Battlecruisers/Carriers got the "we want to see them used more" (ie. easier to transition to) argument, but nobody directly complained about them being uninteresting or bad.
Banshee/Vikings only get the "wraith was better" comments.
Units mentioned rarely: benalings, pheonix
Dude, what forums do you post on? I've seen people complain about marines, broodlords, ghosts, HT's, DT's, tanks, zealots AND queens. Either being OP or UP, and oftentimes, both.
Please link me to this mythical land so that I may have less brain cancer.
I took that question as referring to this thread only.
In this thread marines/benalings were maybe mentioned once or twice as side notes. I'm not really keeping count but it's very clearly only in posts like "mules blah-blah minerals blah-blah make marines too good" or "lurker would be better then benalings", etc. Concerning the others everyone seems to think they are pretty fun units and contribute to the game.
I'm can't say with 100% certainty, but I don't think anyone ever complained about broodlords, ghosts, etc, saying anything like "ah ghosts are boring to watch" or "broodlords are stupid" etc. Guess that makes them interesting units. =)
All the people in here saying that blizzard needs to make units clump less don't understand this game at all. It's not like Blizzard can write a couple lines of code and make units space out. The unit clumping is a result of the unit pathing (which, I may add, is unarguably the best pathing engine in any game ever by far). Causing the units to space out more while still retaining the incredible features the pathing offers us is either impossible or would require months and months of research and programming to work out.
On June 05 2011 16:40 Belha wrote: Is a very easy question: There could be many opinions about uninteresting mechanics, but the most OBVIOUS are all those cheap 1a units: marauders, roaches and collosi.
Given how quickly burrowed roaches regenerate, I have to think there's a lot of untapped blink-esque micro potential
Given how long it takes for them to burrow and then unborrow I don't think it's very viable.
Given that they are so cheap that it's worth more APM-wise to remacro roaches than saving existing ones, I doubt it.
Let's face it, the roach is a failed unit concept in the same vein of the reaper, only it's being kept useful by it's ridiculous stats.
On June 08 2011 01:51 giuocob wrote: All the people in here saying that blizzard needs to make units clump less don't understand this game at all. It's not like Blizzard can write a couple lines of code and make units space out. The unit clumping is a result of the unit pathing (which, I may add, is unarguably the best pathing engine in any game ever by far). Causing the units to space out more while still retaining the incredible features the pathing offers us is either impossible or would require months and months of research and programming to work out.
Yes and no. There are simple solutions they can take like simply making the collision radius larger, like the size of the model.
On June 08 2011 01:51 giuocob wrote: All the people in here saying that blizzard needs to make units clump less don't understand this game at all. It's not like Blizzard can write a couple lines of code and make units space out. The unit clumping is a result of the unit pathing (which, I may add, is unarguably the best pathing engine in any game ever by far). Causing the units to space out more while still retaining the incredible features the pathing offers us is either impossible or would require months and months of research and programming to work out.
Blizzard is not short on time or money, I don't see how months and months of research is any problem for them.
The pathing system in starcraft 2 is unarguably the best for movement in any rts so far. However whether it is the best for gameplay is definitely arguable.
Don't knock on the roach. Yeah, its WAY WAY more efficient to just remake dead roaches than burrow and unburrow them individually (Until Jaedong comes to SC2 and laughs at our puny micro abilities) but that's looking at one aspect of a unit and trashing it solely on one aspect. Roaches are great units for both tanking damage and after a fight is over any remaining roaches can be burrowed back to full health. Not to mention burrow moving under forcefields would always incur massive losses without their regeneration.
I like roaches a hell of a lot more than I like hydralisks. Since the neutering of the second most iconic zerg unit (Zergling, hydralisk, overlord) Zerg needs a strong do all unit and the roach fills that role. As long as they aren't asked to shoot up >,<
If I were to say any unit in the game is a failed unit I'd say the .. .. .. There are no failed units, only units we haven't fully mastered yet. If you think overseers are trash then you haven't stopped a Protoss in ZvP or Terran in ZvT from getting out a thor/colossus. I wish we had parasite instead of changelings but we already have vastly easier creep spread mechanics.
Okay, I do have one unit that is pretty fail. The Raven. If they were buffed to inherently be faster they might have a stronger usage rate but honestly HSM isn't strong enough, Auto Turrets are cute at best and PDDs can win fights but seldom games.
they can easily make the raven a strong unit(just change some stats , more range for HSM, less energy, and make the raven itself more fast), dunno why they continue to ignore this unit, i think that the raven have potential to bring some cool games....
thors are uninteresting. thors should transform into vehicle mode like optimus prime and be able to shoot air still while in vehicle mode. this would make them interesting.
On June 08 2011 01:51 giuocob wrote: All the people in here saying that blizzard needs to make units clump less don't understand this game at all. It's not like Blizzard can write a couple lines of code and make units space out. The unit clumping is a result of the unit pathing (which, I may add, is unarguably the best pathing engine in any game ever by far). Causing the units to space out more while still retaining the incredible features the pathing offers us is either impossible or would require months and months of research and programming to work out.
Let's just say that most of the people suggesting major balance changes aren't the sharpest knives the drawer.
I see huge amount of people saying that the Reaper, Corrupter and Overseer are uninteresting, I have to completely disagree with that. We haven't seen the full potential of Reapers; for example, we haven't seen Reaper drops to snipe buildings, taking advantage of their grenade attack, they can jump up and down cliffs, that's pretty interesting. The corrupter, yeah it is an Air to air unit, but it's what leads Zergs to Brood Lords, when the game becomes refined enough (providing it's in the same state) we should hopefully see players balancing their Corrupter/BroodLord count quite a bit. I also feel that the Overseer is really quite interesting. We haven't seen mass-ish Overseer play, I feel that it could potentially be a huge part in ZvP mid game.
As a note: I'd like to see the addition of Lurkers, give Zerg something on par with Tanks and Collosi.
The only thing i REALLY care about is defenders advantage. It needs to be way, wayyyyyyyy more significant than it currently is.
This should go hand-in-hand with a nerf to macro mechanics. There needs to be a reason to take additional bases, the timing windows for punishing someone who is expanding need to be smaller, and you should have reason to fight for map control even if you can comfortably defend from atop a cliff.
Units that obviously are crappy: 1. Colossus 2. Infestor (fungal growth is a 0-interest spell) 3. Reapers (have virtually no purpose past scouting with 1)
Units that I think are really crappy in addition: 1. Sentry (a braindead spell that can instantly win games in mass, and is a crutch so blizzard doesn't have to implement real defender's advantage 2. Zealot (they are just bad against so many different comps. They should be more than a crappy meatshield/mineral sink) 3. Roaches (does anyone like this unit? It's like a hydra but boring in absolutely every way) 4. Hellions (like a Vulture but completely boring!) 5. Basically every air-to-air unit (Phoenixes might be alright because at least something is happening with them)
Units that I can't fathom are not in the game: 1. Lurker 2. Vultures 3. Air units with moving shot
One thing that I always laughed at when I played toss was zerg Overseer. Now I play zerg and I've never changed my mind. I won't analyze this, but something is wrong with it and I must say it's my least favorite unit in the game.
Marauders-basically dragoons that slow you down. Roach- dragoon with 3 range and fast regeneration Stalker-wannabe dragoon that teleports.
My suggestion to blizzard is to remove all these fake dragoons and bring the real ones back. To balance things out, they should make hydralisks cheaper, faster, and hatch tech, and replace hellions with something that fires fragmentation grenades and lays spider mines.
The longer I can delay a protosses third or their colossus/stargate count, the better position I'll be in. How are overseers so bad? Speed upgrade and actually using them to contaminate.. not bad at all.
Tedsters post is just.. well thats like your opinion, man.
On June 12 2011 11:19 tedster wrote: The only thing i REALLY care about is defenders advantage. It needs to be way, wayyyyyyyy more significant than it currently is.
This should go hand-in-hand with a nerf to macro mechanics. There needs to be a reason to take additional bases, the timing windows for punishing someone who is expanding need to be smaller, and you should have reason to fight for map control even if you can comfortably defend from atop a cliff.
Units that obviously are crappy: 1. Colossus 2. Infestor (fungal growth is a 0-interest spell) 3. Reapers (have virtually no purpose past scouting with 1)
Units that I think are really crappy in addition: 1. Sentry (a braindead spell that can instantly win games in mass, and is a crutch so blizzard doesn't have to implement real defender's advantage 2. Zealot (they are just bad against so many different comps. They should be more than a crappy meatshield/mineral sink) 3. Roaches (does anyone like this unit? It's like a hydra but boring in absolutely every way) 4. Hellions (like a Vulture but completely boring!) 5. Basically every air-to-air unit (Phoenixes might be alright because at least something is happening with them)
Units that I can't fathom are not in the game: 1. Lurker 2. Vultures 3. Air units with moving shot
I feel like you're really off-base with a bunch of these critiques. I won't go into them, but I will say this: Ravens and Ultralisks have a far greater reason for being on the "Obviously Crappy" list than Infestors and Reapers, given how little they contribute given their cost.
More to the point, Zealots really change in roles a lot once they get charge, becoming a lot more offensively capable with the increased mobility and a couple attack ups. They become fun to play with and fun to watch once they can close the gap and effectively push an opponent's army around the map.
Roaches are a unit most Zerg player's love, because they're massable and muscular. Once a Zerg player starts building up a significant number of roaches, Zerg can begin to feel "swarmy" again, with throngs of roaches washing over your opponents' dwindling (hopefully) forces. I'm not sure why you consider "not made out of glass" or "not painfully slow" or "actually massable" boring when you compare it to a hydralisk, but as the Zerg tech tree stands right now, the Roach -must- exist or Zerg becomes an almost inviable race.
It would be really nice for Zerg to see Lurkers in the game, since it would force Terran to make Ravens on the regular, I can understand other reasons why they're not there. Given the availability of a quick factory for Terran, fast vultures (with spidermines) really have no place in Starcraft 2, and while things could obviously be changed to accommodate them, I really see that as something that would not enrich play, but rather weaken it given the presence of marauders and reapers in the terran repertoire.
To the OP, I think you've written an incredible post that was clearly well-thought out in a lot of ways and very vast in it's depth and breadth of analysis. That said, the way you approach casting units has some "ups" and "downs" in my opinion. Diversifying caster units the way you do undermines their significance greatly. Taking transfuse off of queens and fungal growth off of infestors really neuters their roles as strong defenders and aggressors, leaving Zerg with two really "meh" casters that don't really fill any role (with the exception of early but defensive-only AA in the case of the queen). Taking away feedback from from High Templar makes them nothing but "half and archon" without storm, rather than potentially threatening to Thors, Medivacs, Infestors, and BCs with high energy because of feedback. With that logic, how can you say Ghosts are fine, since they have the ability to cloak, do high direct damage to bio, high AOE damage to all Protoss units AND casters with EMP, and incredibly high AOE damage with nukes? That seems to lack consistency and a strong justification, given how you seem to feel about other caster's. Given that all three races can have compositions where direct damage, AOE, or utility spells are necessary to combat it efficiently, how can you advocate changing the way casters offer these abilities without moving the game much closer to a rock/paper/scissors scenario on a racial level?